Miracle Twins to Heal Them
Author
Alison Roberts
Reads
16.1K
Chapters
13
In the second installment of Alison Roberts's A Tale of Two Midwives duet, one night of temptation with a gorgeous stranger leaves the midwife with two life-changing surprises! A DOUBLE SURPRISE FOR THE DOCTOR! Still healing from an unhappy childhood, midwife Jenni refuses to repeat her parents' mistakes. So she lives by these rules: no marriage, no babies. Besides, singledom has its benefits…like the freedom to spend a passion-filled night with brooding-but-gorgeous anesthetist Dan. Only, soon Jenni discovers she's pregnant — with twins! And the kicker? Dan doesn't believe he's the father. Jenni knows he's scared to hope after learning he can't have children, but his denial hurts. Can they let go of the past and embrace this miracle together?
PROLOGUE
LIKE ANY GOOD fairy tale—or fantasy—there was a moment when everything changed.
Alice fell down the rabbit hole.
Cinderella’s fairy godmother appeared.
Sleeping Beauty got kissed.
And Jenni McKay found herself unexpectedly alone with a tall, dark and very handsome stranger by the name of Daniel Walker.
Really tall. At five foot seven, Jenni had never considered herself to be short but the top of her head was barely level with Dan’s shoulder.
Really dark too. He had pitch-black wavy hair and eyes as dark as sin. Even his skin was a rich, warm shade of olive brown.
And so handsome. It hadn’t escaped Jenni’s attention when she’d first clapped eyes on him earlier this evening that Dan Walker was quite possibly the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life.
And the sexiest, she decided when they were well into the dinner party they were both attending.
Maybe it was those eyes.
Or the facial hair that made him look more than a little wild despite being so neatly trimmed.
It might have been, at least partly, due to his moodiness. Judging by his reluctance to chat to a stranger even though she was his best friend’s sister and currently sitting beside him at this table in the restaurant, Daniel clearly hadn’t really wanted to be invited to this gathering. Jenni had done her best by breaking the silence more than once.
‘So how long did you say you’ve been living here?’ she asked.
‘Couple of years now.’
‘What made you choose Picton?’
‘Job came up.’ The succinct tone discouraged any further curiosity. ‘I needed a change.’
That was intriguing. A change from what? A place? A situation? A woman...?
Being mysterious added another layer to that sexiness but that trait paled in comparison to something that didn’t become apparent until much later that evening, when they were alone.
A connection like nothing Jenni had ever experienced before.
Ever...
Probably the last thing either of them had expected that night was to end up alone with each other.
It had been Jock’s idea to have a party to celebrate the last night of Jenni’s visit to New Zealand before she headed home to the other side of the world. He and Grace—who’d become Jenni’s best friend when they’d done their midwifery training together in Glasgow—were trying to persuade Jenni to consider coming to work with them in the obstetric department of the local hospital and they’d thought that introducing her to some of the people she could be working with might just tip the balance.
Jenni wasn’t averse to the idea of a working holiday. The move had clearly been exactly the right thing for Grace to have done. Like Dan, her friend had been in need of a change too.
But had Dan also been attracted to this small seaside town on the tip of the South Island of New Zealand because it felt so safe?
Ironically, as it turned out, it had been Jenni who had decided Dan the anaesthetist should be invited tonight. For Grace’s sake. She wanted her best friend to be as happy as possible, after all, and developing a friendship that might even turn into something more was not a bad idea. She’d also instructed Jock to invite his latest girlfriend, who turned out to be Mandy the ultrasound technician and she’d been the one to suggest that a date needed to be found for herself, so she didn’t end up feeling like a fifth wheel at her own party, which was why Stefano, one of the ED doctors, had come along.
But who knew that Stefano and Mandy would be so attracted to each other? Or that this Brazilian restaurant would have a live band playing on a Saturday night and that both Stefano and Mandy were into Latin dancing? So there they were as soon as the main course was finished, slow dancing what looked like a rumba, their bodies close and gazes locked on each other’s. They were already having a party all of their own.
And then the phone call came. Jock was being called back to the hospital for a woman who was seven months’ pregnant and had been involved in a car accident. The serious complication of a placental abruption was a possibility and it turned out Grace was the woman’s midwife so, of course, she had to go as well. They didn’t know how long they might be gone but the plan became to meet up later at the cocktail bar Jenni had wanted to go to after the meal at this restaurant.
It was Dan who’d ridden in like a valiant knight on his white horse.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after Jenni.’
It wasn’t a problem.
Dan was more than happy to take responsibility for getting Jock’s sister back home safely after their night out as a group fell apart at the seams.
Why wouldn’t he be? Jenni McKay’s fiery red hair, the freckles on her nose and her bright blue eyes made her the female version of his colleague and fishing buddy who’d become the closest friend he’d ever made as an adult. He felt almost as comfortable in Jenni’s company as he would have been going out for a drink with Jock.
Except that she talked a lot more than Jock did. And Jock’s hair didn’t fall in shiny waves to his shoulders and he would never wear such a pretty summery dress, so this was distinctly disconcerting on more than one level.
‘Have you found something you fancy?’ he asked.
Jenni looked over the top of the cocktail bar’s menu.
‘A black margarita sounds interesting. I didn’t know that black sugar even existed.’
Dan found the image of the drink. ‘It’s not a silly idea,’ he said. ‘To put something normally used to soak up toxins, like activated charcoal, into a drink that contains four different types of alcohol. It sounds lethal.’
‘It looks lethal.’ Jenni didn’t sound unhappy about that. ‘What are you going to have?’
‘Espresso martini.’
‘Classic.’
‘There’s a reason things become classics. And coffee after dinner is always good.’
‘But only after dessert.’ Jenni was looking at the menu again. ‘I’ll have one after the...tiramisu cocktail.’
A man bumped Dan’s shoulder just as he was about to pick up the cocktails they’d ordered.
‘Sorry, mate.’
‘No problem. Didn’t spill a drop.’
‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going?’ The woman with the man sounded completely fed up. ‘Oh, wait...you never think about anyone other than yourself, do you?’
‘Why don’t you give me a break?’ the man countered wearily. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating our wedding anniversary.’
The woman’s voice faded. ‘Yeah...right...’
As he turned away from the bar, Dan caught the way Jenni’s eyes widened. She leaned towards him. ‘I’m so glad I’m single,’ she whispered.
‘Me too.’ Dan held the glasses high to keep them out of harm’s way. ‘Shall we go outside into the garden? Looks quieter out there.’
They found an empty table in the corner of the courtyard. Jenni raised her glass to his.
‘Here’s to never getting married,’ she said.
Her grin had the same kind of cheeky charm as Jock’s. The smile that never failed to win a woman over. Who would have guessed that it could work on men as well?
Most men anyway. Dan was immune.
‘Here’s to never getting married again,’ he said.
Jenni gasped. ‘You’ve been married?’
‘Just the once.’
‘And you thought that was a good idea?’
Dan couldn’t help the smile that was tilting his lips. ‘It’s okay. I know better now.’
He touched his glass to hers and they shared a glance as they both took their first sip.
A kindred spirit, that was what Jenni was.
An hour and a couple of cocktails later and it was becoming apparent that Jock and Grace weren’t likely to join them, but it didn’t matter any longer. He and Jenni were having a competition to come up with the best reason why it was so much better to be single.
‘You can eat whatever you like, whenever you like.’
Dan had to agree. ‘Reheated pizza at two o’clock in the morning can be good.’
‘As much garlic as you want because nobody’s going to complain about your bad breath.’
‘Nobody’s going to tell me off for getting home late if I happen to feel like a game of squash after work.’
‘I get to choose what side of the bed I sleep on.’ That wide smile was lighting up Jenni’s face again. ‘Sometimes, I sleep on both sides. Like a starfish.’
That stopped him.
Maybe those espresso martinis were stronger than usual. Because Dan was getting an image of Jenni McKay as a starfish on her bed and...it was doing strange things to his gut.
And his head. He had the odd thought that he could tell Jenni anything. Things that he’d never said to anyone else. He didn’t normally say much to anyone, actually, so it was astonishing to hear the words that were coming out of his mouth right now.
‘It’s safer,’ he said softly. ‘You have to trust someone to make a relationship work, but if you trust someone who tells you lies you give them the power to destroy you.’
Jenni finished the last of her espresso martini. ‘Oh, I hear you,’ she said with deep feeling. ‘Why is it that some people never learn that? My mother, for example, kept falling in love. Time after time. Even when we were kids, Jock and I thought it was stupid. We knew it was going to crash and burn. When we were thirteen we made a vow that we were never going to get married or have kids.’
‘That one’s not a problem for me,’ Dan said. ‘I can’t have kids.’
‘Why not?’
It was weird that he wasn’t bothered by such a personal question. Even weirder that he didn’t hesitate to respond.
‘Bad case of mumps when I was kid. I got told that I had more chance of winning the lottery than getting anyone pregnant.’
Jenni had gone very still. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair having a choice taken away from you.’
The empathy was as disconcerting as everything else about this woman. Surprising.
Captivating...
‘Nobody said life was fair,’ he growled. ‘But at least it should be honest.’
‘I gave up believing in Santa when I was five years old,’ Jenni admitted. ‘And I guess I gave up believing in happy endings when I was thirteen.’
‘Fool me once, shame on you,’ Dan quoted. ‘Fool me twice, shame on me.’
There was no smile on Jenni’s face now. Her gaze was locked on his. ‘I can’t abide lies,’ she said softly.
Dan couldn’t break that eye contact. It felt like there was an undercurrent of silent communication going on here.
Maybe it wasn’t just the caffeine in his cocktails that was making every cell in his body feel so very wide awake.
‘Neither can I,’ he responded. ‘If you can’t trust someone, they’re not worth knowing.’
‘I never lie,’ Jenni said.
Dan could believe that. Maybe he wanted to believe that? He took a sharp breath. This was getting entirely too heavy on both the obvious and the hidden levels. He needed to break what felt like a strangely intimate connection, even though he still couldn’t look away from her eyes.
He smiled slowly. ‘How do I know that’s not a lie?’
‘You don’t.’ Jenni was smiling back at him. The sexiest smile he’d ever seen. ‘But does it matter?’ she said softly. ‘We’re never going to see each other again, are we?’
That strange sensation in Dan’s gut was suddenly recognisable. The magic words had been said aloud, hadn’t they? The mantra that made it safe. A holiday fling. A casual encounter with someone passing through town. Someone he was never going to see again.
‘That might be one of the best things about being single,’ he said.
He could see the tip of Jenni’s tongue as she touched it to her bottom lip. ‘Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?’
Dan held her gaze but lowered his voice. ‘It gets more intriguing, doesn’t it? Knowing you’re never going to see that person again.’
‘And when it’s never going to get spoiled by finding out that the second time isn’t as good?’
She looked at his empty glass. ‘Fancy another one?’
‘No,’ he said softly. He was sitting close enough to reach up and touch Jenni’s cheek. To trace the line of her jaw with his forefinger until it reached her chin—ready to tilt it so that he could cover her lips with his own—because he could see the answer to his unspoken question in her eyes.
‘I fancy you...’
Maybe Jenni hadn’t recognised the significance of the moment that changed everything when she’d found herself alone with Dan.
But she couldn’t miss the moment she began to fall into the sexual fantasy that was suddenly coming to life.
The moment she let Dan kiss her.
The moment she kissed him back...
