Leigh Michaels - Assignment - Twins

Nikki finished wiping Zack’s tears and took a good look at Seth. It had been several months since she’d seen him—across a baptismal font, where he’d been holding Zack while she cradled Anna—but he matched the picture in her mind almost exactly. His dark-brown hair was sun-streaked and longer than it had been at the babies’ christening, and he was wearing jeans and a polo shirt instead of a suit. But he was every bit as tall and lean as she remembered, his eyes were just as stunningly green, and his shoulders pushed the limits of the knit shirt. And the look…yes, there it was. Half-bemused, half-fascinated, and totally wary—the same expression that always made her want to scream.

Anna stopped crying, dropped to her hands and knees, and scrambled across the carpet toward Seth. He picked her up almost absently, still looking at Nikki. “How’s it going?”

She was darned if she’d admit that a few minutes ago she’d been ready to howl along with the twins. “Great. We’re doing fine.”

“Uh-huh. How many times has Laura called?”

“From the ship? Just once, when they first got on board.”

“That’s amazing.”

“She said she’d call back, but I heard Stephen in the background reminding her this was supposed to be a vacation. Anyway, she doesn’t need to check in—she left a full list of instructions on the refrigerator door, right next to her appointment calendar.”

“Her list actually fit on the refrigerator? I’d have expected a whole volume—alphabetized and cross-indexed.”

Nikki smiled. “Maybe she just didn’t have time to write it all down. But it doesn’t take an instruction manual to know that these two need a nap right now. I was just ready to put them to bed, so don’t let me keep you from working on the dishwasher.” She stepped closer to him, close enough to feel his warmth, and held out her free arm to take Anna.

The baby had nestled into Seth’s shoulder, and she didn’t seem inclined to move. Nikki stroked the baby’s back. As her fingertips neared Seth’s forearm, braced under Anna’s bottom, Nikki felt tingles run along every nerve.

Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. You’ve touched him before.

At least…Well, she must have touched him somewhere along the way, she told herself, even if right at the moment she couldn’t remember a specific occasion. They must have shaken hands when they were introduced, for one thing—though when she stopped to think about it, she couldn’t remember actually meeting Seth. He must have just been part of the crowd, at some party back in the dark ages when Laura was dating Stephen and Nikki herself had been engaged to Thorpe. Perhaps it had been about the same time the four of them had started to make plans for a double wedding…

The dark ages, indeed.

Seth held the baby out so she could get a grip on Anna’s waist. Nikki’s hand brushed his arm, and she jerked back a little before she got hold of herself and very deliberately let her arm rest against his while he transferred the baby’s weight.

He didn’t say anything and neither did she. And it was utterly ridiculous for her to feel breathless over such a little thing. But—maybe she hadn’t ever touched him before, because she’d have remembered that kind of smoldering heat.

Nonsense, she told herself briskly.

As if they were afraid of missing something exciting, the babies did their best to fight off sleep. Ultimately they succumbed, however, and Nikki tucked them into their side-by-side cribs and tiptoed out of the room.

The house was quiet except for the catchy rhythm of a jazz tune coming from the radio in the kitchen. The front panels of the dishwasher were propped against a cabinet door, and Seth was lying on his back on the floor, peering into the dark cavity underneath the machine.

Nikki stopped in the doorway. “Have you found the problem?”

“Not yet. The drain’s not clogged, and the floats are working.”

“Is that good news?”

“Nope. I’ve eliminated the simple stuff.”

Which means he’ll be around for a while longer. Just leave him to his work and go get your briefcase, Nikki. But she didn’t move. “I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee. Want one?”

“Sure.” He slid further under the dishwasher. “How are you, Nikki? It’s been a while.”

“Since we ran into each other, you mean?” She shrugged. “Three or four months, I guess.”

“Three. It was at the christening, and you were scandalized that Laura had asked a heathen like me to be the babies’ godfather.”

Nikki didn’t bother to argue the point. Instead she stepped across him and started putting water into the coffeepot. “How’s Inga? Or was it Elsa you brought that day? I get your girlfriends all mixed up.”

Seth smiled, but he didn’t answer. Nikki wondered if that meant he’d forgotten the woman’s name, too. Quite likely, she thought. All of Seth’s girlfriends looked, sounded, and acted alike.

“How about you?” he asked. “Are you still seeing the stockbroker you brought to the christening?”

“He was a commodities trader,” Nikki corrected. “The stockbroker was before that. And no—not for a while now. There’s a banker I’m seeing at the moment.”

“What happened to the commodities trader? He was practically glued to your side that day.”

Nikki had to think about it for a moment before she remembered. “I realized that if I wanted to get a play-byplay of the day’s markets, I could watch the financial channel—and turn it off when I got tired of listening.”

He prodded at something deep under the machine. “What the…I hate working on antiques. I swear the motor’s rusted into this thing. Being second-best never did appeal to you, did it, Nikki?”

She stopped spooning coffee into the filter and turned to stare at him. “Oh, now The Lone Repairer has expanded into psychology?”

He reached into the cavity with a pair of pliers, and she heard a metallic snap. “Still touchy about the wedding, I see.”

Touchy. That was one way to put it, she supposed. “It’s been two years, Seth. I’ve put it behind me and gone on with my life. So can you just forget it?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. That was one of the great dramatic scenes of the age. I’ll never forget watching you tell Thorpe where to get off.”

She plugged the coffeepot in and pushed the button to turn it on. “Next time I break an engagement,” she said dryly, “I’ll be sure to invite you.”

“Don’t bother. Nothing could ever top that one. Thorpe’s already at the church, wearing his tux, boutonniere pinned in place, fussing with his hair and trying to cover up the signs of a really bad hangover, and you come storming into the ushers’ room wearing half a wedding dress and shrieking at him like a banshee. The costuming alone would have been worth the price of a ticket.”

“I was not shrieking. I was making a point.”

“Not that you didn’t have reason to shriek,” Seth added. “Though I still think you went a little over the top when you started yelling at me. Just because I happened to be there to hear it all—”

“You could have let me know you were there, instead of hiding behind a pillar and listening to every word I said.”

“And interrupted your train of thought while you were on a roll?” He shook his head. “You were just lucky all the rest of the ushers had stepped out for a breath of fresh air so I was the only witness.” He sat up and reached inside the machine, grunting as he tried to lift out the motor unit. “I admire you for doing that, you know.”

Nikki was startled. “For what? Calling off my wedding because the groom spent the night before the ceremony carousing with a bunch of call girls?”