Assignment: Twins. Leigh Michaels

to chat about Seth?”

      “I was just making conversation. But if you don’t want to talk about your husband’s brother—”

      “I thought you might have run into him recently. He’s working on a house up in the Rockhurst neighborhood, one of those huge mansions near the art museum. It’s a big job.”

      “And that—plus all the blond fashion-model lookalikes who require his attention—is why your dishwasher is still broken.”

      “Well, I do wish he’d date someone whose IQ is larger than her dress size,” Laura said. “But to be perfectly fair, my dishwasher isn’t Seth’s responsibility. He has his own place to keep up.”

      “I suppose when it’s your full-time job to fix things, it’s not much fun to do it on your day off, too.”

      “It would be sort of like asking you to go on a tour of homes for fun, after you’ve shown houses all week long.”

      “I happen to love home tours, but I see what you mean. It’s too bad Stephen wasn’t the brother who inherited the handyman genes.”

      Laura sighed. “The poor guy tries. He put up a towel rack in the bathroom last week.”

      “Without Seth supervising? I’m amazed.”

      “Of course, it fell off three days later and tore a chunk out of the tile wall.”

      Nikki winced.

      “At the rate we’re going, we’ll never get this house in shape to sell. Of course, if we can put it off till the kids go to college, we won’t need to buy a bigger house at all. The next eighteen years will be something of a challenge, in a two-bedroom house with no playroom and a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, but—”

      “This is a darling house, Laura.”

      “That’s the real-estate person inside you talking.”

      “It’s a cute little cottage with an efficient floor plan. Perfect starter home for a young couple.”

      “Until they unexpectedly have twins.” Laura spooned cereal into Anna’s mouth. “Stephen wanted me to ask you something. A favor.”

      Surprise tingled through Nikki’s veins. It wasn’t that she and Stephen never talked, but it was generally Laura who issued invitations and arranged plans for the couple, while her husband was the quiet, always-agreeable one. For Stephen to specifically ask Nikki for a favor…

      Laura went on hastily, “I already told him it wouldn’t work, but you know how guys can be—once they get an idea, there’s no blasting it out of their heads. I had to promise him I’d ask, so I’m asking. But honestly, Nikki, I’ve already told him you can’t, so there’s no problem.”

      “Well, that seems to settle it,” Nikki said cheerfully. “But maybe you should tell me what the favor actually is, honey? I mean, in case Stephen should bring it up, it would help if I have a general idea.”

      “Oh.” Laura grinned. “I guess you’re right. There’s this thing he has to attend next weekend. His boss was scheduled to go, but at the last minute he’s had a conflict, and so they’re sending Stephen instead. And he wants me to go with him.”

      “So you need a baby-sitter? What’s the big deal? Of course I’ll—”

      “It’s not just an evening, Nikki. It’s a conference. Sort of a continuing education seminar that goes on all weekend.”

      “Well, that does make a difference,” Nikki admitted. “He actually wants you to hang around waiting for him while he’s taking classes? I hope you can at least go shopping.”

      “It’s on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.” Laura sounded wistful. “But I’ve already told him I can’t go.”

      Nikki stared at her. “Of course you can. Are you nuts, Laura? How many times do you get a free second honeymoon?”

      “Well, it wouldn’t exactly be free. We’d have to buy my plane ticket. And I called a couple of babysitting agencies—Do you know what they charge for round-the-clock care for two babies for a weekend?” She shivered.

      “I can imagine. So Stephen wanted you to ask me to look after the twins so you can go.”

      Laura nodded. She looked unhappy. “I know how busy you are—”

      “You said it’s next weekend?”

      “A long weekend, actually. Friday morning to late Sunday night.”

      “I don’t have any open houses scheduled over the weekend, so—”

      “What about dates? Are you still seeing Richard?”

      “Once in a while. It’s no big deal.” She saw Laura start to open her mouth, and hurried on before the questions could start. “All I’d have to do is clear my calendar for Friday.”

      “Nikki, please don’t feel obligated to do this. Even Stephen admitted that it would be a lot to take on for anyone who isn’t used to twins. He’ll understand that you can’t do it. He’s just disappointed right now.”

      “What about you?” Nikki asked gently. “Are you disappointed?”

      Laura didn’t look at her. “Of course I am. We could never afford a cruise on our own. But I’d probably be seasick anyway, so—”

      “Not on a ship that size. You’re going, so start packing.” Nikki picked up her suit jacket from the back of a chair. As she was putting it on, she looked past Laura to the twins and hesitated. Both of Zack’s eyebrows were now daubed with cereal, and Anna had a bit on her nose.

      Three days. Alone. With twins…

      “Wave bye-bye to Aunt Nikki,” Laura prompted the twins.

      Zack was too absorbed in turning his bowl upside down and watching it drip to pay attention. Anna gurgled, grinned, and waved her spoon in the air. A blob of cereal flew off and splatted against the lapel of Nikki’s jacket.

      Laura sighed and held out a damp washcloth. “Sorry about that. I won’t hold you to the offer, Nikki.”

      Nikki scraped the blob off with her thumbnail and rubbed the dark blue fabric with the corner of the washcloth. “I’ll just move my name tag up to cover the spot,” she said. “Come on, Laura. You do this all the time. Surely I can handle it for three days.”

      Nikki had taken care of the twins before, of course—for an evening now and then to let Stephen and Laura go out for a sandwich and some adult talk, and once in a while for an afternoon so Laura could get her hair cut or see a doctor. This would be no different, she told herself. Only longer.

      Much longer, she realized on Saturday afternoon as she took the twins out of their stroller after a walk. She was exhausted because Zack had awakened at two in the morning with a nightmare and it had taken an hour to get him settled again. She’d already run through every activity she could think of and built so many block towers to be knocked down that she was qualified for a job putting up a skyscraper. And she hadn’t even looked at the briefcase full of paperwork that she’d brought with her.

      And they were not quite halfway through the weekend. She had just as many hours stretching in front of her as had already passed.

      What she’d failed to take into account was that the twins at eleven months were far more active and inquisitive than when they had been infants. They were no longer charmed by the slow revolution of a mobile above a crib. Peekaboo and pat-a-cake were no longer exciting. Not only had they had been actively annoyed at being strapped into the double stroller, but they’d made it clear they were highly insulted when Nikki refused to let them kiss all the neighborhood dogs.

      By the time she untangled Anna’s safety harness and extracted her from the stroller, Zack had already crawled into the narrow space between the couch and the recliner in pursuit of his ball, and got himself