A Baby For Christmas. Anne McAllisterЧитать онлайн книгу.
that he sounded as if he’d had the air knocked out of him. He braced a hand against one of the pillars of the veranda and she noticed that his knuckles were white.
‘You remember me, I see.’
He snorted. ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’
‘I gather Des didn’t tell you?’
‘Des?’ He frowned. ‘What about Des?’
‘He sent me. Got my boss to insist, as a matter of fact.’
What? What are you talking about? Why the hell would he send you? Where’d he find you?’ The questions came fast and furious, but no more furious, obviously, than Piran himself. ‘What are you talking about? Where is Des?’
‘On his way to Fiji?’ She meant it to sound like a statement and was mortified when it came out tentative enough to be a question.
‘What!’ There was no question in that exclamation, just pure disbelief. And even more fury.
Carly would have quailed before it nine years ago. Now she drew herself up to her full five feet six, determined not to let him intimidate her. ‘Jim Taylor—you remember, your father’s old cap—’
‘I know who Jim Taylor is,’ Piran snapped.
‘Well, he bought a new boat and—’
‘I don’t give a damn about Jim Taylor’s boat. Where’s Des?’
‘I’m trying to tell you,’ Carly snapped back, ‘if you’ll kindly shut up and let me finish!’
Piran’s mouth opened, then snapped shut again. He glowered at her, then finally he shrugged and stuffed his fists into the pockets of his shorts. ‘By all means enlighten me, Carlota,’ he drawled.
Carly took a careful breath, ran her tongue over parched lips and began again. ‘Jim bought a new boat. He’s sailing it out of Fiji, and he invited Des to go along and—’
‘He went?’ The drawl was gone. The fury was back.
‘He said you’d understand that it was too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘The hell I would! We have a commitment! A contract! Does he think the book is going to write itself?’ Piran stalked from one side of the veranda to the other.
‘No, actually he thinks I’m going to help you write it.’
He spun around and looked at her, poleaxed. ‘You? You help me write it?’
Carly heard a soft chuckle and was suddenly aware that Ben was still there listening. No doubt the whole island would be hearing about this before nightfall.
‘Let’s not discuss this out here,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Let me get my bag and we can discuss it in the house’
‘You’re not coming in the house.’
‘Piran—’
‘You’re not! I don’t know what kind of stunt Des is pulling, but you’re getting in the van and going right back where you came from.’
Carly heard Ben choke on his laughter.
Her cheeks burned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said fiercely to Piran. ‘I didn’t come all this way to have you send me back.’ She turned and reached back into the van and grabbed her duffel bag. ‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked Ben.
‘Eight dollar.’ He was still grinning all over his face.
Carly ignored the grin. She took a ten out of her wallet and handed it to him. He tucked it in his shirt pocket. ‘Thank you, missy.’ He slid back into the driver’s seat.
‘What are you doing?’ Piran demanded. ‘Stay where you are.’
‘Mr St Just gettin’ pretty mad,’ Ben said as he leaned out the window. ‘You sure ‘bout this?’
Carly wasn’t sure at all, but she didn’t see that she had any option. Diana had made herself perfectly clear: when Carly next appeared in the office, she was going to be carrying Piran and Desmond St Just’s next bestselling true-life archaeological adventure. Or else.
But she wasn’t going to be doing that unless she helped Piran finish it. There was certainly no way she could find Des now and make him take her place.
Besides, she thought irritably, how dared Piran make her seem like some sort of unwanted interloper?
‘I’m sure,’ she said.
Ben shrugged. ‘It be your neck, missy.’
Undoubtedly it would. Carly took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Ben gave a quick salute and put the van in reverse.
Piran started down the steps. ‘Ben! Where the hell are you going? Get back here! Ben! Ben!’
But Ben apparently knew that absence was the better part of valor—at the moment at least. The van putted away down the gravel and disappeared around the bend.
It was a full minute before Piran turned from staring after it to fix his gaze on Carly.
‘Well, some things never change, do they, Carlota?’ he drawled at last, looking her up and down.
Carly met his gaze levelly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘You’re still a conniving little bitch.’
So the battle lines were drawn. It certainly hadn’t taken long. If he’d slapped her face with a glove, he could not have challenged her more clearly. Nor could he have found a better means of making Carly dig her heels in.
For a single instant, before he called her that…that-she couldn’t even let herself think about what he’d called her!—she’d almost felt sorry for Piran St Just. She’d almost regretted that his brother had deserted him, regretted that he’d have to make do with her help, not Des’s.
But when he threw those words at her she thought, Serves him right, damned judgmental jerk.
She supposed she was a bit of a jerk, too, for having thought even for one moment that they could manage this without problems, that he might have changed his opinion of her.
Once—in the very beginning—he’d defended her. It had been the first time they met and she hadn’t even known who he was.
It had happened a month after Carly’s mother had married Piran’s father in Santa Barbara. She’d met Des at the wedding, but she’d never met Arthur’s much heralded elder son. Piran hadn’t come to the ceremony, Arthur had said, because he went to university in the east.
But he was coming for spring vacation. Carly was going to meet him that very night. In fact, if she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late.
She’d waited to leave the beach until the last possible moment, hoping that the small group of inebriated college students standing by the steps up the cliff would disperse. They hadn’t. Instead they’d stood watching her approach, whistling and making lewd suggestions that made her cheeks burn.
She’d tried to ignore them, then she’d tried brushing past them and going up the steps quickly. But she’d stumbled and one of them had grabbed her and hauled her hard against him.
‘Please,’ she babbled. ‘Let me go.’
He rubbed against her. ‘Let’s go together, baby,’ he rasped in her ear.
Carly struggled. ‘Stop it! Leave me alone!’
He shook his head. ‘You want it. You know you do,’ he said as she tried to pull away.
A couple of the other men hooted and whistled. ‘I like ‘em feisty,’ one of them called.
‘Please!’ Carly tried twisting away from him, but he held her fast until all at once,