[The Sons of Lily Moreau 02] - Taming the Playboy

by Marie Ferrarella

  Philippe laughed, shaking his head at Remy. “I think you’reoverthinking this and giving him way too much credit. Georges is preoccupied. His eyes weren’t even on his cards when he frowned.”

  That was a little too close to home. Not to mention insulting. “Georges is right here, you know,” Georges pointed out, looking at his older brother. “You don’t have to talk about me as if I were some cardboard place holder you stuck on a chair.”

  “True,” Alain allowed good-naturedly. “A cardboard place holder might present more of a challenge.” He flashed a confident smile. “I’ll see your ten and raise you five more,” he told Georges.

  Alain counted out a total of fifteen toothpicks, some yellow, some blue, the different colors designating different point values rather than different dollar amounts.

  They never played for money, Philippe made sure of that. His father, JonZabelle , Lily’s first husband, had been a reckless gambler, hopelessly addicted to any and every game of chance ever created. He very nearly cost Lily everything she had until she put a stop to it by putting a stop to their marriage.

  Suspecting he’d been bitten by the gambling bug, as well, Philippe sought to assuage his urges to bet by hosting this game and playing for the big win—which amounted to the big loser of the week having to do chores of some sort for the big winner. Chores varied with the winner, but no one had complained so far. At least, not genuinely. A little bit of griping was expected.

  The poker game was a weekly affair that usually took place in Philippe’s house and included all three brothers, as well as an assortment of cousins and friends who came and went from the table. Exchange of conversation and information was always the most valued by-product of the evening.

  Gordon, Janice’s older brother and his soon-to-be-brother-in-law, sighed as he tossed in his own hand. There weren’t too many toothpicks left in his personal pile. “This is getting too rich for my blood. All I’ve got is a pair of sixes.”

  Philippe’s expression was solemn and completely unreadable as he nodded. Looking around at the faces about his table, he asked, “Any more bets?” Everyone but Georges and Alain had dropped out.

  Alain was the picture of confidence as he glanced down at his cards. “Nope.”

  “Not me,” Georges replied.

  It was time to end this. “Okay, I call.” Philippe looked at his youngest brother first. “What have you got?” Alain grinned and shrugged. It was obvious that he’d been hoping to bluff his way through. He laid his cards on the table. “Three of a kind,” he answered, grouping his three jacks together.

  “Too bad, I have a straight,” Philippe told Alain.

  Georges raised his eyes in surprise. “Me, too,” he announced. Remy laughed as he shook his head. “Put ’emdown, boys,” he prompted. “Let’s see whosestraight’s the higher one.” Philippe and Georges put their cards down at the same time. Looking from one set of cards to the other, Remy snorted, then hit the back of Georges’ head with the side of his hand the way he used to when they were boys together. “Dummy, that’s a straight flush you have.”

  Georges blinked, looking down at the cards as if this was the first time he was seeing them. He was every bit as preoccupied as Philippe had pointed out. “Oh, yeah, I guess it is.” Raising his eyes to look around the table, he couldn’t resist asking, “Does that mean that I win?”

  “No, that means we’ll just let you hold on to the toothpicks for tonight,” Alain retorted in momentary disgust. “I say, if he doesn’t know he’s won, he doesn’t deserve to win.” But since that didn’t hit a responsive chord with Philippe, Alain sighed and shook his head. Then he looked at Georges more closely. “Just where the hell are you tonight?”

  Nowhere he wanted to admit, Georges thought ruefully. So he merely shrugged as he gathered together the colorful slivers of wood and drew them over to the pile he already had in front of him.

  “Just a little off my game, so to speak,” he said, addressing his answer to the table in general. “Had a tough case today at the hospital.” It was a good, all-purpose excuse, one that he felt wouldn’t be questioned by the others.

  Vinniesnorted at the revelation. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t trust hospitals.” He glanced toward Georges. “Doctors are always rethinking their decisions.”

  “Well, in your case,” Georges commented cheerfully, “they’re probably just trying to figure out the best way to treat whatever it is you are.” His humor returned as he successfully banked down any further teeth-jarring thoughts of bright blue eyes and a wide, inviting mouth that pulled into a smile all too easily. A mouth that kept tempting him every time he thought about it.

  About her.

  About kissing her. An uneasy edginess threatened to recapture him. This wasn’t like him, all but mooning over a woman. He never let thoughts ofany woman interfere with either his work or the downtime he spent with his brothers and cousins. It was as if something had short-circuited inside of him.

  “Well, while you’re thinking, how about we play another hand?” Remy asked, gathering the cards together and shuffling them. It was his turn to deal. “Or is that too much multitasking for you?”

  Georges watched as Remy all but made the cards dance for him. Of all of them, he was the handiest when it came to cards. “Just shut up and deal. I’m feeling lucky.”

  “Oh, what’s her name?” Alain laughed as he turned to look at Georges. “Never mind, don’t tell us,”Vinnie begged. “It’ll be someone else by next week. I’ve given up trying to keep track of you and Alain over here.” And then he looked over at their host. “Philippe here has the right idea. Find yourself one decent woman and settle down.”

  “You’re only saying that because you can’t even find one,” Alain responded. “Well, if you and Georges weren’t systematically trying to go through the entire female population of Southern California, the rest of us might get a break,” Remy responded.

  “Speak for yourself, Remy,”Vinnie told his cousin. “Me, I’m doing just fine.” And then he grinned. “I hear congratulations are in order, Philippe.”

  “They are?” Georges looked at Philippe. “Why?”

  “He’d making an honest woman of Janice,”Vinnie replied, then slanted a glance toward Gordon. “No offense, Gordon.”

  “None taken. That’s great news, Philippe. About time, too,” Gordon added. “J.D. could stand to have some happiness in her life.”

  “What makes you think Philippe’s going to do that?” Alain asked. “Trust me, I lived with the guy for eighteen years. He didn’t make me happy.” Philippe blew out a breath. “Just be happy I let you live. Now, are we going to play poker, or are we going to sit around like a bunch of useless old men and gossip?” he asked.

  “I’m dealing,” Remy declared obediently. “I’m dealing.”

  Philippe nodded as he began to pick up the cards that were coming his way. “That’s better,” he murmured in approval.

  Chapter Nine

  AmosSchwarzwaldenfrowned. It wasn’t an expression ordinarily seen on his jovial face. He watched his examining physician remove the stethoscope from his ears.

  Amos sighed sadly. “And here I thought I liked you, boy.” Georges smiled. He made no attempt to correct his patient, or point out that he had not been a “boy” in a very long while. At Amos’s age, he surmised the man thought of everyone under the age of fifty as young enough to merit the label of “boy” or “girl.” Besides, he could well understand the man’s disappointment. In his place, he would be tugging at the invisible restraints, eager to leave the second he was conscious. He knew the good that could be accomplished at a hospital, but psychologically, as Dorothy had once chanted, there was no place like home.

  “I’m sorry,” Georges apologized with feeling, “but this is really for your own good.”

  Amos’s frown deepened until it seemed etched in. “Keeping me here instead of letting me go home? How is that for my good?” “Well, there is that code blue incident,” h
e needlessly reminded him. It had transpired just as he was about to go off duty last night. At the elevator, about to get in, he heard the alarm sound and somehow justknew it wasVienna ’s grandfather. He’d run all the way back to the room. One application of the paddles and the man’s heart regained its rightful rhythm. Luckily,Vienna hadn’t been there to witness any of that. “You gave us quite a scare.” Slipping the stethoscope from his neck, he put it in his pocket. “Your heart stopped beating again. We need to know why.”

  Amos seemed completely unfazed as he shrugged his wide shoulders. “That is simple,” he told Georges. “It doesn’t like the food here. Let me go home and everything will be fine.”

  There wasn’t a chance in hell that the man was going to leave today. Not unless Amos tied the bed sheets together and slipped out through one of the windows. “I’m afraid we need the pleasure of your company for another day, Amos.”

  Amos eyed him closely. “Just one more day, then? And then I’m free?” Georges knew better than to promise. He made one last notation on the man’s chart, then replaced it at the edge of the bed. “With luck. If your tests all come back negative—”

  Amos shook his head, amused. “I am seventy-four years old, boy. The tests won’t be negative. At seventy-four, there isalways something wrong. All they need to be is better than the next seventy-four-year-old’stests.”

  “He’s just thinking of you, Grandpa.”

  Georges turned around and saw thatVienna had come into the room. She looked like sunshine, he thought, feeling a warmth materializing out of nowhere to wrap itself around him. Amos laughed, shaking his head as he waved away the thought. “Let him think a little more about you and less about me.”

  Embarrassed,Vienna gave her grandfather a warning look that should have silenced him. “Grandpa.” Think more about her? Georges’ brain echoed. Not possible. This last week alone,Vienna had been on his mind to the exclusion of everyone else in his life. Thoughts of her had infiltrated his mind to the point that it almost got in the way of his work.

  Not something he was accustomed to, Georges thought. It gave him more than a little concern. He figured the only way he was going to get past this was to make love with her and put it all behind him. Once the exhilarating thrill of the hunt was gone, things would start getting back to normal for him.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized without looking in Georges’ direction. He noted that her complexion looked a little rosier than it had a moment earlier. “My grandfather tends to be a little blunt at times.”

  “I do not hide what is on my mind, if that is what you mean,” Amos told his granddaughter. His eyes shifted toward Georges. His eyes, Georges thought, were almost as hypnotic as hers. “That would be a waste of time and I do not know how much longer I have.” His eyes locked with Georges’. “I want to be sure there is someone to look out forVienna .”

  Okay, enough was enough. In another minute, he was going to be accepting offers of beads and horses in trade for her.

  “Grandpa,” she admonished fondly, “women don’t need men to look out for them anymore.” “Of course they do,” Amos told her matter-of-factly in that voice the didn’t allow for any argument. Before she could refute his words, he said, “Just like men need women to look after them.” He turned toward the only other person in the room with them. “Am I right, Georges?”

  He wanted to beg off before he was drawn into a family argument, however calmly advanced it might be. But something inside of him had him agreeing with the old man’s philosophy. So he smiled atVienna and said, “Sounds about right to me.”

  Her eyes met his. There was that wariness again in them despite the easy smile on her lips.

  “You don’t have to humor him,” she told Georges. “Lord knows, I do plenty of that on my own.” He had no doubt. AmosSchwarzwalden looked to be a lovable man, but he also struck him as someone who wasn’t easily manipulated and could stick to his guns if need be.

  He wondered if that ran in the family.

  “Could I see you for a moment?” Georges askedVienna .

  She seemed surprised by the request and then nodded. “Sure.”

  “If he tries to talk you into agreeing to make me stay here longer than tomorrow,” Amos called out to her, raising his voice, “the answer is no.”

  “Yes, Grandpa,” she returned patiently. She picked her battles carefully and never raced into the field prematurely. If her grandfather had to stay in the hospital longer than tomorrow, then tomorrow was time enough to let him know about that. Right now, she was curious as to what the doctor wanted to tell her away from her grandfather’s bedside. Instincts told her it had nothing to do with the man’s health.

  Georges drew her aside right outside the door. He kept his back to the corridor, creating their personal pocket of space. “You never gave me an answer.”

  Viennaraised her eyes innocently to his. “To?” She was stalling, he thought. And right there, that should have been his answer. But something within him resisted. He didn’t want to take no as her final decision. “Having dinner with me.”

  A smile teased the corners of the mouth she tried vainly to keep straight. “Didn’t I?”

  “I was called away before you could give me an answer,” he reminded her. She pretended to remember. In reality, the scenario had never been far from her thoughts. She didn’t know whether to view it as an opportunity she’d let slip away, or a bullet she had dodged. Because something told her that in the sum total of things, any time she spent with this man was going to matter.

  “Oh, that’s right. You had to hurry off to a patient.” She wasn’t fooling him for a second. She hadn’t forgotten, he thought. “And what were you about to say just before I ‘hurried off?’” he prodded, then, to forestall a negative response, he quickly added, “Now before you answer, let me just tell you that dinner can be anywhere you choose. In the middle ofHuntingtonGardens if you want.” Just in case she was afraid he’d come on to her—which he very much wanted to, but at the same time, knew he could hold himself in check indefinitely. “I would just very much like to have dinner with you.”

  Oh God, me, too. She knew she was in trouble. “Why?” she pressed. Humor curved her mouth, but her eyes were serious, probing. Maybe he’d say something to turn her off and then she’d be safe instead of feeling as if she were sinking. Quickly.

  “Because I like your company,” he told her simply. “I like talking to you. Here,” he volunteered, holding his hand out to her. “Touch me. See if there’s an ulterior motive. See if you don’t find that saying yes isn’t a mistake.”

  When she made no move to place her hand on his, he did it for her, placing her hand on top of his. Touched, amused,Vienna smiled as she shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way,” she reminded him. “I told you, I’m not clairvoyant. I just get…feelings…sometimes.” And boy, were there feelings rumbling through her now. But none of them were her usual kind—like the one that begged Georges to be in the operating room with her grandfather.

  His eyes held hers. “And you have no feelings about me?”

  Her knees felt funny, as did her stomach. “That isn’t quite accurate,” she allowed, the words leaving her lips slowly.

  “Oh?”

  The smile that curved his lips found its target immediately. Her queasy stomach swiftly acquired knots that stole her breath.

  She forced herself to sound calm and in control. It was her only hope. “Dr. Armand, you have an entire harem of women to select from. What do you want with me?”

  He didn’t like the way that made him sound, like a womanizer governed only by selfgratification. That wasn’t him. “Who told you that?” She noted that he wasn’t denying it. “I’ve been coming here for over a week now. I hear the nurses talking.” Amusement rose to her eyes. “It’s amazing, given the social life you’re reported to have, that you have time to fit in any doctoring.”

  Being a doctor had never taken second place in his life. “Number one, people exaggerate, you
know that. Number two, I haven’t been out with anyone since I pulled you and your grandfather out of the car.” And he hadn’t. He and Diana had never gotten together for that evening he’d canceled and he had absolutely no desire to pick up where he’d left off.Vienna had taken center stage and there were no understudies.

  God help her, she believed him. “Is that because we had a moment?”Vienna asked wryly. “I’m not sure what we had,” he told her honestly. “But we had something. I just want to find out what that something is. And I thought that dinner might be a good place to start.” And then he did smile. “Besides, I think it might make your grandfather happy.”

  Her grandfather was the kind of man who could take an inch, stretch it out and build a freeway on it. He’d done it before. “What would make my grandfather happy is if I was married with six kids.”

  Not so unusual, Georges thought. And her saying this didn’t make him want to run for the hills. The thought of running didn’t enter his mind. “Every journey starts with the first step,” he told her, then put his hand out to hers. He sensed he had an advantage and he pressed it. “How about it? Tonight? At seven?”

  Viennaregarded the hand, but held back from taking it. “And I get to pick the place?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The cafeteria.”

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to follow her. “What cafeteria?”

  As if it were a done deal, she placed her hand in his, sealing a bargain he hadn’t yet agreed to. “The one in the basement.”

  “You want to eat in the hospital cafeteria.” He repeated the words, too stunned by the choice even to form them into a question. Her eyes shone as she nodded. There were reasons for her choice. She told him the most obvious one. “This way, if anything comes up with my grandfather, you won’t be far away and neither will I.”

  Georges was fairly confident that nothing would come up. Yesterday’s code blue had been an aberration. All of Amos’s vitals looked good today. “You know, I can afford better than the cafeteria.”