Cat snapped. “I’m only trying to think of what’s best for Harry.”
“Well, I did my bit. Maggie said you’d be taking over.”
“It’s not what she said to me! She said I should help you.”
“You’re her granddaughter.”
“You’re her landlord!”
“You’re Harry’s aunt. Or cousin. Or something.”
“Not … technically. Misty is Walter’s granddaughter. Not related to me.”
“Or me,” Yiannis pointed out.
There was a silence during which he could actually hear a wave break against the sand half a block away, could almost see thoughts forming in Cat’s mind, though he didn’t know what they were.
Finally she sighed. “Fine,” she said abruptly. “Go. Take your freedom and leave. It’s only what I’d expect.” She started toward the bedroom.
Instinctively Yiannis blocked her way. “If you need me to stay, I’ll stay.”
Where the hell had that come from?
Cat stopped inches from him. Close enough that he could count her blasted freckles. Dark brows hiked haughtily on her forehead. “I don’t need you at all!”
“But you’re afraid Harry might,” he persisted.
She shoved a hand through her hair. The diamond winked. “He might,” she said grudgingly. “If he was that upset before, how upset will he be if he wakes up and finds yet another stranger here. But never mind. You’re right. Harry is my responsibility. Of the two of us, I’m the one who should be taking care of him. Now—” she looked past him toward the front door, as if wishing him through it “—it’s late. I’ve driven all the way from San Francisco. I’d like to go to bed. I’m tired.”
Yiannis would like to go to bed, too. With her, damn it. He was a healthy red-blooded male, for God’s sake. But thinking about it wasn’t going to make it happen. So he shoved the thought away.
“You’d better hope Harry sleeps then,” he told her.
“I hope Harry sleeps.” She said it with enough fervency to make it sound like a prayer. “Good night.” She brushed past him to put a hand on the bedroom door. “Turn out the light when you leave.”
He’d been dismissed, but Yiannis didn’t move. “Do you know anything about babies?” he asked.
Cat glanced back at him over her shoulder and gave a half-shrug. “I expect I’ll learn.”
“At Harry’s expense.”
“We’ll be fine,” she said stoutly. “I babysat once or twice when I was a teenager, and I deal with preschoolers all the time.”
“Harry’s not a preschooler.”
“And I’m not a teenager. We’ll cope.”
He doubted it. He’d just been through a three hour Harry War Zone. At least he knew what to do. And he’d done a damn sight more babysitting in his life than she apparently had. Harry wasn’t any docile cherub. He wriggled when you changed him, and he could crawl faster than lightning. She’d probably let him fall off the bed.
“Fine,” he snarled. “I’ll stay.”
“What? No!”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Two minutes ago you didn’t want me to leave!”
“I over-reacted.”
“Maybe,” he said grimly. “But you haven’t seen Harry at full throttle.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“I’m not doing you any favors. I’m doing Harry a favor.”
Cat opened her mouth as if she were going to dispute that. But apparently she thought better of it. She gave a casual lift of her shoulders and said, “If you think so.”
In fact Yiannis thought he needed his head examined. He wanted to bed her, not spend the night with an eight-month-old. But he couldn’t leave Harry to her mercies, could he? And she wasn’t going to sleep with him anyway. Not the way she kept flashing that ring around. No, he was doing this for Harry—because she’d basically said she had no idea what she was doing. “I think so,” he said shortly.
“Suit yourself,” she said as if it were a matter of supreme indifference. “I’ll make up the sofa for myself then.”
And she brushed back past him to go and open the chest beneath the window next to the sofa.
He should have turned on his heel and gone straight into the bedroom. Of course he didn’t. He did what he always did when she was around—watched her. And if he’d thought she was tempting before, the sight of Cat MacLean’s lush bottom and long legs as she bent to pull out a sheet and summer weight blanket made Yiannis’s body go on full alert.
Don’t look, his sane sensible self told his rampaging libido.
But it was like telling himself to turn away from two speeding trains headed straight at each other, just about to crash. Only when she straightened again and tossed the sheet onto the sofa did he manage to drag his gaze away.
“What?” Cat demanded when he still stood there, his brain turning to mush while other parts of him felt more like hot steel.
He turned away abruptly, clearing his throat. “Nothing.”
“Well, then?”
As if on cue there was a whimper from beyond the door.
Cat’s eyes widened. “He wants you.”
“He probably wants his mother.”
“Then more fool he,” Cat said. Yiannis totally agreed with her. “What’s wrong with him? Is he hungry?” she asked, looking a bit nervous.
“Maybe. I gave him a bottle about eight.” Fortunately he’d found plenty of formula when he’d gone through the cabinets. Either Misty or Maggie had thought ahead, thank God. But even so, he’d called his sister, Tallie, who had four kids of her own to ask what he was supposed to feed Harry and how often.
Predictably Tallie had laughed. “You have a baby?”
“I’m taking care of it. For the moment,” he’d said.
“Moment. Yeah,” Tallie had said doubtfully. But then she’d asked him dozens of questions, most of which he didn’t know the answer to, about how old Harry was and what he was accustomed to eating. Given the little he had been able to tell her, he thought she’d given him reasonably good advice.
Harry hadn’t cried those three hours because he was hungry. He had screamed because life was doing bad things to him—going where he didn’t want to go, taking over, spinning seriously out of control.
