Tempestuous/Restless Heart (31 page)

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.

“Happy birthday, Auntie Dan-L!” Ambrose shouted, leaping in the air and flinging a fistful of confetti at her.

Tinks and Jeremy and a passel of children she’d never seen before blew on party horns until their faces turned purple, garnering the attention of everyone in the place who might by some miracle have missed the shout.

Also seated at the tables were Butler, Mama and Papa Doucet, and half a dozen other adults Danielle didn’t know. All there to celebrate a birthday she would rather have skipped.

She turned around and stared up at Remy, holding herself perfectly still lest she explode into a million furious fragments. “You told these people it was my
birthday
?” She said the word with incredulous emphasis, as if he had told them her bra size.

Remy was wearing that dumbfounded-male look. “I didn’t tell them which one!”

She glanced back at her party guests and gave them a wide, brittle smile, speaking right through it. “We’ll be right with you, folks.” Turning back to Remy, she said, “It’s a shame you have to die so young.”

“Oh, come on, sugar,” he said with a chuckle. “All these folks want to party with you. They’re all glad you were born today. I sure am glad you were born today. What difference does it make how many candles are on the cake?”

“There’s a cake with
candles?”
she hissed, horrified.

“Naw.” Remy winked at her. “Fire marshal wouldn’t allow it.”

She managed a weak laugh at that, then glanced back at the expectant faces of their dinner party. It was awfully sweet of them all to come—whoever they were. And the children looked so excited. With a little lump in her throat she thought of her last birthday, spent in Tibet with a yak and a goat.

“How old are you, Auntie Dan-L?” Ambrose asked, coming to take her hand and lead her toward the place of honor.

“Thirty-nine,” she lied smoothly, murmuring under her breath, “Again.”

She was promptly introduced to everyone at the table. There was Remy’s oldest sister, Alicia, her husband and three children; youngest sister, Annick, who bore a striking resemblance to Remy’s voodoo priestess; a couple in their sixties introduced as Tante Fanchon and Uncle Sos. Sitting to Remy’s left was his twin sister, Giselle, her husband, and their twin five-year-old daughters. Absent from the Doucet brood were youngest brother, Andre, and eldest, Etienne, better known as Lucky.

With introductions out of the way everyone fell into animated conversation. Much to Danielle’s relief, she discovered the Doucets pounced on the slightest reason to get together and have fun, so there was no embarrassing fuss made over her. Beyond the initial announcement and heraldry, little mention was made of the occasion, which suited her just fine.

She listened to the chatter around her, slightly distracted, her emotions in a turmoil. She studied Remy’s sisters, all of them fussing happily over children. Annick, who had none of her own, had adopted Eudora for the night, much to Eudora’s delight. As they waited for dinner to be served, Remy entertained two of his nieces with the G-rated version of his excursion into the swamp with Danielle.

“Auntie Danielle,” Jeremy said, appearing at her side to tug at her arm. “You’ll never guess what me and Tinks saw today.”

“Hmm? What was that?” she asked absently, lost in her own uncertainty.

“We went into the woods with Papa Doucet and he showed us all kinds of animals and—”

“Oh, that’s neat, Jeremy.” She gave him a vacant smile. “But you’d better go sit down now. I think our food is coming.”

“Yeah, but I want to show you—”

“Maybe later, okay?”

The boy sighed and stomped back to his seat as a pair of waitresses brought out their dinner.

Renard’s was a comfortable place with natural wood paneling and big screened windows. The tablecloths were red and white checked plastic. Statues and pictures of foxes abounded. The place was doing a booming business. If the waitresses’ figures were anything to go by, the meal promised to be as delicious as it smelled. Both were on the plump side with cheeks rosy from the heat in the kitchen. All the Doucets were familiar with the young women, calling them by name, asking after their families. They chatted as they served, their musically accented voices rising above the general din of plates and silverware and talk from other tables. The array of dishes was served family-style at the table.

The dish that caught Danielle’s interest was the steaming platter piled high with boiled crawfish. Remy instructed her on the fine art of eating the small dark red crustaceans that looked like miniature lobsters, showing her how to break off the tail, crack the shell with thumb and forefinger, and dig out the rich white meat inside.

“And then,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “If you’re a real Cajun, you suck the fat out of the head.”

“Whoa, forget it!”

“Ah, me, how we ever gonna make a Cajun outa you,
chère
?”

“You aren’t if it involves sucking fat out of the head of a decapod,” Danielle said dryly. “I’ve eaten a lot of weird stuff in a lot of weird places, but even I draw the line somewhere.”

That won her a round of good-natured laughter from everyone but Remy, who merely forced a smile and sat back in his chair. He hadn’t needed the reminder of her footloose lifestyle, not tonight when his heart was so set on asking her to stay forever. His stomach churned a little and it had nothing to do with the generous amounts of spicy food being served at the table. It did a barrel roll as Alicia’s husband asked Danielle to tell them about some of the exotic places she’d been.

“I forgive you,
cher,”
Giselle said, leaning close.

Remy looked at her as if she had just sprung up out of the ground.

His sister’s eyes sparkled with the wisdom of a twin. “You’re in love with her, yes?”

There was no point in denying it. Giselle was too in tune with his feelings, as he was with hers.
“Oui,”
he whispered, swallowing hard.

“Then I forgive you for taking the name of my agency in vain.”

“Hey,” he huffed indignantly. “I’ll have you know I’m a damn good nanny. I may just keep this job.”

Giselle sniffed and rolled her eyes, then glanced around him at Danielle. “She’s very pretty. She loves you too, yes?”

He forced a grin. “I hope so.”

His twin was hardly fooled. She leaned up and kissed his cheek, her dark eyes full of understanding. For just an instant they shared an aching, uncertain heart, then Giselle smiled and said, “Poor Danielle, she’s got no chance against all that charm of yours,
cher.
She’ll be a Doucet before she knows it, she will.”

“I hope you’re right,” he murmured. But as his gaze turned toward Danielle and he watched her tell a story about photographing the Efe tribe of the African Congo, all his hopes twisted into a knot of apprehension. She looked so vibrant when she spoke of those faraway places. Could he really expect her to give all that up and put down roots along the bayou when her heart had been so restless for so long?

At length the dinner plates and empty platters were cleared away by the same plump smiling waitresses. A band took the stage on the other side of the big open room and began to tune up, plucking and sawing at fiddle strings, strumming a chord on a guitar, checking the keys of the small Evangeline accordion. The level of excitement started to rise, hitting a crescendo of clapping and whistling at the opening bars of “Allons à Lafayette.”

Half the tables emptied, their occupants spilling onto the dance floor in a flood of humanity. Smiles flashed, heads bobbed, feet shuffled as they made their way around the floor in variations of the two-step. The music Danielle was beginning to love was loud and happy-sounding, the little accordion huffing and puffing between its master’s hands, the triangle player bouncing with the beat, the fiddle player wailing out the French lyrics with gusto.

Danielle smiled as she listened. It was almost impossible not to move in time with the beat. As she watched the patrons of Renard’s dance and laugh and chug down cold beer, she felt herself getting caught up in the atmosphere. She had been many places and seen many things, but she had fallen head over heals in love with Louisiana, with the people and the culture, the music and the land. For the first time in a long time she had begun to fantasize about staying put. It scared the hell out of her.

The raucous two-step eventually gave way to a graceful waltz. Remy rose and held a hand out to her. “How about it, sugar?”

Danielle had waltzed with princes and playboys, but their memories paled into oblivion as Remy took her in his arms. His dark eyes never left hers as he swept her around the floor, moving with a fluid natural grace no dance instructor could have taught him. Danielle found her heart fluttering and shook her head a little in amazement. The waltz was hardly a sexy dance. It was old-fashioned and formal, straight-backed and straitlaced. But she couldn’t have felt more aware of Remy had they been writhing out the Lambada. And her heart swelled with love for him and her uncertainties and reservations swelled right along with it.

Like a knucklehead she’d gone and fallen in love with a younger man, a man who had pursued her with the motto of “let the good times roll.” They’d had a good time. He hadn’t asked for more and she would have had to have been completely obtuse to think he might ask. He was a family man, domestic for all his wily wicked charm. What would he want with her—an aging photographer with a curse on her head? She might have made an interesting diversion for the summer, but he wasn’t liable to think of her as making much of a wife. No, Remy would want to look for a sweet young thing adept at cooking and cuddling babies. Cuddling a Nikon wasn’t going to rank high on his list of priorities. It would probably be just below “in need of a face-lift.”

Really, she thought, mentally tearing little bits off her heart, he should be looking for someone like the dark-haired little gal who was presently dancing in the corner with his twin nieces. She looked about twenty-five. Her cheeks were still slightly pudgy with the bloom of youth. Her long hair hung in a single braid down her back like a length of silken rope. The little girls she was indulging looked completely enamored of her—and she of them; as the music ended she wrapped them both in an exuberant hug. Then she looked up and caught Danielle staring and her dark eyes flashed with unmistakable dislike. Danielle frowned, unable to pull her gaze away from the acrimonious look even as Remy steered her out of the flow of traffic to the very edge of the dance floor.