Granted it wasn’t beautiful, and Piran didn’t seem to see its potential as he took it out of her hands and dragged it up the stairs for her. But maybe he would when they got it set up and began to decorate it. Carly dared to hope.
‘Where do you want it?’ he asked her when he’d lugged it up on to the deck.
‘Er, perhaps in the living room in front of the window? I don’t know. I mean, it’s your house.’
‘Nice of you to realize that,’ he said drily. He carried the tree in and hoisted it upright and held it there. ‘I don’t suppose you bought a stand?’
‘Oh, dear,’ Carly said. She ran a nervous tongue over her lips and gave him a smile that was at least half sheepish grimace. ‘I hadn’t thought. Just—er—prop it in the corner. I’ll walk back to town and see if I can find a tree stand at the hardware store.’
‘Not on your life. We’ve got a book to do.’
‘But the tree! I’m not going to abandon it, Piran!’ she said stubbornly.
‘Obviously.’
‘Well, then…’
He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.’
‘You will?’ She looked at him hopefully.
‘I will. I promise,’ he added when she gave him a look that said she wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘Now, for the ten thousandth time, we have to get going on the book. I didn’t get a single thing done this morning—’
‘And you look far better for it. More rested. And you probably feel better too, don’t you, having spent some time with Arthur?’
He scowled. ‘What is this? Dr O’Reilly’s shrink shop?’ Carly smiled slightly. ‘Yes. And now Dr O’Reilly says we need to decorate the Christmas tree.’
‘Yeah? Well, first Dr St Just says you’d better work on chapter seven.’
‘But—’
‘I mean it.’
Carly knew better than to push him further. She let him think about it. But she wasn’t above putting on a tape of holiday music that she’d bought in town on the stereo.
‘Subliminal persuasion?’ Piran arched a brow at her when the first notes of ‘Joy to the World’ reached his ears.
Carly smiled.
Piran studied her silently. ‘It really means a lot to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘It does.’
When Arthur woke up, Piran still hadn’t done anything about the tree, but she thought he’d got the message. He was busy typing furiously so Carly went and got the baby. She brought him back out into the living room after she’d changed him. He looked happy and well-rested and none the worse for spending the morning with Piran.
He giggled as she danced him around the room to the tune of ‘Frosty the Snowman’. Piran turned around to watch them. Carly waved Arthur’s hand at him, then held it out in invitation.
‘Want to dance with him?’ she offered.
‘I’ll dance with you.’
‘I already have a partner, thank you.’
‘Frosty’ ended and there was a moment’s pause before the soft sound of ‘What Child Is This?’ began. Carly began to move with Arthur once more as Piran stood up and came toward them.
He took her hand, his grip firm and warm around her fingers. Then he wrapped his other arm around her back and, holding Arthur between them, he danced with her.
They moved slowly but smoothly with the music, looking into each other’s eyes over the top of Arthur’s head. The expression in Piran’s gaze was warm and hungry and something more. Carly thought she saw a sort of puzzlement in them, as if he wasn’t quite sure he had all the answers for a change.
They danced, and only when the last notes had long since died away did they stop at last.
Under the mistletoe.
Keeping his eyes on Carly’s, Piran bent his head and kissed Arthur lightly on the top of his. Then he ran his tongue over still slightly parted lips.
‘Kissing’s not enough, Carlota,’ he said, his voice ragged.
No, it’s not, Carly wanted to say. But, fighting her own inclination as much as his because there was a limit to the amount of hurt she knew she could stand, she told him simply, ‘It has to be.’
‘For now,’ he said.
The mail came very late that day, and Carly found herself holding her breath while Piran went to fetch it, though whether she hoped there was or wasn’t a letter from Wendy she couldn’t have said.
Only after Piran came back and all he had were two letters from colleagues, a postcard of a bathing beauty from Des in Fiji and a journal on Greek archaeology did she breathe again.
He tossed Carly the postcard as she sat giving Arthur a bottle and humming along to ‘Silver Bells’. It was written in Des’s almost illegible scrawl.
Great so far. Meeting up with Jim and crew mafiana for our sail into the great unknown. Be out of touch for a couple of weeks. Don’t kill each other in the meantime—or me when I get back! Have a merry, merry one with lots of jolly surprises. Love, Des.
‘Jolly surprise, huh?’ Carly said, smiling and looking down at the baby in her arms. ‘Wouldn’t Des be shocked?’
Arthur gazed up at her solemnly.
‘You’re a very nice surprise,’ Carly told him softly, and bent her head to drop a kiss on his nose. His eyelids began to droop. In minutes he was sound asleep. But Carly made no move to go put him down in his bed. Instead she listened as the music softly wove its holiday spell and looked at the child in her arms, marveling at the beauty of new life.
There was an ache in her throat as she envied Piran this wonderful child and the future they would share. And the ache got even worse when she started envying Arthur his future with Piran.
A sudden sound made her look up and she saw Piran standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her. The look on his face was intense, brooding and disturbingly sensual. If the embers had been banked when they’d held Arthur between them after the dance, they burst into flame now.
‘Is he asleep?’ Piran asked.
Carly nodded.
‘Then put him down.’
And come to me. She didn’t have to hear him say the words. She could see them in his eyes, in his slightly parted lips, in the heightened color that ran along his cheekbones.
And if she did go to him, if she did make love with him, what would she have then?
Memories, she told herself. You’d have memories.
And it was almost enough. But not enough to cancel out what she would have as well—a broken heart.
‘Not now,’ she said.
The look he gave her was long and fierce and aching. And then he turned away.
She wanted him. He knew she wanted him—probably as badly as he wanted her.
And yet she said no. And no again.
Why?
For marriage? What did marriage matter so much? When she’d been eighteen and using it to barter, he’d seen her as simply following in her mother’s footsteps. But now…?
He was supposed to be working. He couldn’t keep his mind on the caravel. He was supposed to be writing. He couldn’t even spell words.
Except one. Carly. He typed it on to the screen. He erased it. His fingers typed it again.
He was as obsessed with her as he had been nine years ago. Only now he didn’t have the folly of youth on which to blame it. He was old enough to know better—and he didn’t.
He wanted Carly O’Reilly.
But even more, he discovered, he wanted to understand Carly O’Reilly.
With the folly of youth, he was sure he had.
Now he was far less certain.
She didn’t need a man for support the way her mother had. She had a job and he’d be the first to admit she was good at it. She didn’t need a man for self-esteem. She had plenty on her own. Yet she seemed very willing to share herself—except in bed, that was.
She positively doted on Arthur.
A part of Piran had assumed that watching her play mother to Arthur would quell his interest. But he’d been wrong about
that, too. If anything, that interest was heightened.
Heightened, hell! It was driving him up the wall.
He finally heard her put Arthur down to bed. He expected her to leave, go for a walk, avoid him. But instead she came back through the living room and went into the kitchen and started doing something with pots and pans. He could hear her in there, humming along with that Christmas tape she’d bought. He deleted her name again and tried once more to make sense out of his notes.
It wasn’t long until the sweet smell of Christmas baking drifted out of the kitchen and filled every corner of the house. His mouth watered. His stomach growled. He tried to ignore them. It wasn’t any easier than ignoring her.
He got up and followed his nose into the kitchen. Carly was bent over taking a sheet of cookies out of the oven. He shut his eyes and braced his hand against the doorjamb.
‘More subliminal suggestion?’ he asked when he opened them again.
She smiled faintly. ‘I wasn’t going to,’ she confessed. ‘I didn’t think I wanted to be reminded…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Reminded?’
‘These are my mother’s recipes. She made the same kind of cookies every Christmas no matter where we were. And some of the places, to be honest, were pretty crummy. But she believed in keeping Christmas, in “keeping hope”, she called it.’ Carly smiled, a wistful, tender smile that tugged at something deep inside Piran.
‘Last Christmas when she was with Roland and his daughters,’ Carly went on, ‘it was definitely the Christmas she’d always been hoping for—a celebration of family and love and joy. I didn’t think I wanted to be reminded this year. I didn’t think I wanted to remember what I’d lost.’ She stopped and rubbed at the corner of her eye, then smiled again. ‘I was wrong. I still hope, I guess. And I wanted to share it with Arthur. Maybe he’ll have some memory of these smells and remember the happiness of his first Christmas.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry. I’m getting sappy. It’s the season, I guess.’
Piran just looked at her. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. ‘Forget it. You can have one when they’re cool. You might not have liked my mother, Piran, but she did make good cookies.’
‘She did,’ he said quietly. Then he said, ‘I’m going for a walk.’
‘It’s hot out there. You’ll die,’ Carly warned.
Possibly. But he would definitely die in here if he didn’t give in to the urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and hold her, to kiss her gently, to love her tenderly, and then to start all over again, replacing tenderness with passion, until both of them were sated with these feelings that had been growing between them for years.
He walked the length of the pink sand beach. He tried to cool his ardor, to get his perspective, to remind himself that the last thing he needed right now was a roll in a bed or on the sand or anyplace else with Carly O’Reilly. It would only complicate his already far too complicated life.
It worked only until he came around the point and saw her paddling in the shallows with Arthur in her arms. Then all his perspective vanished, all his ardor returned, and his preoccupation with Carly O’Reilly grew greater.
Carly saw him and waved Arthur’s hand and her own.
Piran lifted a hand in reply. He didn’t say anything, even as he came closer, and she gave him another smile.
‘The cookies are cool now.’
‘I’m not,’ he said gruffly.
Her cheeks turned red. ‘Piran, I—’
‘Not your fault,’ he muttered, and plunged past her into the surf. And the moment his head broke the surface he started stroking out to sea.
‘Where are you going?’ Carly called after him.
He didn’t answer, just swam on.
Not until he reached the outer reef did Piran stop swimming and turn around, treading water and looking back at the woman and child on the shore. Carly was watching him. She was too far away for him to see the expression on her face, but the intensity of her gaze told him she was worried.
About him?
Did she think he was going to drown? Get eaten by a barracuda?
Did she care?
Yes, she probably did.
He’d seen enough of Carly over the past few weeks to know that she wasn’t quite the manipulator he’d thought she was. No matter what he thought of her mother’s marriage to his father, Carly clearly believed it had been for love. She’d been there for them both during his father’s last illness. He hadn’t. Stubborn and righteous to the last, he hadn’t come even come to the old man’s funeral.
God, what a bull-headed, moralistic prig he’d been.
He’d done his share of moralizing at Des, too, for all the good it had ever done, trying to get him to take their explorations seriously, to spend his time working and writing instead of sailing and partying.
Probably, he thought grimly, that was why Des had taken off for Fiji and left him alone with the book.
But Des hadn’t left him totally alone; he’d sent him Carly.
Everything ultimately came back to Carly.
He looked at her now, never taking her eyes off him, as if he might vanish if she did. As if it were her responsibility to keep him safe. She held Arthur. His responsibility. She’d worked on the book for weeks. His book. She’d given up her holiday and taken over for Des who had left her to do his work.
When, Piran wondered, had anyone ever done anything for her?
* * *
Arthur squirmed in her arms when he saw Piran approach and Carly almost dropped him, so slick was he from having sunscreen rubbed all over his small body.
‘Careful there,’ Carly warned him. ‘Hold still.’
‘Give him to me.’
She looked round, startled to see Piran standing barely five feet from her. He held out his arms for Arthur.
She hesitated. ‘You’re volunteering?’
Taking the baby bodily out of her embrace seemed to be all the answer he was going to give her. But since Carly had no desire to get into a tug-of-war over the baby she let go and stepped back, feeling almost naked to his gaze as she did so.
But Piran’s gaze didn’t travel seductively down her body the way it often did. ‘You go for a swim,’ he suggested. ‘Arthur and I will watch.’
Carly stared at him, uncertain how to take this turn of events. ‘Fatherhood taking hold, is it?’ she joked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, good. I really shouldn’t swim, though. If you’re going to take him, I’ll just go back and get some work done.’ She turned and started toward the beach.
‘No, don’t!’
At the urgency of his tone, Carly turned and looked at him again.
‘Stay,’ he entreated her.
It was a command, and yet it wasn’t—quite. Carly looked back over her shoulder at him.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘Arthur will think you’re abandoning him if you go. He’ll want to watch you.’
‘Or you will?’ she challenged him.
His lips pressed together for a moment. ‘I can’t help it,’ he said eventually. He seemed almost unhappy about it. Probably he was, Carly thought. He’d never wanted to want her the way he did.
‘I’ll go for a quick swim,’ she said. ‘But then I really have to go back and finish what I was working on before Arthur woke up. I finished the cookies,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t take all afternoon on them.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You deserve the break.’
‘Well, it was nice. I’m glad I took it. But now I’m working on the part about the discovery and dating of the artifacts. It’s going really fast. You’re getting better,’ she told him.
Piran grunted.
‘Really,’ Carly said, seeing the doubt on his face. ‘Once you got into that it became almost like reading a detective novel.’
He nodded. ‘It was almost like living a detective novel when we were doing it. When Des and I brought up that old gun like the ones they were making in Holland
at the time, we had to try to figure out what circumstances existed that made the owners of a Spanish caravel buy Dutch guns…’ He grinned self-consciously. ‘Sorry. I’m babbling.’
Carly shook her head. ‘No, you’re not. I’m interested. Truly. I wish…’ she began, then stopped abruptly.
‘You wish what?’
‘Nothing.’ She turned away and started out into the water. ‘Never mind. I’ll swim.’ She headed out toward the breakers.
Piran came with her.
‘Piran! Arthur will be scared!’
‘No, he won’t. Will you?’ he asked the baby, keeping pace with her. The water was almost to her breasts now. Bigger waves were coming in. Arthur’s eyes were like dishpans, they were so huge. He gripped Piran’s shoulders, but he didn’t make a sound.
‘You wish what, Carly?’ Piran persisted.
Carly shrugged, letting her body rise with the lift of the wave. ‘It’s…not important. Just silliness.’ She started to turn away. Piran’s hand reached out and caught her arm.
‘Tell me.’
She shrugged irritably. ‘I was only going to say that I wish I had been able to go on a dive like that. There. See? No big deal.’
‘An archaeological dive, you mean?’
‘Any dive. I never have—except in the pool in New York. I—’ she hesitated, then figured she might as well admit it ‘—took a course in scuba while I was helping Sloan with your last book. I thought it would give some insight into the process, the feeling, you know?’
‘I’ll take you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. The caravel is miles from here! Besides, we don’t have any time. We don’t have—’
‘Not the caravel. Just out near the point at the top of the island in the narrows.’ He pointed north. ‘There’s a wreck there—a Revolutionary War ship. Not a major discovery. Everyone has always known it was there, and it’s been salvaged. But if it’s your first time…just to give you a taste. You are certified?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Fine. How about it?’
‘We don’t have time, remember?’
‘We’ll make time.’
‘Arthur—’
A Baby for Christmas Page 11
