Caterina

by Patricia Paris

  She stopped about three feet in front of him. “This is from Antonio.” She held out a rolled-up drawing, probably the one Antonio said he’d drop off that morning.

  Liam reached out and took it from her.

  “He was running late for a meeting,” she said, “so I told him I’d drop it off since I was passing this way. He said if you have any questions to call him later.”

  He set his cup down next to the thermos and began to unroll the drawing. In his peripheral vision, he saw her arms go around her middle. After a few seconds he heard her mumble “Unbelievable.” Then she said quite plainly, and with an air of clear sarcasm, “You’re welcome.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” His conscience nudged him. He usually had better manners. The fact that she rubbed him the wrong way was no excuse to be rude. His mother would be disappointed in him.

  “Right.” She shook her head, spun around with a snort, and went back to her car. She slammed the door after getting in. Meant for him, he supposed, and he probably deserved it.

  “WHAT DO YOU say we go out for pizza tonight?” Liam asked Riley when he picked her up from preschool later that afternoon.

  He hadn’t done a grocery run in a couple of weeks, and anything he managed to throw together from whatever they had at home probably wouldn’t appeal to either of them.

  “Yes!” Riley pumped her fist. “Can we get the circle meats on it?”

  “Pepperoni? Sure.”

  Fortunately, his daughter wasn’t a fussy eater. He didn’t know many people who didn’t like pizza, but she would have been just as happy if he’d suggested sushi. He’d lucked out when it came to Riley. She was a happy kid. He’d been scared as hell when faced with the prospect of raising her on his own, but he’d managed to stumble through the last two years without screwing things up.

  When they got to the truck, Liam opened the back door, and Riley scrambled up into her car seat. He strapped her in, then leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She looked up and gave him a big, dimpled grin, and there went his heart, the same way it always did. Here was one female who’d always have him wrapped around her finger.

  Fifteen minutes later they walked into Bartelleti’s, the Italian restaurant they liked to go to for pizza, and found an empty table in the center section. Riley liked to sit there because the tables were situated around a fountain. Water spurted out of the mouth of a fish, and Liam always gave her whatever change he had in his pocket to throw in for wishes.

  “Do you want me to make a wish for you, Daddy?” she asked as he handed her several coins.

  “The wishes are for you, princess. I’ve got you, so I already have everything I need to make me happy.”

  Riley beamed at him, then skipped over to the fountain. She clutched her hands in front of her, and when she glanced over at him, he could see her mouth wiggling as she contemplated what she should wish for.

  Liam winked, and she scrunched her eye in return. When she turned back to face the fountain, he chuckled.

  “Hey, Liam, I thought maybe you’d gone into the Witness Protection Program the way you disappeared after the last time I saw you.”

  He glanced over his right shoulder. “Hey, Krista. Yeah, I guess it’s been a while.”

  The woman sat down in the seat where Riley had been sitting, and Liam glanced over at his daughter. He’d never introduced her to any of the women he’d gone out with after Sylvie’s death, not that there’d been many, or one he’d dated for long.

  He’d gone out with Krista three or four times. The last time he’d gotten the sense she wanted a more serious relationship. He thought she should have what she wanted; it would just have to be with someone other than him.

  “You don’t mind the company, do you?” She leaned her elbows on the table and smiled at him.

  “Actually, I’m here with someone.”

  She looked around. “Oh. I thought maybe—”

  “Daddy, Daddy.” Riley called as she hurried over to the table. She stopped and looked at Krista and then sat in the chair next to him. Leaning sideward, she put a hand to his ear. “I made the best wish for you. Even though you said you didn’t need nothing.”

  “What’d you wish for?”

  She shook her head and put a finger to her lips. “I can’t tell. If I do it won’t come true.”

  “Well, hello, pretty girl,” Krista said from the other side of the table.

  Riley leaned into him, looking somewhat unsure.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Krista said, her smile wide as she regarded his daughter. “I’m a friend of your dad’s.”

  “Oh,” Riley said. “I’m Riley.” She nibbled on her lip. “I don’t remember you.”

  “Well, that’s because we’ve never met, but now that we have, maybe you and I can become friends too.” She reached her hand across the table. “I’m Krista.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes in silent warning, but Krista didn’t see it. Riley took Krista’s hand, shook it, then looked up at him. Liam smiled for her sake.

  The waiter delivered their pizza, setting it in the center of the table. “Will there be anything else?”

  “That’s it, thanks.” Liam nodded at the waiter, then glanced back at Krista.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Riley and I are going to eat this while it’s still hot.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Krista cleared her throat and stood up. She took a few steps forward, then turned back. “Give me a call sometime, Liam.” She leaned toward his ear and lowered her voice so only he could hear. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  After she left, Liam lifted a piece of pizza and put it on Riley’s plate, then got one for himself. Riley folded hers in half and took a bite. She tilted her head as she chewed, a crease marking her brow. He could tell she was thinking hard about something. Hopefully not his relationship with Krista.

  “What are you thinking, honey?”

  “Do you think I’ll be pretty like your friend when I get big?”

  “My friend? You mean Krista?”

  Riley nodded. “She has pretty hair. I never see’d anyone with red hair, except, like Ariel, but she’s a mermaid. Do you think she’s pretty?”

  “Do I think Ariel’s pretty?”

  “No, silly. The lady who’s your friend.”

  “Yes, I’d say she’s pretty, but there are a lot of things more important than being pretty, Riley.”

  “I know, like always tell the truth, and don’t be mean to anyone, and put all your toys away before you go to bed so your room doesn’t get so messy your dad can’t find you in the morning.”

  “Right.” Liam chuckled and took a bite of pizza. “And,” he chewed around his words, “don’t be worrying about growing up too fast. I’d like to enjoy you being a kid for a few more minutes.”

  Riley giggled. “Daddy, don’t you know I have to get ten before I’m not a kid? That’s two numbers.” She raised a hand and counted off on her fingers. “I got six more numbers to go.”

  “So you do. I guess I can relax then.” He lifted the slice for another bite. “Now eat your pizza, pumpkin.”

  He had no intention of calling Krista. He’d gotten the message but didn’t enjoy meaningless sex. He didn’t need to be in love with the person, but a mutual attraction and respect would be nice.

  Sitting back in the booth, Liam watched Riley attack her food as if he hadn’t fed her in a week.

  No…don’t grow up too fast, little one.

  CATERINA STOOD AT the counter in the kitchen later that day after returning from the library. She selected three nice-sized potatoes from the wire basket hanging over the kitchen counter and scrubbed them under running water. She sliced them and dropped them into the pot of water boiling on the range to parboil them. Lyonnaise potatoes were on the menu—her mother’s recipe and still the best of any other she’d tried.

  Her first foray into the mysteries of Rosa’s past hadn’t been as mind-blowingly revealing as Caterina had hoped. She’d found bits of information on her great-aunt
and uncle, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Anne, one of the librarians she’d spoken with, had given her some good ideas on how to get started, including telling her about several resources that she hadn’t known about before that day that might prove fruitful.

  Anne had suggested doing a family tree. Cat planned to begin making one that evening. She’d start with her and her sisters and trace that branch backwards on her father’s side to their nonno and Uncle Gino and their parents. The other branch would trace Rosa’s ancestors. Who knew, maybe she’d uncover another ghost or two poking around in the limbs.

  Today had been fun…well, interesting anyway. It felt good to have something to do. It was a task she’d do well with and something she could really delve into, if she wanted to, until they got closer to opening Serendipity.

  In the months before they opened, she’d have a plethora of things to do to get ready: purchasing everything for the restaurant, from serviceware to linens and chairs; finalizing the menus; hiring staff; contracting with vendors. It was a monumental list—and it thrilled her to no end.

  But that was months away still. Serendipity wouldn’t open for almost a year, possibly longer if they ran into problems during construction. She didn’t plan to let that happen, not if she had anything to do with it, which was why she insisted on staying on top of the progress at the construction site. Like it or not, Liam Rude McDude.

  Cat snorted. Just the thought of the man set her blood simmering like the water boiling for her potatoes. He was the big, bad thorn on her rose bush—sharp, pointed, and pricklier than a porcupine. She’d read somewhere that, in fact, porcupines had very soft fur and their quills lay flat, hidden beneath it—painful barbs that could be hard to remove if you were unfortunate enough to get one under your skin.

  “Humph.” Didn’t that just describe their contractor to a T? All pretty boy with his tousled, surfer-boy blond hair, and cyan eyes, which she couldn’t decide were more green or blue. And he had those cocky hips, and all that hard, lean muscle, and that tight ass that made a woman itch to curl her hands around both cheeks and give them a good squeeze, and…Whoa!

  Wasn’t that just the point? He was exactly like the porcupine, luring you in with all its soft fur, then piercing you with its hidden spikes as soon as you touched. And no, she didn’t want to feel up his ass—well, maybe a little just to see if it was as hard as it looked—but if she ever succumbed to that temptation, she’d make sure she gave him a world-class wedgie he wouldn’t soon forget before she walked away.

  Maybe a good wedgie would jar loose that cocksure attitude of his.

  Caterina breathed in and then released a slow, exasperated sigh. Why did she let him get to her this way? Dragging her into this unproductive, festering battle with him, when she didn’t even understand its root? So, he had a problem with her. Did she have to make it her problem too?

  Couldn’t she choose to take the high road, to be the bigger person? The mature one? She could, except that she couldn’t avoid dealing with him. If she could, turning the other cheek wouldn’t be so difficult. But to allow him to continually use her as a pincushion, while she stood on higher ground rubbing salve over the constant pricks, well…that appealed to her about as much as eating raw liver. She’d never even liked it cooked. Besides, letting him get to her gave him power over her emotions.

  She could, however, not let him see how he affected her, threw her off her stride, or let him know how much time she wasted stewing over his attitude about her. What she should do is find a way to prick his surly hide right back, tit-for-tat, see how he liked it.

  Maybe whenever he talked to her about the project she should just grunt, or narrow her eyes, or refuse to answer him until he called her out for having poor manners, the way she’d had to prod him into thanking her for dropping off the drawings from Antonio that morning. Maybe she should be as blatantly surly as he was with her, so he knew she didn’t like him much either. Let him chew on that instead of those mint-flavored toothpicks he liked to gnaw.

  How could Eliana have thought Liam was attracted to her?

  “Ungh!” Cat practiced one of the grunts she might use the next time she saw him. Her sister had to be delusional if she thought she’d seen something other than distaste simmering in the man’s eyes.

  What about when he found your earring and confronted you about going over to the work site when you weren’t supposed to be there?

  The thought drifted into her head out of nowhere. What about it? He was angry, so what? She shredded the cheese for the casserole with a little more effort than required.

  Yeah, but when he wrapped his fingers around your chin, you felt something.

  Oh no, I did not!

  You did. Don’t deny it. You felt a tingle in your tingly place.

  I thought he might hit me. That was trepidation.

  It was lust. And maybe, just maybe, Eliana’s right. Maybe he felt it too.

  Caterina shoved aside the parchment paper she’d been grating the cheese on and picked up a Vidalia onion. She cut it in half, peeled off the skin, and attacked it as if she were racing to beat the clock on The Next Great Chef.

  “Oh, voice in my head,” Cat said with a skeptical laugh, “you are wrong. Just as wrong as Eliana. Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

  “What’s Eliana wrong about?”

  Cat started, then half-turned to see Marcella standing just inside the kitchen doorway.

  “I was thinking aloud. I didn’t know anyone was there.”

  “Clearly. I just came in for a bottle of water. Didn’t mean to interrupt your internal argument.” Marcella walked over to the refrigerator and pulled one out. “Curious though, what’s El so wrong about?”

  Cat gave the knife she’d been dicing the onion with a dismissive spin in the air. “Just this ridiculous notion she has.”

  “About what?”

  She snorted. “She thinks our contractor…she thinks he wants to…she says he’s attracted to me.”

  Marcella unscrewed the bottle cap. “Yeah, and?”

  “What do you mean, yeah, and?”

  “Well, that’s obvious.” Marcella raised the water bottle to her lips, took a sip. “But what’s the thing she and your little head voice have all wrong?”

  Cat stared at her twin as if she and the rest of the world were wearing blinders, and only Cat saw things clearly. She shook her head, incredulous.

  “Marcella! That is the thing. Liam is no more attracted to me than I am to him.”

  Her sister arched a brow, gave her the really? look, and grinned in response.

  “What? Are you kidding me? You too! Cel, the man barely tolerates me. Have you not noticed the way he scowls at me, that his mood turns sour the moment I show up, or that he can’t manage more than a few monosyllabic words and grunts when he has to speak to me, even though he has no problem with sentence structure when he’s talking to anyone else?”

  Cel shrugged and took another sip of water. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Then how can you think he likes me?”

  “I didn’t say I thought he liked you. Maybe he doesn’t, or maybe he doesn’t want to. That doesn’t mean he can’t still be attracted to you. They can be mutually exclusive.”

  “Well, I’m telling you he’s not. He doesn’t like me. He’s not attracted to me. And it would probably take an act of God to thaw the ice between Liam and me whenever we have to deal with each other.”

  “If you say so.” Marcella screwed the cap back on the water bottle. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Her sister made for the door.

  “I do say so!”

  “Yeah, okay.” Marcella raised her bottle in the air, gave it a tilt of acknowledgment. “It’s possible El and I, and the voice in your head, are all wrong.” She stopped, glanced back when she got to the door, and gave Cat a wink. “But it’s also possible we’re not.”

  After Cel left, Cat drained the potatoes and started putting together the layers for the casserole.r />
  Could one be attracted to someone they didn’t like? She frowned. Well, she didn’t like Liam. He made it easy not to. She didn’t hate him, want scorpions to climb up inside his pant legs, or wish some other kind of physical harm on him, although she would like to give him a taste of his own medicine. And still, if she was honest with herself, maybe some lust was mixed in with the anger juices he whipped up in her. And if it was possible with her…

  What if Marcella and El really had noticed something she’d missed because she hadn’t been able to see past the churl?

  If they were right, and she did in fact spark some heat in his blood, it probably pissed him off more than anything she could say to him. The corners of her lips twitched, and Caterina grinned over the possibility. No, Liam Dougherty would not want to want her.

  Maybe she’d just found the needle she’d been looking for to do a little pricking of her own.

  “Men are like wine—some turn to vinegar,

  but some improve with age.”

  Pope John XXIII

  The change we wanted to talk about will mostly impact the restaurant layout.” Antonio looked between Caterina and Lucia. He unrolled a sheet of drafting paper that had a rough pencil sketch on it. They usually met on Thursdays, but he’d said he and Liam wanted to meet with them Monday morning to discuss some layout changes and get their input.

  Cat stole a glance at Liam. He watched her from beneath hooded eyes. She had a childish urge to stick out her tongue. It perched on her upper lip, ready to demonstrate what she thought of him, but she quashed the impulse. The gratification would be fleeting, and she knew she’d regret him knowing he could reduce her to behaving like a twelve-year-old.

  Liam’s eyes drifted down to her mouth, and it went dry. She licked her lips. Something flickered in their icy depths, right before he jerked them away. He shifted on the couch. She saw the muscle in his jaw flinch, then it hardened.

  Interesting. Her lip licking hadn’t been planned. It had been an uncalculated response, she realized, to him looking at her mouth. She’d experienced that brief tingle, but…he’d felt something too. She knew to the tips of her toes that he didn’t like it any more than she did, but whatever electrical current she felt, it had been traveling in two directions.