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

by Ann Major

  It was terrible, more terrible than anything, being at odds with him. She had felt again the long, lonely emptiness of the years that she’d been without him. It didn’t matter that their relationship wasn’t perfect, that his job and his life had made him hard. He was right for her in some way that no one else ever had been. Louis was his son, after all, not hers. He was doing what he thought best for his son.

  She didn’t resist when Garret eased her stubborn, bright head onto his shoulder, when he slipped his arm around her and held her.

  She was surrounded by him; his thighs were rock hard, his chest massive and yet warm and comforting. His silence was a comfort, too. For a long time neither said anything more, and gradually she relaxed in his strong arms.

  “I’m sorry I pushed you about Louis,” she said at last. “I won’t do it again.”

  His hands gently smoothed her hair. “And I’m sorry for what I said.”

  But even as he lowered his mouth to hers and the feverish excitement of being with him began to mount, she knew that nothing had been resolved.

  The rainstorm passed.

  So did their passion, but the sex had been a physical act of lust and frustration, not a mating of two minds and souls.

  *

  Garret was at the window, gazing out at the mysterious dark poetry of the swamp in the moonlight. He caught that faint odor of damp and rotting vegetation. The wind swirled the wet foliage. The surface of the bayou was alive with ripples.

  He turned and became aware that Noelle was awake, too. His thoughts were both tender and troubled as he feasted upon the creamy, silken woman lying in the silvery light, the woman who waited for him to come back to bed and take her in his arms and hold her until they fell asleep.

  They were both satiated from their lovemaking, and yet no matter how physically satisfying it had been, something vital had been lacking for both of them. It was as if neither knew how to reach the other. Emotionally, he felt tight and hard, as if he’d had no release at all.

  “Come back to bed,” she whispered, her voice throbbing.

  He wanted to say that their problems couldn’t be solved in bed, that he’d tried to solve them there and he’d probably keep on trying.

  Obeying her, he crossed the room in long silent strides. But when he lay down stiffly beside her, he refused to take her in his arms. He felt grim and tight when he shot her a sideways glance. The same lost expression was in her eyes that had been there before he’d made love to her.

  “It’s not enough, is it?” she asked quietly.

  He felt her fingers brush his arm.

  “For either of us?” she added.

  “No,” he admitted, pulling away from her, crossing his arms behind him on his pillow and propping his dark head on top of them.

  “Passion never is. We both want everything else—love, trust...”

  “Do you blame me, if I can’t feel that way about you?” he demanded in a biting, cynical tone.

  “Maybe, if you’d just listen to me...”

  “You’d better leave Louis out of this.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk about the baby.”

  “Hell.” His voice grew even colder as he remembered the night that had shown him once and forever just how deep the chasm between them really was.

  “We have to talk about what happened two years ago, about the night we lost each other. About Raoul. About why I went to his house that evening instead of meeting you at your boat the way I’d promised. About why I couldn’t tell you the truth about him.”

  Garret’s head turned on the pillow to stare at her in the darkness. “I know why! For all his faults, a Girouard’s social pedigree was infinitely preferable to a Cagan’s—even to your grandmother!”

  “No!”

  Garret muttered a garbled curse. “I never want to think about that night or Girouard again!”

  “You’ve got to listen to me.”

  “I already feel rotten enough as it is,” Garret whispered.

  “I wanted your baby,” she said, her voice low and gentle, insistent. “More than anything.”

  Her words brought a raw ache to his heart. “I don’t believe you, chere. Your grandmother swore to me you were glad our baby died.”

  “Grand-mère was out of her mind because I was pregnant by you and unmarried. She was afraid I might be dying. She blamed you for everything, and she wanted to punish you and drive you away. She would have said anything to protect me and separate us.” Noelle paused. “I wanted to marry you, for us to be together for the rest of our lives and make a home for our child and Louis—despite my family.”

  “Then why did you keep our relationship a secret from everyone that mattered to you? You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant.”

  “Because...because it was so hard for me to face Grand-mère and Papa.”

  “I wasn’t good enough to be the father of your child in their eyes.” Garret’s gaze was hard. “So you went to Raoul...first. Not to me. Did you tell him the baby was his?”

  “Raoul loved Eva, you big idiot. Not me!”

  “Eva? Do you really expect me to believe—”

  “Yes! I knew they were planning to elope secretly. I had to stop them. Since I was pregnant, I had to bring our relationship out in the open. Grand-mère hadn’t been well.

  Whether you believe it or not, she has never liked Raoul— despite his...social pedigree. She wasn’t up to two blows at the same time—my pregnancy plus Eva’s elopement with a Girouard. I went to Sweet Seclusion to try to convince Raoul and Eva to wait.”

  “Eva and Raoul?” Garret’s gaze flicked sharply to her in confusion.

  “Yes!”

  “It’s too impossible for me to imagine them together.”

  “Don’t you remember that he was constantly at Martin House?”

  “I thought he was there to see you.”

  “Everyone did. I let you think so because I was immature enough to be flattered by your jealousy.”

  “Wasn’t I jealous enough?” Garret’s mouth thinned. “You were a Mardi Gras queen and always attending all those balls and parties I was excluded from.”

  “I thought I could have it all,” she whispered.

  “So... Back to that night. When you didn’t come to my boat to meet me, I drove out to Martin House to find you. Your car was just leaving when I got there. I followed you to Sweet Seclusion. I figured there must be something between you and Raoul after all, so I drove back to New Orleans. The weather was getting too nasty to sail, but I went to my boat anyway. I drank a couple of beers, and my anger fed on itself. Then you came, hours after you were supposed to have met me there. I asked you why you were so late, and you didn’t even mention your visit to Girouard.”

  “When I told you about the baby, you asked...”

  He sucked in a deep tortured breath. “ ‘Who’s the lucky father?”’

  “I wanted to die,” she whispered.

  “You nearly did.”

  “I hardly remember...” Her voice was faint.

  And yet she did remember—every terrible detail. The houseboat, the lapping of the bayou outside, all the wild swamp sounds, Garret’s glittering dark gaze—everything that belonged to the present—blurred—and she was back in the past two years before.

  The night was as black as ink, the wind fierce and wet as it swept across Lake Pontchartrain and lashed the hull of Garret’s sailboat. The halyards were clanging against the mast. She and Garret were alone inside his airless cabin with the hatch tightly latched and the silence inside seemed to smolder. Her heart was hammering as violently as the gusts that made the boat heel to one side, forcing her to grab on to the varnished ladder in the companionway to steady herself.

  Noelle was worried about having made Eva and Raoul put their relationship on hold. She was worried, too, about breaking the news of her pregnancy to Garret, who was tense and cold. Had something terrible happened to him, something he wasn’t able to confide to her? He was so pale that only his dark eyes
seemed to be alive—great burning black holes in his drawn face. Not once had his expression softened when he’d lifted his morose gaze from the table and focused on her. His fingers were locked around the neck of his beer bottle as if it were the handle of a knife. He made the bottle rock back and forth, and the motion was both hypnotic and maddening.

  He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t kissed her. He kept watching that incessantly moving bottle, and his dark mood filled her own heart with the desperate desire to scream, to do anything to break the tension.

  She knew this wasn’t the right time to tell him about the baby, but somehow the terror of not knowing what was wrong with him made her blurt out her news anyway. “Garret, I’m pregnant.”

  She wanted him to put his arms around her, to say he was happy. She longed for any sign of happiness.

  Instead, his expression tensed, and he cocked his head at a funny angle so that she could see the mad pulsing of a corded vein in his neck. But the bottle continued to rock back and forth on the table.

  His eyes met hers. “Who’s the lucky father?” His voice was strangled, but he kept moving that bottle.

  “Y-you. You know you are—”

  “Do I?” He looked up and began to laugh, but his eyes blazed with a more unpleasant emotion.

  She flinched. “You know you are...”

  He was no longer looking at her. His gaze was focused on the cruelly glinting bottle in his fist.

  In a haze of agony she realized it was no use trying to talk to him. Something was dreadfully wrong.

  Blindly, she turned away. She reached for the hatch, slid it open and rain poured into the cabin. He called her name, pleaded with her to stay. When she refused, she heard him make a violent oath which was followed by the violent shattering of glass—the beer bottle—he’d either thrown it or dropped it. She struggled up the ladder, desperate to escape him.

  He rushed after her into the cockpit. The boat was pitching wildly from the wind. She could barely stand on the slippery deck. All she knew was that she had to get away.

  He wasn’t happy about their baby. He’d refused to even acknowledge it as his. She wanted to die of shame, of desolation.

  She reached for the dockline. Just as she was pulling the boat nearer to the dock, a gust of wind screamed across the lake.

  “Noelle... Damn it. Come back. I’m sorry.” Garret lunged to help her, but she twisted away, trying to jump to the dock.

  She almost made it. For an instant she tottered in her rubber-soled canvas shoes on the wet wooden planks, but she couldn’t get her balance. With a helpless cry, she fell backward into the black, icy waters, her skull striking the massive chrome winch on the deck of Garret’s boat.

  Barely conscious from that blow, gasping with shock from the cold water, she struggled to swim despite the weight of her sodden clothes. A terrible, final, hopeless exhaustion was draining the last ounce of her strength, and she felt herself sinking. She wanted to go to sleep, to float peacefully away, to forget about Garret...and the baby.

  But she couldn’t forget her baby. She had to stay conscious. So she fought to swim back toward the boat, to Garret’s outstretched hand, but her legs were so numb she could barely kick them.

  She closed her eyes. He screamed her name. But the cold murky waters were sucking her under and sweeping her away. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Garret’s face. It was white and wild, his eyes desperate with fear as he ripped his jacket off and jumped in after her.

  By the time he got her out, she was barely conscious. He’d wrapped her in blankets and raced her to the hospital, and the whole way she’d been too ill to even know he was there. She’d been icy with shock, as still as death. She had wanted him, cried for him soundlessly, but she’d never realized he was there.

  Noelle didn’t like remembering that terrible night when she’d lost everything that was precious to her, so she forced her mind to return to the present.

  A cool breeze stirred the bayou, as well as the draperies of Spanish moss that shrouded the cypress trees. At least that time was over.

  Maybe they’d find a way to reach each other this time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As Garret lay in bed beside Noelle in the houseboat, the bitter memories wouldn’t stop for him, either. He remembered holding Noelle’s cold lifeless hand in the hospital when she lay on the stretcher and orderlies rushed her down long halls. He kept seeing her white face when he’d asked her who the father was. He’d kept imagining her with Raoul, wondering why she’d gone to him that night before she’d come to him. More than anything he’d wanted to take back his awful doubts and terrible words.

  No one had ever told her he was there. Her grandmother had had her stroke that same night. He knew now that Noelle had blamed herself for that. As soon as Marlea was better, Noelle had gone away to Australia. Raoul had gone to Africa to fight in some war, and no one in the parish, not even Eva, had heard from him again. No one knew if he was dead or alive. According to local gossip, a check for the maintenance of Sweet Seclusion still came monthly from a Swiss bank account. There were those who said that Eva Martin had never gotten over him.

  Garret stared across the tangle of sheets at Noelle. She’d been silent for a long time, and he wondered what she’d been thinking. Did she blame him for all that had gone wrong?

  She was beautiful with her nude, curved body half exposed by the white folds of cotton sheets. Hell. Maybe it was better to concentrate on the present and to bury the past.

  In a single fluid motion, Garret rolled over and eliminated the distance that separated them. His finger lifted the delicate pendant from her throat and watched it sparkle in the moonlight. He let it drop. It was much lovelier against her skin.

  His hands brushed over her shoulders. Her flesh was like warm satin. She gasped, and he felt the wonder of her sliding closer and pressing her soft curves against his granite length.

  “At least we’re together, now,” he muttered. “The past doesn’t really matter so much.”

  “But are we—really? And for how long?”

  “For as long as we want each other.”

  “No commitment?”

  He looked into her luminous eyes. She was beautiful, so beautiful—pale and soft, with her slanting dark-lashed eyes and her red hair framing her lovely face; rich and spoiled. There was an innocence about her, a confidence about life that he didn’t have. She still believed she could have anything she wanted. He had learned differently. His nerves tightened, and he looked away, into the darkness beyond her.

  “So you still can’t believe in me?”

  He laughed harshly. “You’ve got to admit I haven’t had much luck in the past with commitments out of you. You always run. I’ve had to stay behind and fight my own battles. I didn’t always do so well. Annie’s dead. Louis won’t talk. But, dammit, I’ve fought.”

  “What about us?”

  “All I know is that I want you now, and you want me. But as to a real future… It’s hard for me to believe we have much of a chance.” All he let her hear was his anger, not the fear behind his anger that he was right.

  She was about to protest, but his fingers grasped her chin and he turned her face to his. “Nothing we say can change what happened.” Then he silenced her anguished response with a kiss that thankfully, left her too stupefied to argue further.

  She was pulling him on top of her and their passion burned again like the most desperate flame.

  *

  Two weeks had passed. Noelle hadn’t been able to get that night and her pain out of her mind even after they’d returned to New Orleans together. So now that Carnival had started, she’d left the city and Garret to come to Martin House where she could be alone with her thoughts and Grand-mère.

  Noelle was in the kitchen making tea and coffee, thinking of Garret instead of concentrating on what she was doing. Suddenly the Meissen sugar bowl slipped through her fingers and shattered on the tile floor. Noelle stared at the priceless yellow and white bi
ts of china. It was a shock to realize that she was too upset about the problems of her relationship with Garret to care that she’d broken it.

  “What was that?” Marlea cried from the veranda.

  Although Grand-mère was frail, she still had ears like a lynx’s.

  “Your favorite sugar bowl.”

  “Come out here, dear. Let Celia clean the kitchen before you do any further damage. You’ve been as nervous as a cat ever since we left New Orleans.”

  Noelle stepped out onto the veranda where Grand-mère, who was wrapped in a light woolen shawl, sat rocking slowly back and forth as she sipped a steaming cup of chicory-flavored coffee. The sky that enveloped the house and trees was silver bordered with black edges. The wind off the bayou was cool and strong.

  “It feels like a storm is brewing,” Noelle said.

  “What’s the matter, chere?” Marlea demanded, her soft tone holding a veiled command.

  Noelle sank into the wicker chair opposite her grandmother and poured herself a cup. Even though she longed to confide in her grandmother as she’d done when she’d been a child and could tell her everything, Noelle couldn’t.

  “Nothing.” She brought her cup to her lips and sipped silently, watching the sky darken. “If this weather doesn’t get better, some of the Carnival parades may be canceled.”

  Marlea ignored Noelle’s attempt to change the subject. “I may be old, but I’ve got eyes in my head. I thought you wanted to come to Martin House. You said you wanted to get away from the city during Carnival.”

  “Did I?” Noelle could feel her grandmother’s sharp, bright eyes studying her.

  “Is it Beau?”

  “No.”

  “When I was your age I wouldn’t have left New Orleans during this time of the year.”

  “Things were different then.”

  Marlea sighed and set her cup back in its blue saucer. “Life was slower and more elegant, but there were more rules. I was carefully taught to be a lady. Every night Papa would choose either me or my sister to be his hostess for the dinner meal. We would have to sit opposite him, formally dressed, never letting our spines touch the backs of our chairs. We had to converse with the adults present, sometimes for hours, no matter how tedious we found the conversation. We had to practice entering the dining room and leaving it, pouring the tea or coffee, again and again until he was satisfied with our performance. I tried to teach you all these things...” Her faint voice trailed away. “But times change. Even then you would never sit still. Now we have all these new ideas. Everybody’s a feminist. Women don’t want to be treated gently.”