She slid off the stool Cat had pulled over to the island, so Riley would be high enough to work there, put her hands on her hips, puffed up her chest, stuck her nose in the air, and, taking sweeping steps, pranced to the end of the island and back. “That’s how you strut. I didn’t know how, but Daddy showed me. He’s funny when he does it.”
Cat stared down at Riley, still absorbing that this adorable child had just told her she didn’t have a mother. “Wow,” she said, buying herself a moment to collect her thoughts. “That’s some good strutting.”
“Thanks. I can teach you if you want me to.”
“Well…I…yeah, that would be great!” How else, Caterina thought, does one respond to a motherless little girl, who’s just offered to show you how to strut your stuff, with all the sincerity of an angel?
LIAM STOOD JUST outside the opening to the kitchen, gaping at the sight in front of him. He couldn’t remember ever having been so confused about what he was feeling, and his muddled brain was the reason his feet were still rooted to the floor. His mouth hung wordlessly open as he watched Caterina Bonavera follow his daughter around a large center island in the middle of the Bonaveras’ cavernous kitchen.
They started around the far end, and Riley looked back over her shoulder, watching Caterina. “You’re doing great!” she said with a giggle, as if she were cheering her on.
“Well, that’s because I’ve got such a great teacher. Maybe you should—” Caterina looked up at that moment and saw him standing in the doorway. She came to a sudden stop and inhaled sharply, clearly surprised and, he guessed, not happy that he’d caught her with her hair down, so to speak. No, not the meticulous, always-in-control, Caterina Bonavera. She did still have her nose in the air—at least some things remained consistent.
“If you’re looking for Antonio, he isn’t here,” she said, and Riley turned to see who Caterina had spoken to.
“Daddy!”
Riley dashed toward him. Liam bent low, caught her, and then scooped her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“Hi, pumpkin.” He ruffled her hair, told himself to stay calm and hold what he had to say to Caterina until Riley wasn’t there to hear it. He didn’t want to upset her, and it wasn’t his daughter’s fault his brother had left her with one of the last people Liam would trust to look after her.
He glanced back at Caterina. She was the one standing with her mouth open now, looking at him as if he’d just sprouted a few more heads.
“You’re…Riley’s…father?” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “I thought…I thought Burke…”
So, she hadn’t known, had assumed for some reason that Burke was Riley’s dad. Would she have offered to let Riley stay with her while his brother dealt with the Fey’s problem if she’d known the truth?
“Daddy, I teached Miss Caterina how to strut like a peacock. And we made rolled-up pumpkin cakes, and I made cookies all by myself. They have chocolate tops, and we get to take some home ‘cause she said I was the chef after all.”
“Really? I’ll bet you did a great job, chocolate face.” He wet his thumb and rubbed it across the tip of her nose, over her chin, but only managed to wipe off a thin layer.
Liam wasn’t happy that Riley had spent the last several hours here, but clearly, she felt proud and excited about what she’d done. He didn’t want to take away from that. And, from what he could tell, no harm had come to her.
“I did. Miss Caterina said she couldn’t have done a better job. She’s a chef, and she knows how to do magic, and I got to do some.”
“Magic, huh?” Caterina Bonavera doing card tricks and playing at disappearing coins didn’t quite jive with his image of her.
Riley nodded fervently. “We’re going to make pies too.” She looked at Caterina. “Maybe my dad can help us and see about the magic.”
“Well, I…” Caterina looked at a loss for words. He guessed she was as anxious for him to leave as he was to take Riley and get the hell out of there.
“We need to get going, Riley.” Liam lifted her down to the floor. “I’m sure Miss Caterina has a lot to do to get ready for Thanksgiving. And you and I need to go to the grocery store on our way home to pick up something to take to Aunt Becca and Uncle Shawn’s house tomorrow.”
“Can’t we make a pie first? I never maked one, ever!”
“Not today, Riley. It’s getting late, and we have errands to run.”
Caterina walked to the end of the island and angled her head toward his daughter. “It sounds like you need to get going, Riley, but thanks for all your help today. I think your cookies are going to be a big hit with my guests tomorrow.”
“Are you going to tell them I made them?”
“Absolutely!”
Riley smiled lightly. “They probably aren’t going to believe it ‘cause I’m only four.”
“They might have a hard time, but I’ll make sure they know you were the chef.”
“Well, sorry I gotta go, so I can’t help you make the pies.”
Caterina waved a hand in the air. “That’s okay. You were already a huge help.”
“Maybe I can come here again sometime, and we can make some pies then.”
Caterina stared at his daughter a moment. “Maybe, honey,” she said softly. Liam’s gut clenched. He didn’t know what he would have preferred her to say, but he didn’t want Riley thinking of this woman as her new friend.
He leaned down. “Go on out to the porch and wait for me, sweetie. I need to talk to Miss Caterina for a minute, and then I’ll be right out.”
Riley looked at him, and he thought for a minute she might question him, but to his relief she only nodded.
She started to go but turned back and waved to Caterina. “Bye.”
Caterina lifted a hand. “Bye, Riley.”
Liam watched Riley walk across the lobby and out the front door. When it clicked shut, he turned back around. It was unlikely that his daughter would see Caterina again. He didn’t take her to work with him except on those rare cases when there was no one to look after her, and he absolutely had to be on site that day. The only reason she’d been with Burke that day was because the daycare had closed for the holiday, and Liam had a meeting with a lawyer that he needed to go to.
The crew was only scheduled to work a half day today, and neither he nor Burke needed to be there. His brother had offered to watch Riley, so Liam could keep his appointment.
He’d scheduled the meeting after getting a letter from a lawyer Sylvie’s parents had hired, notifying him that they intended to file for custody of Riley. He’d been stunned and thought they were crazy, but after he got over the shock, he’d decided to talk to his own lawyer rather than take any chances that they might pull something over on him that could hurt his daughter.
Caterina looked uncomfortable. They hadn’t seen each other since the day they’d been locked in her room. The day the taste of her lips had been seared into his memory, as if someone had burned it there with a hot branding iron. He wished he could shake it, wished he could block the itch that kiss had stirred—the one he’d be crazy to give in to.
Especially now, with Sylvie’s parents threatening to try to take Riley from him. Not that they stood any chance of getting her. His lawyer had basically assured him that without good cause, they didn’t have a case. They’d never liked him and even blamed him for Sylvie’s death. But to try to take Riley away from him…he still couldn’t believe they’d go so far.
He’d think about that later, when his thoughts weren’t clouded with the image of Caterina Bonavera strutting around her kitchen counter with his daughter, and Riley laughing and cheering her on, as if she were having the time of her life.
Liam shifted. “My brother shouldn’t have left Riley with you. It was an imposition and won’t happen again.”
“She was no bother. I enjoyed her company.”
“If I’d known he had to leave her with someone, I’d have made other arrangements. I never would
have agreed if he’d called to tell me he was going to—” Liam frowned, considering his words.
“To leave her with me?” Caterina said, finishing what he’d been going to say before he realized how ungrateful it sounded.
“Riley was Burke’s responsibility this morning, not yours. I only leave her with family or people I trust enough to—” That hadn’t come out any better. “Look, let’s just forget it. My brother shouldn’t have left her with someone else without talking to me first, but he did, so thanks for keeping an eye on her.”
The look in her eyes sliced into him, and he hated it. She wasn’t supposed to have feelings he could hurt. She was supposed to be an insensitive, self-absorbed control freak, who only cared about herself.
He turned away from her, walked through the reception area to leave, anxious to be anywhere else but there. When he got to the door, he saw Caterina had followed him out and was walking across the room after him. She carried one of those round metal tins people usually put cookies or candy in.
“These are Riley’s. I told her she could have them since she made them. She forgot to take them when she went out to the porch.” She held the container out for him to take, and he hesitated, torn between an overwhelming desire to haul her into his arms and kiss her and an equally strong one to get the hell out of there before he did.
Caterina closed her eyes a moment, and he saw her lashes flutter. When she looked at him again, she said, “They’re not poison, Liam.”
The vulnerability he heard in her voice did him in. He reached for the container with one hand and pulled her toward him with the other. He didn’t think—just acted—kissing her because he needed to, and any thoughts that he was making a mistake were trampled to dust beneath his desire.
He had to taste her one more time. Needed to feel her body against his, her mouth opening for him, no refusal. He felt it soften, and something roared to life inside him—a need he couldn’t seem to control, pagan and demanding, just like the last time he’d kissed her.
Caterina whimpered, and he slanted his mouth again, and again, and again, unable to satisfy the desire raging through his blood like a warrior with a need to conquer. To make her his.
“Oh…well…”
They broke apart.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Marcella stood in the opening that led from the reception area to the hallway. “I’m just…” She pointed toward the solarium. “Going in there.”
Liam glanced at Caterina, then away. He should probably have said something but couldn’t think straight enough to risk what might come out of his mouth. She’d confused him. Again.
She could have said something, but she looked as confounded as he did. No wonder. He’d basically said he didn’t trust her, and then kissed her as if she were a filet mignon and he a starving carnivore who wanted to devour her. Talk about mixed signals.
“Riley’s waiting for me,” he managed to get out somewhat coherently, latching onto his best excuse to bolt and then doing just that.
CATERINA STOOD WITH her mouth hanging open, the same way she had after they’d locked lips in her room, and he’d walked out on her in a similar fashion. Her heart felt like it raced at a million and some odd beats a minute. Who was that man who had just kissed her so passionately? Kissed her as if he’d wanted to, needed to, and hadn’t—wouldn’t have stopped if his life were being threatened…except that her sister had walked into the lobby to find them consumed by a mutual insanity. An insanity that had taken possession, with God only knew what consequences she’d be dealing with because of it.
She puffed out a gush of air to kick-start her breathing again and headed back to the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you and Liam were a thing.” Marcella called after her as she went through the solarium, and Cat saw her sister angling to follow in her direction.
“We’re not.” She kept walking. “And don’t ask, because I have no idea what that was about, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing. My brain stopped working a few minutes ago, and I don’t think I’m capable of conversation right now.”
Marcella followed Cat into the kitchen.
“I came down to see if you needed help getting anything ready for tomorrow,” she said. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t feel like it. Just tell me what still needs to be done, and I’ll pretend I never saw anything. Unless you’re in a state of shock or something and really do want to talk, but just don’t know it yet.”
Caterina pushed her fingers through her hair and groaned. “Oh, Cel, I have no idea what just happened. I’m so confused. I’m just so, so confused when it comes to that man! He doesn’t like me. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try to hide it. And then he turns around and kisses me out of nowhere and it’s…it’s craziness!”
Marcella walked over and wrapped an arm around her in a half hug. “Good crazy or bad crazy?”
“Bad! Of course, it’s bad! I mean…why would he do that? He doesn’t try to hide that he thinks I’m lacking somehow, and he practically warned me away from his daughter…as if he thought he couldn’t trust me around her.”
“Liam has a daughter?”
“Yes. I didn’t know either, until about fifteen minutes ago. She spent the morning baking with me, and she’s the most adorable little girl ever. I can’t believe she’s his daughter. I thought she was Burke’s, but that’s a whole other story. The point is, when he found out his brother left her with me, he got all upset because…I guess because he just doesn’t like me. And maybe he thought I’d take his surliness toward me out on his daughter.” She huffed. “Like I’d ever do anything to hurt a child.”
“I doubt he thought you’d hurt her.”
“I don’t know, Cel, and that’s not even the point.”
“I get the point, Cat. I think you’re overlooking the obvious, though. I don’t think Liam can help himself. He’s attracted to you. We’ve all seen it—me, El, Luch. Even Antonio made a comment the other night about the two of you dancing around each other. You two are the only ones who don’t want to recognize what’s going on.”
Cat put her hands on the island to steady her racing thoughts. “That wasn’t the first time.”
“What wasn’t?”
“That he kissed me. It wasn’t the first time.”
Marcella raised her brows, and Caterina told her about Liam bringing the boxes down from the attic, and how afterward, Rosa locked them in Cat’s bedroom together and held them ransom there until Liam kissed her.
“So now, in addition to not liking me, he thinks I’m a flake. A flake who forced him to kiss me by somehow locking the bedroom door with, I don’t know…with trickery of some kind and then blamed it on a ghost.”
Cat looked at her twin. “And you know what, when you think about it from his perspective, no wonder he was worried about Riley being left alone with me.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why he kissed you again today. You did indicate he initiated it, right?”
“Oh, he initiated it! And I guess that’s why I’m having such a hard time understanding his motivation. That, and because it was different from the first time.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt something I’ve never felt with another man. I didn’t want him to stop, Cel. It was passionate and full of need, in a sexually needy way, which I’ve felt to some degree when other men kissed me. But it went beyond that. I felt connected to him, a connection I never would have expected and can’t explain. It caught me so off guard, because—”
Caterina let out a shaky breath. “Because this time…this time it was as if I could taste my future in it.”
“And that,” Marcella said softly, “scared you.”
Cat closed her eyes, swallowed the truth in her sister’s words. “To death.”
“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us.
Life
is so endlessly delicious.”
Ruth Reichl
November gave way to December and the first snow of the season, a couple of inches that coated the grounds of the winery just in time for Tastes of the Season. Bonavera Winery had participated in the annual holiday open house tour since its inception over a decade ago. It was a fun, festive event, and the winery was always a popular stop on the tour.
Cat and her sisters had spent the last two days decorating the guest house inside and out. In keeping with their mother’s tradition, evergreen garland, strung with white lights, graced the wide front doors and porch rails. It was attached to the posts with bright red bows that added a cheerful splash of color where it draped gracefully from one stately white column to the next.
Their mom had always decorated two trees inside—one for the entrance and one for the library. She would search and search for the two largest trees she could find and then would have to have them delivered because she couldn’t get them home on top of her car.
Caterina looked from the massive evergreen standing to the left of the library’s stone fireplace to the equally giant one next to the front entrance. She smiled lightly. Lucia was following right in Mom’s footsteps.
The open house was one of the most popular events of the year, with a week of tours and celebrations taking place at a different venue each night. This year’s schedule would commence on Monday, with the Bonavera Winery and Guest House to host Thursday night.
She and her sisters agreed that they should get the trees decorated this weekend. They would all be too busy next week to find a big enough block of time when they’d all be available to get it done.
Cat eyed the huge library tree again. They might need Saturday and Sunday to get them done, even with Antonio helping this year.
She would make most of the hors d’oeuvres and finger desserts for the event the day before and prep whatever would need heated up just before the festivities. She’d reserve Thursday for any last-minute prep, and to take care of any finishing touches.
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