Ellen James - Christmas Babies

“So much for high society. Come on,” Danni said, climbing into the cart beside her sister. “Put the sunglasses on, and no one will be able to tell.”

Kristine replaced the protective barrier, but her mouth had a pinched look. “I’m sorry for what I said, Danni. You’re the only real friend I do have left.”

Danni sighed. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m ticked at you, big time. It’s bad enough that you pretended to be me. But letting Bryan believe things could be serious—”

“All right, all right, I know it’s impossible.” Now Kristine sounded miserable again. “I don’t want to hurt Bryan.” And then, in a low voice, she added, “There’s been enough hurting already.”

“Kristine—”

“No more questions, Danni. I told you I’d come clean with Bryan, and I will. Tonight, in my own way.” The cart took off again at a good clip. Kristine gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead, and Danni no longer had the heart to chastise her. Besides, she had a niggling feeling inside, a fear that there might be a grain of truth to what Kristine had said. Was it possible that Danni did have some destructive need to compete with her sister when it came to men? And, if it was true, how could she ever have a sound relationship with a man…an enduring relationship…

“Oh, no,” Kristine said. “It’s him. He’s coming right toward us.”

For a wild moment, Danni thought Kristine was talking about Bryan McKay. But no…Bryan wasn’t in the golf cart approaching them. Instead her sister’s husband was at the wheel.

Kristine floored their own cart all over again—speeding away from Ted.

“Kris, this is ridiculous,” Danni said, hanging on for dear life. “At least, think of what your Sugar Beach friends will have to say about this.”

After a moment, the cart came to a jolting stop. Ted rode up beside them.

“Hello, Danni,” he said. And then, after an awkward pause, “Hello, Kris.”

At forty-one, Ted was still an extremely handsome man—tall, well-constructed, solidly built. Even if he was starting to gray a bit around the edges, settle a bit, the look suited him. However, right now his face was strained in a way Danni had never seen before.

“Kris, I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing,” he told his wife. “But you’ve got to stop.”

“I asked you to leave me alone.” Kristine’s voice wobbled. “Can’t you do that much for me?”

“No. Why should I? You’re mad at me, but you don’t even know what’s going on. You won’t even listen—”

“I don’t want to hear! Can’t you understand? That will only make it worse. Listening to all the reasons. The explanations, the excuses…”

“No excuses,” Ted muttered. “When you’re ready to hear me out, you let me know. When you’re ready to stop thinking about yourself, you let me know. I’ll be waiting…for a little while.”

“A little while?” Kristine’s voice was clogged with tears. She and her husband stared at each other, locked in their own private torment. Danni felt like an intruder, but there was nowhere to retreat. The golf course spread out all around them in its lovely emerald green…offering no reprieve anywhere. Nonetheless, she started to climb out of the cart. Kristine reached out a hand to her.

“No, Danni—please,” she implored. “Don’t leave me.”

Ted looked from one sister to the other. “Oh, hell,” he said heavily. Then he turned his cart around, and drove back the way he had come. Kristine waited until he had left before she broke down. Danni put an arm around her sister, and tried to comfort her.

The twin who infuriated her…the twin whom she loved.

THE THRILL of the hunt. That was the main thing Bryan liked about his work. It was his job to put money and people together for big projects, big dreams. In the process, he got called a lot of different names: venture capitalist, risk taker. Gambler. Damn fool, even, according to one client, until the client’s investment came back twentyfold.

And now Bryan was on the hunt for new game. It had taken him over three weeks to set up this appointment with the evasive C. J. Whit-field. At last the man had agreed to meet Bryan in this small restaurant in the heart of San Diego’s Old Town.

Bryan ordered a beer, sat back and listened to the haunting flute playing somewhere outside in the cool air. It was music that put him in mind of Danni Ferris. Of course, just about everything put him in mind of Danni lately. He was still thinking about her when someone slipped into the chair across the table.

“Mr. McKay.” It was a statement, not a question, spoken by a slender brunette in her thirties. She gazed at him appraisingly, almost challengingly. It only took him a second or two to figure out who she was.

“The C.J. is misleading,” he said.

She ordered a cappuccino. “For some reason, people just assume C.J. is going to belong to some stodgy good old boy. Beats me why they don’t figure it could stand for Candace Jennifer as well as anything else.”

She didn’t look like either a Candace or a Jennifer. She looked like…a C.J. Someone who enjoyed hiding behind an air of mystery and then taking others by surprise. Bryan wasn’t impressed. He considered all the delays he’d gone through to get this appointment—the cancellations, the rearrangements. It was too elaborate. Too devious, in the end.

“Well, Mr. McKay. Start convincing me why I should do business with you and your friends.”

Bryan tried to remind himself that this was the part he liked, working to match the money with the dream. And it was a very good dream this time, belonging to a group of local architects and artists who wanted to revitalize a section of the San Diego-Tijuana border zone. An ambitious building project was in the offing—an innovative cluster of apartment buildings, a commercial district, an artisans’ compound. Bryan explained it all to C. J. Whitfield over broiled bass and asparagus soup. The soup was a mistake. And so, too, it seemed, was C.J.

“Tell me, Bryan. Why did you come to me on this one?”

“You have a reputation for imaginative thinking.”

“I also have a reputation for being filthy rich,” she remarked.

“That, too,” he said easily.

She almost smiled. “Funny thing is, Bryan McKay, you have a reputation for picking winners. But this time…I just don’t see it. For one thing, it’s a lousy location. Nobody wants to go anywhere near that part of town anymore. Nothing you build there is going to change that.”

“This group is going to change a lot of things,” he argued. “They have a certain vision—”

“Oh, no. When people start getting visionary, it always means trouble. Bryan, I’m as idealistic as the next poor schmuck, but I also believe in confronting reality. From what I’ve heard, so do you. Why this fanciful turn of yours?”

She was getting on his nerves, but he didn’t actually have a good answer for her. This wasn’t the first time he’d gambled on an idea that seemed impractical or even impossible at first. But there was something special about this project, something that captured his excitement in a way few other ideas had.

C.J. thumbed through the prospectus he’d handed her. “Sure, all the figures look fine on paper,” she said disparagingly.

Bryan found himself comparing her to Danni, and couldn’t imagine two women more different from each other. Maybe Danni was elusive in her own way, but she was also completely…genuine. Bryan liked the sound of that word. It suited Danni. He couldn’t imagine her deliberately creating an aura of mystery, couldn’t picture her staging an entrance or an exit for effect. Which was what C.J. was doing at the moment—staging her exit. She flicked her hand in the air, and a younger woman who had remained unobtrusive until now materialized to stand a respectful distance away. Bryan wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d curtseyed to her boss.