by Tami Hoag
“You like all that traveling?” he asked, unable to keep the amazement out of his voice. He inched a little closer to her.
Danielle relaxed a degree as he let go of the topics she dreaded most. She settled back into the flowered cushions of the swing again and nodded. “I love discovering different parts of the world, what the people are like, what the food is like, the environment, the history. It’s all fascinating to me.”
Remy looked down at Eudora, frowning absently. He couldn’t understand that kind of wanderlust. It made him vaguely uncomfortable to think of it and to think that Danielle was so different from him. He would have preferred their only major differences to be the fun kind—anatomical.
Danielle studied him as he seemed to lose himself in thought. A sweet pang shot through her chest at the sight of little Eudora snuggling against Remy’s chest, her fair lashes fluttering against her chubby cheeks like fairy’s wings as she drifted into sleep. She looked completely relaxed, as if she felt absolutely safe and secure, and Remy looked oddly natural with the baby in his arms. It didn’t make sense. A big, brawny guy like Remy Doucet, who seemed to exude masculinity from every inch of his brawny body, shouldn’t have been so at ease feeding a baby. But he held Eudora with the kind of second-nature casualness that came from long experience.
Danielle caught herself wishing she could trade places with her niece. She had a feeling nuzzling against Remy’s chest would be a very cozy place to fall asleep … or something. The memory of his arms around her came back with the tempting lure of a siren’s call. She had to struggle to remember that the siren’s victims always met with disaster—which was what she was headed for fantasizing about Remy’s chest.
She cleared her mind of romantic notions and cleared her throat to break the languid mood that had settled over them as tangibly as the Louisiana humidity. “I take it you’ve been here all your life.”
“Pretty much. My family’s been living on the Bayou Noir for ’bout two hundred years.”
“Gee, you don’t look a day over a hundred and three,” she said dryly.
Remy smiled like a crocodile, his dark eyes glittering as he leaned a little closer. “Does that mean you don’t still think I’m too young for you, sugar?”
Danielle snapped her teeth together and fumed while her cheeks flushed a shade to rival the geraniums that spilled out of stone pots on either side of the front door.
Not wanting to scare her off, Remy changed the subject before she could say anything. “I moved from Lou’siana once. I was working for an oil company and had to transfer to Scotland—the Outer Hebrides.” He rolled his eyes and shuddered at the memory.
Danielle had spent a month in the Hebrides one summer. It was a harsh place, but beautiful. She had enjoyed the sounds of the wind and the sea, the rugged treeless landscape, the earthy practicality and hospitality of the islanders. Remy obviously had not.
“I had to come back home,” he said. “This is where my family is. How could I live someplace else?”
Danielle shrugged. “My family is scattered all over the globe. That doesn’t makes us less of a family.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Five. We’re all related only through our father, though, except Drew and Tony—they’re twins.”
“Bon Dieu! Your papa, he’s really had five wives?”
She nodded and shrugged, her angular shoulders lifting and falling gracefully. “The Hamilton curse,” she said blandly. “Women fall in love with Laird at first sight. They just can’t stand being married to him. Oddly enough, they’ve all remained friends after the divorces. It’s not at all uncommon for one or more of the exes to be in residence at the compound at any given time.”
“And you believe in this curse, chère?”
Danielle wasn’t sure how much credence she put in the curse, but she certainly couldn’t dispute the fact that her relationships with men didn’t last. When she was feeling practical she admitted she wasn’t an easy person to live with. When she was feeling put upon she blamed the curse. “Well, I’m not exactly a missus now, am I?” she said by way of an answer.
“Mrs. Beauvais is.”
“Suzannah is the exception to the rule.”
Danielle looked past him, through the window into the house. From her position she couldn’t see the children, but the television was still glowing and mumbling.
“What did you do to the Wild Bunch?” she asked dryly. “They haven’t been this quiet since they were in their mother’s womb.”
“I told ’em I learned how to be a nanny through a correspondence course while I was in prison.”
Danielle’s heart froze for one terrifying second, then lurched into overdrive. What had she done now? She should have insisted on checking his references. She had been too enthralled with his fabulous fanny to think that he might have been a psychotic killer or something. For a split second she thought of snatching the baby from his arms and dashing into the house, but she dismissed the idea. She would rather take her chances with an escaped convict than be locked inside the same house with Jeremy Beauvais.
“Relax, darlin’,” Remy said on a chuckle. “I’m just exactly what I appear to be.”
No great comfort there, Danielle decided. He appeared to be deliciously intoxicatingly, irresistibly male. He appeared to be the answer to every erotic dream she’d ever had. He appeared to be too young for them to be included in the same demographic group. She swallowed hard and bared her teeth in a parody of a smile. “Wonderful.”
“I think you’re pretty terrific, too, Danielle.”
Danielle felt everything inside her begin to overheat. It was then that she realized Remy was no longer safely tucked back into his own corner of the swing. His muscular thigh was brushing against hers. He had slid his left arm along the back of the bench so that his fingertips were resting just behind her bare shoulder. He leaned a little closer. She gave him a dour look that made him sit up but didn’t quell him into retreating to his own side of the swing.
“Can’t blame a guy for tryin’, now can you?” he said, giving her his innocent altar boy look.
“You’re a regular Cajun Casanova, aren’t you?” Danielle accused. “And with a baby in your arms. You ought to be ashamed.”
He didn’t look ashamed, but he did glance down at Eudora dozing contentedly on his arm. A soft, heart-stealing smile lifted the corners of his mustache. “She’s a little doll, oui?”
“Yes, she is,” Danielle murmured, biting her lip as she looked at her little niece. Eudora was unquestionably precious with her pudgy cheeks and duckling fuzz hair. No one would have guessed from looking at her she was going to grow up to be one of the infamous Beauvais clan. She had stolen Danielle’s heart immediately and now that heart squeezed a little in her chest as Danielle reached out a slightly trembling hand to brush at the baby’s fine red hair. “I think she even likes me some of the time.”
The wistfulness in her voice hit Remy square in the chest. He looked at her now when her guard was completely down and a knot of some unidentifiable emotion wedged itself into his throat. The woman who had the ability to look fierce and imperious and as icy as a winter day in the Hebrides now looked haunted and insecure and filled with longing.
“Sure, she likes you,” he whispered, brushing back a lock of Danielle’s angel hair with his free hand. “You wanna hold her?”
Danielle made a face. “I’m not very good at that.”
“Don’t say that,” he said in that soft seductive tone that never failed to make Danielle’s toes curl. “All you need is a little practice.”
He scooted closer to her again, until his thigh was solidly pressed to hers. Danielle felt the heat of him and wondered if it was possible for flesh to fuse through a layer of denim and cotton gauze.
“Here,” he said, positioning the baby to slide her into Danielle’s arms. “All you gotta do is relax, darlin’.”
With his dark eyes locked on hers, Danielle completely
lost track of the conversation. The moment was suddenly charged with all kinds of possibilities—possibilities that involved a lot less clothing than she was wearing now. As her breath grew painfully short, her nipples hardened beneath the suddenly abrasive fabric of her tank top. Memories of the kiss she’d shared with Remy flooded her foggy head—the brush and tickle of his mustache against her skin, the sensuous fullness of his firm lower lip, the clean earthy scent of him. She was on the verge of begging him to kiss her again when Eudora’s weight settled into her arms.
She looked down at the sleeping child and automatically tightened her hold. Eudora squirmed and made a face in her sleep.
“Relax,” Remy coaxed gently. “Don’t squeeze her; she’s not an accordion. That’s right. Just relax, chère, she won’t break.”
He slid his arm directly around Danielle’s shoulders this time, not bothering with subterfuge. She needed his support now. The sight of her holding the baby, her gray eyes full of uncertainty, stirred feelings deep within him—protective feelings, primitive feelings. There was a tenderness, a sweet, aching kind of tenderness that shamed the mere lust he’d felt for her earlier.
“Bien,” he murmured, leaning down to brush his lips against her temple. “That’s fine. You’re doing just fine.”
Danielle soaked up his words like a dry sponge absorbing rain. In that instant she didn’t feel forty, she felt afraid. And Remy wasn’t too young, he was too good, too sweet. She lifted her gaze, intending to dispel the magic with a wry remark, but her heart caught in her throat as she met his earnest, caring look.
Remy stroked his fingertips down her cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. Then before the spell could be broken, he leaned down and caught her parted lips with his. It was a sweet kiss, a soft kiss, not threatening or demanding. It was all too brief, and yet it was long enough to send all of Danielle’s senses into a frenzy.
She could have put it down to the fact that she hadn’t been near a man in a long time. Or she could have put it down to the stress she’d been under recently. But under all the excuses lay the basic truth—she was attracted to this man in a way she couldn’t remember ever having been attracted before. It was frightening, particularly now when she had decided she wasn’t going to find fireworks or bliss, now when she had finally resigned herself to the fact that some dreams weren’t meant to come true.
Looking down at Eudora, she tried to clear some of the huskiness from her voice, but managed only a hoarse whisper when she said, “Maybe you should take her up to bed now.”
Remy sat back thinking it was Danielle he wanted to take to bed. He wanted to hold her and love away all the shadows in her pretty gray eyes. He wanted to kiss her and bury himself inside her and tell her how pretty she was and how hot she made him. Bon Dieu, he thought, it was a wonder the swing didn’t burn away beneath him.
A brief flash of movement at the front door caught his attention and he glanced over expecting to see one of the children, but the figure that quickly ducked back was much too tall to be a Beauvais. He rubbed the back of his neck and narrowed his eyes in thought as he pulled his cigarette out from behind his ear and planted it in the corner of his mouth. There was something very strange going on around here.
“That Butler,” he began. “What sort of fella is he?”
“Butler?” Danielle repeated dumbly, her brain still shorting out.
“Yeah. He wouldn’t—”
His question was cut short by the resounding Ka-boom! of an explosion taking place somewhere inside the house.
Remy bolted to his feet and dashed for the door. Danielle stood and stumbled as the swing hit her in the back of the knees. She snatched Eudora tightly up against her shoulder, waking the baby and scaring her so that she immediately set up an ear-piercing wail.
It wasn’t difficult to tell where the blast had taken place. Smoke rolled out of the kitchen under the door. A cloud of it billowed out as the door swung open, and from the cloud emerged little Ambrose, his hair sticking up and a big grin on his face beneath his Lone Ranger mask.
“Ambrose! What happened?” Danielle asked frantically as she rushed down the hall with Eudora bouncing in her arms, the baby’s cry taking on a kind of yodeling quality as she ran.
“Tinks blowed up the macaroni surprise with a firecracker,” he said with a giggle. “It was fun.”
Bracing herself for the worst, Danielle pushed the kitchen door open and stepped in. Remy was standing near the table with a fire extinguisher in his hands. The table was lost somewhere under a sea of white foam. There was macaroni everywhere. It was stuck on the walls, on the white cupboards. Wiggling worms of macaroni dangled from the ceiling and the light fixture.
It was clear, though, that Tinks had got the worst of it. She stood at the head of the table looking like something from a cheap horror movie. Her face was covered with a slimy layer of cream of mushroom soup, dotted with bits of mushroom and crescents of overcooked pasta. Luckily, it appeared that the only thing seriously wounded was her pride. Her lower lip stuck out through the goo in a threatening pout.
Eudora, on the other hand, had stopped crying. She stared around the room, her blue eyes round with wonder as she took in the sight, as awestruck as if it were Christmas morning.
“Ah, me.” Remy groaned, setting down the fire extinguisher. He speared both hands back through his dark hair as he picked his way across the macaroni-strewn floor toward the perpetrator of the crime. “What a mess!”
“Radical!” Jeremy exclaimed, bursting in through the door and bounding past Danielle. “Tinks slimed the kitchen!” He skidded across the slippery linoleum, pretending it was a skating rink.
Dahlia opened the door just enough to stick her head into the kitchen. Taking in the scene, she made a horrified face and squealed, “Gross! I’m gonna gag!”
With Eudora perched on her hip, Danielle tiptoed into the room, carefully tracing Remy’s path to where he stood scraping Tinks off with a spatula.
“It would seem the caution inspired by the tales of your incarceration has worn off.”
Remy said nothing, but scowled down at Tinks, his temper simmering.
From the hall on the other side of the kitchen Butler emerged panting, his hair disheveled, cheeks flushed. He looked to Remy as if he might have just run up the front stairs and down the back, but Remy made no comment other than a raised eyebrow at the Scot’s shoes—a pair of black wingtips that looked very out of place beneath the legs of his pajamas.
“What the devil is going on here?” Butler demanded breathlessly. He tightened the belt of his robe and started forward into the room, remembering belatedly to stoop and press a hand to his back. “A man canna get a moment’s peace in this house!”
“It was nothing, Butler,” Danielle said reassuringly. “Just a minor explosion. You can go back to bed.” She stopped herself and shook her head, a horrified look coming over her face. “What am I saying? Just an explosion? This isn’t a household, it’s a training facility for midget terrorists!”
Remy turned his attention back to Tinks, his big hands planted at the waist of his jeans, his shoulders looking impossibly huge as he leaned over her. “You’re in a whole lotta trouble, ’tite rouge. I want you upstairs an hour ago. Got it?”
Tinks gave him a mutinous glare. “You can’t make me. I don’t have to do what you say.”
A muscle tightened and kicked in Remy’s jaw. “You wanna take bets on that?”
She hauled back and kicked him in the shin a split second before he could grab her. Remy winced, biting his tongue on the string of expletives that threatened. Tinks turned to make a break for it, but Remy caught her around the waist and swung her up, spinning her around and plunking her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her breath left her on a surprised “Oof!” She tried to kick him once. He stilled her squirming with one hand shackling her ankles and one smacking her smartly on the fanny.
“We’ll be upstairs discussing the new house rules regarding explosi
ves,” Remy said tightly to Danielle as he passed her, his face dark with fury, black eyes flashing.
Danielle, Eudora, and Jeremy watched them go. Jeremy looked stunned and pale, his freckles stood out in sharp relief against his skin. His eyes bugged out like Bart Simpson’s. Butler looked thoughtful. Eudora gave a startled little gasp and pressed a chubby hand to her mouth as the kitchen door swung shut.
“Uh-oh is right, sweetheart,” Danielle said, with a smile of smug admiration. “I think Tinks has met her match.”
“Do you think he’ll kill her?” Jeremy asked in a hushed tone. “Do you think he’ll dunk her in chicken broth and feed her to the alligators?”
Danielle gave him a look. “Of course not. Mr. Doucet is a trained professional nanny.”
Butler gave a snort at that, but declined to elaborate when Danielle turned toward him. She looked from his face to Jeremy’s to Eudora’s, her initial pleasure at Remy’s actions fading. She might have wanted Tinks to have an attitude adjustment, but she certainly didn’t want the little girl hurt, despite the many dire empty threats Danielle herself had made. She turned and stared at the kitchen door as if it were the portal to hell, her ears trained to catch the faintest sound of suffering. The house was ominously silent.
What did she really know about Remy Doucet? As paranoia tried to get a foothold in her mind, she walked calmly across the carpet of macaroni, not wanting everyone to panic.
“I think I’ll take Eudora up to bed,” she said, putting so much false serenity into her voice she sounded like she’d had a lobot-omy. “Why don’t you all go back to whatever you were doing?”
After depositing the baby in her crib. Danielle crept down the hall toward the sliver of light that escaped Tinks’s room to fall across the darkened hall. The rumble of Remy’s husky voice gradually came into focus as she sidled up against the wall beside the partially opened door and peeked in through the crack.
