by Tami Hoag
They drove into a residential area and skipped over a couple of blocks until they found the street that ran parallel to the Bayou Noir, a wide ribbon of sluggish water that was as black as its name promised. The last house along the row of neat bungalows set well back from the bayou belonged to Remy’s parents. It was a pretty brick ranch-style house with a screened porch running along the entire front. It was shaded by live oak hung with bunting of gray moss and there was a little flower shrine with a white statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of the front yard.
Noelle Doucet came out a side door wiping her hands on her apron. She greeted them all with smiles and hugs as if they were relatives who had been too long away from her. She was a small plump woman with sparkling dark eyes. The scent of baking bread clung to her like perfume. She welcomed her son home with a kiss and a rapid stream of French.
“Where’s Papa?” he asked.
“Down at Lawrence’s gettin’ a part for his motor. He’ll be back in time for supper. He’s never late for a meal, that man.” She smiled at Danielle in feminine conspiracy. “Late for his own wedding, yes. Late for supper, ma-is non!”
Remy engulfed her in a big bear hug that had her giggling like a girl of twenty. Danielle looked on, enjoying the sight but feeling a faint twinge at the same time. He looked so young—a grown-up boy teasing his mother, his eyes shining with a distinctive resemblance to Noelle’s. “What’s for supper, Maman?” he asked. “You cookin’ my favorites?”
“My gumbo and maquechou and bread puddin’ for dessert if you behave yourself, cher.”
“I guess that means there’ll be plenty for the rest of us,” Danielle said dryly.
Noelle laughed and disentangled herself from her son’s embrace, saying something to him in French that made him blush.
“She’s wondering if I’ve finally brought home a prospective daughter-in-law,” Remy whispered to Danielle as his mother busied herself getting acquainted with Butler and the Beauvais children.
Danielle went utterly still, staring up at Remy without the usual snappy rejoinder. Her cheeks grew hot and she cursed her adolescent reaction.
Remy’s gaze burned a smoldering shade darker as he studied her. “You’re blushin’, angel,” he murmured, feeling a little flushed himself at the implications of her silence.
“That’s not a blush, it’s a hot flash,” she grumbled. “Early sign of menopause.”
Remy chuckled and brushed a kiss to her temple.
“We’re going to be a huge imposition on your parents, Remy.” The house looked a comfortable size, but it didn’t seem big enough to hold them all. Danielle shuddered to think of turning her nieces and nephews loose in someone else’s home. God only knew the havoc they would wreak.
“We aren’t stayin’ here. We’ll be at the Hotel Doucet,” he said, hooking a thumb in the direction of the bayou.
Danielle squinted against the sun as she looked west. “That looks like a barge.”
“You got it in one, chère.”
They walked over to explore the accommodations, leaving Noelle in her glory serving cookies and lemonade to the children at the picnic table in the backyard. Butler watched Eudora as he sprawled in a chaise on the patio; he waved them off with a placid smile.
“He’s certainly changed his tune about you,” Danielle said as they crunched down the clamshell path toward the barge.
A secret smile tugged up the corner of Remy’s mustache as he thought of the alliance he and the Scot had formed. Once Remy had made it clear he cared deeply for Danielle the irascible old butler had been the picture of cooperation. “Guess he just had to get to know me. To know me is to love me,” he said, grinning and batting his thick eyelashes at her.
Wasn’t that the truth, Danielle thought, her heart jolting in her chest. She had gotten to know him, had fallen in love with him, and now she was in over her head. It was yet to be determined whether she would sink or swim.
The Hotel Doucet, as Remy called it, was a campboat, a wood-frame house built on the rusting hull of a barge. It had originally belonged to Remy’s grandparents, but now served as guest house for visiting relatives when the main house overflowed. The house itself was two stories high and one room wide, the exterior covered in gray cypress shakes. Big sections of the first-floor walls were hinged, raised and propped up on railroad ties, creating a gallery of sorts and revealing huge screens that would let the evening breeze through but keep the insects out.
Much of the deck of the barge had been covered in vibrant green AstroTurf. Halved whiskey barrels squatted in strategic spots, overflowing with geraniums and petunias. A concrete turtle peeked out from under a huge hairy fern. A cherub balanced a bird-bath on one pudgy shoulder. The overall effect was a little like a miniature golf course, but homey and welcoming.
Danielle was delighted. “The kids will love staying here!”
“Yeah, I don’t know about you and me, though. It’s kinda small.” He gave her a long, somber, meaningful look. “We aren’t gonna have any… privacy.”
“Oh.”
Her look of disappointment warmed him. He slung an arm around her shoulders and walked her to the bow of the barge. “I know you’re sad, sugar, but don’t pout. You can live without me for a couple of nights.”
Danielle ducked away from him, shooting him a look. “Yeah, I’ve lived thirty-nine years, three hundred and sixty some nights without you. I think I can manage a couple more.”
Remy snatched hold of her hands, pulled her to him, and danced her around the deck, grinning like a pirate. “That wasn’t what you were sayin’ last night, chère.”
“Oh! Not fair! The words of a woman on the brink of orgasm cannot be held against her.”
“No? Can I be held against her?”
Without waiting for an answer he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly. They had danced around to the far side of the house and were out of sight from the road. For the moment it was just the two of them with only a spindle-legged heron watching them from the far side of the bayou. Remy pressed his palms against her back, splaying his fingers wide. His mouth slanted against Danielle’s temptingly, insistently, his tongue seeking and gaining entrance to the honeyed warmth beyond her lips.
Gulping air, he changed angles and kissed her again. His right hand strayed down the curve of her hip then up again to find her breast and fondle her budding nipple, and he smiled and caught her sigh of pleasure with his mouth.
“I’ve arranged for us to have a little time alone tomorrow,” he murmured against her lips. “I want to give you a tour… among other things.”
Danielle lifted her sleepy lids and tried to clear her head of the sensual haze Remy had so easily stirred up. “What about the kids?”
“Nanny’s day off. My folks have agreed to look after them.”
She gave him a dubious look then shrugged. “Well, I guess if they survived raising you, they can survive the Beauvais.”
“Very funny.” He pinched her bottom through her shorts then smoothed his hand lovingly over the fullness, squeezing gently the way he might test a peach for ripeness. “How about you, chère?” he asked, his voice a low purr that lulled and excited her at once. “You gonna survive me?”
I don’t know, Danielle thought as his mouth settled down on hers once more. And as she gave herself over to the magic of kissing him she wasn’t sure she cared. When she was in his arms nothing else mattered, nothing intruded on her happiness. When he kissed her this way it didn’t matter that he was younger and it was all right that she had foolishly fallen in love with him.
“You’re sure this is okay?” Danielle asked, casting a worried look back at the dwindling sight of the Doucet house. “I feel guilty about it.”
“Jeeze, Danielle, will you give yourself a break?” Remy fiddled with the throttle arm on the outboard motor, revving up the little engine and making the blunt-nosed bâteau spurt ahead in the inky water of the bayou. “My parents love havin’ kids around,” he yelled above the
noise. “Papa will take charge of Tinks and Jeremy, Mama and Butler can handle the other three. Sit back and enjoy the ride, darlin’. Or maybe it’s the idea of the swamp you don’t like, oui?”
He held his breath as he waited for her answer. Dieu, was he out of his mind? Expecting a sophisticated woman like Danielle to like putting around a swamp in a little boat that reeked of fish. He was just asking to have her hand him his heart on a platter.
“Absolutely not!” Danielle insisted, offended. “After all the places I’ve been, I’m hardly afraid of this swamp. I’ve got nine rolls of film with me, and if I don’t get a close-up of an alligator, I’m going to hold you personally accountable.”
His grin broke across his stormy expression like the sun coming out from behind a thunderhead, and Danielle felt her heart give a little leap. The cynic in her, the sensible star-crossed Hamilton in her, told her she was being a world-class idiot, but the tender spot Remy had touched in her soul turned a deaf ear. She smiled at him and on they went, away from Luck and the campboat, up the Bayou Noir and into the primeval world of the cypress swamp.
When they were deep in the heart of it Remy cut the engine and the mechanical buzz of the motor died off into stillness that was gradually filled by the sounds of nature. The screech of an eagle, the beating of an egret’s wings, a splash, a slithering in the duckweed along the bank, the distant hoarse bellow of an alligator. He watched Danielle’s face as she looked and listened, and adrenaline pumped through him at the brightness of excitement that shone in her eyes.
“It’s wonderful,” she whispered, loath to disturb nature with the sound of her voice. “Like the Amazon. Like the Ituri in Zaire. It’s fabulous.”
There was a flush on her high, perfect cheekbones. Beneath the fragile covering of her tan camisole blouse her breasts rose and fell with her shallow breaths. Her excitement was telegraphed to Remy like electric currents through the heavy air. It simmered in his blood and settled low in his belly.
With the agility of one raised on the water, he moved from his position at the back of the bâteau to settle on the plank seat beside Danielle, his hip brushing her hip, his shoulder nudging hers. She looked up at him and the faintest of breezes stirred a curling tendril of silvery-blond hair against her cheek. She had pulled her wild mane back and secured it with a heavy gold barrette, but almost immediately strands had escaped. Now Remy reached up with gentle fingers and brushed the curl back.
Danielle stared at him, at the smoldering passion in his jet eyes, realizing only when her lungs started to burn that she had forgotten to breathe. She shivered a little at the thought of how powerful the pull of desire was between them. They were in the middle of a swamp, for heaven’s sake, and all she could think about was having him make hot wild love with her.
He drew a bit of his lower lip between his teeth and nibbled at it as he leaned a little closer. “I love that perfume you’re wearing,” he murmured in a voice as dark as the bayou.
“Deep Woods Skeeter Stop,” she whispered, staring at his mouth.
He sniffed and hummed appreciatively. “My favorite.”
“I feel like we’re the only people on earth.”
“We’re the only people here.”
She glanced around at the lush jungle. There was something incredibly sensual, incredibly sexual about it—the wild fertile smell, the heat. “Remy…”
“Why not, chère?” he whispered, his rough voice a caress. “I missed you like hell last night.” He stared at her from beneath the fringe of black lashes, his gaze as hot and relentless as the sun that lifted steam off the stagnant water. His smile was so frankly carnal it took her breath away. “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”
“Yeah, right,” Danielle muttered. “We’ll let the good times roll us right into the swamp where we will be promptly devoured by alligators.”
“Don’t you trust me, angel?” he asked, sliding to his knees on the floor of the boat, sliding the strap of her blouse down off her left shoulder.
“About as far as I could throw an elephant,” she said, then Remy lifted her breast out of its lacy confines and took the tip of it in his mouth and all reservations were canceled by the instant rush of passion.
Danielle moaned softly and let her head fall back as she brought her hands up to thread her fingers through his shining dark hair. Oh, how she loved the way he made her feel. Each tug of his mouth dragged a little more of her sanity away, stripped away another layer of civilized veneer.
His hand slid up under her loose cotton shirt, pushing aside the soft, sand-colored fabric to brush his fingertips against the satin skin of her inner thigh. She scooted closer to the edge of the bench, tilting her hips forward, inviting him to touch her intimately, and when he tugged aside the leg of her panties and stroked her moist heated flesh, she gasped and moaned a little bit louder.
His fingers moved slowly, rhythmically, savoring her honeyed heat. With his thumb he rubbed the tender bud of her desire as he tested the depth of her readiness, wringing another, louder moan from her. With his free hand he jerked open the front of his jeans, his manhood springing free, swollen and eager.
A sliding sensation dipped through Danielle’s stomach and she realized belatedly she was slipping off the bench. Remy gathered her skirt up in fistfuls, anchoring his hands at her waist as he pulled her toward him. She curled her fingers around the back side of the seat for support and eased herself down, her knees brushing his hips as she settled on him. They both groaned as she took him deep into the hot wet silk between her legs.
Remy fastened his mouth on her nipple again and sucked strongly. Danielle panted as a raw jolt of electricity shot directly from her breast to the pit of her stomach and tightened her convulsively around his throbbing shaft, then it was Remy’s turn to pant.
They made love slowly, thoroughly. With the rich wildness of nature all around them they did the most natural thing in the world, the most basic of acts between male and female, made beautiful by what was in their hearts. The passion consumed them both, building like a storm on the horizon, hotter and hotter, and when the storm broke and the passion crested, their cries of completion split the air, mingling easily with the sounds of the swamp.
They collapsed against each other, sweating and spent, gasping, lungs in search of oxygen in the sultry air. Eons passed. Danielle mustered a smattering of strength and brushed a mosquito the size of an aircraft carrier off a vital-looking vein on the back of her hand.
“I’ll be eaten alive,” she mumbled, her love-bruised lips brushing the shell of Remy’s ear.
“Mmmm,” he groaned, not stirring. “Is that a request?”
She was beyond innuendo. Her brain felt like Yorkshire pudding in her head, blitzed by the onslaught of a zillion sex-starved hormones. “There are mosquitoes out here large enough to qualify as blood-mobiles.”
“Wait till you see the snakes.” He lifted her back onto the bench, fastened his jeans, then dug into the cooler they’d brought along for an icy can of beer while Danielle straightened her clothes.
“I can’t believe we just made love in the middle of a swamp,” Danielle said, wonder in her voice and in her eyes as she took in their surroundings all over again before settling her gaze on Remy. He looked rugged and handsome sitting on the plank seat across from her, his dark face flushed. “And it felt so right,” she murmured.
Remy’s heart pounded against his breastbone like a fist. This was it. This was perfect.
twelve
RENARD’S WAS A COMBINATION RESTAURANT, bar, and dance joint situated along the bank of the bayou, just down the road from the Doucets’ house. Set at the edge of the woods, it was a large, unpretentious clapboard structure perched some feet off the ground on cypress stilts. The parking lot was filling up as the dinner crowd arrived.
Remy rolled his eyes and raised his arms toward heaven. “Mon Dieu, Danielle, come on in.”
Danielle took a step backward. She felt like a fool. She’d dressed to come here, putting on
a purple silk tank top and a skirt she had picked up in India that was two flowing layers of vibrant blue gauze with batik designs in soft yellow, dark blue, and fuchsia. But her enthusiasm for the night out had dwindled with every article she put on her freshly showered body. By the time she had fastened on the gold hoop earrings with the painted wooden beads, she had pretty much convinced herself she would rather just crawl under a bed and hide.
This very day the calendar page had flipped, the old body odometer had turned over. She was forty. The sun had pinkened her face, emphasizing those tiny lines and wrinkles miracle skin cream commercials are always lamenting. She had gone over her body with the too critical eye of an artist, sure that the early signs of sagging were there. Her breasts had started to slip. In her hysterical imagination she thought she could actually see gravity dragging them down, and her butt right along with them. She’d turned and given her fanny a smack, watching in the mirror with horror, waiting for it to jiggle like an unleashed Jell-O mold.
She was a forty-year-old woman dressing up for a date with a man who thought the Supremes were soda crackers. Who was she trying to kid?
“Danielle,” Remy said in his most cajoling tone. He hooked a finger through the two fine gold necklaces she wore and gently drew her close. “Come on, chère. I finally get a chance to take you somewhere, show you somethin’, have a nice meal with no baby food involved. Come on.” He gave her a lost-puppy look, tilting his head for effect.
Danielle snarled a little through her teeth as her resolve melted and her knees went weak. The blasted man knew exactly how to use all that Cajun charm to his advantage. “Oh, all right.”
Remy heaved a sigh of relief, took her by the arm and led her up the steps to the door of the restaurant. The instant the screen door banged shut behind her, she knew something was terribly wrong. All the fine hairs on her arms stood on end. Remy turned her left and propelled her toward a long row of tables against the far wall and she gasped in shock and horror.
