‘That’s right, go ahead and laugh,’ he snarled. ‘And then go off with this John character. I don’t care. Just move out of my way!’
‘No.’ She met his gaze defiantly. ‘And you do care. You just admitted it.’
‘So now we’re even.’
‘Yes, we are.’ Carly nodded slowly. ‘Because I love you too.’
As she spoke the words she pushed away from the door at last and crossed the few feet that separated them. She slid her arms around him, and Piran groaned as her hands locked against his back and her lips lifted to touch his.
It was a kiss as hungry and eager and passionate as the ones they’d shared on her birthday nine years before. It was a kiss as sweet and tender as the ones he’d given her after they’d made love just days ago. It was ecstasy.
And it was agony when Piran finally broke it moments later to ask raggedly, ‘You’re not just saying that, are you?’
Carly laughed. ‘Does it feel like it?’
‘No, but—God, Carly, by rights you ought to hate me. Are you sure?’
‘I think I’m the one who ought to be asking that question. I’ve loved you for years. You didn’t love me last week.’
Piran smiled wryly. ‘I did. I just didn’t realize it. I never admitted it to myself. Not until after Des came and robbed me of my excuse for marrying you, that is.’ He met her gaze and held it and Carly saw in his eyes everything she’d ever hoped to see.
She touched his cheek. ‘Do you need an excuse?’ she asked him softly.
‘Not any more.’ He kissed her again and showed her what he meant with his lips as well as his words. ‘I have the best one of all and the only one that matters: I love you.’
‘Oh, Piran!’ She hugged him tightly, kissed him back, and didn’t object in the least when his fingers fumbled open the buttons of her shirt and made quick work of sliding down the zipper of her jeans. As she led him into the bedroom, she was busy doing the same to him.
‘Do you have a thing about Christmas trees?’ Piran asked her late the next morning as she was making him toast and coffee. They were both in her tiny kitchen, stepping on each other’s feet and getting in each other’s way, but it really didn’t matter because it simply gave them more excuses to touch and kiss.
‘I like them. Why?’
‘Well, you dragged that one home on Conch Cay. And I notice you’ve got one half dressed over there.’ Piran nodded in the direction of the tree that Carly had never finished putting lights on the night before because she and Piran had had far more interesting things to do.
‘Maybe I do have a thing about them,’ Carly said now, considering the tree and the possibility. ‘They remind me of the good things in life, the things people sharehome and family and hope. I was having a hard time mustering it with this one, though,’ she admitted, ‘until you came.’
‘I know what you mean.’ He bent and fished in his duffel bag which sat beside the sofa, then he handed her a wadded-up beach towel. ‘Open it.’
Carly set it down on the table and did just that. Inside it she found smaller towels. Carefully she opened each one. She found the fishing lures and flies that she’d hung on the tree in Conch Cay. She found the bits of sea glass, the shells, the pods, the fishnet and the driftwood.
She looked at him, amazed. ‘You brought all the ornaments on the tree?’
‘They were ours, not Des’s and Angelica’s. Our home and our family and our hope.’ His voice was almost fierce in its intensity. He looked right at her. ‘They have to make their own. They are. I told them how.’
Carly smiled. She laid her fingers against his cheek. His hand came up and wrapped around hers. He pressed a kiss into her palm.
‘I didn’t know what I was going to do with them when I took them,’ he said after a moment. ‘Des thought I was out of my mind. I was. It seemed a hell of a long shot bringing them here.’ He hesitated, then asked, ‘Can we put them on your tree?’
‘Our tree,’ Carly corrected him.
It took them most of the afternoon. And when they were finished Carly turned out the lights except for the ones on the tree, lit a pair of candles on the mantel, then curled up next to Piran on the sofa. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Beautiful,’ he agreed. ‘But I think it needs a little something right over there.’ He pointed to a bare spot.
‘I can move the driftwood.’ Carly started to get up.
But Piran caught her hand and pulled her back down. He reached into the duffel bag again and handed her a small sack,
‘You put these where they belong.’
‘What?’ She opened the sack. In it were two even smaller wrapped packages. She looked at Piran. He nodded. She opened the first one. It was a small black velvet box. It held a ring. A diamond solitaire ring.
‘I said I was going Christmas shopping.’
She started. ‘But that was…that was before…’
‘It was, but even then I didn’t want any question about this being a legitimate marriage. I couldn’t have said, but somewhere inside I knew. Will you wear it, Carly?’
And this time Carly didn’t even bother to blink back the tears. ‘Forever,’ she promised.
He slid the ring on her finger, then kissed her. ‘Open the other one.’
She fumbled with the wrapping, then opened a small cardboard box to draw out a tiny wooden object.
‘It…it’s Arthur’s sailboat!’ She lifted wide eyes toward Piran. ‘But surely you should have left this for him?’
‘I did. Every little boy should have a boat. But before I left I bought another one. Call it foolishness. Call it desperation. Call it love. But I was hoping,’ he said, drawing her into his arms, ‘as only a desperate man dares hope, that someday somehow I might be able to talk you into having an Arthur of our own…’
IMPRINT: e-book Sexy
ISBN: 9781460878156
TITLE: A BABY FOR CHRISTMAS
First Australian Publication 2012
Copyright © 2012 ANNE MCALLISTER
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. N.S.W., Australia 2067.
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