Anne McAllister - A Baby For Christmas

‘F-fine,’ she’d mumbled.

‘It’s over,’ he said, and put his arm around her, drawing her close, holding her gently until she’d stopped shaking.

It should have frightened her. He was as much a stranger as the drunken student. But she wasn’t frightened. She felt safe. Cared for.

She remembered looking up into his face right at that moment and thinking she’d found the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with—the man her mother had always told her was out there waiting.

She stammered, ‘Th—thanks.’

He smiled at her and ran his knuckles lightly down her cheek. ‘My pleasure. Always ready to help out a damsel in distress.’ He gave her a wink, then asked if he could see her home.

And that was when he found out whose daughter she was.

‘You live where?’ he asked her when she pointed out the house on the hillside.

‘The pink house. The great big one. Isn’t it lovely? We just moved in, my mother and I. She married a professor—’

‘Arthur St Just.’ His voice was suddenly clipped and short.

‘Yes. You know him?’

‘I thought I did,’ her savior said gruffly. ‘He’s my father. I’m Piran St Just.’

Her new stepbrother. The one she’d never met. The one, she quickly learned, who hadn’t come to the wedding not simply because he went to school in the east but because he objected so strongly to his father’s remarriage.

He thought Carly’s unsophisticated dancer mother far beneath Arthur St Just’s touch and he made no bones about it. In Piran’s eyes, she was no more than the gold-digging hussy who had trapped his unsuspecting father into matrimony.

While Des accepted his stepmother with equanimity, at the same time acknowledging that she wasn’t quite what one would have expected Arthur St Just to pick for a wife, the same was not true of Piran.

And once he found out that Carly was the gold-digging hussy’s daughter his solicitous behavior and gentle concern vanished at once.

Sue, always optimistic, encouraged her daughter to be patient.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ she said softly to Carly more than once. ‘Piran is young, idealistic, and his parents’ divorce hurt him. He hasn’t known love himself. He doesn’t understand how it can happen. Give him time.’

Over the months to come Carly gave him that—and more. Even though, once he knew who she was, he treated her with cool indifference, she couldn’t help remembering the first Piran—the gentle, caring Piran who was really there inside.

She told herself that Sue was right. She saw his dislike as a blind spot, one that time and proximity—and her love—would cure.

Until the night of her eighteenth birthday…when she understood finally just how determinedly blind Piran St Just really was…

She lifted her chin now and faced him once more. ‘Think what you like, Piran. I’m sure you will anyway. I’m not going to argue with you.’

‘Because you haven’t got a leg to stand on.’

‘Try not to insult me too much,’ she suggested mildly, ‘or you’ll be doing this book on your own.’

‘That’s another thing. What’s all this nonsense about you helping with the book?’

‘I’m Sloan Bascombe’s assistant editor.’

‘The hell you say!’ He didn’t seem to believe for a minute that she did in fact work for his editor.

They glared at each other for a full minute. Impasse. There were a myriad emotions crossing Piran’s face. Acceptance wasn’t one of them. Finally Carly nodded once and picked up her duffel.

‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and turned to head back down the road toward town.

She’d gone perhaps twenty yards when Piran called after her. ‘Tell me what Des said.’

She stopped and turned, but she didn’t go back.

Piran stood where she’d left him. They stared at each other now down the length of the narrow rutted lane. His hands were still in his pockets, his jaw was thrust out, but there was a hint of concern—of doubt?—in his expression.

‘I told you what Des said. Am I supposed to assume you believe me now?’

He shrugged irritably. ‘For whatever difference it makes.’

‘None to me,’ Carly said with all the indifference she could manage. ‘Rather a lot to Des, I gather. He was there trying to get an extension so he could go on the trip to Fiji when Diana told him I’d been the one to do the line-editing on your last book.’

‘Sloan did it.’

‘Sloan signed it. I wrote it. He has forty writers. He can’t do everything for everyone. And I know more about archaeology than he does.’ She took considerable satisfaction in telling him that and, at first, she thought he was going to object about that too. But finally he gave a negligent lift of his shoulders.

‘Go on.’

‘You know the rest. As soon as Des found that out, he asked if I’d come and work with you.’

‘And you jumped at the chance?’

‘Hardly.’

‘You’re here,’ Piran pointed out.

‘Not by choice. Diana made it abundantly clear that my job depended on it. Nothing, believe me,’ she added after a moment, ‘to do with you.’

‘Got over your infatuation, did you, Carlota?’ His mouth curved, but his smile was hard, not pleasant. ‘Or maybe it’s like I thought: you weren’t ever really infatuated at all, just money-grubbing like your mother.’

It was all Carly could do not to slap him. Abruptly she turned her back and started walking again. She had reached the main road before she heard footsteps coming after her.

‘Carlota!’

She walked faster. She knew she could let him insult her. It would be good for her, cleanse her, wash away all her childish hopes and dreams. But she wasn’t going to stand there and listen to him insult her mother!

Heaven knew Sue had had her share of faults. But she hadn’t been a bad person. She’d been as idealistic as she’d considered Piran to be. She’d just been far more confused. And foolish. And unlucky—until the last.

Carly was willing to admit all those things. What else could you call a woman who had married seven times in search of the perfect love?

But her mother hadn’t been evil. She hadn’t been conniving.

Never.

But there was no point in telling that to Piran. She had no intention of defending her mother to the likes of Piran St Just! He could go to hell as far as she was concerned. And he could take his book with him.

‘Carlota, damn it! Get back here!’

Carly hurried on. The day was hot and sticky for December. And while she hadn’t felt the heat much in the van, now her shirt stuck to her back. Rivulets of sweat ran down her spine and between her breasts into the waistband of her chambray trousers. She shifted the duffel from one hand to the the other and continued on.

Heavy footsteps pounded after her. She ignored them.

‘Carlota!’

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t falter.

‘Carly, you stubborn witch, stop!’

A hand came out and snagged her arm, hauling her abruptly to a halt. Fingers bit into her skin, holding her fast.

She tried to jerk her arm away, but Piran wouldn’t let go. The pull on her arm was so strong he almost dragged her to the ground. She looked at him closely. He seemed winded. His dark hair clung damply to his forehead. His lean cheeks were flushed, but he was white around the mouth, and he was breathing heavily.

‘Let me go,’ she said again, trying to pry his fingers loose.

His chest heaved. ‘Only if you don’t start walking again.’

She just looked at him, making no promises.

His fingers tightened. She winced. He looked at his hand still biting into her flesh and frowned, but he didn’t let go. ‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m not talking—or listening—to anyone who insults my mother.’