‘Dear God.’ Carly felt her own throat working.
‘I was driving,’ Piran said after a moment. ‘I didn’t even see the truck coming. I would have stopped if I’d seen him. I should’ve seen him!’ His anguish made his voice ragged. He blinked rapidly, running his tongue over his lips and swallowing again as he stared up at the ceiling.
Carly didn’t say anything. She reached out and took the baby and the bottle from him. Then the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle reached for his fingers and clenched them.
She didn’t say it wasn’t his fault. She was sure he knew that—in his mind if not in his heart—just as sure as she was that he still wasn’t reconciled to Gordon’s death, that he berated himself constantly for not having been able to prevent it.
Piran raised his head slowly and their gazes met. His blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. Then his gaze dropped and he focused for a moment on their laced fingers, then at the child in her arms. A spasm of pain crossed his face and he shut his eyes once more. He pulled away and pressed his fists against his eyes.
‘And that’s why you don’t remember?’ Carly said faintly. ‘After…after Gordon died…’
‘I didn’t cope real well. I got through telling Gordon’s wife. I got through the wake and the funeral. And then I just took off. I didn’t work for a month. I couldn’t. I drank and I threw up and I drank some more. I asked God why the hell it wasn’t me. I didn’t have a wife. I didn’t have a two-year-old kid and another on the way!’ He sighed. ‘Des tried to make me shape up, come out of it. He found some girl to get him through it, I guess. He got real involved with her. It seemed to help so I guess he thought I needed one too. He dragged me to parties, introduced me to a ton of them. One of them was your pastel-envelope lady.’ He gave her a twisted smile.
And you slept with her? The words stuck in her throat.
‘I got drunk the night I met her, wallowing in selfpity, mumbling in my beer. I guess she felt sorry for me. She took me home with her…and I…and I woke up the next morning in her bed.’
His eyes met Carly’s only for a moment, then slid away.
Outside Carly heard the distant sound of waves against the shore and the croaking of frogs near by.
‘So…’ she began, but her voice wavered. She cleared her throat and began again, ‘So you’re saying…she could be Arthur’s mother?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t remember making love with her! But God, I don’t remember not doing it either! I don’t remember anything after we got to her apartment.’
‘What about…? Were there.. .were there others besides…besides her?’
He rubbed his palms down his face, then rested his elbows on his knees, knotted his fingers and propped his chin on them, looking at the baby in Carly’s arms. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last, the words echoing with a hollow, aching tone.
Carly could hear his pain, could see it, could understand the circumstances that had driven him after Gordon’s death. Piran always cared—he’d cared about her when he hadn’t even known her. He’d cared about his father, even when he hadn’t understood his father’s marriage. He cared too much. And too often he acted before he thought things through.
They sat in silence for a good five minutes. Arthur’s eyes closed and his lips stopped moving on the nipple. They parted slightly and a faint smile tipped the corners of his mouth.
‘Is he my son?’ Piran whispered. Then he looked at Carly, his eyes dark and desperate. ‘What am I going to do with a son?’
CHAPTER SIX
THE sound seemed to come from a long way off—miles and years away. A high-pitched wail, rising and falling. Tentative at first, then stronger and more insistent. Finally a fierce, angry demand.
Crying.
A baby crying.
Piran didn’t know how long he’d been hearing it. Forever, it seemed. First it was Des, the red-faced infant of his past and of his dreams. And then, as he awakened, he remembered who it really was.
This child called Arthur.
His son?
The very notion sent a shaft a panic right through him. He’d barely slept at all, trying to think, trying desperately to remember. Could he have had sex with Wendy? Was she the only woman he might have done it with? God, this was so unlike him! Indiscriminate sex had never, ever been his style. It was just that Gordon’s death had hit him so hard.
A fine excuse that was, he thought grimly. God help him, it was no excuse at all. If Arthur really was his son, of course he’d support him; he’d raise him if he had to. But—Piran rolled on to his back and stared at the ceiling, willing the crying to stop—he just didn’t want to have to pick him up and hold him!
He felt so helpless, so inadequate. Even last night when he’d given the baby the bottle he’d felt as if any moment he’d do something wrong.
The crying grew louder. Piran’s fists clenched in the sheet. Come on, Carly, he begged silently. You get him.
But Carly didn’t come.
Piran dragged the pillow over his head. No good. He pressed his palms against his ears. Didn’t work.
Finally he could bear it no longer. He stumbled out of bed and made his way into the small bedroom next to his own. He opened the door and went to lean over the makeshift cot Carly had devised.
‘Hey, kid, come on, calm down,’ he whispered urgently. ‘It’s OK.’
But his words had no effect at all. If anything the yelling got louder.
‘Shh. Hush now.’ Piran bent closer. He rubbed his fingers against the baby’s warm back, trying to soothe him the way he’d seen Carly doing earlier.
But apparently he didn’t have a mother’s—or a father’s—touch. In any case, Arthur was too wound up to notice. He yelled on.
Finally, desperate, hoping to God he wouldn’t drop this child, Piran scooped the baby awkwardly into his arms.
‘Hey! Hey, kid. Quiet. It’s all right’ He nestled the baby against his chest, holding him snugly as he bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. ‘Shh. Really. C’mon, please. Stuff a sock in it!’
Arthur gummed his bare shoulder, his warm little body pressing against Piran’s chest, rocking, and Piran began to walk with him. And that at last did the trick. Arthur gulped, then sobbed, then hiccuped and gulped again.
And at last silence filled the room.
‘All right.’ Piran breathed the words, a smile lighting his face. ‘You hungry? Is that what this is all about? We’ll get you something to eat. How ‘bout that?’
He started toward the kitchen and ran right into Carly.
She jumped back at once. She was wearing only a thin cotton gown that ended halfway down her thighs. Her wild hair was even wilder in the night. She looked gorgeous and desirable as hell. Piran sucked in air.
Then the writhing bundle in his arms kicked his ribs and howled once more, and he had no time to concentrate on Carly or on the immediate stab of lust that he’d felt at the sight of her.
Desperate, Piran thrust the baby at her. ‘Here. Do something for him, for God’s sake.’
But Carly kept her hands at her sides and shook her head. ‘You’re doing fine.’
‘I’m not doing fine. I’ve lucked out for the moment. You want the kid to scream all night?’
‘He won’t if you feed him. You should probably change him, too. He must be wet.’
‘Change him?’ Piran goggled at her.
She pointed him toward the bedroom. ‘You change him. I’ll fix a bottle.’
‘How about you change him, I’ll fix the bottle?’
But Carly shook her head. ‘Just be glad I’m doing anything.’
‘You’re cruel, you know that?’ he grumbled.
‘A witch, I know. You’ve told me,’ Carly said. She patted his cheek and vanished into the kitchen, leaving him standing there with Arthur still in his arms.
Piran touched one hand briefly to his cheek where he could still feel Carly’s touch. Then he looked at Arthur warily. ‘I’m supposed to change you,’ he to
ld the baby. ‘Are you going to yell?’
The answer was yes.
Piran felt like yelling a bit too before he managed to get Arthur out of his tiny yellow stretchsuit, out of his plastic pants and out of his sopping wet diaper, then into another diaper, into another pair of plastic pants and finally into the tiny yellow stretchsuit once more. He felt as if he’d expended enough energy to have salvaged an entire Spanish caravel by the time he was done and Carly reappeared with the bottle.
‘Good job,’ she said cheerfully.
Piran grunted. ‘He peed on me.’
‘Occupational hazard. Here.’ She held out the bottle to him.
‘Nope. Your turn. I did my bit.’
‘But—’
‘Come on, Carly. Have mercy on me. I’ve just gone ten rounds with the little devil. You can’t expect me to go another five.’
‘You’re only going to feed him.’
‘And give him more strength to battle us tomorrow.’ Carly laughed. ‘That’s about it.’ But then she shrugged. ‘All right,’ she said, climbing on to the bed. ‘Give him here.’
He handed Arthur over to her and she nestled him easily into the curve of her arm then slipped the nipple into his mouth. Arthur didn’t hesitate this time. He glommed on to it eagerly and began to suck. His gaze flickered up to meet Carly’s and he seemed to say, About time.
Carly smiled down at him. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ she said softly. She snuggled him closer and dropped a light kiss on his forehead. Arthur sucked contentedly. She stroked his hair.
And Piran, watching the two of them, felt an odd tight aching sensation in his throat that he’d never experienced before. He didn’t understand it, wasn’t sure he wanted to. He backed away.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ he said gruffly.
Carly glanced up. ‘All right. See you in the morning. Sleep well.’
Piran went back to bed. He lay there and thought about the solid warmth of Arthur’s body snug against his chest. He thought about the way the baby had yelled, but then had stopped yelling. He thought about the way Arthur had looked in Carly’s arms.
He thought about Carly. About her beauty and her gentleness. About the way she’d looked all those years ago. About the way she’d looked tonight holding the child.
Every time he thought about her he got confused. If she was what she seemed to be, how could she be her mother’s daughter?
And yet…she’d make a good mother, he thought.
He didn’t sleep at all.
Carly had been up with Arthur for over two hours when Piran emerged the next morning shortly after nine. He didn’t look very cheerful. Nor did he look especially rested. His cheeks were stubbled with a day’s growth of dark whiskers, his eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his hair spiky and uncombed.
Carly wasn’t sure that that was all bad. In fact, she thought that if it meant he had lain awake considering the implications of fatherhood and resolving to face them it might be all to the good.
She watched him warily, waiting to take her cue from some sign from him.
He gave her a bleak look and then walked right past where she sat with the baby on the sofa, without even a ‘good morning’ to her or a glance at Arthur, straight to the coffee maker, and added enough water and coffee for a full ten-cup pot.
He stood with his back to her, bracing his hands on the counter and staring down at the pot while he waited for it to heat.
So much for becoming resolved to fatherhood.
Carly regarded him with increasing irritation. She stuck out her tongue at his back, then turned her gaze once more to the chapter she was trying to read with Arthur’s help.
She noted but didn’t look up when Piran left the coffee maker, walked over to the door and stood brooding, staring out into the jungle-like surroundings. She saw but didn’t comment when he rubbed his hands through his already mussed hair then stalked back to the coffee maker to scowl down at it and drum his fingers on the counter. She kept her eyes focused on either the chapter or the baby.
When the coffee was ready at last, Piran poured himself a cup without offering her one.
Surprise, surprise, she thought, and nailed him with a glare, then turned back to the baby before he looked up.
He turned, but didn’t move to take a chair. Instead he leaned against the counter, staring morosely into the mug that he held against his chest. He sipped once, sighed, then sipped again.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
His words dropped like stones into the silence of the room.
Carly looked up to see a desolate look on his face that made her want to go to him and comfort him, reassure him, tell him that everything would be all right.
She didn’t do it. After everything that had passed between them she knew exactly how he’d interpret any move toward him on her part. He wouldn’t call it reassurance.
Besides, even if it had been in her best interests to reassure him, she couldn’t.
She didn’t know if everything would be all right.
Looking at the situation honestly meant admitting that there was very little chance that it would be—at least, not in the near future.
Not for him—and not for Arthur.
And for the missing mother, Miss Pastel Envelopes?
Carly didn’t want to think about her. She shook her head and looked down at the chapter she’d been reading. Yesterday morning just getting the book into shape had seemed an all-consuming task. Now it hardly signified.
Arthur reached up with the hand that wasn’t clutching the bottle and patted her hand, and even though he was the cause of their present difficulties she couldn’t help smiling at him.
‘All finished?’ she asked. But when she started to take the bottle away from him his face screwed up as if he might cry. Quickly she put the nipple back in his mouth and he began to suck eagerly once more.
‘Faker,’ she chided him.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Piran’s bare feet come a step closer, then stop. She glanced up. His gaze was still bleak, but he was looking interested in what was happening.
‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that if you just take things one day at a time it will sort itself out.’
‘Who gave you the ability to forecast the future?’
His sarcasm stung and she looked away sharply, pressing her lips together in a tight line.
‘Ah, hell, I’m sorry,’ he muttered after a moment. ‘It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t take it out on you.’ He looked at her, abashed. Then he shut his eyes and shook his head. ‘Maybe you’re right. But God…a baby!’
‘Don’t think of him as a baby. Think of him as a person, as Arthur.’
‘Stupid name for a kid.’
‘What would you have named him?’
Piran shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I’ve never thought about it. Having kids was never high on my list of priorities,’ he said after a moment.
Obviously not, since marriage wasn’t high on it either. Still, Carly felt compelled to say, ‘Priorities have a way of shifting.’
‘Don’t they just?’ Piran took another swallow of coffee and stared out the window once more.
‘I was…wondering,’ Carly ventured after a moment, not quite sure how to phrase this without bringing his wrath down on her again.
‘About what?’ he said when she couldn’t figure out how to continue.
‘Um, those letters?’ He didn’t look pleased, so she hurried on. ‘I mean, if she’s been writing you all the time, surely she must’ve said something, or hinted at least?’
‘I didn’t read them.’
Carly goggled at him.
‘There was nothing Wendy—that’s her name—had to say that I wanted to read.’ He rubbed his palms down his face. ‘At least, I didn’t think there was,’ he added ruefully.
Carly considered that, actually finding that his admission made her feel better. She didn’t want to think about why. ‘Where are t
hey?’
‘I threw them out. And don’t tell me to go get ‘em ‘cause Ruth took the trash with her when she went home last night. Believe me, I already looked.’
‘But—’ But clearly there was no recovering the letters. Carly sighed. ‘Well, maybe when you get a letter today…’
‘Maybe,’ Piran said, a hint of hope in his tone.
But, perversely enough, when the mail arrived there was no pastel-colored envelope. There was no letter from Wendy at all, pastel or otherwise.
Nor was there a letter the day after or the day after that.
Piran practically pounced on the mail each afternoon, but, though he blustered and fumed when it arrived, an entire week went by and he never managed to conjure up a pastel envelope.
Carly supposed it was the result of sheer panic and desperation, but they got a lot of work done, even with Arthur there. Maybe it was because they took advantage of every possible moment, or maybe it was simply that Arthur was an easy enough baby to become a part of the routine quickly; whatever, the book was certainly moving along.
And Carly, who’d had virtually no experience with babies before, seemed truly to have a natural instinct for motherhood. Either that or her job had prepared her.
‘I think it’s the editing,’ she told Piran one afternoon.
He gaped at her. ‘Editing prepared you for motherhood? How?’
‘The ability to do seven things at once, I think.’ Carly grinned. ‘There was always more to do than Sloan could handle, so he’d give me one job and before I got ten minutes into that he’d have another one for me. I learned to juggle. Besides that, I learned to placate fractious, temperamental authors. There’s not a lot of difference between some of them and Arthur at his worst.’
She said this while balancing Arthur on one hip and stirring the spaghetti sauce that was left over from last night’s supper. On the counter next to the stove was the current bit of Piran’s writing that she was polishing up. Periodically she glanced over at it, read a bit, set down the spoon, shifted Arthur, and made notes in the margin.
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