Buch lesen: «A Father for Baby Rose»

CHAPTER ONE

CATHY pushed the buggy past the vibrant tavernas edging the harbour, which hummed and buzzed with early evening revellers. Little Rose, squashed against her pillows in the buggy, was leaning forward now so she could point out something of interest that she wanted Mummy to see.

Cathy put her foot on the brake and went round to the front of the buggy, smiling down at her daughter.

“What is it, darling?”

Ah, yes, now she saw it. Rose loved cats. The black and white cat was now mingling with a group of people strolling along the harbour. The nearest woman to Rose’s buggy bent down to look at the small girl.

“Kali spera,” she said to Cathy as she smiled down at her daughter. “Posseleni?”

Rose chuckled but didn’t reply to the woman who was asking her name.

“My daughter is only ten months old,” Cathy explained in Greek. “She’s called Rose.”

“Horaya!”

As the woman hurried away to catch up with her friends Cathy repeated the compliment under her breath. “Horaya!” She didn’t know whether the woman considered the name or her daughter to be beautiful but whatever it was she was right on both counts.

She paused to look up at the beautiful evening sky, not a sign of a cloud, the golden shades of the advancing twilight mingling with the seemingly endless blue that merged with the lighter colour of the sea. What a difference eighteen months had made! The last time she’d been here on the island she hadn’t even known that she was actually going to be a mother. And then when she’d found out!

She drew in her breath as she remembered the shock, horror, her awful, mixed, muddled emotional reactions. How could she have had such dreadful ideas? She swallowed hard. How different her life would be now without Rose, the centre of her universe. There would be no meaning to it at all, apart from her medical career. But even that paled into insignificance now that she was a mother.

Eighteen months ago she’d come out to Ceres to attend her cousin Tanya’s wedding, so happy to get away for a while, still licking her wounds and feeling the awful despair of another failed relationship. When Tanya had suggested she apply for the temporary appointment of doctor that would be available when she and her husband Manolis went on honeymoon, she’d jumped at the chance.

But two weeks later, back at home in Leeds, discovering she was pregnant had changed everything. She still had to suffer the awful pangs of despair at the fact that Dave had gone back to a wife she hadn’t known existed. Coupled with the morning sickness that had set in with a vengeance, she’d withdrawn her application for the temporary post at Ceres hospital.

When Rose had been a few months old Tanya had phoned to say she and Manolis were taking a six-month sabbatical from Ceres hospital to work in Australia and there would be a vacant post for her if she wanted to apply. She’d got a second chance! Tanya had asked if she would like to stay in their house and she’d even arranged child care for Rose. She could make a fresh start at last and concentrate on her number one priority, Rose.

Looking down at her beautiful daughter, she could feel her heart lifting at the thought that they were going to be fine out here. Life was beginning to take shape again.

Involuntarily, she increased her stride, now desperate to get away from the evening crowds by the harbour, yearning for the peace and calm of the next bay where all would be quiet and she could sit down at a table outside the final taverna, which she remembered from the times her mother had taken her there as a child was always quiet.

She needed to watch the sun setting whilst chatting to Rose in Greek or English as her own mother had done with her. It didn’t matter which. Rose was learning both languages as she had when her mother had brought her here every holiday to “pick up Greek” from her cousins and the children she played with.

Later, while at medical school, she’d taken Greek lessons with a private tutor who’d helped her sort out the grammar and linguistic rules. He had also been a retired Greek doctor, which had been a help when she’d made sure she was conversant with Greek medical terminology. She’d always hoped she might have a chance to use it. Never had she thought things would turn out as they had!

The buggy was rattling alarmingly now and not just the gentle groaning of an ancient model that should have been scrapped long ago. She tried to ignore it as she pushed hard against the rough cobblestones. Seconds later it ground to a jolting halt. What now?

She hadn’t wanted to borrow it from Grandma Anna’s vast array of baby equipment because it had obviously seen years of service. But Anna had been very persuasive, telling her that it would be difficult to get a taxi down from Chorio, the upper town, to Yialos, the area around the harbour. The hourly bus would be overcrowded and with standing room only. Much better to push Rose in the buggy down the Kali Strata.

Cathy knelt down to take a look at the loose wheel that was now firmly stuck in a deep crevice in the cobblestones. Rose leaned over the side and stroked Cathy’s long blond hair as she struggled to extricate the wheel, gurgling all the while, obviously desperate to communicate her own thoughts on the situation!

“Can I help you?”

The deep masculine voice startled her. She adjusted her sunglasses as she squinted up at the tall figure outlined in the dying rays of the low-lying sun.

“Oh, it’s you! For a moment I hadn’t recognised you in…in your er…casual gear, Dr Karavolis.”

“Please call me Yannis.”

That wasn’t what he’d said that afteroon when she’d disturbed him whilst he’d been operating in Theatre! His eyes above the mask had carried a definite expression of irritation as she’d pushed open the swing door, taken a peek and then hurried away.

Holding onto the buggy handle, she stood up so as not to feel inferior to Dr Karavolis for the second time in one day. Tanya had told her when she’d been contemplating coming out to work at the Ceres hospital that she might find Yannis Karavolis difficult to understand on a personal level. She’d explained that his wife had died in a tragic accident over three years ago and he didn’t seem to have yet recovered. He was an excellent doctor, apparently, but made no effort to socialise.

“Let me take a look at that wheel.”

He bent down just as she was standing up and she felt his arm accidentally brush the side of her breast as she attempted to rise from her crouching position as elegantly as possible. For a second it startled her, the feel of a man’s arm against her body. The hint of masculine scent as he crouched down. She had thought she was now totally immune to instant attraction. But she couldn’t ignore the heightening of her senses, the excitement of being in close contact with a man, the probably imagined increase in her pulse rate.

Heavens above! She would have to get out more so that she could apply her new rules to every encounter with the opposite sex. She’d had her fingers burned so many times before that she wasn’t going to ever—repeat, ever—take another chance with a man. However handsome—and Dr Karavolis was decidedly handsome from where she was now standing. If she wasn’t now so world weary and experienced she might have considered a little dalliance with this man who’d literally just dropped by so suddenly.

Rose was now giggling, having stuck out a chubby, dimpled hand to grasp a clump of the helpful doctor’s thick black hair.

Cathy, glanced anxiously down at the crouching Yannis. Their eyes met. For a moment she felt a definite flutter of excitement. Yes, that’s what it was. Just a simple flutter but enough to make her think that this man must have been quite something in his younger days; before tragedy had turned him into a working zombie.

It was a good thing that she’d given up on the difficult male species or she might at that fleeting moment have found herself advancing her embryonic ideas into something exciting.

His eyes were dark brown, sultry, vulnerable. She’d had time to notice that before he bent down once more to his task.

“Gently, Rose,” Cathy said in Greek. “You must be careful not to hurt Dr Karavolis”

Rose giggled on, completely ignoring her mother’s instructions.

“You’re teaching your daughter Greek? That’s good.”

“Oh, she’ll pick it up like I had to when I came out here for holidays and my cousin Tanya and all the other children used to make fun of me. I soon learned out of self-preservation, I can tell you.”

Yannis gave one more tug at the wheel and removed it from the deeply sunken crevice between the cobblestones.

“Here’s the wheel, but unfortunately it’s come unstuck from the buggy,” he said, gravely. He pulled himself to his full height, holding the wheel in one hand and making sure the buggy remained upright with the other.

Cathy looked up at him. “Well, er…thank you, anyway. I suppose…”

“Look, I was just going to have a drink and watch the sunset so…”

“Great minds think alike. I mean, we were just…”

“Please, why don’t you join me?”

He couldn’t imagine why he’d just said that! Company was the last thing he needed after his long, tiring day at the hospital. Especially another doctor…and a child…

“Both of us?”

He took a deep breath. “Well, we can hardly ask Rose to sit it out in her broken pushchair.”

He was already unbuckling the seat belt and lifting the delighted baby up into his arms. Something about the way he held her daughter told Cathy he adored babies, children in general.

She wondered, fleetingly, if he had children being looked after by a doting grandmother back in Athens, which Tanya had told her had been where he’d been working before he’d come here. Better not ask. She didn’t want to upset the fragile ambience that was building up between them.

Carefully holding Rose, whose fingers, had now transferred from his hair to his ears, he pushed the wrecked pushchair to the side of the path and led the way to the taverna that occupied the rocky peninsula at the beginning of this quiet bay.

The owner came out to the table Yannis had selected, beaming all over his face. He was carrying two glasses half-full of colourless liquid.

“I saw you struggling with that buggy,” he said in Greek. “You need a drink, ghiatro.”

So, the owner knew Yannis was a doctor. Probably this was Yannis’s hideaway when he was off duty, searching for solitude.

“Efharisto, Michaeli.” Yannis proceeded to introduce Cathy as Dr Catherine Meredith.

So Yannis had found the time between operations to check that she’d signed in with the admin department today. Otherwise she doubted whether her arrival on the island had registered with him. Certainly, no one had been expecting her to turn up unannounced today. The staff in the small admin department had told her she was expected to start work tomorrow but she could have a look around if she wanted to. That had been when she’d made her solitary tour of the hospital and barged into Theatre.

She picked up her glass. Realising the clear liquid was ouzo, Cathy decided to ask Michaelis for some water to dilute it. “Nero, parakalor.”

“You’re sure you’re happy with ouzo?” Yannis asked as Michaelis disappeared inside the taverna to get the water.

She smiled. “When in Rome…or rather on Ceres…it’s best to go with the flow. I prefer wine but I don’t want to hurt Michaelis’s feelings. He obviously knows you very well.”

“Oh, yes, we go back a long way. I’ve got a house further along this bay, on the shoreline near Nimborio. This is my bolt hole at the end of the day.”

“I thought it might be.”

Michaelis brought a bottle of water. Yannis, expertly holding the tired child against his shoulder, leaned across and topped up Cathy’s glass.

“Thank you.”

He raised his glass towards her. “Yamas!”

“Yamas!”

Rose’s eyes were closing now. In another few seconds she would be asleep. Maybe she should relieve him of the burden on his shoulder. But something told her he was quite comfortable with the arrangement and she didn’t want to speak until Rose was asleep.

They sat together in companionable silence that was broken only by the sound of the sea close beside them below the rocky promontory. Cathy found her eyes, protected by her sunglasses, drawn towards the sun that was slipping slowly behind the mountain, casting a shadow over their table. She moved her gaze to her daughter, who was now peacefully sleeping with her small head cradled against Yannis’s shoulder.

Yannis saw Cathy looking anxiously at her daughter. Gently he eased the child down to a more comfortable position, cradled in the crook of his left arm. He smiled across the table, wondering why he felt so comfortable here with this mother and baby. It was a whole new experience and not something he’d expected to enjoy like this. He could feel it soothing his jangled nerves.

This was what life would have been like if…if only he… No! He mustn’t torment himself by going down that road again. Just enjoy this simple, pleasurable feeling that was stealing over him—if he would let it.

He forced himself to relax again. “Rose is sound asleep now, Cathy, so don’t worry about her. Would you prefer a glass of wine?”

“Well, only if…”

He tipped his ouzo glass and finished the fiery liquid in one swift gulp. “So would I.”

Usually he sat, watching the sunset, sipping his ouzo slowly before ordering supper and a glass of wine, always reminding himself that he needed a clear head for his work the following morning. He’d no idea where this reckless feeling had come from but he was suddenly feeling in party mood. It had been a long time since he’d felt like this.

Michaelis, who was obviously watching from his seat just inside the door, came hurrying across and after a discussion about whether the wine was to be red or white he disappeared again, bringing out a tray with a selection of mezes and a bottle of white wine.

“We Greeks usually like to eat something if we’re drinking wine,” Yannis explained, pointing out the different small dishes of taramasalata, squid, calamari and olives. “But, then, you’ve obviously spent a lot of time in the Greek community so I don’t need to tell you all this. I vaguely remember meeting you at Tanya and Manolis’s wedding. So you’re Tanya’s cousin?”

“Yes, our mothers were sisters. My mother was keen to bring me over to Ceres after her sister married Dr Sotiris and came to live out here. Every holiday she would bring me here so that I could learn the language and absorb the Greek culture. I’d always hoped that one day I would have the opportunity to come and work out here.”

Yannis leaned across the table and poured more wine into Cathy’s glass. She’d hardly touched the ouzo but seemed to be enjoying the wine.

“I didn’t know you were planning to start a family when I last saw you.”

Cathy raised an eyebrow. “Neither did I! I’d just ended a relationship and didn’t know I was pregnant. Tanya had just suggested I apply for the temporary four-week post they needed to fill at the hospital while she and Manolis were away on honeymoon. I’d decided I’d go for it, but when I found I was pregnant I withdrew my application.

“Difficult, I imagine. I’m sorry the relationship ended.”

“I’m not! It was far too complicated. But I can’t imagine life without my wonderful daughter. She’s the most special thing that’s ever happened to me. Did you…?”

She stopped herself just in time to avoid the question she’d wanted to ask. Looking across at Yannis now, with her daughter cradled in the crook of his arm, he looked like the perfect father.

He filled the awkward silence that ensued. “You were going to ask if my wife and I had children, weren’t you?”

She cringed inwardly. “Well…”

“The answer is no. It…it wasn’t to be.”

He’d managed to refer to that most poignant period of his life without faltering and that was a step in the right direction. He hadn’t told the whole truth but that would be a step too far. He couldn’t bring himself to even think about it.

Taking a sip of his wine, he tried to blot out everything that had happened on that fateful day when his life had changed for ever. He put the glass down on the table. Looking across at the sympathetic expression on Cathy’s face, he suddenly found his tongue loosening as if he was in an involuntary state of relaxation.

“My wife was killed in a car crash.” He didn’t need to say anything more but the guilt that always rose up inside him when he thought about the circumstances surrounding her death—which was often—was nagging him to confess more to this obviously sympathetic colleague.

“I often wonder…” He paused. He didn’t need to go on. He didn’t need to torment himself further. “I often wonder if I could have prevented it.”

There, he’d said it out loud; revealed the horrible nightmare that returned over and over again when he reviewed what had happened.

The child stirred against him. In some ways he found the small body tucked against the crook of his arm very comforting. His thoughts returned to the present situation. He waited for the agony of his confession to make him feel awful but he felt strangely comforted to have shared this with Cathy— and the sleeping baby, although, thank goodness, the little mite couldn’t hear him.

Cathy was simply looking across the table with a bewildered expression on her lovely face as she stretched out her hand towards him. With his free hand he took hold of Cathy’s and felt a sympathetic, most welcome squeeze of her fingers. Something like an electric shock—a pleasant one—travelled up his arm.

For a few seconds they remained like that, simply looking at each other. She thought she could discern the tears that threatened behind his eyes but doubted that he’d ever allowed them to fall since whatever dreadful tragedy had taken place. She could tell this man was made of stern stuff. Strong backbone, wouldn’t give in to self-pity but also found it hard to communicate the grief that was holding him back from getting on with a normal life.

Yannis took his hand away and leaned back in his chair, taking care not to disturb Rose. “I’m sorry to talk about the car crash like this. I’ve never discussed it with anybody before. I can’t think why…”

“Maybe you should.”

“Should what?” He looked alarmed.

“Discuss it with somebody. Me, for a start. It always helps if you talk a problem over with somebody.”

He was silent as he thought of all the aspects of the tragedy surrounding Maroula’s death. No, he couldn’t discuss it openly with this woman he hardly knew. He shouldn’t even have got so close to her that he felt he could trust her with his feelings. He couldn’t think what had come over him. In a way it was a betrayal of trust to Maroula’s memory. What had happened was part of his life with his wife and no one else. And yet…

“You don’t have to discuss it with me,” Cathy said. “It’s entirely up to you. I would, however, be the soul of discretion so if you ever think it would help you to…”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”

His tone was firm, final, signifying they should move on. He was already regretting the fact that he’d allowed himself to talk about his beloved Maroula with someone he hardly knew. Discussing his feelings of guilt—something he’d never spoken about out loud before—wasn’t going to bring her back.

Anyway, he was settled in his bachelor ways now. The future was mapped out and he didn’t want to become close enough to any other person to allow them to break through the emotional barrier he’d erected around himself. He needed to retreat behind his safe barrier again. Back to Maroula. He was being unfaithful to her memory, something he’d vowed would never happen.

Little Rose wriggled in Yannis’s arms, rubbing her chubby fists against her eyes before she opened them and stared up at him. A big smile spread across her face.

Cathy stood up and moved round the table, holding out her arms towards her daughter.

Rose lifted her arms towards Cathy.

Yannis couldn’t help smiling as he handed over the little girl. “There you go, Rose. What a good little girl you’ve been.”

Michaelis came out of the taverna to see if he could get something for the baby.

“I’ve got some fruit juice in her baby cup,” Cathy said, sitting down once more on her seat, baby on one arm as she searched through her shoulder-bag. “Here it is.”

Rose was already halfway across the table, reaching for a piece of calamari and dunking it into the taramasalata.

“Bravo!” Yannis said. “Rose is hungry.”

“She loves calamari, as you can see.” Cathy wiped a paper napkin round her daughter’s face to remove some of the taramasalata. Rose pushed her mother’s hand away as she savoured the delicious taste in her mouth.

“I’ve prepared some lamb souvlaki on the barbecue,” Michaelis said, looking enquiringly from Yannis to Cathy. “Shall I bring them now?”

The lamb kebabs were delicious. Rose sucked on a tiny piece of tender meat then gummed it for a little while before depositing it on Cathy’s plate.

“She likes to try everything.”

Yannis smiled. “That’s good. By the time you’ve been here—remind me, how long is it you’re working at the hospital?”

“Six months. Tanya and Manolis have been offered a six-month sabbatical, if you remember.”

“Yes, yes. I remember signing your contract now. You were interviewed in London, I remember. Manolis has put me in charge of the day-to-day running of the medical and surgical side of the hospital while he’s away but I leave the paperwork to our efficient administration team. I knew you were coming in to work tomorrow but when you arrived briefly in Theatre this morning I couldn’t think who you were. Sorry if I was less than welcoming. I was in the middle of a difficult operation and—’

“Oh, please. I hadn’t realised that the theatre was in use. My fault.”

“I’ll take time to show you around tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Rose was now crushing a potato chip against her mouth before opening it and demolishing it with her four tiny white teeth. She wiped her hands over her blond curly hair and grinned happily.

“I think it’s time for me to take Rose home,” Cathy said, reaching for another paper napkin. “I’ve got the numbers of the taxi drivers in my mobile so I’ll see who’s free to come and get us.”

The brief twilight had faded already, she noticed as she punched in the first number on her list. That number was engaged. She tried the next on the list and was lucky this time.

“Theo will be with us in ten minutes,” she said as she closed her mobile.

“Good. I’m glad you’re not going to attempt to walk back. I’ll take your buggy home with me and ask Petros, the man who helps me in the garden, to see if he can mend it. He can mend most things.”

Except broken hearts, Cathy thought as she smiled her thanks. It was so obvious to her that Yannis’s heart would need a lot of tender loving care from a good woman. She certainly wasn’t the person to do it because she needed to keep her own life on track. Whoever took on the mending of Yannis’s heart would have a difficult job breaking down the barriers he’d built around himself.

She reminded herself firmly that whatever it was that that Yannis needed, she shouldn’t feel obliged to try and provide it. After all, she was always the one left wanting when she was barrelled into trying to smooth things along for people. Besides which, she wasn’t here to get too involved with another man, let alone a colleague she was going to have to work intimately with for the next six months.

Out loud she told Yannis that she didn’t think Grandma Anna would need the pushchair for a while.

“Rose is her youngest baby at the moment. Tanya told me she was getting withdrawal symptoms now that they were taking baby Jack over to Australia. Anna told me today she’s lost count of how many babies she’s cared for over the years.”

“She’s an amazing woman. But you must still find it hard, being a single parent and working full time as a doctor.”

“I’m very lucky. In England, my mother takes care of Rose when I’m working and here I’ve got Anna. I wanted to spend a short time away from Rose today to see how she would get on with Anna. She absolutely adores her already so I won’t have to worry about her when I’m working.”

“So why did you want to bring Rose out with you this evening?”

“I wanted to spend some quality time with her. Every mother’s guilt trip, I suppose. Working away from home and leaving her baby in the care of someone else.”

Yannis swallowed hard. “Guilt is a terrible affliction. We all suffer from it at times.”

She saw the worried look on his handsome face and wished she could conjure up that wonderful smile he’d had just a short time ago. She’d noticed the flash of his strong white teeth, the curve of his full, sensuous lips, the vulnerable expression in his dark, brooding, brown eyes.

She gave herself another mental talking-to. She wasn’t in the dating market any more. Neither, it seemed, was Yannis— wise man! Never again! Not after the disastrous relationships she’d suffered over the years. Life was going to be very good if she avoided meaningful relationships.

“I think this is your taxi coming along the coast road.”

She gathered Rose up into her arms. “Kali nichta, Yannis,”

“Kali nichta, Cathy. I…” He hesitated. “I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.”