‘I never noticed you going out of your way to placate me,’ Piran said gruffly.
‘Perhaps not,’ Carly allowed. ‘But in the circumstances I’m sure you can understand why.’
‘Maybe,’ he muttered. But his tone wasn’t quite as sarcastic as it usually was. In fact he’d been fairly silent on all fronts the last few days.
Carly supposed that finding out he had a son was a bit of a jolt—something he still hadn’t completely assimilated. They’d had Arthur almost a week and Piran still wasn’t really comfortable with him. He gave the baby a bottle every day because Carly said she needed a break. And he changed him, grumbling as he did so, when Carly claimed to be right in the middle of a very important piece of work.
But he wouldn’t let her leave Arthur with him alone.
‘I’m not ready for that,’ he told her whenever she suggested taking a walk by herself or going into town.
And, sucker that she was, Carly caved in.
She was no expert at child care certainly, but she didn’t worry about being perfect at it the way Piran did. She’d always learned by doing anyway, and Arthur was a good teacher. If she didn’t fulfill his needs, he let her know. If he was wet, he fussed. If he was hungry, he cried. If he wanted attention, he found ways of getting it.
And in one way he’d made her life easier.
Seeing her with Arthur had apparently put a damper on Piran’s sexual appetite. Or if it hadn’t it had clearly switched away from her for, now that Arthur had arrived, Piran didn’t say another word about getting her into bed.
Holding Arthur, she decided, was as effective as holding a can of Mace.
She held him now and studied the back of Piran’s head as he sat at the computer trying to work. He didn’t seem to be getting very far, if the amount of muttering and blocking and deleting he was doing was any indication.
She had to give him credit—he’d been working like fury since Arthur had arrived—as much to avoid the baby as to get the book done, she suspected. But he looked like hell. He needed a break—an afternoon off. However, Carly had had no luck at all in getting him to take one.
‘You want the book done, don’t you?’ he snapped whenever she suggested it.
And of course she did. But not at the expense of his health. Besides, the book would be done. Of that she was certain.
‘But he needs a break,’ she told Arthur in a soft voice so that Piran didn’t hear her. ‘And you’re going to have to see that he takes one.’
Arthur looked at her wide-eyed and waved his arms.
‘I’ll help you.’ She carried him into the kitchen, peered into the fridge, spied the milk bottle with only a cup or so in it, considered her options and poured it down the drain.
Then, shifting the baby to her other hip, she went back into the living room.
‘We’re out of milk,’ she said.
Piran frowned. ‘None?’
‘Nope. And I don’t know if Ruth will be bringing any so I’ll go into town and get some.’
‘I’ll go.’
‘No. I will.’
‘Fine, if you take Arthur.’
‘I’m not taking Arthur.’
‘But—’
‘Piran, it’s almost a hundred degrees in the shade. And the humidity is awful. I’m not going to lug him all the way to town.’
‘Then let me go.’
‘No. I need a break. You’ll be fine, both of you.’ And, so saying, she plopped Arthur into his lap.
‘Carly! I’m working!’
‘He can help you.’ She stuffed her feet into her sandals and fled toward the door.
‘Wait!’
‘See you by suppertime,’ she called over her shoulder, and vanished down the trail before he could stop her.
It was beginning to look a lot more like Christmas.
Even on tiny Conch Cay.
Sutters’ fruit store had a dusting of artificial snow in the corners of each pane of window glass. Cash’s hardware and video store had a small sleigh crafted out of spare auto parts perched precariously on the tin root There were half a dozen strings of colored lights winking brightly all along the eaves of the government building even in broad daylight. There was even a wreath made of coconut palm fronds and bougainvillaea flowers hanging on the jail-house door.
In the yard of the church she saw a life-size manger scene, complete with a shepherd, three magi, a couple of cracked plastic sheep which had clearly seen better days and a real-live donkey who lifted his head a moment as Carly stopped outside the gate, then went back to cropping the grass. Several chickens clucked around him, and a mongrel dog slept in the shade cast by Mary and Joseph.
There was no baby. It didn’t even look as if one was expected.
Rather like Arthur, she thought.
And then she thought, This will be Arthur’s first Christmas. And suddenly she wanted to celebrate the holiday after all.
She knew Arthur wouldn’t remember it, so in that sense it wouldn’t really matter. But at the same time she was sure it mattered a great deal.
Whether he remembered or not, Carly felt it was important to mark the occasion for him, to welcome him into the world, into the family—even as unexpected as he was, perhaps because he was as unexpected as he was.
It wasn’t her place to do so, she supposed. But maybe, as an ex-stepsister of his probable father, she could argue that she had the right.
She smiled ruefully when she realized how much she wanted the right. She might only have known Arthur a week or so, but he mattered to her. She was going to have trouble letting him go. The thought of losing him so quickly gave her heart a twist that she wasn’t expecting.
It should be no big surprise, she reminded herself. Her entire life had been spent in short-term relationships. This would just be another one.
But maybe a few more bittersweet Christmas memories would help both of them.
Maybe they would help Piran, too.
Piran had never felt so responsible in his life. Nor so inadequate. Not when he couldn’t hold his parents’ marriage together, not when he couldn’t talk his father out of marrying Carly’s mother. Not even when Gordon had died.
He knew, intellectually if not emotionally, that he wasn’t responsible for his parents’ divorce or his father’s remarriage or even for Gordon’s death.
He was responsible for Arthur. Now and forever. Past, present and future.
He was the reason that Arthur existed at all.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it. Heaven knew he hadn’t wanted a child—not now and certainly not like this-unplanned and unexpected.
But, oddly enough, now that he had Arthur, he found stirrings inside that he’d never felt before.
They weren’t merely signs of academic interest as he’d told himself at first. They were something more. Something basic, elemental. They were so foreign, they scared him. Arthur scared him.
And yet Arthur fascinated him too.
He was so resilient, so cheerful. His whole world had been turned upside down by whoever was his motherWendy, Piran guessed. And yet he smiled and cooed and snuggled up to Carly just as if she’d given birth to him.
And Carly snuggled up to him.
Piran liked watching them together. He liked seeing Carly cuddle the child in her arms while she gave him his bottle. He liked watching her bend over the baby while she changed him and dressed him. He liked the silly noises she made and the nonsense she talked, and he was amazed at the noises Arthur made in return. It was as if they were really communicating.
He looked down at the baby in his arms, then got up and carried him over to the sofa and set him in the corner, banked on either side by blue and green pillows.
Arthur regarded the pillows and Piran with equal curiosity.
‘Are you going to yell?’ Piran asked him nervously.
‘Ba,’ Arthur said. He patted a pillow.
Piran’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s blue. And that one’s green. Can you say green?’
‘Ba ga,’ said Arthur. He grabbed a pillow and stuffed the corner of it in his mouth, gumming it furiously.
‘You’re a genius,’ Piran told him. ‘You can say blue and green. My God! Carly!’ he shouted. Then he remembered that Carly wasn’t here.
He was alone. With a genius.
He gulped. He picked Arthur up again. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what else you can say.’
He carried the baby all around the house, pointing out lamps and sofas, books and chairs. He took him outside and showed him palm trees and frangipani trees, breadfruit trees and bougainvillaeas.
‘You might want to consider botany as a career,’ he told Arthur. ‘If you don’t go into archaeology. I won’t mind if you don’t,’ he assured the baby.
‘Ga,’ said Arthur. ‘Da.’
Piran’s eyes bugged. He held Arthur out at arm’s length. ‘Say that again,’ he demanded. ‘By George, kiddo, I think you just said Daddy!’
Carly started listening as soon as she came around the bend in the path, keeping her ears open for sounds of babies yelling. One particular baby at least.
She heard only the surf and the birds and a frog next to the mangrove tree.
She shifted the grocery bag from one arm to the other and climbed the steps to the deck. The vertical blinds were slanted to keep the afternoon sun out. The doors were open, but the screens were shut. Carly slid one open and looked around.
No Arthur. No Piran.
‘Piran?’ she said softly.
She got no response.
She frowned. If Arthur had gone to sleep, surely Piran would be working? If he had taken Arthur to the beach, she certainly would have seen them. She’d come back along the water and they weren’t down there.
She carried the milk into the kitchen and put it in the fridge, then went in search of them.
They weren’t on the veranda. They weren’t in the small garden that faced the narrow drive. They weren’t in Arthur’s room either.
But they had been there. Carly saw a wet diaper on the floor. The romper she’d put Arthur in this morning was on the dresser. Several other T-shirts and rompers had been tossed aside.
Carly winced, wondering if Piran had taken Arthur and gone in search of someone who could help take care of him. She crossed the living room and pushed open the half-closed door to Piran’s room.
And she smiled.
Piran, wearing only a pair of cut-off jeans, was sprawled flat on his back sound asleep on the bed. Arthur, clad in a diaper and a T-shirt, his knees drawn up under him and his thumb in his mouth, slept equally soundly on Piran’s bare chest, one of his father’s big hands cupped protectively around his back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT on earth is that?’ Piran demanded as she came up the path. He had apparently awakened after she’d left to go back for the rest of her bounty, and now he was standing on the veranda staring down at her muzzily.
‘It’s a tree,’ Carly panted.
‘What are you dragging a tree around for?’
‘Christmas.’
Piran blinked. ‘What?’
“Tis the season to be jolly. I’d forgotten.’ She didn’t say she’d been trying to forget. ‘But when I went into town it became obvious and, well, I thought we ought to celebrate so I brought us a Christmas tree.’ The explanation took every available bit of breath she had. She stopped and sagged against the railing at the bottom of the steps, fanning herself.
Piran looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. ‘It looks like something you’d throw on a brush heap.’
‘Well, there wasn’t a lot of choice,’ Carly said. ‘Most of the pines I saw that looked sort of traditionally Christmassy were far too big. I thought about a banana tree because it came equipped with built-in ornaments—’ she grinned ‘—but I didn’t want to be the cause of the destruction of lots of little unripened bananas.’
He shook his head. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Ben says that everyone who wants to just cuts a tree from the ones that grow near the beach. He told me where, so I walked back that way. Fortunately I found this one not far from the path up to the house.’
‘And you just…cut it down?’
‘Ben lent me a machete and—’
‘What happened to the milk?’ Piran demanded. ‘You went to town to get milk.’
‘I did, and I put it in the fridge. I bought some other things, too. Christmas presents. For Arthur.’
‘You went Christmas shopping?’ Piran gaped at her. ‘You left me all morning and went Christmas shopping?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Carly said firmly. ‘There’s only eight more shopping days, you know. Besides, you did fine without me. You were both sleeping when I came in with the milk.’
He looked momentarily discomfitted. ‘Luck,’ he muttered. ‘Anyway, don’t you think we have enough to do with Arthur and the book without worrying about Christmas?’
‘No, I don’t. I think it’s the most important thing we can do.’
‘More important than the book?’ he challenged her.
‘Yes. Look,’ she said with all the earnestness she could muster. ‘I know it’s due in barely more than two weeks. I know we’ve got a long way to go. And I know you’re going to tell me Arthur won’t remember.’
He opened his mouth to comment, but Carly went right on without letting him say a word.
‘You’re right, of course. He won’t remember actual presents, actual events. But he’ll sense it, I know he will. And it will matter, Piran. And later, when he’s big enough to know and to ask, he will ask. He’ll want to know about what happened when you first got him. He’ll ask about when it happened. And you’ll have to tell him it was near Christmas. And he’ll want to know about his first Christmas. He’ll want to know how you celebrated it. And you’ll have to tell him that, too.
‘So what are you going to tell him, Piran? That you were too busy writing your book to bother about it? That his first Christmas didn’t matter? That it came and went and was no more than an annoyance? I don’t think you want to do that. I think you want to be able to talk to him about the joy of the day, the joy of celebration. It was, after all, because of the arrival of a baby that we’re celebrating Christmas at all!’ Carly stopped, out of breath at last, and looked at him beseechingly.
Piran just stared at her. Then slowly he shook his head. ‘My God, you’re wasted on editing. Have you ever considered a career in law? You’d make a dynamite prosecuting attorney. Such incredible rhetorical talent going to waste…’
Carly felt her cheeks warm. ‘Don’t be obnoxious.’
‘I’m not. I’m in awe.’
‘You’re laughing at me.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not laughing. There’s damned little to laugh at right now, and you know it.’
She wasn’t sure how broadly to interpret that comment so she steered away from it altogether. Their whole relationship was so complex that there had been little to laugh at since the beginning. Arthur only complicated it.
Or maybe, Carly thought, he simplified it. Maybe he made what was really important clear at last.
‘I want Christmas,’ Carly said, looking straight into Piran’s deep blue eyes.
‘And whatever Carly wants Carly gets?’
She was glad her gaze didn’t falter. ‘I think you already know the answer to that.’
He had the grace to wince a little.
‘Never mind. It’s all in the past,’ Carly said. ‘It’s not important now.’ She changed the subject briskly. ‘Did Arthur give you a hard time?’ She remembered the clothing scattered around the bedroom, remembered the sight of Piran on the bed with the baby asleep on his chest.
‘He made his wishes known,’ Piran said drily after a moment. ‘And I wasn’t always good at deciphering them.’
‘I saw the clothes.’ She slanted him a glance. ‘Don’t tell me he already has preferences in what to wear.’
A faint smile touched Piran’s face
. ‘No. It turned out I did. Half of them I couldn’t seem to get on him before he wiggled away from me. Finally I opted for the easiest route.’
‘But you survived.’
‘We survived. Did you know he can talk?’
‘Piran, he’s six months old!’
‘Yeah, but he can say blue and green and good. At least I think he said good, and once he even said Daddy.’
‘Daddy?’
He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Well, he doesn’t enunciate very well yet, but what else could it have been?’
Carly shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine. Does this mean you’re accepting the fact that you are his daddy?’
‘Yeah, I guess I am,’ he said. ‘At least until another daddy comes along.’
It was a step. A small one, but still a step. They were bonding, Piran and Arthur. They had plenty more steps to take, of course, but they were finally on their way to becoming a family. Carly smiled. But it was a bittersweet smile because, heaven help her, she wanted to be part of the bond as well.
So she was a fool. So what else was new?
She was as incurable a romantic as her mother, as determined a believer in happy endings or at least in wonderful memories as the woman who’d given her life.
‘Better to live and to love than to regret,’ Sue had said to her daughter time and time again.
And while Carly could never see herself like Sue, trying to live and love seven different men, apparently she couldn’t seem to stop trying to live and love with oneeven if he didn’t love her. Even if living with him meant only for the next two weeks and loving him meant only helping him learn to become a father and then walking away because that was the way he wanted it—just him and his child alone.
And for herself?
For herself Carly would take memories. They hurt sometimes—thinking about that joyous last Christmas which she’d spent with her mother and Roland and his daughters in Colorado still hurt. But hurting, Carly began to realize, was better than an empty life; it was better by far than feeling nothing at all.
So she dug in to make this Christmas a Christmas to remember.
She started with the tree.
A Baby for Christmas Page 10
