Children of Destiny Books 4-6 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 10)

by Ann Major

  Garret decided he’d better escape to the kitchen before she got off the phone. Vincent had begun to yell so loudly that even from the kitchen Garret could make out every word.

  “I said tell your damned doorman to let me come up.”

  “There’s been a mistake, Jean,” she whispered a minute later, obviously to her doorman. “Yes, the detective’s still up here, but really, he’s here on a personal matter. It’s perfectly all right for Mr. Vincent to come up, too.”

  She hung up just as Garret returned from the kitchen with three place mats and set them on the table.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  Garret grinned at her. “Setting the table.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You gave my doorman the impression I was in some kind of trouble with the law. Then you told him—”

  “What would Vincent like to drink?”

  “Don’t ignore me!”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Do you want me to get it or will you?” Garret offered helpfully. “My hands are full.”

  “I’ll get it!” she snapped. “But don’t think for a minute I’m finished with you.”

  “That’s good news, chere,” he murmured softly.

  She flung the door open. Beau was a tornado of arrogance and anger as he stormed inside. As always his blond hair was glued to his scalp and his suit flawlessly elegant, but Garret was glad to see his rival looking rattled as hell.

  Vincent directed his entire attention to Garret. “What are you doing here?”

  “Would you like to join us for dinner?” Garret said with a broad grin as he set a glass of milk down in front of a plate full of oysters.

  “Damn! I don’t want your soggy oysters. Or milk! I want you out of here.”

  “Beau!”

  “I take it that’s a refusal,” Garret drawled lazily, picking up the third place mat.

  “You’re damn right!”

  Noelle tried to step between them. “Beau, I understand your anger, but really I must ask you to at least try to be civil.”

  Garret put his arm around Noelle so tightly she couldn’t ward it off. “That’s all right, chere, you don’t have to take my side. I hardly need a backup with a guy like Vincent.”

  Beaumont turned so purple he looked like he’d swallowed his tongue and was about to choke on it.

  Noelle pushed Garret away and fixed him with a withering glare. “I wasn’t defending you, you big blockhead.”

  “That’s the insult you used on me when you were three,” Garret said, a pleased nostalgic note in his voice.

  “It still fits,” she growled.

  Beau walked over to Noelle and daintily used one fingertip to touch the yellow, black-dotted tie she’d forgotten she was still holding. “Just what is this?” He withdrew his finger from the strip of silk with the distaste he might have for a soiled bit of garbage from the gutter.

  Garret observed his rival with a self-satisfied grin.

  “Oh!” Noelle gasped.

  She was about to throw the tie on the table, but Garret caught it in midair and hung it loosely around his neck so that both bright ends dangled against his chest. “Thanks, chere.” To Beau he said, “Obviously it’s a tie—mine. Noelle suggested that I get more comfortable.”

  Beau was mottled lavender, well on his way to purple again. “Noelle?” he demanded.

  “Nothing happened,” Noelle said flatly, glaring at Garret.

  “Not tonight, no, chere,” Garret inserted. “Not yet anyway. But maybe Vincent would like to hear about the evening you drove out to my house a couple of months ago, the night you slept all night in my bed,”

  Beau made a strangled noise in his throat.

  Noelle went pink with embarrassment. “Garret, just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Chere, the man asked a question. He wants to know what’s going on between us. I was just letting him know that plenty is. You are mine. I told you—this time we aren’t sneaking around.”

  The silence that fell after this statement vibrated with tension. Vincent stood near the door, outraged, but uncertain what to do next.

  Noelle was very pale and shaking.

  Garret grinned, pulled out a chair and seated himself at the head of the table as if he were the man of the house. “Well, now that that’s settled—supper, anyone?” he offered pleasantly.

  “This is too much!” Beau muttered. “Noelle, you may enjoy spending your evenings with this swamp cop from the ghetto, but I don’t. I’ll be down in the BMW, waiting for you. I’d like to hear your side of this, but if you aren’t down in ten minutes, don’t bother coming—or calling me again. I’ll consider all our dates to Carnival affairs canceled as well.”

  Garret punctuated his rival’s dramatic ultimatum by crunching into his poor boy. He was chewing vigorously as the door banged shut behind Beau.

  “I hope you’re happy,” Noelle cried, turning on Garret.

  He swallowed. “I am. Very.” He shot her another wide, white grin.

  “Well, I’m going with him.”

  “Fine,” he murmured. With a show of elaborate unconcern, he plucked an onion ring from the sack. “I hope you don’t mind if I stay and finish my poor boy. Vincent was wrong about these oysters. They’re crisp and crunchy. I’ll clean up and then lock the place before I go.”

  “No way. I’m not leaving you alone here.”

  “Good.” He leaped from the table just as she picked up her purse, his supper forgotten, his entire attention focused on the woman.

  She stumbled backward, too startled to escape him. “Garret...no...your supper...”

  “To hell with my supper. To hell with everything except you, chere—you and me.”

  He gripped her arms and pulled her to him. “I thought that fool was going to stay forever,” Garret muttered fiercely, pressing her against his long, hard length. He reached out and caught a handful of shimmering red hair, winding it in his sun-browned fingers, pulling her neck back. “You don’t want him, and you know it.”

  At first she fought him a little, on general principle probably, but he was too engulfed by the searing flame of his feelings to release her. He could feel her trembling under the pressure of his hands as he lowered his mouth and kissed her lips urgently, ravaging their sweetness. When she pushed against his chest, he kissed her harder, bruising the softness of her lips. His mouth trailed down the rigid cord of her neck, kissing her until he became aware of her involuntary shivers every time his mouth touched the hot hollow of her throat.

  He heard the harsh intake of her breath with immense satisfaction. He licked her throat, and delighted when she shivered against his marauding mouth.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded even as primitive female instinct had her breasts swelling against green silk.

  He ran his tongue the length of her throat again. He felt her arms come up and circle his neck. She wanted him, too.

  “You want me. Say it,” he commanded.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “You win.”

  “Say it.”

  “I want you.”

  With a single movement his fingers slid the zipper of her dress open. He pushed it over her shoulders, down her arms, her wrists. She didn’t fight him. As it pooled at her feet, she stepped out of her shoes in a kind of daze, and he lifted her into his arms.

  He was getting in too deep too fast again, just as he always had with her, but after seeing her with Beau, he couldn’t stop himself. He had to make sure she knew they belonged together.

  She was burying her face against his throat, kissing him wherever her lips could make contact, shuddering with little moans of ecstasy. He felt her tears of joy against his hot skin.

  He held her effortlessly in his arms, and all the time her hands stayed wrapped around his neck as his hard male mouth resumed its ownership of hers. He carried her into her bedroom, to the antique, canopied bed. When he laid her down on the rumple of silken sheets and brocade bedspr
ead, she looked up at him as she removed her jewelry, piece by glittering piece. Last of all, her eyes were ablaze with sensual need, she removed the amethyst pendant he had given her.

  Quickly he ripped his own clothes off and tore his watch from his wrist.

  She looked like a queen amid the lace pillow shams and silk sheets beneath the carved artistry of the great mahogany bed. For a second the truth of their situation flashed a warning in his mind. She was still the rich society girl—forbidden to a guy from the streets like him, a tough guy, a cop.

  He pushed the unwanted thought aside.

  Then he was on top of her, and she was twisting and writhing beneath him. He forgot everything that had gone wrong in the past as well as all the future dangers that threatened them. All that mattered was the wild, thrilling glory of having her again.

  The world was a mist of red flame devouring them both. And in the middle of the flame was pleasure such as neither of them had ever known before.

  He was hard and full when he entered her. She was slippery soft and warm and clinging. He tilted her head back, crushed his lips onto hers, his tongue mating with hers. There was a building wildness in them both, an explosion that seemed to fill the universe.

  Afterward he knew that all the years they’d been apart had only sweetened this moment for them both.

  “Do you belong to me?” he whispered in the now-dark bedroom.

  “I belong to you,” she said simply.

  He stirred, and rich brocade grazed his skin. His mind was numb. Could she ever really be his?

  Then she asked, “But do you belong to me?”

  He tensed and lapsed into silence. He became aware of the great bed again, of the silk sheets, of the bedside table where her diamond and gold jewelry lay beside the amethyst pendant he had given her and his inexpensive quartz watch; of the elegant room, of the velvet and gilt of the other restored antiques.

  He did. And he didn’t.

  Her naked body was soft and pale; she’d never had to do manual labor in her whole life. His body was tough and brown and laced with muscle—because he’d had to use both his brains and muscles since the day he’d been born.

  The elegant bedroom and the elegant woman belonged to a world he’d only had fleeting glimpses of in the past. His world was peopled by cops and criminals, by cooks and waitresses and the customers who came to Mannie’s. All his life he’d worked hard.

  He got up and went to the window. With a callused hand he lifted the heavy fold of a brocade curtain aside and stared moodily at the diamond lights of the city sprinkled beneath him. The real world, his world, seemed far away.

  It would be so easy to lie and give her the answer she wanted.

  But something, some shred of latent honor stopped him.

  He was aware of her rolling in the silk sheets, of her body curling itself into a tight ball of lonely misery because of the lengthening silence after her question.

  He balled his hands into fists and waited a while before he went back to bed and pulled her into his arms again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The swamp was green and deep and dark—dangerous—and a part of her. Here Noelle could wear faded jeans and a cotton shirt and let her hair fall in tangles around her shoulders. Here there were no rules, and she could almost forget who she was.

  But not quite.

  The swamp’s brooding atmosphere mirrored her mood. She was alone and feeling vulnerable as she fished from the stern of Garret’s houseboat that was moored in the secret place he and Noelle had loved as children. Garret had bought the houseboat used, and it now served as his fish camp.

  “I still come here when I want to get away from it all, chere. Only now I’ve got a roof over my head, a bed and screens to keep the mosquitoes out in the summer,” he’d told her as he’d helped her on board earlier that morning, before he’d left her alone while he went to visit Louis.

  Noelle understood Garret’s love for this particular spot. When they’d been kids they’d often come here in their pirogues and fished. When they’d grown older they’d thrown blankets down on the high ground beneath the cypress trees and picnicked together. In the spring, violets grew thick and lush on every bank. It was here, beneath the swaying gray draperies of moss in the dark shade of the cypress trees, that long ago she and Garret had first made love. It was here that she’d first dreamed that they would belong to each other forever.

  As Noelle studied the root-laced bayou, it seemed to her that she’d come full circle, back to the beginning of her love for Garret, back to the beginning of all that had gone wrong.

  She’d needed this time alone to think because even though this past week seemed a blur of passionate nights, many of their issues remain unresolved. They were still running from the same inner demons that had always chased them. Even when they were happy, she’d sensed an uneasiness between them. They came from two worlds. Hers was a life of wealth and the feeling that responsibilities came with that wealth. Although Garret had fought for everything he had, his identity was equally important to him. He didn’t feel he owed anyone an apology for the man he was. In the past they’d both hurt each other, and they found it difficult to trust each other.

  At the silent approach of a pirogue an alligator swatted the water with his tail before sinking beneath a thick patch of water hyacinths. Birds pierced the silence with excruciating protests. Snakes slithered into the impenetrable dark ooze. A turtle jumped off a rotting log into the water.

  Noelle glanced up from her fishing line and bobbing cork and saw Garret standing tall and proud in the narrow boat, his chiseled male profile sharply defined against the muted grays and greens of the swamp as he dug his pole into the soft mud of the bayou bottom. Her throat caught as she looked past him at the empty seat in the pirogue. No little boy with shimmering gold hair, only the hard, stubborn man, determined to keep his son to himself. So, he had not relented. Her chest tightened, but she smiled to hide her disappointment. In that moment she realized how much she had hoped that Garret would soften.

  Garret poled the pirogue expertly and tied it to the houseboat. Robotlike, Noelle helped him.

  After he came on board, he pulled her into his arms and buried his mouth along the side of her neck.

  “Noelle.” He said her name in a raspily caressing tone. “I couldn’t wait to get back to you.”

  For an instant she relaxed against him, seeking comfort in his embrace. Just as quickly, she hated his tenderness. What did it mean, if he didn’t trust her?

  “Don’t,” she whispered, frantic to avoid his touch.

  He withdrew his lips. His head came back sharply, his gaze narrowing with piercing intensity. Her desolate expression left him in little doubt of what she was feeling.

  “So how was Louis?” she asked in a small voice, forgetting to pretend she didn’t care.

  “Fine—”

  “I was hoping...”

  “Dammit, Noelle, I—” he began.

  “Why are you swearing?”

  “Because I know what you want.”

  “But you don’t care what I want.”

  “You know that’s not true, no, chere,” he said in a softer tone. “Didn’t I go out of my way to help Marc Fontaineau in spite of your interference? Didn’t I advance the Fontaineaus enough cash to make all their back payments due the bank? Didn’t I help you get Fontaineau’s mother to the hospital so she could have that operation? Didn’t I wait with you during the surgery?”

  Noelle nodded mulishly. “Yes.”

  “Can I help it if there are still serious charges against Fontaineau?”

  “You know I don’t blame you for Marc’s problems. You’ve been wonderful—there. It’s Louis—”

  “Dammit. Why can’t our being together again be enough?”

  “Because—”

  “No.” Garret’s jaw tightened.

  “Garret, Mardi Gras is just around the corner. You’ll be working very hard then. I’d like to take him to at least one parade.”


  “I told you I don’t want Louis involved with us! Not yet. He has the painful habit of forming intense attachments to people, especially women. Especially you. When you walked out on him, he couldn’t deal with the rejection.”

  “Louis needs a mother’s love.”

  Garret’s eyes were as black as death. “His mother’s dead. The last thing he needs is a relationship with you that might not last.”

  “I agree,” she answered, taking a deep breath before she turned away.

  Her vision blurred during their long silence.

  “Forget Mardi Gras and taking him to a parade. He’s not your child. He’s mine!” Garret threw the screen door open so hard that it went flying against the wall, causing the houseboat to shudder.

  When he stomped inside, Noelle stayed where she was, feeling lost and desolate. He had gotten rid of Beau, removed her from her own life, and yet he refused to make her a part of his.

  She heard Garret light the propane stove, cursing to himself when the matches were too damp and he had to search for another box, swearing again when he burned himself. Later she caught the scent of Cajun spices wafting in the air as shrimp and crab and frog legs sizzled in a frying pan.

  Even when it began to rain gently, she stayed outside under the shelter of the eaves. Her stomach growled. There was nothing she liked better than Garret’s fried shrimp and crab claws and frog legs. But not for the world was she about to allow him the satisfaction of stumbling mutely inside to eat what he’d cooked.

  Instead she waited until all was quiet, until he doused the lights and went to bed without her.

  Only then did she ease the door open and slip inside where she curled up on the couch and lay tense and awake.

  Hours later she was vaguely aware of some sound in the darkness, and then she jumped in fright when something brushed her arm.

  It was only Garret touching her. Only Garret’s long fingers like tongues of fire gently brushing her bare flesh.

  “Don’t be mad, no, chere,” he whispered ever so softly.

  Her breath caught. She could feel his tension as he studied her in the darkness.