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

by Ann Major

  “They want to be equals. Partners. But I remember those lessons,” Noelle said fondly. “You were very determined. I was an impatient little beast.”

  “Maybe you were too much like your mama. Don’t take offense, child. Your mama has a charm and a vitality that great Southern ladies from my era all too often lack. She’s made Wade very happy.”

  “I never heard you compliment her before.”

  “I must be getting old.” Marlea smiled. “But she was kind to me after the stroke when I could barely speak and you were away. Maybe she always was, but I was too strong and too stubbornly against what I considered Wade’s misalliance to notice before.”

  Noelle almost felt that she could bring up the subject of Garret and Grand-mère might have tried to understand.

  Instead Noelle knotted her hands together and lapsed into silence. Garret had been busy lately. With Carnival, and the additional police work it involved, he’d been too busy to focus on her and any of their problems.

  When he wasn’t working overtime for the police department, he was at Mannie’s helping his mother with the extra customers the season always brought. Noelle had hardly seen him. Not that she hadn’t been busy herself in her shop. But without Garret she’d been aware of the season rushing past her, of the balls that she wasn’t going to, of the life she’d given up for a man who suddenly had so little time for her.

  Beau had come by the shop once and told her about a particularly spectacular ball she had missed. Afterward, when Garret had not even called her that evening, she’d become even more restless than before. She kept wondering if he was deliberately avoiding her. So when Grand-mère had said she was going to Martin House to get away from all the excitement and the crowds and traffic, Noelle had offered to accompany her.

  She’d wanted to think, away from Garret, away from the hubbub of Carnival. Maybe she’d even find the right moment to confide in Grand-mère.

  When the wind gusted colder and stronger, Noelle reached for the coffeepot and offered to take it into the kitchen and rewarm it.

  A few minutes later, Noelle was at the microwave when she glanced out the window and saw that Grand-mère’s rocker was rocking itself silently in the wind. Dropping her potholders, Noelle ran to the window.

  Mon Dieu! Her grandmother was struggling with her cane to take shaky steps along the uneven brick walk that led to their dock on the bayou. The wind was swirling her black skirt around her frail body and tearing thin strands of silver hair loose from her bun. Beyond her grandmother, Noelle saw a slim boy fighting frantically to tie his pirogue to the dock before the wind swept him away and swamped the tiny craft. Water was inside the boat, curling around his ankles.

  “Louis!”

  Why hadn’t Grand-mère called her? Noelle was out the door within seconds, shouting to them both as she raced past Grand-mère to the dock and caught Louis’s line just as his boat was being carried away. She looped the line around a piling and tied it snugly and then pulled his tiny pirogue to shore.

  When the boat was secure, Louis picked up a wild-eyed Carlotta and heaved the dog onto the dock and then jumped off himself. He threw a second line from the stern and tied it.

  Noelle reached for the boy, pulled him close, clinging to him.

  “Don’t you know you shouldn’t be out on a day like this all by yourself,” Noelle murmured, ruffling his hair, pressing her forehead to his.

  He clung to her wordlessly, his slim arms wrapped around her neck, letting her pet him a minute more as the fierce wind gusted around them. Then something behind her caught his attention and he tugged free and dashed past her toward the house. Bereft, Noelle turned and saw that Grand-mère had dropped her cane and was struggling to lean down and retrieve it from the high grasses beside the bricks.

  Louis reached her, picked up the cane and handed it to her. For a long time the old lady and the boy stared at each other speculatively. He with his big, shy eyes; she with her sharp, dark ones.

  Noelle walked toward them slowly. Carlotta was already lying on the veranda wagging her sodden tail as if she had no doubt about her welcome.

  “This is Garret’s child, Grand-mère. His name is Louis.”

  Dubious blue eyes were still studying Marlea.

  “I know perfectly well who he is,” Grand-mère said, but in her kindest, gentlest voice.

  “He doesn’t speak, Grand-mère.”

  “I know. But I’ll bet he likes cookies.”

  Louis nodded warily, still shy and unsure.

  Grand-mère took his hand. “You must come up to the house and sit with me while Noelle fixes us a plate of cookies and some tea.”

  A few minutes later while they were eating, it began to rain, hard at first. Then it slackened to a slow but steady downpour before stopping altogether. Noelle called Louis’s grandmother and told her where he was.

  After having cookies, Louis stayed to draw and then lingered and had sandwiches. Noelle found some crayons and paper, and Louis happily drew and colored sketches of parade floats. Noelle asked him if he’d ever been to a parade and he shook his head, so she assumed he’d seen the floats on television. Grand-mère admired his pictures and began to talk of Mardi Gras, of the parades she had gone to as a child, of the costumes she had worn. Louis listened to everything she said, entranced, but silent.

  “Louis, do you know that Grand-mère’s costumes are still in the attic,” Noelle began.

  His blue eyes were immense and shone with excitement as he glanced up.

  “We could go up there and try them on,” Noelle offered softly.

  He looked doubtfully at Carlotta who had polished off a tray of cookies herself and now lay thumping her tail at Marlea’s feet.

  “Carlotta will be fine. Grand-mère needs a friend to keep her company.”

  Very slowly Louis got up and came to Noelle. He studied her for a long moment and then threaded his fingers into hers.

  *

  Dressed in a sash and pirate costume, Louis leaped from an ancient Vuitton trunk. No longer was he the serious child who had been coloring quietly on the veranda.

  He swung his imaginary sword at an imaginary foe. Beside him in the attic Noelle dug through the contents of a second dusty trunk. She pulled out a roll of red velvet, which she draped around herself. Then she became aware of Louis who had stopped his play and pulled something else out of the trunk. It was a dress, made of topaz-colored velvet. He handed it to her and gestured for her to slip it on.

  “I—I can’t, Louis. It’s been in the trunk for years and years. It’s musty.”

  His silent eyes implored her, so that at last she relented and slipped it over her clothes. His eyes glowed with appreciation as he led her to a mottled mirror in the far corner of the attic near a dormer window.

  As she studied her reflection, she was still buttoning tiny buttons up the front of the bodice. The skirt was so full—there were yards and yards of golden satin and velvet; it would need hoops, but the color brought out the whiskey gold of her eyes and transformed her into a beauty of another age.

  She winked at Louis. “All I need is a mask and I will be the perfect lady to be courted by a ferocious pirate such as yourself.”

  Louis laughed, dazzled.

  She thought of Garret. He would be furious at her if he caught them playing together.

  She stroked Louis’s hair. Across the room she saw their reflection in the mirror. She lowered her cheek to the shimmering gold of his head. Garret wanted her to have nothing to do with his son. Noelle closed her eyes to shut out the pain of that thought as she hugged Garret’s child.

  “Tonight, if it stops raining, there’s going to be a parade in New Orleans,” she whispered. “Would you like to go?”

  Louis nodded.

  “I’d take you if your grandmother will let you go.”

  Louis’s eyes were grave and yet shining with joy. Very carefully his mouth formed the soundless words, “I love you.”

  Noelle was filled with unbearable happi
ness. Suddenly she was as unable to speak as he. All she could do was pull him to her again and hold him tightly as tears squeezed through her lashes and rained down on the silky gold of his hair.

  He was Garret’s son. She had always loved him as if he were hers, too.

  And loving him somehow helped make up for the baby she’d lost.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Garret’s truck was partially off the road, hidden in the darkness of the trees. He sat in grim silence behind the wheel, waiting in the silvery half light, a hot swift current running through him.

  The parade had been over for hours. Where the hell were they?

  Just as he asked himself this question for the hundredth time, he saw twin cones of light bobbing off the dark trees, vanishing, and then bobbing again as Noelle’s Mercedes drew up to the small house dwarfed on all sides by cypress and pine.

  Noelle alighted from her car, and Garret leaned forward, his body suddenly as taut as a bowstring. Silhouetted against the porch light in her gown of golden satin and velvet, she seemed a fantasy from the Old South as she circled the hood to help Louis out. Louis was masked as a diminutive pirate with a patch over one eye, and he was struggling manfully to hold a dozen plastic necklaces and handfuls of Carnival doubloons.

  Suddenly everything in his arms spilled to the ground, and both Louis and Noelle knelt to retrieve it. Afterward as she handed him the last doubloon, she hugged him tenderly for a long moment as if he were very precious to her.

  Garret’s brows knotted in a deep frown as he observed the clinging pair. Louis’s face was aglow, his eyes shining with adoration.

  Garret was furious. But he was dazzled, too, as dazzled as his son, by some soft secret, long-desired emotion that threatened to overflow inside him and leave him totally vulnerable. He clutched the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles gleamed white in the moonlight.

  Garret loved her, yet he almost hated her for doing this to him. Just as Louis wanted to be part of a family, Garret wanted a family, as well—to be both father and husband again. But he was afraid. Bone-deep afraid of Noelle. Afraid of trusting her. Afraid of losing her and his dreams of a future with her all over again. He had tried to pretend that more than anything he was afraid for Louis, but it wasn’t true. He was afraid for himself. Selfishly, stupidly afraid.

  He had so many memories of their times together, as children, as teenagers, as adults. For many years he had fought to forget all that she meant to him. He had left Louis with Annie’s mother so he wouldn’t see his own longing reflected daily in his son’s eyes.

  Memories came back to Garret in a dark flicker of images. Noelle and he making love beneath sunlight and shadows when they were young along the bayou’s edge. Noelle gone, and the emptiness he’d felt every time he’d visited that place without her. The years of loneliness. Annie...their marriage...her death...the agony of his guilt afterward. And then Noelle again...and that terrible final night when their baby had died and she’d nearly died as well. If he’d only listened when she’d tried to explain about Raoul.

  Garret remembered Louis’s silent shock when Noelle hadn’t returned. Garret’s own guilt had grown stronger since he’d known that he was the cause of his son’s misery.

  Garret had told himself he was through, finished with love and commitment, but then he’d let Noelle back into his life. And everything was starting again. Every day he could feel himself caring more for her. She made him laugh; she made him feel alive again. He found himself wanting to talk to her, wanting to confide, to trust.

  As a result Garret had tried to avoid her for the past two weeks in an attempt to weaken her hold on him, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He was in the grip of something too strong to break. And now she’d gone behind his back and was involving Louis.

  Damn her. He should have known she would try something like this. She’d said she was coming to Martin House to accompany her grandmother who wanted to get away from the Mardi Gras crowds. And he’d been glad—glad to be rid of her—although in the end it hadn’t helped. Her absence had only made him realize how hopelessly he was obsessed.

  Had she deliberately lied to him? Had she thought herself safe, thought that he was trapped in the city by the long hours he had to work, that he would never find out what she was really up to? Hadn’t she realized that he always called to check on Louis, that he would discover that she had taken him into the city for the Momus parade?

  Annie’s mother had tried to explain—something about Noelle rescuing Louis and Louis being almost happy for the first time since Noelle had gone out of his life two years before—but Garret had cut her short and driven out to wait for Noelle instead.

  When Noelle vanished inside the front door, Garret got out of his truck and walked up to the porch. She stayed inside only a minute, but as he stood in the dark and studied the golden sliver of light beneath the door, he caught fragments of her gentle goodbyes. Through the window he could see Louis holding her, not letting her go until she promised to come by the next day. And the sight of them together awakened in Garret a longing so intense he wanted to smash something to obliterate it.

  When she came outside again, the porch light turned her hair to flame. Despite his anger and confusion Garret had never been more piercingly aware of how lovely she was. Her tight bodice and hooped skirts made her figure look like an hourglass. Yellow lace frothed at her bosom. She wore a matching yellow ribbon in her hair. Did she smell of wild roses?

  All week he had thought of her constantly. Now that she was near, his need for her throbbed like a fever in his blood.

  He wanted her. He hated her. He loved her.

  “Chere...”

  When she saw him standing in the shadows, she jumped and almost cried out. He moved toward her silently and grabbed her, pulling her out into the darkness away from the lighted house.

  “Garret, I know what you must be thinking… that I went behind your back. But it wasn’t like that. It just happened.”

  She was soft and warm—beautiful, desirable. The deafening roar of his own heart seemed to pound against his eardrums.

  He clasped her captured wrist, holding it hard when she would have drawn it loose. “Don’t lie to me, chere.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You said you wanted to be with your grandmother.”

  “I did. Louis came over—”

  “I don’t want to hear any of it! Do you understand?” And yet he did. He wanted to believe every tender word of defense she uttered, and that made him even angrier.

  “Right. You never want to listen to me,” she said.

  “All I know is that you came here and deliberately defied me by taking Louis to New Orleans to see that parade.”

  “He wanted to go! It’s wrong of you to bury him out here! He’s a little boy!”

  “My little boy.”

  “He could have been...ours. He still could be. I want so much...to be a mother to him... Oh, Garret... He needs me.”

  Pain twisted Garret’s heart. “I told you to stay away from him. That was my one condition.”

  “Do you have any idea how ridiculous and inflexible you sound? He’s from Louisiana, and he’s never even seen a parade. You should have seen how happy he was there.”

  Garret was miserable, torn. Neither Noelle nor Garret heard the back door open. Nor did they notice the sliver of light widen as a tiny figure slipped outside and stealthily approached them.

  “Garret, please...”

  Garret felt himself weakening, but he told himself he had to be strong—for Louis’s sake. “Stay away from Louis!”

  “I love him! And he loves—”

  Ruthlessly Garret snapped her slim body even closer to his own. “Stay away from him.”

  “I can’t!”

  She was struggling to free herself, but he was too strong. His fingers wound through her hair to still her head. Her red hair was shaken loose from its ribbon and tumbled down her shoulders.

  “Daddy...”


  The whispered word from behind them shocked Garret to the core. He whirled and saw his son standing in the darkness. Garret could only stare in frozen wonder as the little boy leaned down and picked up the yellow ribbon. It was a long time before Garret himself was able to speak.

  “Louis, you talked. You actually spoke,” Garret managed huskily.

  “Don’t hurt her, Dad.”

  Hell.

  “I wound never hurt her,” Garret whispered as Louis ran to Noelle and threw his arms around her.

  Slowly Noelle knelt to his level and took her ribbon back. “Thank you.”

  “Please, Daddy, please don’t make her go away again.”

  “Darling, Louis,” she said quietly, pressing him close. “Darling, darling...” From beneath lowered lashes she glanced up at Garret, her own eyes radiant until she met his cold black gaze.

  Numbly Garret sank to his knees beside them. Just as numbly he was aware of Noelle rising, of her gently placing his son in his arms and then retreating to the shadows behind them so that father and son could be alone.

  As he hugged his child, it was one of the most wonderful moments in Garret’s life. Louis had spoken! Perfectly!

  When Garret glanced past his son and saw the desolation in Noelle’s eyes, he realized it was one of the most awful moments for her.

  He clenched his hands into fists and pressed them against his thighs.

  Didn’t she know that she was tearing him to pieces?

  *

  Garret opened his liquor cabinet and splashed Scotch into a single glass. Noelle was in his living room behind him, but he didn’t invite her to join him. It had been a long day—eighteen hours long. Then there had been the hours in the truck waiting for her, followed by the scene with Louis.