Double Trouble: Pregnancy Surprise. Caroline Anderson

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СКАЧАТЬ them?’ he asked, feeling a little flicker of panic.

      ‘You’ll cope,’ she assured him drily, but he wasn’t sure. He had a horrible feeling it was just another opportunity for him to make an idiot of himself or do something else wrong.

      ‘I’ll get dressed,’ he said, and she laughed.

      ‘I shouldn’t bother. You’ll probably get soaked.’

      And her mouth twitched, and he realised she was enjoying this. Hugely.

      He clamped his teeth together to hold back the retort, carried Libby upstairs and stopped by the bathroom door. ‘So now what?’

      ‘Put her on the floor on her tummy so she can practise crawling, and run the bath. Here, you can have Ava, too. I’ll go and find some clothes for them. Don’t undress them yet, though. They’ll get cold waiting for you.’

      Cold? How could they possibly get cold? The bathroom was steaming. But they were just little people. What did he know? He’d nearly scalded Ava last night. He wasn’t going to argue.

      Run the bath, he thought, and remembered something from his mother’s wisdom: run the cold first, so the bath never has just hot in it.

      Wise woman.

      He ran the cold, then turned the hot tap on and swished it about until he thought it was hot enough. Was it? Hell, he wasn’t going to risk another scald. He turned the hot off. Hmm. Maybe.

      ‘Ava? What are you doing?’

      He rescued the loo brush from her before she stuck it in her mouth and pointed her in the other direction, then yelled, ‘I’ve run the bath.’

      ‘Is it hot?’

      ‘No!’ he retorted with only a trace of sarcasm, and he heard her chuckle.

      ‘Undress them, then. I’ll be in in a second.’

      So he undressed Ava, as she was heading for the brush again, and then Libby, and then he put her back down on the bath mat, rescued Ava yet again from the corner by the loo, and lowered her carefully into the water.

      And yanked her out again instantly when she let out a piercing yell.

      ‘What now?’ Jules had flown into the room and snatched her from him, shielding her in her arms and glaring at him like a lioness defending her cub. ‘I thought you said it wasn’t hot!’

      ‘It isn’t!’

      She bent over and touched the water, then shook her head and laughed weakly, sitting down on the side of the bath and shaking her head. ‘No. You’re right; poor little mite. It’s freezing.’

      ‘Freezing?’

      ‘Mmm.’

      Freezing. He sighed. ‘I didn’t want—’

      ‘To burn them?’ Her smile faded. ‘OK. I’m sorry. I just thought it was common sense.’

      ‘Well, clearly I haven’t got any,’ he retorted, sick of the whole business and wondering what he was going to do wrong next, but she took pity on him.

      ‘Max, you’re doing fine. Here, look, use the inside of your wrist. It should feel comfortable—not hot or cold. That’s the best test.’

      Hell. He was never going to survive this fortnight.

      Never mind the rest of his life.

      ‘How can it be so hard?’ he grumbled gently, retrieving Libby this time from the loo brush and plopping her in the bath beside her sister. ‘Fourteen-year-old girls manage it.’

      ‘No, they don’t. They manage to get pregnant, but they don’t manage to look after babies without support and coaching and lots of encouragement. Having ovaries doesn’t make you a good mother, and not knowing how to run a bath doesn’t make you a bad father. You’ll get there, Max,’ she added softly.

      And he swallowed hard and looked away, because they were kneeling side by side, their shoulders brushing, and every now and then she swayed against him and her hip bumped his, and all he could think about was dragging her up against him and kissing her soft, full lips…

      ‘Ow!’

      Jules laughed and detached Libby’s fingers from his hair, and the scent of her skin drifted across his face and nearly pushed him over the brink.

      ‘Right, what next?’ he asked, and forced himself to concentrate on the next instalment of his parentcraft class.

      Eventually they were washed, dried and dressed in little denim dungarees and snugly warm jumpers, and Jules declared that as soon as he was dressed himself they were going out for a walk as it was a lovely day.

      ‘Can they walk?’ he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

      ‘Of course not. We’ll take the buggy.’

      Obviously. Of course they couldn’t walk. They could barely crawl. Except towards the loo brush. He put it on the window sill out of reach while he thought about it, and had a quick shower to get the baby breakfast out of his hair. And eyes. And nose.

      Then he threw on his clothes and went down to the kitchen to join them. ‘Right, are we all set?’

      She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Jeans?’

      ‘You know I don’t own jeans,’ he said, and then gave a short sigh when she rolled her eyes. ‘What? What, for God’s sake? Is it a character flaw that I don’t own jeans?’

      ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘It’s a character flaw that you don’t need to own jeans.’

      He worked out the difference eventually, and scowled at her. ‘Well, I don’t—either own them, or need them.’

      ‘Oh, you need them, of course you do. How are you going to crawl around the floor with the girls and the dog in your hand-tailored Italian suit-trousers?’

      He stared down at his legs. Were they? He supposed they were, and, when she put it like that, it did sound ridiculous. ‘We could go and buy some,’ he suggested.

      ‘Good idea.’

      ‘And while we’re in town we can go to the Mercedes garage and talk about changing the car for something a little more baby-friendly.’

      ‘There’s nothing wrong with my car, and, anyway, it’s John’s!’

      ‘Not yours,’ he explained patiently. ‘Mine.’

      She swivelled her head and stared out of the window at his car. ‘But Max—you love it,’ she said softly.

      He shrugged. ‘So? I need a baby-carrier, Jules. No matter what happens with us, I need a baby-carrier. So I might as well do something about it now. And there’s no room at the apartment for more than one car, so it’ll have to go.’

      ‘You СКАЧАТЬ