Fat chance. Whatever words he was waiting for never came. Carly didn’t move to go through the gate, but she didn’t speak either. She simply stood there, and finally Piran flicked a sidelong glance in her direction.
‘He deserved being loved,’ Piran said softly. ‘He was a good man.’ A better man than I’ll ever be, he added silently.
‘Everyone-deserves to be loved,’ Carly said softly.
Their eyes met. Hers were wide and caring and seemed to offer him her heart. The same way she’d offered it to him nine years ago.
He shut his eyes against the memory of the innocent child she had been.
‘Well,’ she said more briskly after a moment, ‘thank you for taking me diving today. I enjoyed it.’
Once more he thought about offering to take her to see the train.
And then he knew he’d better leave well enough alone.
The next afternoon there was a pastel envelope in the post. Carly picked it out of the basket with a quiver of apprehension, studied it for a moment, then carried it in and dropped it on the keyboard on top of Piran’s fingers.
They closed around it. His knuckles went almost white.
‘It’s postmarked over two weeks ago,’ Carly said.
Piran reached for the letter-opener and slit it open and began to read.
Carly bit her lip, resisting the temptation to step round behind him and read it over his shoulder.
It wasn’t long. In mere seconds she saw his teeth come together. He leaned his head back against the chair and shut his eyes. He swallowed. Then he opened his eyes, folded the letter carefully once more and stuck it back in the envelope.
‘Well, I guess that’s it,’ he said flatly.
‘What’d she say?’
‘That she has a surprise for me. She says she’s sure I’ll be thrilled. At least—’ he lifted his gaze and met Carly’s again ‘—she hopes I will be.’
‘A surprise,’ Carly echoed hollowly, and felt sick.
She didn’t know what she’d expected the letter to say. She supposed maybe she’d been hoping it would say, In case you find a baby on your veranda someday, it isn’t mine.
Piran’s lips pressed together in a flat line. ‘Must’ve got lost in the mail for a while. It should’ve got here before Arthur came.’
‘So I suppose that makes Wendy Arthur’s mother,’ Carly said in a voice as toneless as his.
What difference did it make? she asked herself. Someone had to be Arthur’s mother. She knew she wasn’t.
She just wished she were.
There. She’d admitted it. She’d put the thought into words, even though only she had heard them, acknowledged the truth of them.
Piran’s apology yesterday had left her stunned. And aching. All the hopes, all the dreams, all the ‘might have beens’ wouldn’t leave her alone. She hadn’t been able to settle for the rest of the day. She’d done her best to look as if she was working. She’d felt a complete fraud.
She’d gone to bed early, hoping that tomorrow would be better, that she would have her equilibrium back. So far, it wasn’t much of an improvement.
‘Didn’t she at least say why she was going to leave him with you?’ she asked rather desperately.
‘She didn’t say much. Just some babble about her surprise making me take her seriously.’
‘Well, it’s certainly done that,’ Carly said.
‘Hasn’t it just?’
They were silent for a long moment, each absorbed in his and her own thoughts.
Then, ‘Damn!’ Piran smacked his fist on the desktop. ‘I wish to God I’d read those earlier letters!’
Before Carly had a chance to ask what good it would have done, Arthur, with a surprisingly well-developed sense of good timing, set up a wail from the bedroom.
Carly jumped out of her chair and hurried to pick him up.
‘Swim time?’ Piran asked when she came back after having changed and fetched him.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t take the time today,’ Carly said.
‘Why not?’
‘I…haven’t been getting a lot done. I’ve been…distracted.’
‘You’ve been working flat out all day. We both have.’ ‘But we’ve only got a little more than a week and a half until it’s due.’
‘We’ll make it. And do you honestly think we can work with him awake? Both of us?’
‘Probably not,’ Carly admitted. ‘But one of us ought to.’
Piran nodded. ‘Then I will.’
She was relieved that he wouldn’t be coming with them. ‘We won’t be long,’ she promised. ‘Hold him, will you, while I change into my suit?’
She held out the baby and Piran showed no hesitation in taking him. He even dropped a kiss on Arthur’s forehead.
Something in the area of Carly’s heart suddenly seemed to squeeze tight. She hurried out the room and went in to her own, stripping off her shorts and shirt and pulling on her suit. Then she caught her hair up in a ponytail, slipped her feet into beach sandals and went back to get Arthur.
‘Thanks.’ She picked up two towels, scooped the baby out of Piran’s arms and headed toward the door. ‘See you in a while.’
‘Yeah.’
She knew she’d promised not to take long, but once she got down to the beach where the water was warm, the breeze was gentle, and Arthur clearly loved it—it was far easier to stay than to go back and be with Piran.
Because she wanted to be with Piran, heaven help her, and the more she was with him, the more tangled her emotions became.
She wanted things to happen that she knew would never happen—love, marriage, family, happily ever after. She’d told herself she’d outgrown that nonsense where he was concerned. And she’d even half believed it until yesterday.
And then, when he’d apologized, when he’d told her he’d been wrong about her—and her mother—all those years ago, all her hopes had come flooding back.
God, she was such a fool.
‘Ah, da!’ Arthur jumped in her arms, a wide grin spreading across his face as he waved his hands.
‘Glad to see me, are you?’
Carly spun round in the water, almost falling as she did so. Piran was close enough to reach out and catch her, pulling both her and Arthur against him.
‘See?’ he said to Carly. ‘I told you he could talk!’
‘What are you doing here?’
He gave her a guilty grin. ‘I have no willpower?’
‘Piran, really—you need to—’
‘Relax. I finished the chapter and I decided to reward myself with a swim. OK?’
He was still holding them and Carly didn’t think it was OK at all. And there was no way she was going to be able to relax. Her body was responding even to that much contact. She tried to wriggle away. ‘So go swim,’ she said gruffly.
‘In a minute. I think a reward from you would be nice, too.’
‘What kind of reward?’ Carly said suspiciously.
‘A kiss?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I never gave you a kiss for finishing any of the others!’
‘Obviously we need to renegotiate.’
She gave him a shove. ‘Go swim.’
He feigned hurt, but he let her and Arthur go, turning to plunge under an incoming wave and swimming with long, powerful strokes out toward the reef. Carly stood and watched him, her body still tingling, her heart still hammering.
‘Ah, da,’ Arthur said again.
‘Oh, yes,’ Carly agreed. ‘Oh, yes.’
Piran swam almost to the reef, then turned and swam parallel to the shore. Carly walked in the water, keeping abreast of him, her eye always on his dark head as it dipped and rose with the movement of the waves. At last he turned and started swimming back and she turned too and stayed with him.
‘Someday you’ll swim like that,’ she told Arthur.
Arthur giggled and gummed her shoulder, then tugged on her ponytail and grabbed her ear. ‘Uh, da!’ he chortled.
Carly hugged
his small, slippery body close, cherishing these moments, knowing how soon the time would come when she would be missing him.
And Piran.
They had reached the spot where the trail led back up the hill toward the house now and Piran was swimming back toward her. As he reached the shallows and emerged, the water slid down his strong muscled chest, plastered his navy boxer-style trunks against his abdomen, against his groin. He looked like Neptune, Carly thought, rising from the sea. He was looking right at her, his eyes dark, his mouth smiling.
And then he looked beyond her up toward the beach, and he stopped smiling. He hesitated, and she saw some-thing flicker in his gaze. Then he came toward her more quickly and reached out to grasp her arm. He slipped his around her shoulder.
‘What’s the matter?’ Carly said, because this touch was not quite the same as the earlier one. That one had been teasing and easy, albeit hungry. This one was pure leashed tension.
‘Piran?’ She slanted a glance at him, but he wasn’t even looking at her.
His gaze was fixed on a woman who must have been standing at the bottom of the trail and was now coming across the beach. She had thick, honey-coloured hair that hung loose down her back. She wore white shorts and a flame-red halter-top. She was slightly curvier than the average model, but no less beautiful. She reminded Carly of exactly the sort of women who had swarmed around Piran all those years ago—the pretty, pouty ones who adored him and whom he had adored in turn.
‘Piran!’
The woman was waving now, smiling broadly, and Piran muttered under his breath, ‘Give me Arthur,’ and promptly took him from Carly before she could even make a move. He strode doggedly out of the water holding the child, hauling Carly with him until he stopped to face the woman.
She wasn’t smiling now. She looked apprehensive, confused as she looked from him to Arthur and Carly.
‘Wendy,’ Piran said curtly.
Carly’s jaw dropped. Wendy?
This was Arthur’s mother?
Wendy was regarding Piran nervously. ‘You…got my letter?’
A corner of Piran’s mouth lifted sardonically. ‘Today.’ She blanched. ‘Oh, dear. So you weren’t expecting…’ Her voice wavered and faded away.
‘No, my dear, I certainly wasn’t expecting…’ Piran drawled, twisting the final word.
‘So you’re not…happy?’
‘On the contrary,’ Piran said, ‘I’m quite happy, thank you very much.’
Wendy brightened. ‘You are?’
‘Yes. I’m also married.’
She stared at him. So did Carly.
‘Married?’ Wendy echoed.
Married? Carly thought just as he hauled her forward and said, ‘This is my wife. Carlota. Carly, this is Wendy Jeffries. You remember me telling you about her.’ His grip meant there was only one answer to that. He was going to leave bruises for days.
‘O-of course. How nice to meet you,’ she stammered.
Wendy didn’t say anything. She just stared—first at Piran, then at Carly, and finally at Arthur.
‘He’s—’ she started, but Piran cut her off.
‘He’s mine,’ he said in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘I’ll admit it wherever it needs to be admitted. I’ll take full responsibility in the courts, wherever I have to. I fully intend to provide for him; you don’t have to worry.’
Wendy blinked. ‘What?’
‘1 said, you don’t have to worry about Arthur. Obviously you don’t want him. Fair enough. I don’t blame you in the circumstances. But Carly and I do want him.’
Wendy stared at him. So did Carly. Wendy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Then she ran her tongue over her lips as if she was considering what to say.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ Piran demanded in a tone that said she’d better not have.
‘Piran, I—’
‘Look, I don’t know all the legal ins and outs. I’ve never had a kid before, believe me. Probably I owe you something—support, recompense, I don’t know. Whatever it is, I’ll do right by you as long as Carly and I can keep him.’
‘Piran—’
‘You can talk to my lawyer! We’ll go back up to the house and I’ll get you his number. I’ll call him first and you can when you get back to the States. He’ll straighten everything out, do the legal—’
‘Piran!’
‘What is it?’
‘The baby—Arthur? He’s…not mine.’
‘What?’ Piran yelled it. Carly thought it. They both stared at Wendy Jeffries. ‘What did you say?’
Wendy shrugged helplessly. ‘You seem to think that I…that we…Did someone leave you a baby?’
‘Someone left me Arthur,’ Piran said tersely. ‘On the veranda a little over a week ago. I thought it was you! He’s the right age, damn it. And you said…you wrote me all those letters! You wrote about a surprise!’ He glared at her accusingly.
Wendy flushed deeply. ‘I didn’t mean…I was trying to reestablish what little relationship we’d begun. We didn’t meet in the best of circumstances, as you might recall. It was a terrible time in your life.’
‘I know. That’s why I thought…’
‘You were hurting badly. You talked about it a lot. To me. And then I didn’t see you any more. But for one night we had been close. And I thought maybe it meant something. I hoped it meant something,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I’d see if things were better with you now. So I wrote. Lots. I was a fool, I guess. And I had some vacation coming and before Thanksgiving I saw Des and he said you were both going to be here over Christmas. So I thought I’d come down. He never said you were married!’
Piran’s jaw set tight. The color on his face was at least as deep as it was on hers.
‘Arthur couldn’t be mine, Piran,’ she said after a moment. ‘We never even made love.’
Piran looked as if he wanted the ocean to come and swallow him up. He shook his head desperately. ‘I couldn’t—I didn’t…remember it all. Like you said, I was a basket case back then. After Gordon died. I remember going back to your apartment and then—’ he shrugged ‘—I don’t remember what happened. When Arthur showed up, I just assumed—’
‘No. You drank. You talked. You cried. And then you fell asleep in my bed,’ Wendy told him. ‘I thought we might have something eventually. As I said, I hoped. But we never made love.’
Piran bent his head. ‘Oh, lord, I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I never meant—Oh, geez, what a mess.’
‘I shouldn’t have come,’ Wendy said.
Piran grimaced wryly. ‘Probably better that you did, though maybe not as far as you’re concerned. But now at least I know you’re not his mother.’
‘But you don’t know who is.’
He sighed. ‘No.’
Wendy looked from Piran to Carly, then back at Piran again, and shook her head. ‘You have an understanding wife, Piran. You’re lucky. She really must love you.’
‘It’s not a bad idea, you know,’ Piran said that evening after they had seen Wendy on to the water taxi and Ben had given them a ride back home.
They hadn’t had a moment alone to discuss anything until Ben left, and once he had Arthur had needed feeding and while Carly had done that Piran had disappeared down to the beach.
Carly hadn’t called him back. She hadn’t known what to say to him. She still didn’t. And she didn’t really know what he was talking about now.
She looked up from the manuscript she’d been trying to concentrate on. He was standing just inside the door, staring out the window into the darkness, not looking at her, one hand tucked into the pocket of his shorts, the other balled lightly into a fist. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Getting married.’
‘Getting married?’ The words gave her stomach an odd roller coaster feeling when she said them.
‘I thought about it while I was walking and I thought, Why not?’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘I mean, it’s what you wanted, isn’t it? That’s what y
ou said.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I know you didn’t mean like this, but let’s be logical. Why the hell shouldn’t we? God knows we’ve wanted each other for years!’
‘For heaven’s sake, Piran—’
‘We have. You can’t deny it. And we would have made love by now if you’d been willing, and you know it. You haven’t been because you want marriage. So, OK, I’m offering marriage.’ He looked right at her as he said it.
Carly felt a pain where the roller coaster had been. ‘Such a charming proposal,’ she said with as much lightness as she could muster.
Piran kicked at the rug underfoot. ‘I’m sorry. But you must know by now that romantic is not really my style. And this whole mess hasn’t exactly been charming, you have to admit. But it would work,’ he went on a little desperately. ‘Surely you must see that?’
‘There’s more to marriage than wanting each other,’ Carly said faintly, unsure exactly what she saw beyond a meshing of her wildest dream and her worst nightmare.
‘We’ve got more. You like Arthur, don’t you?’
‘Of course I like Arthur!’
‘And you like it here?’ He looked at her for confirmation then went on. ‘And you like to dive. You said you’d always wanted to dive. If we get married, you’ll be able to dive all the time. Here. In Greece. Maybe in the Pacific if that business Des is looking into works out. And we’re doing good together on the book, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ Carly admitted, her throat tight.
‘So, like I said, why not? We get married and Arthur has two parents. You get to dive. We can write books together all day and have sex together all night.’ He looked positively pleased with himself.
Carly wanted to scream. ‘What about Arthur’s mother, whoever she is?’
‘What about her?’
‘When she shows up—’
‘She can damned well leave again! She doesn’t want him. She proved that. If she hasn’t come by now, she hasn’t got a chance in hell of getting him back from me. Especially if I’m married.’ He looked at her now, his dark gaze intent. ‘Come on, Carly. What do you say?’
A Baby for Christmas Page 13
