Savas's Wildcat

by Anne McAllister

  “I know that,” Cat said, trying to disguise her irritation.

  But something in her tone must have got through to him, though, because he placated her immediately. “That’s not to say I won’t come, Cat. I miss you, too. I just can’t come tomorrow after work.”

  “Then come down after your game,” she suggested. “I bet Loomis has an early tee time.”

  “Yes, but then we have lunch.”

  “After lunch,” Cat pressed. “Flights every hour into LAX.”

  “Fewer into John Wayne.”

  “True,” Cat allowed. And then she went silent. She stared out the window of Gran’s hospital room and didn’t plead further. She’d already pestered him more than she should have, and she knew it. Adam didn’t need a woman who pestered. She didn’t want to be a woman who needed to.

  But something was going to give if she had to stay here much longer without Adam’s stalwart presence by her side—and she didn’t intend for it to be her.

  It had been bad enough before Yiannis’s kiss.

  All her old attraction had resurfaced the minute she’d laid eyes on him again. But she’d been able to keep it at bay. During dinner last night, Milos had provided a welcome distraction. And afterward, when Yiannis had gone off with him to Tino’s, ostensibly intent on picking up a woman, Cat had felt both incensed and justified, telling herself he might be every bit as appealing as he ever was, but he hadn’t changed a bit, either.

  He was still the same playboy he’d always been, and no more discriminate than ever.

  When Harry had awakened and started to cry, she’d certainly debated for ages going down and disturbing him. Only the little boy’s frantic incessant crying had driven her to it. And even as she’d done so, she’d expected that, if Yiannis bothered to answer the door at all, he’d have had some bimbo lurking in the background cooing at him to come back to bed.

  At least there had been no bimbos. Unless he’d left them in the bedroom, of course.

  But since he’d come with her readily and had shown no inclination to hurry back, she suspected he’d come home alone. Not good. It made him even harder to resist.

  Seeing him for the second night in a row looking sleep-rumpled and whisker-shadowed brought back too many memories, reminded her too much of the man she’d fallen in love with.

  Foolishly fallen in love with, she’d reminded herself firmly. But it was hard to keep telling herself that in the face of Yiannis taking care of Harry. He was doing everything she’d ever hoped he’d do as a father. He was the man of her dreams—still—damn it.

  Because he didn’t love her. He simply wanted her. He’d have taken her back to bed last night if she’d been willing. She was sure of it.

  And she’d be right back where she started—in love with a man who didn’t want what she wanted, who was only interested in his own hopes and dreams, who didn’t care at all about hers.

  “All right,” Adam said after the silence seemed to stretch for hours. “I’ll book a flight for Saturday afternoon. Can you last that long?” He was joking.

  “I’ll try.” Cat did her best to suffuse her own tone with a bit of humor, though God knew she wasn’t laughing.

  “It will be fun,” Adam said. Now that he’d thought about it, he was warming to the idea. “We’ll find you a dress. Go out to dinner. Somewhere romantic. A bit of candlelight and—”

  “Don’t forget. We’ll have Harry.”

  “What? Oh, right. Harry.” His tone shifted. He didn’t sound enthused. “Yes, well, we’ll think of something. Maybe that neighbor of your grandmother’s can take him.”

  “Yiannis?”

  “That’s the one. He helped out before.”

  “Yes.” But there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting him to babysit so she could go out with Adam! She didn’t even intend to ask him to watch Harry this morning. She’d called an old college friend who lived in Newport and asked for suggestions about babysitters. Claire, who had two preschoolers, had said, “Just drop him off here.”

  But she didn’t think Claire would be wanting Harry on the weekend. Besides, she wanted to spend time with him herself. The more time she spent with Harry, the more she adored him.

  And she wanted to spend time with him and Adam together—like a family. A taste of family.

  A hint of the life she would have in the future.

  Yiannis was planing boards on the patio, shirtless in the midday luke-warm March sunshine when Cat carried Harry down the stairs.

  “Good morning,” she said briskly, trying not to notice the play of muscles in his back as he worked on the wood. He had several pieces lined up, leaning against the wall of the garage. They looked old, as if they belonged to a piece he was restoring, not a new one. She was curious about them as she’d always liked learning about the furniture Yiannis worked on. But she didn’t stop to talk. She’d seen enough of Yiannis.

  He straightened and shoved his dark hair back off his forehead, then set down the plane and moved toward her, holding out his arms to Harry. “Off to the hospital?”

  “Yes.” She kept a grip on Harry who was holding his arms out to Yiannis as well. “We’re just on our way.”

  Yiannis frowned. “What?”

  “An old school friend has agreed to watch Harry,” Cat said. She turned toward the door to the garage.

  “What? No. Bad idea.” Yiannis was breathing down her neck by the time she got to the door.

  She turned and practically had to stand with her back against the door he was so close. “What do you mean, it’s a bad idea? Claire has kids. She invited him.”

  “He doesn’t know her.”

  “He didn’t know me a day ago! Or you,” she added, which seemed pointless as Harry was now wriggling in her arms and trying to launch himself into Yiannis’s.

  “And now he does,” Yiannis said and scooped Harry out of her arms and into his effortlessly. “And he seems pretty settled. Did he cry again?”

  “No. Well, once. Briefly. But I settled him down again,” Cat said.

  Harry was bouncing up and down in Yiannis’s arms and patting Yiannis’s cheeks with his chubby hands. Yiannis wrinkled his nose at the little boy and lightly nipped at his fingers. Harry crowed gleefully.

  “Good. And he seems fine now,” Yiannis said. “We don’t want to upset the apple cart.”

  “We’re not—”

  “A kid needs stability,” he said firmly. “Not another new person.” There was something in his tone that told Cat she wasn’t going to budge him on this. This was a Yiannis she hadn’t realized existed, a protective Yiannis. A fatherly Yiannis. A man who put Harry’s needs ahead of his own. It didn’t fit with her memories of him, only her dreams—before he’d shattered them.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked warily. “You can’t want to babysit again.”

  “I thought I’d go with you.”

  “What? To the hospital?”

  “Yeah, and then we’ll play it by ear.”

  “You’re not ready to go.”

  “Five minutes,” he said, heading to the house with Harry in his arms.

  “I’ll take him.” Cat hurried after them. But Yiannis wasn’t listening. He carried Harry straight into the house, through the kitchen, down the hall and into his bedroom. As if he didn’t dare give Harry back to her. As if he were holding the boy hostage.

  Cat had half a mind to leave Harry with him and take off.

  But she stayed.

  Foolishly, she stayed.

  Because less than five minutes later, Yiannis reappeared in jeans and an open-necked pale blue button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to bare sinewy forearms. He had Harry on his shoulders. They looked nothing alike, apart from both having dark hair. And yet, the image was one of father and son.

  It wasn’t the looks as much as the easy interaction between them.

  “All set,” Yiannis said.

  “Does Milos want to come?” Cat asked, knowing the short answer before she even aske
d, but hoping against hope.

  “No,” Yiannis said unsurprisingly. “Milos had a late night,” he added with a grin. “And he could have a bit of a hangover when he gets up. What a shame.”

  Cat had to laugh at the sound of satisfaction in his voice.

  He kept her laughing all the way to the hospital. He always had—except when he was being serious. Then he had always enchanted her. Not much had changed. She knew better than to fall under his spell. Just because he was every bit the funny, charming, gorgeous man he’d always been—plus being good with a baby—that didn’t mean she could let down her guard.

  But it also didn’t mean she could totally resist him.

  She couldn’t. Short of just sitting there all the way to the hospital, she knew of no way to remain distant and indifferent when Yiannis Savas turned on the charm.

  He was too easy to talk to. He always had been. She might have been able to resist if he had overtly flirted with her. He hadn’t. He didn’t have to.

  He asked about her work and she told him about her library job, going from branch to branch telling stories to the kids, making puppets with them and teaching them how to make fabric sculptures of their own.

  “We use old fabrics the kids bring in and they create these amazing characters out of bits of fabric from their own past.” Her eyes lit up as she talked. She expected him to stop her, but he listened intently as he drove to the hospital, and he surprised her by saying, “Kind of like what I do.”

  “You?”

  “You use scraps and bring things to life. I do that with wood.”

  When he said it, she knew what he meant. While the job that brought in most of Yiannis’s money had to do with importing and exporting fine woods, his love was for the wood itself—creating things with it and, even more, she learned, taking old neglected damaged pieces and restoring them.

  “Bringing it back to life,” she agreed, when he told her about the piece he was working on now—a seventeenth century Dutch lowboy that he’d taken apart piece by piece and was now cleaning up.

  “I’m trying to restore it to its original spirit,” he said. The wind was ruffling his hair through the open window and Cat couldn’t take her eyes off him as he drove.

  She thought he used the word “spirit” intentionally and accurately. There was an intensity to the word when he said it that spoke of the same feeling she had when she was creating a puppet and began to see its personality emerge.

  “Was that what you were working on when we came downstairs?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It’s my sister-in-law’s. It’s been in George’s wife, Sophy’s family for the last 350 years.”

  Cat could scarcely comprehend that. “And you’ve dared to take it apart?” Its age and value would have intimidated her.

  “It’s a privilege,” Yiannis said. “Besides, it needs help. It was pretty fragile, ready to topple over. It would never survive as it was. They need it to be sturdy enough to withstand a bunch of hell-raising little kids.”

  “They have a bunch of hell-raising little kids?”

  “Working on it,” Yiannis agreed. “One daughter, Lily, so far. A boy on the way. I doubt if they’re done yet.” He shook his head despairingly.

  “Good for them,” Cat said firmly.

  Yiannis shot her a wry look. “If you say so.”

  She had, of course. Three years ago, which had ended their relationship, and now—to make sure he knew that she hadn’t changed her mind. She needed him to know it. Or maybe she needed to keep reminding herself.

  Spending the day with Yiannis and Harry was an exercise in being careful in what you wished for—because she had it.

  It wasn’t Adam and Harry. It was worse. The family she’d dreamed of, hers—for just one day.

  He’d done stupider things.

  Riding his bike off the roof of the boathouse when he was ten and breaking both arms qualified. Walking through the poison ivy wearing only his bathing trunks to retrieve a football when he was seventeen also made the list. Asking the gorgeous Lucy Gaines to the prom and forgetting he’d agreed to take his tomboy buddy Raquel Vilas was pretty much at the top.

  Or it had been until this afternoon when he’d maneuvered Cat and Harry into spending the day with him.

  Not because he hated it. Because he enjoyed it too damn much.

  It reminded him forcefully that there was a lot more to like about Catriona MacLean than simply how good things were when they went to bed. There was her enthusiasm for her work. He’d forgotten how she glowed when she talked about the stories she told “her kids”—as she called them—and what they did and what they said and what their favorite puppets were.

  She’d just been starting to work out what she wanted to do when she’d lived in Southern California. She’d obviously found it in San Francisco even though she insisted she was only a “substitute” and was still making a place for herself. He couldn’t imagine any boss turning his back on an employee with that much enthusiasm.

  She seemed to like the city, too. When he asked, she told him about her apartment on the edge of Chinatown. It was tiny, she said, but centrally located. She could get anywhere from there. And apparently she had to because she never knew where she’d be posted next. But she seemed to enjoy traveling around. It was exciting, she said. He liked the sparkle in her eyes.

  “Are you going to keep working after you get married?” His question surprised him as much as it did her. What did he care what she did?

  But he wasn’t surprised when she answered, “Until we have children. Then I’d like to stay home with them.” She glanced back at the car seat where Harry was babbling. “I’m not having kids to let someone else raise them,” she said and met his gaze defiantly.

  Yiannis shrugged. “Never thought you would.”

  It was clear that she was as fervent about family today as she had been three years ago. And having seen her with Harry, he could easily imagine her now as a mother.

  Disconcerting thought.

  Disconcerting day. He didn’t ordinarily play at families. In fact ordinarily he couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  But he went along with it, just smiling when the woman at the admissions desk said, “What a sweet little boy you’ve got. He takes after you, not your wife, doesn’t he?”

  Cat’s freckles had bloomed and she’d shot him a worried glance. But Yiannis had only nodded.

  “You could have told her she isn’t ours—I mean, yours,” Cat hissed at him when they’d moved on to the waiting room where he was going to stay with Harry while she went up to see her grandmother.

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  It didn’t even faze him when Cat brought Maggie down in a wheelchair so she could see Harry, and she looked at the three of them together and said with a smile, “You look like such a nice little family.”

  “Gran!” Cat’s face was flame red.

  “I was only saying,” Maggie protested. “Not making a prediction.”

  “Well, don’t,” Cat said shortly. Then later, on the way home, she said, “I’m sorry about that.”

  “About what?”

  “What Gran said. About you and me and Harry. She gets fanciful ideas.”

  Yiannis flexed his shoulders against the back of the seat. “No problem.”

  “I didn’t encourage it,” Cat went on as if he thought she had. “I have Adam.”

  There was something in her tone that provoked him, that made him want to provoke her in return. “Oh, right, Adam. Your dream man. All about marriage and family, isn’t he? Where did you say he was?”

  Predictably Cat bristled. “In San Francisco. Working,” she said through her teeth.

  Yiannis gave her a bland smile. “Of course.”

  “You don’t believe me? Do you think I made him up?” She glared at him.

  Yiannis grinned and shook his head. “No. But I was thinking I’d like to meet him.”

  Maggie had said only good things about Cat’s fiancé, but
even so at times he’d sensed reservation in her tone when she’d discussed Cat’s marriage plans. He’d dismissed it, telling himself that no man would be good enough for Cat as far as her grandmother was concerned. Cat had got what she wanted, he’d told himself. Good for her.

  So he’d turned a deaf ear. It didn’t matter to him. Now somehow it did.

  “You can meet him this weekend.”

  He blinked in surprise.

  “He’s coming Saturday afternoon.”

  Yiannis felt his teeth come together. “Is he?”

  Far from being glad to hear it, he felt unaccountably nettled. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and he drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  Cat didn’t speak, either. She seemed preoccupied with her own thoughts—probably about Adam, Yiannis thought, annoyed.

  Harry was fast asleep when they got there. “Now what?” Cat said as she opened the back door to the car and saw that the little boy was slumbering blissfully. “What if I wake him?”

  “I’ll carry him.”

  “What if you wake him?”

  “I won’t.” He wasn’t as sure of that as he sounded, but he figured if he woke Harry, they’d spend more time together getting him back to sleep again. Worked for him. He was oddly reluctant to call an end to the day.

  He waited until she stepped out of the way, breathing in the tantalizing scent of her shampoo as she eased past him. Then carefully he reached in, unbuckled Harry and gently eased the sleeping boy into his arms.

  Harry made a whuffling sound, but he didn’t wake. So Yiannis nudged the door shut as quietly as he could and carried Harry to his place.

  “What are you doing?” Cat was halfway up the stairs to Maggie’s apartment.

  “Putting him down for the rest of his nap,” Yiannis said over his shoulder.

  “His crib is up here.”

  “I’m taking him to my place.”

  “You don’t have to watch him.”

  “I know that,” he said gruffly. “But he might wake up crying and you’d have to come and get me.”