He sat in stunned silence and saw his future slipping away. No one else spoke either. In the distance he could hear the surf hitting the sand, a frog near by under a coconut tree.
Just like yesterday. But nothing was as it had been yesterday. Nothing at all. And Piran couldn’t sit here any longer and pretend that it was. He shoved himself to his feet. ‘Congratulations,’ he said abruptly. ‘I hope you’re very happy. It was a long walk back from town and I’m hot. So if you don’t mind I think I’ll go for a swim.’
He left without another word.
It might not have been the shortest engagement on record, Carly thought, but it was close.
Probably she should have been brave enough to stick around until Piran got back from his swim and bid him a pleasant farewell.
But even though she knew she should, knew as well that there would be no end to Angelica and Des’s speculations if she left at once, still she packed her bags and did just exactly that.
She couldn’t stay around and pretend that nothing had happened. She couldn’t even bring herself to follow him down to the shore.
He hadn’t asked her. And if she went, what would he say to her that she could possibly want to hear? Would she have to endure awkward protestations that he would marry her anyway? Desperate mumblings that might get him out of an engagement he no longer wanted?
No, thank you. Carly didn’t need to hear what she already knew.
She wanted to go home.
‘Tonight?’ Des demanded. ‘You want to leave tonight?’
‘Not tonight,’ Carly said. ‘Now. There’s a plane at six. If I go now, I can catch it. I mean, why stay around?’ she said desperately. ‘The manuscript is, to all intents and purposes, finished. At least, Piran’s part is. I can do my part in New York. Besides,’ she lied, ‘I miss the city. I miss my friends. It’s Christmas, Des,’ she added plaintively.
She didn’t know which of her pleas convinced him, but finally he shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want. I owe you big. But what about saying goodbye to Piran?’
‘He won’t care.’ She didn’t know whether she hoped that was true or feared it was.
‘OK,’ Des said at last. ‘Good thing I borrowed Sam’s moke. I can run you to town in that.’
‘I’ll be ready in five minutes,’ Carly said. She was ready in less.
Des waited with her in the Quonset hut terminal until the plane arrived. He looked as if he wanted to apologize again, to explain things that as far as Carly could see could never be explained, Or if they could she didn’t want to hear them.
She avoided his gaze, shifting from one foot to the other, watching the clock and then the doorway to the terminal, half afraid that Piran would come through it at any moment—though rationally she knew there was no reason why he should.
Rationally she was sure he would be grateful to come back and find that she was gone and that they would never have to face each other again.
Still, by the time the plane arrived, she had bitten her thumbnail down to the quick and had Des asking anxiously, ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Fine. Just eager to get home.’ Carly gave a nervous little laugh. ‘I think I must have island fever. You know, feeling too hemmed in. I just want to get away!’
Des frowned. ‘Did you and Piran—?’
‘No!’ Carly leaned forward and kissed Des lightly on the cheek, then turned and bolted toward the door that the other three passengers had already gone through. ‘Bye.’
She didn’t say how lovely his son was or how much she was going to miss him or anything else irrelevant but oh, so true. She just ran for the plane and scrambled up the steps, hugging the carryall with the manuscript against her chest.
Diana would be pleased. So would Sloan. She’d done her job. And that was, after all, what she’d come for. Not for Des or Arthur. Or, God help her, Piran. She swallowed hard. Her throat ached. She felt a stinging behind her eyes.
Editors don’t cry, she told herself fiercely as the plane began to rumble down the runway.
At least, she hoped they didn’t.
‘What do you mean, she left?’
‘Just what I said. She said you’d finished the book-at least, you had finished your part—so there was nothing to wait around for. I guess she still had some revising to do, but—’
‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’ Piran glared at his brother. He couldn’t believe what Des had just told him, even though the knot that was tying itself in his stomach meant that his emotions seemed to know instinctively that it was true.
He’d been gone for three hours. It was already dark by the time he’d walked the length of the damned beach, trying to sort out what had happened, trying to figure out what to do next.
He’d wished Carly had gone with him, talked to him, listened to him, but as he’d walked he’d told himself that maybe it was better that she hadn’t. Maybe they both needed a little time alone before they decided what to do together.
Or so he’d thought. Apparently Carly had made the decision for him.
‘She said you wouldn’t care. The book is why she came. That’s what it was all about.’
‘Was it?’ Piran’s tone was scathing. She’d said he wouldn’t care? He kicked at the slats of the deck railing, then jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
Des watched him without speaking for a long moment. Then, ‘I thought it was,’ Des said quietly. ‘Did something happen between you?’
‘None of your damned business!’
‘I only thought—’
‘Then stop thinking! You’re no good at it.’
‘Look, Piran, I’m sorry. Sorry for sticking you with Carly. Sorry for the whole mess. I’ve told you, it’s not like I knew about A.J.’
‘Who? Oh, you mean Arthur? This has nothing to do with Arthur.’
‘Then what the hell are you so upset about?’ Des paused and considered his older brother narrowly. ‘Did you do something to Carly?’
Piran hunched his shoulders. ‘What the hell would I do to Carly?’
‘Hurt her.’
‘Of course not.’ Unless you counted accusing her of being a gold digger, taking her virginity, and proposing a marriage of convenience so he’d have someone to take care of his bastard child.
Piran raked a hand through his hair. Hell, no wonder she’d wasted no time getting out of there!
Once Arthur’s identity had been resolved and any obligation she might have felt toward him thus relieved, the weight of the world must have dropped from her shoulders.
Obviously Arthur had been the attraction, not him. She hadn’t wasted any time dumping him. He felt a hard, heavy ache somewhere deep inside that he didn’t wholly comprehend.
It didn’t make sense. He told himself he should be feeling relieved as well. He was well off out of such a marriage of convenience.
It wasn’t as if he really wanted to marry Carly O’Reilly.
Was it?
Carly made herself buy a Christmas tree. It was the day before Christmas Eve and the tree was the last one sitting by the grocery on the corner of 92nd and Broadway, and it was really pretty dreadful-looking. She told herself she felt sorry for it, that she needed to give it a home for the holiday.
But she wasn’t sure if she was feeling sorrier for the tree or for herself.
It’s what you wanted, she reminded herself hourly. You were the one who wanted not to have family around at Christmas. You could have gone to Roland’s. You could still go to John’s. He’d renewed his offer only the night before.
But she didn’t want any of them.
She only wanted Piran.
She wanted the dream to go on, wanted to wake up and find herself in his arms, loving him, holding him, planning a future with him and with Arthur.
Ah, Arthur.
What a shock it still was whenever she thought about Des and Angelica’s arrival, their startling revelation.
She thought about it all the time, mulled it o
ver, wondered at the workings of providence. What would Piran have done if Des and Angelica had come later? Too late? After he and Carly had married?
Thank God that hadn’t happened. She couldn’t have borne it, knowing that he was trapped and it wasn’t even his fault.
But she didn’t seem to be bearing this much better.
‘Hey, lady, you’re gonna wreck that tree dragging it through the slush!’
Carly turned to see a rough-looking teenage boy leaning against a lamppost, watching her. He shoved himself upright as he spoke and came toward her. Carly glanced around nervously.
‘How far you goin’?’ he asked as he took it from her and hoisted it on his shoulder.
‘Er, the other side of Amsterdam. Halfway up the block. It’s fine, really. I—’
‘Lead on.’
And what else could she do with him standing there with her tree on his shoulder?
He carried it all the way to her stoop and up the steps. There he stopped.
‘I won’t carry it in for you. Wouldn’t want to make you too nervous.’ He grinned and sketched her a quick salute. ‘Merry Christmas.’
And before Carly could do more than stare after him he’d bounded down the stairs and headed back down the street.
‘M-merry Christmas,’ Carly called after him, still astonished at the uncalled-for good deed.
She thought about it. It made her smile—the first smile she’d managed since she’d got home three nights before.
‘Things are looking up,’ she promised herself. But by the time she had wrestled the tree up three flights of stairs she wasn’t quite so sanguine.
Still, she did her best to muster some holiday spirit. She put on a CD of cheerful seasonal music—and if it didn’t have any of the songs on the tape she’d left in Conch Cay that was all right too. Then she vacuumed her carpet using pine air-freshener beads in the vacuum. Finally she set up the tree in front of the window overlooking the garden four floors below.
She’d bought two strings of lights at the drugstore by the subway stop, and she was just getting them out of their boxes when the phone rang. She picked it up.
‘Last chance,’ a cheerful masculine voice said.
‘Oh, John, I can’t.’
‘Of course you can. I’m leaving in a couple of hours. You’ve got time to get ready. What else are you doing? You’re finished with the book.’
‘I still have some work to do on it,’ Carly hedged. She probably could have finished it already. Probably should have. But she couldn’t bring herself to let it go.
She’d taken the manuscript out of her carryall when she’d arrived back in the apartment three nights ago. She’d set it on the counter between the living room and her tiny kitchen where she passed it fifty times a day. So she would remember that she still had it and that it needed work, she told herself.
As if she could forget.
Sometimes she picked it up, intending to go through it one last time. Instead she stood staring out the window, holding it against her chest and rocking back and forth, hugging it to her the way just days ago she had hugged Arthur.
Arthur. Piran.
If she didn’t have the manuscript to hold, it would all seem like a dream now. Perhaps she should be trying to convince herself that it was.
But she couldn’t. It was real—all of it—too real. And the manuscript was the only thing she had left to show for it.
Unless you counted her broken heart.
‘Come on, Carly, what do you say?’
‘Oh, John, really, I can’t. If I came with you, your parents would get the wrong impression.’
‘That I like you? That you like me?’ ‘That we’re serious about each other.’
‘I am serious.’
‘But I’m…’ She stopped herself before she said the word.
‘Not?’ John said it for her. He sighed. ‘You couldn’t maybe muster a little seriousness?’
Carly could tell he was hurt though he was trying to sound offhand. ‘You’re a wonderful friend,’ she told him, and meant it.
‘Damned by faint praise.’
‘No, truly. I’m very fond of you.’
‘Even worse.’
‘Merry Christmas, John,’ she said gently.
‘Merry Christmas, Carly.’
She stood holding the receiver for a long moment before she finally set it down. She might have been able to forget if she’d gone with him. She might have started looking forward instead of back.
She told herself she was a fool. Piran didn’t love her. If she gave him proper encouragement, someday John might.
Did she want to end up an old maid just because the one man she’d ever loved only needed her as a convenience?
How pathetic was she, for heaven’s sake?
Still, when the buzzer rang an hour later and she knew it had to be John stopping on his way out of the city to give her one very last chance, she still couldn’t bring herself to throw some clothes in a bag and go with him.
In fact she couldn’t even bring herself to go downstairs. He would leave if he didn’t get an answer, she assured herself even though the buzzer sounded once again.
‘Don’t do this, John,’ she muttered, huddling into the sofa. ‘Please don’t.’
But John apparently wasn’t taking nothing for an answer. At that moment she heard the buzzer blast again. And again.
Carly got up off the sofa and went into the bathroom, turned on the water and put her hands over her ears.
Finally, after ten minutes, she shut it off and came out. Silence. She breathed a sigh of relief.
There was a knock on the door.
Damn! He must have rung everyone in the building and someone must have pressed the answering buzzer to let him in. Carly shoved her hands through her hair, then sighed and went to answer it.
‘John, I told you, I’m not—’
It wasn’t John.
‘Piran?’
‘In the flesh.’ He had a duffel bag in his hand and he pushed past her into the room, scowling as he came. ‘Who’s John?’ he asked her at the same moment that she asked,
‘What are you doing here?’
They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. Carly could have waited forever, so stunned was she at the sight of him.
Piran was far more impatient. He glared at her. ‘Shut the damned door and tell me who John is.’
Numb, Carly did, then leaned against the door, grateful to have something to hold her up.
‘Well?’ Piran prompted.
‘He’s a friend,’ she said faintly. What are you doing here? Tell me! she wanted to shout at him.
‘A good friend?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Have you slept with him?’
‘What?’
A dull red flush crept up Piran’s neck. He shoved a hand through his hair. He dropped the duffel bag and paced around her small living room. ‘Forget it,’ he muttered.
‘I will not forget it,’ Carly said, incensed. ‘How can you ask me that after you…after you and I…?’
‘I know, I know!’ He kicked at the carpet. ‘That’s why I said forget it!’
Carly wasn’t likely to, but she pressed her lips together in a tight line and composed herself. ‘All right. I
answered your question. Now you answer mine. Why did you come here? What do you want?’
‘You left.’ The bleak tone of his words surprised her. She looked at him closely.
‘I thought you’d be glad.’
He frowned. ‘Why should I be?”
‘Well, once Des and Angelica showed up, you were free…of Arthur at least. But you still had me.’ She shrugged awkwardly. ‘I didn’t want to hang around to listen to you tell me the engagement was off, thank you very much. I mean, it isn’t as if you really wanted to marry me!’ She blinked rapidly, hating the way her eyes were filling with tears.
‘No,’ he said softly. He bent his head, and whatever hope she’d held in one ti
ny corner of her heart that he might deny it died with that one word.
She swallowed painfully. ‘So…what’s the problem?’ Piran hesitated, then let out a harsh breath. ‘The problem is I do now.’
The words were spoken so quickly that Carly wasn’t sure she heard them—or, if she had, if she’d heard them right.
‘What?’ she asked after a moment.
‘I want to marry you now.’ A corner of his mouth lifted. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? Nine years ago you wanted marriage and I walked away. Then we agreed to it for Arthur’s sake. And now, when Arthur doesn’t need us any more, when he has his own set of parents at last, you walk away…and I can’t.’
Carly just stared at him. ‘Why can’t you?’ she said faintly. She wondered if she’d fallen asleep and started to dream. She looked around the apartment, trying to ground herself.
She saw the manuscript lying on the counter. She saw her scraggly Christmas tree still only halfway strung with lights. And she saw Piran St Just looking at her with a tormented expression in his eyes.
‘Why do you think?’ he said harshly.
Carly simply shook her head, not certain of anything now.
He gave a ragged half-laugh. ‘You can’t even imagine, can you, after all the good and sensible reasons for getting married that I gave you before?’ ‘Well, most of them seemed more to my benefit than yours,’ Carly said cautiously. ‘Besides Arthur and the editing. I mean, I’d get to go diving, travel, write books—’
‘Make love?’
Carly felt her cheeks warm. ‘That too,’ she admitted.
‘That too,’ he echoed mockingly. ‘God, you are well rid of me. I should never have come.’ He started for the door, but she was blocking his way. ‘Move.’
Carly stayed where she was.
‘Why did you come, Piran?’ she asked him quietly, barely daring to hope. ‘Why do you want to marry me if not for Arthur?’
His throat worked. He rocked back and forward on his heels. ‘For the time-honored reason, I suppose,’ he said bitterly when the silence had dragged on far too long. ‘Because I love you, damn it!’
He glared at her as if defying her to dispute it. She wasn’t about to. She started to smile.
A Baby for Christmas Page 16
