Diana had let herself be convinced.
Carly hadn’t. Not at first. She didn’t want to go to Conch Cay. She didn’t want to presume on her past relationship with the St Just brothers. Though she and Des had been quite happy with their sort-of-sibling relationship while their parents had been married, after his father’s death, she hadn’t seen Des. And she would happily have gone to her own grave without ever having to face his older brother again!
Once, when she was barely more than a girl and her mother had been married to his father, Carly’s starry-eyed fantasies had caused her to believe that Piran St Just was her one true love. The mere mention of his name had sent shivers of anticipation right down her spine.
Now the shivers were of an entirely different kind.
‘Come on, Carly, be a sport,’ Des had cajoled.
But ultimately it wasn’t Des she did it for. It was because she loved her job and wanted to keep it.
‘You do like working here, don’t you?’ Diana had said casually, but there was nothing casual about what she’d meant.
‘I’ll go,’ Carly had said at last.
And here she was. About to come face to face with Piran after nine long years. She wondered what he’d thought when Des had told him. He couldn’t be looking forward to it any more than she was.
But they would manage because they were adults now. That thought was the only one that gave her solace. In fact it gave her a small amount of perverse pleasure. She wanted Piran to know that she was no longer the foolish, innocent child she’d been at eighteen.
‘You sure he expectin’ you?’ Sam, the ferryman, asked her now as he cut the engine and the boat snugged neatly against the rubber tires edging the sides of the dock. No one was there waiting, except two men sitting in the shade thwacking dominoes on to a table with considerable vigor.
‘Absolutely,’ Carly said. Of course he was expecting her. Hadn’t Des arranged it? ‘I’m sure Mr St Just phoned.’
‘Mr St Just don’t got a phone,’ Sam said.
‘Not that Mr St Just,’ Carly said. ‘Desmond.’
‘Ah.’ Sam’s dark head bobbed and he grinned widely. ‘Mr Desmond. What a rascal that man is. Where he be?’
‘In Fiji by now, I should think,’ Carly said. She shifted her duffel bag from one hand to the other. ‘But he said he’d call and tell you. To tell his brother, that is.’
Sam clambered out of the boat, took the duffel from her, then held out a hand and hauled her up on to the dock beside him before turning to the two men. ‘You, Ben. Mr Desmond, he call you?’
The man called Ben looked up and shook his head, a sympathetic smile on his face. ‘Nope. Didn’ phone me. He phone you, Walter?’
The other man shook his head too. ‘Nope. Ain’t never talked to Mr Desmond. But it don’ matter,’ he said to Carly. ‘You here to see Mr St Just—no problem. We drive you out to the house.’
‘Yes, but—’
It wasn’t a matter of being driven. It was a matter of arriving unannounced. Carly hadn’t expected Piran to pick her up. That bit of courtesy would certainly be beyond him. But she had at least expected him to know she was coming!
If no one else did, chances were he didn’t either.
Carly felt an increasing sense of unease. She hadn’t been unassailed by second thoughts ever since she’d knuckled under to Desmond’s pleas and her boss’s not so subtle blackmail.
But now those thoughts were multiplying like bunnies.
She licked her lips. ‘No one told you I was coming?’ ‘No, missy, not a soul. We been ‘spectin’ Mr Desmond all right. Mr St Just, he been yellin’ where he is for a week now.’ Ben chuckled and shook his head.
‘He be in Fiji,’ Sam said. ‘Imagine that. Don’t that beat all? Ain’t Mr St Just gonna be surprised?’
Wasn’t he just? Carly thought grimly. Which was exactly what she was afraid of.
But there was nothing else to do—except go home. And even if Des weren’t half a world away, and even if her job didn’t depend on her bringing back the book, she couldn’t go home. She had nowhere to go home to.
She’d told Lenny, her downstairs neighbor, that he could put his divorced sister from Cleveland and her three children up in her apartment over the holidays. And since Lenny’s family celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas she was going to be homeless for quite some time.
Carly shut her eyes and wondered if maybe Christmas in Buffalo or in Colorado might not have been a better alternative after all.
‘So, you want to go now?’ Ben asked her, getting up and moving slowly toward a psychedelic van with the word ‘TAXI’ painted on it.
Did she? No, she didn’t. Did she have a choice? No, again. Though what Piran was going to say when he saw her was not something she wanted to contemplate.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to Ben with more enthusiasm than she felt.
As little as she had been looking forward to the trip and seeing Piran again, she had been looking forward to seeing Conch Cay. And now, as Ben drove her up the hill through the narrow bumpy streets, she looked around, enchanted, taking it all in. It was every bit as lovely as she remembered it. When Arthur had first brought them here she’d thought it the closest thing to an island Garden of Eden she’d ever seen. Nine years later she had no reason to change her mind.
In a few minutes they left the small town where most of the islanders lived and drove up into the lush tropical vegetation that banked the narrow asphalt road that wound back up the hill toward the windward side. Every so often Carly caught a glimpse of a house through the trees and shrubs. In the distance, as they approached the ocean side of the island, she could hear the sound of the surf crashing against the sand.
She watched with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation for the turn-off on to the gravel that would bring them at last to Blue Moon Cottage, the St Justs’ home.
‘Mr St Just goin’ to be that surprised,’ Ben said as he finally turned into the rutted gravel track leading up to the house. ‘Course I don’ ‘spect he’ll be too mad. You a sight prettier than Mr Desmond.’
Which might have been a recommendation for another woman, but had never been for her, Carly thought.
She still winced inwardly every time she recalled her last painful encounter with Piran St Just. But now, as she got her first glimpse of the ice-blue house among the trees, she turned her back on that memory and drew herself together, mustering her strength, her determination, her maturity.
Good thing, too, for at the sound of the van the back door to the cottage opened and a man appeared on the broad screened-in veranda.
Carly hadn’t seen Piran except on television and in photographs for nine years. It didn’t matter; she would have known him anywhere.
He was tall, dark and unshaven. His hair was as black as night and wanted cutting, just as it always had. His jaw was hard and firm, and she saw it tighten when he noticed that the person Ben was bringing wasn’t Desmond. His scowl deepened, but he didn’t look angry. Yet.
Carly took a deep breath and pasted on what she hoped would pass for a cool, professional smile. Then she stepped out of the van, lifted her gaze to meet his eyes, and was chagrined to realize she was glad she was wearing sunglasses so that he couldn’t see how much the mere sight of him still affected her after all these years.
‘Piran,’ she said, grateful that her voice didn’t betray her agitation. ‘Long time, no see.’
His