Assignment: Twins. Leigh Michaels

have a better idea. We’ll all have an outing.”

      “You would actually drag two kids halfway across the city at this hour just so you don’t have to give them a bath? Maybe it’s just as well if you keep dating lame-brained blondes, Seth. If you actually ever break down and marry one, maybe she’ll be dim enough not to notice that you’re ducking all the work.”

      “I’m not ducking anything. When we get back, we can both pitch in for bath and pajamas, and we’ll get it done in half the time.”

      Nikki doubted it, but at least he sounded willing to try. That made her even more suspicious of what he was really up to. She stared at him, eyes narrowed, and finally all the pieces clicked together in her mind. “You don’t trust me to come back at all, do you?”

      “Would you trust me, if you were in my shoes? If I put on my jacket right now and said I’d see you later—”

      “Probably not,” Nikki admitted.

      “Then we understand each other quite well—and we’re square to start with.”

      She said carefully, “You mean you’ll actually help? All that protest earlier about not wanting to be involved—”

      “Earlier, you weren’t asking for help. You were trying to dump the whole mess on me.”

      He was probably right, she admitted. Relief surged through her.

      “I’ll pitch in, Nikki,” he warned, “but don’t get the idea that you’re off the hook. Come on, let’s go get you some clothes.”

      She went to get the twins’ jackets from the stroller, which was still sitting just inside the front door. As she wrestled Zack’s arms into the sleeves, the television bulletin caught her eye once more. This time the jumpy, grainy picture on the screen showed a helicopter hovering over the deck of a ship, lowering bundles of supplies. Everybody within range of the camera was wearing a surgical mask. A few were fully garbed in protective gowns and gear.

      For a disease that wasn’t supposed to be severe, Nikki thought, it certainly looked scary.

      Seth came into the living room, with Anna already bundled in his arms. “Are the kids’ safety seats in your car?”

      Nikki shook her head. “I wasn’t planning to go anywhere, so I didn’t bother to put them in. Seth—what if they’re not all right? Laura and Stephen, I mean. What if it’s worse than the health department’s saying? They don’t take this sort of precaution for just any little bug.”

      “Don’t even think about it. Worrying won’t help Laura and Steve, but it will sure upset the babies. In the meantime…” He shrugged. “You’re the religious one. Pray that somebody figures out how to stop that virus in its tracks.”

      Nikki had underestimated how long the trip would take. It was closer to two hours before Seth’s SUV was back in the driveway. Anna was asleep in her seat, Zack was yawning, and Nikki felt like falling into bed herself.

      Seth carried Nikki’s suitcase and Zack, while Nikki wrestled a limp Anna out of her seat.

      “I don’t care how grubby they are,” Nikki said. “I don’t even care how many of Laura’s rules I’ve violated tonight. Let’s just put them to bed in their clothes, and I’ll give them a bath tomorrow.”

      As soon as the twins were tucked in, she unpacked her suitcase, hoping that in her haste she’d managed to grab at least a few pieces of clothing that coordinated. Trying to suppress a yawn, she went back to the living room. Tired or not, she still had to look over the paperwork for tomorrow morning’s closing.

      Though she wasn’t surprised to be doing her review at the last minute, she hadn’t anticipated these circumstances. By now, Laura and Steve should be driving from the airport into the city. Any minute, they should be pulling up beside the house, unloading bags and souvenirs, chattering happily about the flight and the cruise, exclaiming how much the kids seemed to have grown in just a few days…

      Don’t let yourself start, Nikki.

      The house was quiet. She looked around in surprise. Had Seth gone, without even a word? He’d followed her out of the babies’ room, but where had he gone then?

      He probably slipped out before I could think of any other favors to ask, she told herself dryly. Or perhaps someone was waiting for him. He hadn’t mentioned another date, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one.

      She opened her briefcase and swore when the blinking blue light on her cell phone caught her eye. The light meant she had voice mail waiting for her—probably from the courier service trying once more to deliver the paperwork on the MacIntyres’ counteroffer. That was yet another thing she’d have to deal with—or hand off to someone else—tomorrow morning.

      She was truly off balance, she told herself, to have gone away and left her phone behind—and not even noticed that it wasn’t in her pocket. It figures, she thought. The damned thing had rung only once all weekend, until she’d walked off without it—but now she probably had messages stacked to the ceiling.

      She punched in the code to retrieve her voice mail. There was only one message after all. That was a small blessing.

      Behind her, Seth said, “Give me your keys so I can move the safety seats into your car.”

      That was sweet of him, thinking ahead to make the morning easier for her. Nikki dug in the side pocket of the briefcase for her key chain, and froze as the message started to play. “It’s Laura,” she said and held the phone at an angle so Seth could listen too.

      The connection wasn’t the best, and there was so much background noise that it sounded as if Laura was calling from a New Years’ Eve party. “Nikki, where are you? You always answer your phone—oh, no, I hope that doesn’t mean something’s wrong with one of the babies. I only have a minute—there are people waiting, so I can’t talk long. We’re fine, we don’t have this—stuff, this virus, whatever it is. But they’re holding us prisoner even though we’re perfectly healthy—oh, all right, Stephen, I know my minute’s up. Nikki, I’ll try again when I can get back to a phone, but I don’t know when that will be—you wouldn’t believe the lines. I’m so sorry to do this to you. Kiss the babies for me and tell them Mommy wants to come home.”

      The message clicked off and there was silence.

      Nikki tried to blink back tears. “Oh, damn, I wish I’d been here. I could have told her I’ll take care of the babies—”

      “She knows.” Seth’s voice was little more than a whisper.

      Only when she felt the warmth of his breath against her cheek did Nikki realize how close his face was to hers. It had seemed so natural to share the phone, to tip it so he could listen, too. So he could share right away in any news, rather than her having to relay it. To be close enough to lean on him, in case the news was bad.

      But now that they were practically cheek to cheek…She was almost breathless.

      Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. It isn’t like there’s anything romantic going on here.

      Oh, there were plenty of sparks between her and Seth Baxter, all right—there had been ever since that day at the church two years ago when she’d told Thorpe precisely why she wasn’t going to marry him, and then she’d turned around to see Seth half hidden behind a pillar and drinking in every word as if it were hundred-year-old scotch.

      But the sparks weren’t the starry-eyed kind. Far from it, in fact. What the two of them created was the kind of grinding, gnashing spark which flared when metal scraped against rock—and heaven help anything that got between.

      No, the reason she was feeling off-balance right now had nothing to do with Seth practically having an arm around her. She was just suffering from a sudden attack of sentimentality. Even if she’d expected that message to be from Laura, Nikki would never have anticipated how strongly affected she would be by simply hearing her friend’s voice. It