the pair called out in tandem, then downed their drinks, wincing against the angelica and mace-flavored liquor.
Cheers? Seriously? With their house fallen to bits round them?
“Yasou!” Theo called back, smiling warmly at Cailey, then quickly tightening his fingers at her waist and tugging her out of the path of a couple of smashed watermelons that had been squirted out beneath a collapsed canopy.
“Making the best of a bad lot?” Theo called over his shoulder.
In Greek they called out the age-old saying, “Everything in its time, and in August...mackerel!”
Despite herself, Cailey giggled. “They’re certainly optimistic.”
Theo shrugged. “They’ve probably seen worse.”
Cailey pulled back, and the warmth of Theo’s fingers shifted easily to the small of her back as if they’d been a couple forever. “Worse than their shop crashing to bits when they both look on the brink of retirement?”
Theo stuck out his lower lip and tilted his chin. “First: people like them never retire. Second: a bit of patient-doctor privilege sometimes gives an insight into how people prioritize what is bad and what is worth raising a glass for.”
Ah. A “big picture” response. She got it. Theo was saying a mashed-up shop was nothing to what that couple had already faced on a personal level. They might have lost a child. Battled cancer. Survived a serious accident. Whatever it was had already put this couple face to face with their mortality—and this time, after the huge quake that had taken over a dozen lives already, they had survived. So why not toast one another?
She glanced back at the couple, merrily refilling their glasses and laughing quietly to one another. Bad things happened, but it was how you responded to them that mattered.
Like deciding whether or not to be frightened of a man who no longer held her family’s purse strings. Or of his son who, when you looked at him “big picture” style, was little short of perfect.
“CAILEY-OULA!”
Theo retracted his hand from Cailey’s waist at the sound of her brother’s voice emerging from the rising and falling chatter across the street at Stavros’s taverna.
It wasn’t strange at all for Greeks to show one another physical affection, but it was now that disaster had struck that Theo realized his protective older brother feelings had morphed into I really want to kiss you ones.
At the sound of Leon’s voice Cailey unleashed the fullest smile he’d seen since her arrival. Bright, full of energy, eyes sparkling as if she hadn’t just spent the past twelve hours working her heart out.
A swift tug and a tightening right where it counted hit him hard and fast. Oh, yes. His intentions toward her were definitely romantic.
“Kyros! Leon!”
Cailey was up and being hugged in a big brother sandwich before he’d even had a chance to get his head round the fact that she wasn’t standing next to him anymore. The crowd was so thick at Stavros’s it would have been no surprise to find half the island’s population were there on the flower-laced veranda. A veranda miraculously untouched by the quake.
A rapid-fire exchange of information passed between the siblings in a shorthand he almost envied. Wives? Great. Where were they? Serving food—just like everyone else. Stavros and Jacosta had organized it. Where was Mama? Serving her famous souvlaki.
Cailey moaned, kissed the tips of her fingers and lifted them to the starlit sky. Theo’s stomach rumbled. He too had moaned with pleasure over Jacosta’s souvlaki on days when his father had been out of town and he’d “slummed it” in the kitchen.
Shouts were being launched in the direction of the taverna. “Theo! What are you doing standing over there by yourself?”
Jacosta appeared next to her children and beckoned for him to join them, her arms wide open. As ever she was non-judgmental, welcoming, loving.
For the first time in his life he hesitated. How strange to suddenly feel like an outsider on his own island. This had never happened before.
Neither had wanting to completely rip the clothes off a woman he’d known since childhood.
The earth wasn’t the only thing that had shifted that day.
“Come! Come!”
Jacosta had him in a warm embrace before he had another moment to think. Kisses were exchanged. The standard questions peppered him: “Are you all right? Is your home all right? How is your mama? Is her ankle elevated? I heard she twisted it. Your father? I saw him driving past, so I took it as a good sign. Cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Are you hungry? Eat. Eat. Look at you. Skin and bones. You must eat!”
He laughed and succumbed to the hug she pressed him into. It was pointless to resist Jacosta’s entreaties for a hug from her “third son.”
Wouldn’t life have been different if only he’d been adopted by a family for love, not power. He stiffened at the thought and, as if sensing his conflicted feelings, Jacosta let him go.
It was his body protecting his emotions. Protecting them from the inevitable hurt that would come if he so much as thought of having a family of his own one day.
“Theo.” Jacosta crooked a finger, indicating that she wanted him to come closer. Not that Cailey and her brothers, who were still in the full flow of information exchange, would overhear.
“I hope you are keeping an eye on my daughter.” She tapped the side of her nose and smiled gently. “Look after her. She may act the brave one, but she’s tender inside.”
A huge cheer erupted from the overspill of villagers at Stavros’s, followed by an excited gabble of conversation.
Jacosta gave Theo a knowing look. One that said, I know you know her as well as I do...so be kind.
Cailey twirled round toward them with a huge smile on her face. “They’ve found Stavros’s cousin’s daughter!”
“Wonderful.” Jacosta pressed her hands into the prayer position and lifted her eyes to the clear sky up above.
“Mama!” Cailey gave her mother a huge squeeze. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m just so happy. So relieved to have all my children here.” She reached out her hands, and a sob of relief filled the air around them as she pulled Cailey closer and then called her boys over for a big, tight family hug.
Something that would never happen in my family, Theo thought darkly. His father had only called to say he’d chartered a helicopter to come to the mansion and fly his mother to the mainland for treatment on her ankle and her nerves, and then asked if Theo was “keeping up appearances” with the clinic.
He couldn’t believe his father still didn’t get it. That he loved being the island doctor. No, he wasn’t a specialist surgeon like his mates—the other “golden boys” of the Mopaxeni founders—but he loved it. Loved helping carpenters and fishermen and cherished ever-aging yiayias and even billionaires. Not that his father would deign to receive treatment from him. Too personal. Too much like needing the son he claimed was nothing but a disappointment to him.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. Enough. He was tired. Hungry. No point in getting all emotional over a family who liked to hug just because his didn’t.
“Come! Theo.” Jacosta waved him over to their small group. “Give me a kiss, then go in and make yourself useful. Fetch this poor girl some souvlaki.”
She turned to her daughter and they had a swift, low-voiced