A Baby for Christmas Read online

  ‘Yes,’ she said tersely. ‘Come on.’ She held out a hand to him.

  He scowled. ‘I don’t need your help.’

  ‘Fine. Sit there forever. I don’t care.’ She turned away.

  ‘Carly!’

  When she looked back he was glowering at her. He reached out a grudging hand. She hesitated, then grasped it. And there it was—the jolt she always felt when she touched Piran St Just.

  She pulled him to his feet and let go at once.

  ‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ She turned away again, but she didn’t start toward the house until he did. Then she fell into step beside him, watching him worriedly out of the corner of her eye, half expecting him to topple over any moment.

  ‘I’m all right now,’ he said as they reached the veranda. ‘I’m not going to croak on you.’

  ‘What a relief.’ She waited until he’d climbed the short flight of steps, then she picked up her duffel bag and started into the house.

  Piran stopped at the door and turned back to face her. ‘I’ll work with you, but that’s it. You’re not staying here.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You can stay in town.’

  ‘Des said—’

  ‘The hell with Des!’

  ‘Well, fine. You want me to stay in town? I’d be de lighted. But you’re paying for it. Diana certainly isn’t going to give me my expenses for something that’s above and beyond my duties. And I’m not about to pay for them!’ She was so angry that she didn’t give a damn if he still thought she was money-grubbing!

  Piran dug in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He peeled off several large-denomination notes and handed them to her.

  ‘You can take the bicycle. There’s one along the side of the house. Leave your bag here. When you find something, send Ben back out to get your bag.’ He turned away and he probably would have gone right in and shut the door in her face if she hadn’t spoken up.

  ‘No. Not now.’

  ‘Wha—?’

  ‘I’m hot, and I’ve been traveling since dawn. I seem to remember your father once saying that the St Justs were famous for their hospitality. I would like a moment to catch my breath and have a glass of water.’

  At the remark about his father Piran turned sharply and shot her a hard glance. Then he grimaced and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. ‘Oh, hell, all right. Come on.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  GRACIOUS he was not, but Carly was every bit as tired and hot by that time as she’d said she was, and she was too annoyed to care what Piran’s tone of voice conveyed.

  She followed him in.

  Nothing inside Blue Moon Cottage had changed at all in the intervening years. The walls were still white and cool. The terrazzo floors gleamed. The white wicker sofa and chairs with their bright blue and green patterned cushions still encouraged her to come and sit a while. The mini-blinds were open to let in the air, but slanted to cut down on the afternoon sun, and the outside vegetation filtered away most of the heat. Overhead a fiveblade fan circled lazily.

  It was the only place where Carly had spent any time while she was growing up that she remembered missing after they’d left.

  In spite of having to see Piran again, she’d been looking forward to coming back just to see if the charm remained. It did. Though whether that was a good thing or not she wasn’t sure.

  ‘I know where the kitchen is,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll just get a drink. You can go rest.’ He still looked pale.

  He ignored her. ‘I’ll rest when you’re gone.’ He headed for the kitchen. ‘I’ve got iced tea if you’d rather,’ he said over his shoulder, and Carly wondered if he only said it because of her comment about the St Just hospitality.

  ‘Thank you. That would be lovely.’

  He nodded, went to the refrigerator, poured her a glass, then poured another for himself. Then he nodded toward the deck on the ocean side of the house. ‘You can drink it here or we can go out there.’

  ‘My, you are being hospitable,’ she mocked.

  Piran’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t rise to the bait and Carly felt faintly guilty for riding him.

  She took her glass of tea and went out on to the deck. The view above the trees was of more than a mile of deserted pink sand beach. The first time Carly had seen it, she hadn’t believed it was real. She’d thought Arthur St Just must have had the sand specially dyed and trucked in.

  Des had laughed, but Arthur had patiently explained to her about the local corals, about how much time it took for the coral to grind down into the fine, powdery sand, how this sand was pink because that was the color of the coral.

  Later that day he’d taken them down to the beach and had even built a sand castle with her and Des and her mother. Piran had come by and looked down his nose at them.

  Carly remembered that Arthur had invited his elder son to join them, but Piran hadn’t bothered to answer. He’d walked right past them and never said a word.

  He wasn’t saying anything now either. He stood leaning against the railing of the deck, holding his glass of iced tea, not looking at her, staring instead at the expanse of sand and water.

  Carly took the opportunity to study him. He’d been twenty-five the last time she’d seen him in person, lean and gloriously handsome, in the prime of young manhood. Full of charm and charisma and promise.

  He’d been working on his Ph.D. in archaeology at Harvard during the year, diving with his famous father during the holidays. And when he hadn’t been diving he’d been squiring some of the world’s loveliest women to trendy nightclubs and fast-lane parties.

  As far as Carly could see, he’d fulfilled all those promises. He’d got his Ph.D. He was now, at age thirty-four, an internationally acclaimed expert in the field of underwater exploration and recovery of artifacts. He and Des had written three books to date about the family’s escapades.

  Or perhaps, Carly amended, Des had written the books. But it was Piran whom one saw on the televised documentaries. And it was Piran who still had all the charm, all the charisma, and all the ladies hanging on his arm.

  She knew she wasn’t the first woman to succumb to Piran St Just’s incredible charm. And she hadn’t been the last, either. She’d kept track of the number of beauties who’d been seen with him throughout the years. It hadn’t been difficult.

  Piran St Just attracted notice wherever he went. And, as she looked at him now, it wasn’t hard to tell why.

  He might be older now, but his thirty-four years sat well on him. The smooth, tanned skin of youth had weathered beautifully. The paleness of his complexion at the moment was simply a result of his illness, nothing to do with the man himself. There was a network of fine lines around his eyes, but they only called attention to their piercing blue. Just as the strong bones of his cheeks and jaw and the grooves that bracketed his mouth gave his face a sort of cragginess that spoke of battles fought and won.

  Pity he didn’t have a potbelly or slumping shoulders, Carly thought. He would be easier to ignore if he weren’t so obviously gorgeous.

  But from what she could tell the belly beneath the thin cotton T-shirt was rock-hard. And if his shoulders were slumped it was only because of the way he leaned with his forearms resting on the railing as he stared out to sea.

  Yes, he’d aged well. Damn the man.

  She took another sip of her iced tea.

  Piran turned his head to glance at her. ‘Finished?’

  Carly looked at him across her barely touched glass. ‘Not quite. Don’t feel you have to entertain me, Piran. Go do whatever it is you were doing before I came. I’ll drink my tea and I’ll go.’

  He hesitated, as if he was afraid to leave her alone for fear she might dig in or something. But finally he straightened up. ‘Fine,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning at nine and we can go over what I’ve got.’

  So saying, he drained his glass, carried it back into the house and disappeared in
to one of the bedrooms. The door shut with a firm click after him.

  Carly breathed far more easily when he was gone. She rubbed her fingers along the soft weathered wood of the railing and rued the dreams she’d once had about making Blue Moon her home—about making Piran St Just love her.

  It was hard to imagine she’d been such a naive little fool.

  Well, she was a fool no longer. And it was probably just as well she wasn’t going to be living here, given that he still seemed to be able to make her respond to him. She certainly didn’t want him to know it.

  The only thing she regretted was not getting to spend the time at Blue Moon. It was every bit as lovely as it had ever been. It might be easy enough to give up her dreams about Piran, but it would be harder to relinquish the ones about Blue Moon.

  She finished her tea and put the glass back in the kitchen. Then she let herself out and found the bicycle, wheeled it back to the road and climbed on, avoiding the ruts as she pedaled slowly toward town.

  Piran listened until he was sure she was gone. He lay on his bed, cursing his weakened condition and the twist of fate that had brought Carly O’Reilly into his life once more.

  Only when he heard the rattle of the bicycle disappear into the distance did he allow his body to sag into the mattress and breathe deeply.

  But still, he couldn’t believe it.

  God, what could Des have been thinking of?

  Well, there was no point in even asking that question.

  When had Des ever thought at all? Smart, clever, witty Des somehow never saw what was right under his nose-which was how much Piran hated Carly O’Reilly. And how much he’d once desired her.

  It had nothing to do with liking. Never had. Never would. No, that wasn’t true.

  In the beginning, the first time he’d seen her, he’d liked her on sight. He’d left his father’s house after the first of several fights he and Arthur had had. He’d been fuming at the way his father seemed like a besotted teenager around his new wife, a wife that Piran thought was far beneath him. And nothing had taken his mind off it until he’d spied a lovely smiling water nymph with waist-length dark hair and long, coltish legs.

  He’d watched her swim, then he’d watched her come back up the beach and stretch out on her towel in the sand. She’d lain on her stomach looking up at the cliff and the bench where he sat. She’d fidgeted, looked up, looked away, looked up again.

  Piran had watched her, intrigued, running over various lines, trying to decide on the best one to use for meeting her, when she’d got up and started up the beach toward the steps that would bring her up to where he was.

  And that was when she’d met the students at the bottom of the steps. He’d watched her smile at them. He’d heard them speak, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. She’d smiled again. Then, as they’d closed around her, he’d momentarily lost sight of her. He’d got to his feet quickly and started down.

  He’d been furious to reach them and discover a shy, innocent girl being preyed upon by hooligans. He hadn’t hesitated to step in.

  He remembered as if it were yesterday—the drunken shove, the satisfying smack when his fist had connected with the drunk’s jaw, the adoring gray eyes that had looked up into his.

  His hands, clenching now, remembered too. They could still feel the petal-softness of her skin as he’d held her briefly in his arms. The same softness they’d felt when she’d reached out her hand to help him up less than an hour ago.

  In scant moments he’d become her hero. And he’d wanted to be her hero.

  Until he’d found out whose daughter she was.

  Then he’d felt as if he too had been duped. Her innocence hadn’t seemed so innocent any longer. Her shyness had seemed calculated.

  It had made him furious then because he’d seen it for what it was.

  Pure animal magnetism. Sexual chemistry. Hormones. Exactly the same things that had drawn his poor foolish father to Carly’s gorgeous shallow mother.

  Piran was damned if he was going to let it happen to him!

  And so he’d stayed away as much as he could.

  Probably he’d only seen her half a dozen times over the not quite two years of his father’s marriage to Sue. But every time he had Carly had changed. She’d grown more desirable than ever.

  Her curves developed. Her eyes sparkled with tantalizing laughter and heady promise. Her lips grew full and tempting, just made to be kissed.

  But Piran had refused to kiss them. He wasn’t weak like his father. He knew there was more to a woman than a pretty face.

  Ever since he was a tiny child, he’d idolized Arthur St Just, had grown up wanting to be just like him. He’d even taken his father’s side in his parents’ divorce.

  In his eyes, Arthur St Just could do no wrong—until he’d met and married, in the space of a few short weeks, the blowsy, beautiful dancer Sue O’Reilly Delgado Gower Tremaine.

  God, Piran thought, his fist clenching at his side and pounding on the mattress, even now he could remember the litany of her names!

  Carly had told them to him once—recited them, actually, her wide gray eyes watching for his reaction. He’d gritted his teeth then. He gritted them now.

  He couldn’t believe his father had fallen for a tramp like Sue—a dancer, for heaven’s sake! A woman with no education, no background, nothing—except a daughter.

  Carly.

  Carly, whose laughter and smiles and serious silvery eyes had tempted him increasingly each time he’d seen her, until at last, on her eighteenth birthday, he hadn’t been able to resist what she was offering.

  Or what he thought she’d been offering.

  To his everlasting shame he could still remember how ready he’d been for her. God, yes, he’d been ready! More than ready, he recalled with chagrin even now.

  In another few moments he would have fallen completely under her spell. But then she’d opened her mouth and he’d found out that she hadn’t really been offering at all. She’d been trading—just like her mother.

  Sex for marriage.

  Piran might be one kind of fool, but he was never going to be the fool that his father had been. Marriage to Carlota O’Reilly had never been on the cards.

  ‘Marry you? You must be kidding!’ he’d said, incredulous. And he’d turned away from her stricken look.

  He’d never seen her again after that night. Not even at his father’s funeral. He’d missed it, made up an excuse, hating her because he felt he had to, because he knew she would be there.

  After that he’d put her—and her mother—out of his mind. He hadn’t thought of her in years. And yet the moment he’d seen her this afternoon he’d recognized her at once.

  And wanted her just as much as ever, God help him.

  ‘What do you mean, there’s no room at the inn?’ Piran glowered at her from the doorway. The passage of four hours hadn’t improved his mood any, that was certain.

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ Carly said. She drooped on to one of the wicker chairs on the veranda, feeling as if she’d been dragged backwards through the mangrove swamp. ‘There are no rooms available in Conch Cay.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there are.’ Piran shoved a hand through sleep-tousled hair.

  To say that he’d been unhappy to see her come back would be something of an understatement.

  He’d said, ‘You!’ in a horrid voice and fumbled to fasten the top button of his trousers.

  Carly had watched with undisguised interest. ‘Perhaps you were expecting someone else?’ she’d suggested, and fluttered her lashes at him, irritated that he would disbelieve her about a thing like this.

  ‘I was taking a nap,’ he’d retorted stiffly.

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘You’re not,’ he’d said, which was the absolute truth.

  He said now, ‘What about Maisie Cash’s house?’

  ‘The Potters are there from Phoenix for the holidays,’ Carly recited from memor
y.

  ‘It’s not the holidays yet.’

  ‘Tell that to the Potters.’

  ‘Well, what about the Kellys?’ he said impatiently. ‘They take in visitors.’

  ‘Lots of people take in visitors, Piran. Tourism is the prime industry on the island.’

  ‘I know that. So—’

  ‘So Conch Cay has a bumper crop. It might not look like Christmas out here, but everyone is here to celebrate it. I stopped at the grocery. Old Bill gave me a list.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And they were all full.’

  ‘You can’t have looked everywhere!’

  Carly unfolded the list and shoved it at him. ‘Then you look. I’ve looked until I’m ready to drop.’ She lay back on the floor of the veranda and closed her eyes.

  Piran muttered under his breath. He prowled up and down the veranda, then stood glowering down at her.

  Carly opened one eye. ‘And don’t tell me to go over to Eleuthera and take the launch back every day, because I won’t.’

  He muttered again and paced the length of the veranda once more. ‘I suppose that means you expect to stay here?’

  ‘Unless you have a better idea, I don’t see any other option.’

  ‘Go home.’

  ‘We’ve been through that already.’

  Piran made a furious sound deep in his throat.

  ‘What’s the matter really, Piran? Are you afraid I’ll take advantage of your virtue?’

  He let out an explosive breath. ‘Maybe I’m afraid I’ll take advantage of yours?’

  ‘I didn’t think you thought I had any virtue.’

  His teeth came together with a snap. ‘Don’t bait me, Carlota. If you want to stay here, don’t bait me.’

  ‘I have no intention of baiting you,’ Carly said hastily.

  ‘Good. Remember that. This is work. That’s all.’

  ‘You’re damn right it is,’ Carly said, incensed, sitting up and glaring at him. ‘And you’re a jerk if you think I want it to be any more than that!’

  He met her gaze. ‘Just so we understand each other.’

  ‘We do.’