once saying that the St Justs were famous for their hospitality. I would like a moment to catch my breath and have a glass of water.’
At the remark about his father Piran turned sharply and shot her a hard glance. Then he grimaced and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. ‘Oh, hell, all right. Come on.’
GRACIOUS he was not, but Carly was every bit as tired and hot by that time as she’d said she was, and she was too annoyed to care what Piran’s tone of voice conveyed.
She followed him in.
Nothing inside Blue Moon Cottage had changed at all in the intervening years. The walls were still white and cool. The terrazzo floors gleamed. The white wicker sofa and chairs with their bright blue and green patterned cushions still encouraged her to come and sit a while. The mini-blinds were open to let in the air, but slanted to cut down on the afternoon sun, and the outside vegetation filtered away most of the heat. Overhead a fiveblade fan circled lazily.
It was the only place where Carly had spent any time while she was growing up that she remembered missing after they’d left.
In spite of having to see Piran again, she’d been looking forward to coming back just to see if the charm remained. It did. Though whether that was a good thing or not she wasn’t sure.
‘I know where the kitchen is,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll just get a drink. You can go rest.’ He still looked pale.
He ignored her. ‘I’ll rest when you’re gone.’ He headed for the kitchen. ‘I’ve got iced tea if you’d rather,’ he said over his shoulder, and Carly wondered if he only said it because of her comment about the St Just hospitality.
‘Thank you. That would be lovely.’
He nodded, went to the refrigerator, poured her a glass, then poured another for himself. Then he nodded toward the deck on the ocean side of the house. ‘You can drink it here or we can go out there.’
‘My, you are being hospitable,’ she mocked.
Piran’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t rise to the bait and Carly felt faintly guilty for riding him.
She took her glass of tea and went out on to the deck. The view above the trees was of more than a mile of deserted pink sand beach. The first time Carly had seen it, she hadn’t believed it was real. She’d thought Arthur St Just must have had the sand specially dyed and trucked in.
Des had laughed, but Arthur had patiently explained to her about the local corals, about how much time it took for the coral to grind down into the fine, powdery sand, how this sand was pink because that was the color of the coral.
Later that day he’d taken them down to the beach and had even built a sand castle with her and Des and her mother. Piran had come by and looked down his nose at them.
Carly remembered that Arthur had invited his elder son to join them, but Piran hadn’t bothered to answer. He’d walked right past them and never said a word.
He wasn’t saying anything now either. He stood leaning against the railing of the deck, holding his glass of iced tea, not looking at her, staring instead at the expanse of sand and water.
Carly took the opportunity to study him. He’d been twenty-five the last time she’d seen him in person, lean and gloriously handsome, in the prime of young manhood. Full of charm and charisma and promise.
He’d been working on his Ph.D. in archaeology at Harvard during the year, diving with his famous father during the holidays. And when he hadn’t been diving he’d been squiring some of the world’s loveliest women to trendy nightclubs and fast-lane parties.
As far as Carly could see, he’d fulfilled all those promises. He’d got his Ph.D. He was now, at age thirty-four, an internationally acclaimed expert in the field of underwater exploration and recovery of artifacts. He and Des had written three books to date about the family’s escapades.
Or perhaps, Carly amended, Des had written the books. But it was Piran whom one saw on the televised documentaries. And it was Piran who still had all the charm, all the charisma, and all the ladies hanging on his arm.
She knew she wasn’t the first woman to succumb to Piran St Just’s incredible charm. And she hadn’t been the last, either. She’d kept track of the number of beauties who’d been seen with him throughout the years. It hadn’t been difficult.
Piran St Just attracted notice wherever he went. And, as she looked at him now, it wasn’t hard to tell why.
He might be older now, but his thirty-four years sat well on him. The smooth, tanned skin of youth had weathered beautifully. The paleness of his complexion at the moment was simply a result of his illness, nothing to do with the man himself. There was a network of fine lines around his eyes, but they only called attention to their piercing blue. Just as the strong bones of his cheeks and jaw and the grooves that bracketed his mouth gave his face a sort of cragginess that spoke of battles fought and won.
Pity he didn’t have a potbelly or slumping shoulders, Carly thought. He would be easier to ignore if he weren’t so obviously gorgeous.
But from what she could tell the belly beneath the thin cotton T-shirt was rock-hard. And if his shoulders were slumped it was only because of the way he leaned with his forearms resting on the railing as he stared out to sea.
Yes, he’d aged well. Damn the man.
She took another sip of her iced tea.
Piran turned his head to glance at her. ‘Finished?’
Carly looked at him across her barely touched glass. ‘Not quite. Don’t feel you have to entertain me, Piran. Go do whatever it is you were doing before I came. I’ll drink my tea and I’ll go.’
He hesitated, as if he was afraid to leave her alone for fear she might dig in or something. But finally he straightened up. ‘Fine,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning at nine and we can go over what I’ve got.’
So saying, he drained his glass, carried it back into the house and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. The door shut with a firm click after him.
Carly breathed far more easily when he was gone. She rubbed her fingers along the soft weathered wood of the railing and rued the dreams she’d once had about making Blue Moon her home—about making Piran St Just love her.
It was hard to imagine she’d been such a naive little fool.
Well, she was a fool no longer. And it was probably just as well she wasn’t going to be living here, given that he still seemed to be able to make her respond to him. She certainly didn’t want him to know it.
The only thing she regretted was not getting to spend the time at Blue Moon. It was every bit as lovely as it had ever been. It might be easy enough to give up her dreams about Piran, but it would be harder to relinquish the ones about Blue Moon.
She finished her tea and put the glass back in the kitchen. Then she let herself out and found the bicycle, wheeled it back to the road and climbed
