Abbie.” She made her voice as calm as possible, trying to ward off the inevitable. “This isn’t the time or place.”
“Who’s fighting? Certainly not me.”
“No? It sure sounds like it. Those text messages weren’t from me. Did you ever think about ringing the number, or asking Martin directly?”
Her sister had basically accused her of sexting her husband while he was away on business trips. It was ludicrous to have to defend herself against such a ridiculous accusation. Besides, she couldn’t imagine Martin being stupid enough to leave incriminating texts on his phone for Abbie to find. There had to be another explanation. Unfortunately, Martin was away on yet another trip.
“I’m asking you, instead.” Her sister’s thunderous expression made her take a step back.
“You can well and truly have him, Abbie. I don’t want him back.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she’d found someone else—that she was madly in love. But she didn’t. Because there was no one even on the horizon. Madly or otherwise.
She hadn’t gone out on a date in ages.
“Oh, really?” Her sister put a hand to her belly, disbelief written all over her face. “Well, you’d better make sure it stays that way.”
Jess’s teeth ground together, her anger rising. “That’s enough.”
“I still have a few things to make perfectly clear.”
This was why she avoided being in the same room as her twin, going so far as to move from London to Cambridge. Those five minutes in the birthing suite—when her sister had arrived first—had set a pattern that continued to this day. Abbie had to be first in everything. Or at least look like it. She’d excelled at everything she touched, outdoing Jess whenever she got the chance. Her sister had even followed her to uni and studied midwifery, going one step further and making it look as if she’d had the idea first.
Abbie had the home and the family her mum had always wanted both her girls to have. Another source of contention, since her parents felt Jess poured too much of herself into her career.
But she loved her job. She wasn’t substituting one thing for another. Nor was she worried about her biological clock running out.
She lowered her voice, aware that her mum was now looking at them from across the room with a frown. Time to put a stop to this. “This isn’t a competition. It never was.”
“You think I’m competing? With you?” Her sister took a step closer, crowding Jess against the buffet table, ignoring the guest who tiptoed around them, plate in hand. “Believe me, you’d know it if I were.”
The problem was, Jess did know it. It was the reason she’d had little to do with her sister since agreeing to be her maid of honor—the day Martin had stood at the front of the congregation and watched the bridesmaids glide down the aisle of the church. He’d spared her hardly a glance—eyes only for Abbie. That had been one of the worst nights of her life. Her sister had gloated openly, even as she’d claimed to be glad to leave behind her aspirations of becoming a midwife. Martin and Abbie’s first child was born seven months later. She’d been “blissfully happy” ever since.
“Listen, Abbie, if I were going to send sexy texts to someone, it certainly wouldn’t be to Martin.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
More anger flared inside of her. She couldn’t believe her sister was doing this at their parents’ party. They’d come all the way to Cambridge from their home in London just so Jess could attend—her crazy hours leaving her little time for holidays or anything else. Leave it to Abbie to try to ruin their efforts by thinking of no one but herself. Well, this time, Jess was going to call her on it.
The restraining wall she had so carefully erected burst at the seams, allowing words she’d vowed never to say to spew out in a rush.
“What I mean is Martin’s gone a little soft around the middle, hasn’t he? Besides, have you ever heard the expression once a cheater always a cheater?”
Her sister flushed bright red. “I can’t believe you just said that. Martin loved me. What were we supposed to do?”
Jess could think of a few things, but the pain behind her eyes was growing, warning her that things were about to get much worse. The last thing she wanted to do was burst into tears in front of her sister.
She slid to the side to get away from Abbie and from her own growing frustration. “Okay, I’m done. This is not the place to be sniping at each other.”
“Sniping? Why, you …” Abbie clutched her stomach with both hands.
Jess rolled her eyes. Whenever challenged by anyone—her parents, her friends, her sister—Abbie always felt dizzy, or sick … or too exhausted to “have this conversation”.
“Let’s just call a truce and go back to our own sides of the room, okay?”
“I think—” Her sister moaned. “I think something’s wrong with the baby.”
She suddenly realized all the color had leached from Abbie’s face. Her sister had also reached out to grip the table, knocking over a tiered set of plates that held expensive hors d’oeuvres.
Crash!
The china exploded on the ground spraying tiny crab cakes and stuffed mushrooms in every direction.
The whole room went silent, all eyes coming to rest on the twins. Jess’s anger transformed to horror.
Because Abbie wasn’t acting or trying to garner sympathy. Jess recognized the signs enough to know her sister was in labor.
And the baby was two months early.
SHE’D BEEN HERE for hours.
Dean Edwards had popped into Cambridge Royal’s Special Care Baby Unit five times since his shift started to check on his tiny charges, and each time he’d spied her standing in almost the exact same spot with her shoulder propped against the wall staring at the row of cots.
Dressed in a red party frock that hugged her slender frame, she’d obviously come from some kind of celebration. Only she wasn’t celebrating now.
In fact, she looked devastated, as if the baby she hovered over had passed away. But although tiny, the newborn was very much alive. And right now, those bloodshot eyes and tracks of mascara were doing a number on his gut, and he didn’t like it.
Not much got to him in his thirty-five years. Except a woman crying. It brought back memories of unhappy times and unhappy people.
He’d been willing to let her stand there as he worked, but the increasing tightness in his throat finally drove him to clear it and cross over to her.
“She’s going to be okay, you know.” He kept his voice low and soothing, partly to avoid startling the sleeping babies and partly to keep her from realizing how her obvious grief had affected him.
She didn’t even glance in his direction. “It’s my fault she’s here in the first place.”
That made him frown. “Sometimes these things just happen.”
“Do they?”
Light brown wounded eyes swung to meet his and the punch to his midsection was nothing like that earlier uneasiness.
“Yes.” He leaned his shoulder against the same wall so that their faces would be level with each other. Long and lean, she was still a head shorter than he was. “And you need to get some rest. You can’t do her any good, if you’re exhausted.”
Her eyes closed for a minute and