by Ann Major
Garret stiffened at Vincent’s proprietary tone when he spoke to Noelle. What gave Vincent the right to tell her how to think and act?
“Go ahead and talk to him, chere,” Bibi said.
Ignoring them all, Garret swept Noelle into a tiny office where they could be alone even if the door had a window in it.
His hand closed over her forearm. “You have the most amazing family. They seem equally divided. Half of them love me. Half of them hate me.”
“I know the feeling,” she whispered.
“The question is—which half is running the show?”
She met his gaze with blazing eyes, and he thought he knew her answer. Garret looked out the window and saw Vincent pacing back and forth, and the thought of Beaumont even touching Noelle made Garret angrier. “What kind of relationship do you have with Vincent, anyway?”
Her chin lifted. “That’s none of your business.”
When Garret clamped his hand around her wrist and pulled her closer, he felt an unwanted jolt go through his body. “Are you really going to marry him?”
Saying nothing, she eyed him levelly.
“Then tell me this, chere—are you sleeping with him?” His fingers became a vicious vise, their brutal pressure jerking her closer.
“Damn you,” she whispered. “I...” She glared up at him, recoiling. “You have no right to ask. It’s not like you care about me yourself.”
He stood there like a statue and stared her down. Instinctively he knew the exact second when her rage bubbled over, the exact second when she tensed to strike him.
He caught her hand before it could complete the swinging arc and make contact with his cheek.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he demanded coldly.
She bit her lip. Then her indignant gaze locked with his.
Did she enjoy making him dangle on the cruel hook of her silence? With every hushed second that passed, her hook sank deeper until he felt a tearing pain as if every cell in his body ached for her to say no. A mindless rage at himself that this was so began to pulse within him.
He was the first to break.
“Look,” he began raggedly, “I do care. I know Vincent can give you things, a life, everything...money, the kind of life you want…” The huge knot in Garret’s throat made it impossible for him to go on.
She was watching him closely, expectantly, reading him. “I wish you were right. I wish he could give me...everything,” she admitted at last, very softly. Gently she pulled her hand free so that she could caress the top of his lean bronzed wrist. “Certainly it’s true that Beau can give me what Grand-mère and Papa want for me, what any normal woman would want—a safe, predictable, respectable life. I owe Grand-mère so much. You know...that because of me...because of us...she had that stroke. She couldn’t talk...for nearly six months while I was away in Australia. I don’t want to hurt her like that ever again. It would be a lie if I said I haven’t been thinking about marrying Beau, but, no, I’m not sleeping with him.”
Convulsively Garret’s fingers tightened on Noelle’s. “Not yet.” He pulled her hard against him. Her head only came to his chin; he felt her lips pressed into the hollow of his throat.
“Don’t do it then,” he said. “Wait.” After a long tense moment of holding her close, he let her go, kissing her gently on the brow.
He cupped her chin tenderly. Then both hands moved to frame her face.
His hand traced Noelle’s delicate jawline. The feel of her skin was insidiously erotic. He remembered their forbidden nights together on his boat, in his house and other places; nights when they had lain awake for hours, holding each other in different embraces, their passion burning between them like wild flames of desire. He had stored a lifetime of memories of both her passion and her tenderness. He wanted that kind of softness and love in his life again; hungered for it.
Abruptly he let her go.
“Why did you come here, Garret?” The light in her eyes seemed to bathe him with flaming heat.
“Because I couldn’t leave things the way they were between us last night. I was too rough on you,” he murmured. “I...I’m sorry I didn’t call you after that night you came out to my house. I know how hard it must have been for you to go there. But, you see, I thought it was over—this thing between you and me. I wanted it to be over. I believed I could walk away from you, that I could just end it. But…”
“But?” Her beautiful face was filled with warmth and compassion.
“I want you to come back—not just to help me catch that crazy punk. But back—to me.”
“What?”
“I know everything went wrong before, and I can promise you nothing.” His gaze lifted from her face. He stood there looking straight ahead, out the glass window. The plane was waiting. So was her family and Beaumont. Impatiently. Angrily.
“I’m probably a fool to ask you,” he said. “You never dared to date me openly. Maybe we’ve gone through more than a couple can and survive. You’re not the only one with a lot to lose.”
Hell, no, she wasn’t! He was probably throwing his whole life away, his independence, perhaps Louis in the bargain, everything he’d worked so hard for, especially if the senator came after him. His gaze came back to her lush mouth. He was courting fresh disaster, and yet he was totally unable to stop himself.
“Only this time,” Garret continued in a grimmer tone, “we play by my rules and not yours. No more sneaking around and hiding from your family. I won’t be your illicit poor-boy lover.”
“Oh, Garret, you were never that.”
“Wasn’t I? You move out of their house...their houses. Rent a place of your own, live on the money you make. No more being flown places in the family jet—unless they’re along. And you date no one—except me.”
“And Louis?”
Garret looked at her and saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. He glanced away quickly before he softened.
“We’ll leave him out of this for now.”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to turn my own personal life upside down, and you want your own family protected?”
“We played by your rules before.” His gaze was hard as it slashed back to her face. “You always snuck around to see me. That only made your family resent me even more when they found out.”
“You’re asking me to choose between my family and you, when you refuse to make the same choice?”
“No, it’s not like that. The last thing I want is to come between you and them. With Louis, it’s the opposite problem. He’ll get his hopes up all over again if he sees you. He’s very fragile. You know how he was after Annie’s death. Then you came along, and he adored you. But it cut him up when you left. He retreated into his shell. Only it’s almost worse because he’s six now. He hasn’t spoken a single word... One day he just packed his things and took his pirogue and poled himself through the swamp all the way back to Annie’s mother’s. He hardly...looks at me when I come around.”
“But, Garret, aren’t there doctors?”
“He’s been to all of them. The trauma did something to him. He hates goodbyes. I’m not keeping you away from him to hurt you. I just can’t risk Louis right now. That’s all.”
She took a shaky breath. “But I’m supposed to risk everything?”
“I know it’s a lot, chere. Probably too much.”
He lifted aside the molten fire of her hair, pushing it away from her neck. “You always said I was a pushy guy, yes?” Then his mouth found the sensitive spot at the base of her throat where he could kiss her pulse.
He touched her pulse first with his tongue and then with his mouth, deepening the kiss only after he felt the tiny throbs skitter crazily. As always he had only to touch her and she was on fire for him. It didn’t matter that she was a cherished princess of the Creole aristocracy, and he a cop, the son of their former cook and a logger.
Garret’s roughened hand slid under her sweater to the back of her waist, but she pulled away.
She leaned breathlessly a
gainst the wall. “I can’t think when you do that.”
“I don’t want you to think. I just want you to come back to me,” he whispered.
“Why should I when you won’t forgive me, when you can’t love me?”
“That’s going to take time, chere.”
She looked up, searching his face. “So will my decision,” she said finally. “Louis isn’t the only one who was hurt before.”
Low, harsh laughter erupted from Garret’s throat. “You’re damned right there.”
He was mocking himself, but she took what he’d said in the wrong way and thought he was mocking her. When she opened the door to rush out of it, he grabbed her.
Locking his arms around her, his lean masculine frame shaped itself against her soft curves. Ten thousand years of civilization died in that hard embrace. He felt primitive, virile, all male. He couldn’t let her go. At least not yet.
His grip tightening on her wrist, his velvet tone was a command. “Not so fast, chere.”
A thrill coursed through him when heat sparked in her golden eyes.
“This is exactly what’s wrong with our relationship—it always gets physical,” she whispered.
But he caught the low quiver of excitement in her voice.
“Do you really want to live without it?” he muttered huskily. “Without me? Can you?”
They stared at each other for endless seconds until she flushed. He ran a hand up the side of her arm, across her breast, up her throat, along her windpipe until she trembled from his erotic touching, until she closed her eyes, until she half opened her mouth and bent her head back, her breath coming unevenly. She licked her wet lips and pursed them expectantly.
His mouth lowered within inches of hers. He felt a wild excitement mounting within him, that keen pleasure to taste her that was almost like pain, but even though he was on fire with longing, he stopped himself.
“No, chere,” he whispered thickly. “I’m not going to kiss you. I want you to know exactly what it feels like—to want it, to crave it, and to do without. I want you to lie awake nights and imagine yourself in Vincent’s marriage bed—wanting this.”
Even though the heat of her body against hers filled him with urgent need, he lightened his hold on her.
Her eyes snapped open. “Why you—”
He ran a light, electrifying finger across an erect nipple pushing against cashmere, and she jumped back.
“Just remember, chere, if you marry that rich, pompous wimp, you’ll have him, but you won’t have me. Not ever again.”
“Maybe I’ll be perfectly happy with him!”
“Maybe.” He shrugged with seeming indifference. It was a French gesture, cocky, peculiarly his. “Maybe not. After all, you’re more your hot-blooded mama’s daughter than your blue-blooded father’s. You’ll never be a true Martin.”
“No!”
“Yes. And someday you’re going to figure out who you really are. I only hope it isn’t too late—for both of us.”
Noelle was beginning to shake. She clasped her arms around her body and lowered her head, trying to control the quivering.
When Garret tried to pull her closer and comfort her, she pushed him away. “Sometimes I almost hate you,” she whispered, a sigh shuddering from her lips.
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
His hot, black gaze burned into her. “If you come back to New Orleans, you come back to me, chere.”
“T-that is something I can never do, Garret Cagan.” She took a last tortured breath before. Then she opened the door and walked away from him to join her family.
A vise tightened around his chest as he watched her family encircle her.
Hell. She was only going to Alabama and then on to Baton Rouge. Why did it feel like she was flying to the end of the earth?
He still had the holidays to think of some way to stop her from going on to Europe.
The narrow green skirt sheathed her hips. She had the most perfect body. He felt a sharp stab of desire.
Beaumont opened his arms. Not wanting to see Noelle walk into them, Garret ducked his head and pretended to study a jagged crack in the concrete floor. When he looked up, Vincent was empty armed and Noelle had vanished inside the jet.
Chapter Seven
Ten days later Noelle stood behind the huge white Christmas tree at Martin House and stared moodily at the silver package Eva had secretively handed her after all the other gifts had been opened.
“It’s from Garret,” Eva whispered.
“Shhh…”
Even as she told herself that she didn’t want to open it, that she wasn’t going to open it, she was ripping the bright foil paper and letting the coils of silver ribbon fall heedlessly to the carpet.
There was a note inside. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the package as she opened it and then read Garret’s bold black scrawl.
Chere, come back to me.
He had not signed his name, but he didn’t need to. Long after she read the words, his message seemed to echo in her heart.
She opened the small velvet box and gasped with pleasure. Inside was an amethyst pendant set with tiny diamonds. It was so exquisite she was almost afraid to touch it.
Her fingertip traced lingeringly over the fragile gold and glittering stones. He had remembered that amethyst was her birthstone, just as he had remembered how she loved them. The necklace had probably cost much more than he could afford, and yet he had bought it anyway. A sudden huge lump formed in her throat.
She snapped the box shut and hid it quickly in the pocket of her skirt. There was no way she could rejoin Beau and the others in the dining room, no way she could pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Quickly she opened a French door and went outside onto the veranda, rushing headlong down the brick paths that wound among the gardens. Through the tangle of live oak, azaleas and thick creepers of lacy jasmine, Martin House glowed white and lovely in the soft sunshine. The air was redolent with the smell of the swamp and almost cool; the bayou with its floating hyacinths was smooth and placid. But she scarcely noticed the loveliness of the familiar setting.
She touched the velvet box in her pocket. Despite the knowledge that her family and Beau were in the house, loneliness washed over her.
What was she going to do about Garret? Was she going to Europe? Or back to New Orleans? If she returned to the city, Garret would believe she was choosing him.
Choose Garret? On his terms? Never.
She looked up and saw that she had come to the darkest corner of the garden. Martin House was now lost in the jungle of flowers and semitropical greenery.
Nearby on the bayou the sun shone on something gold. She twisted her head and saw that someone was watching her. A scream rose in her throat and then died. Her heart began to thud violently.
A slim blond child with incredibly intense blue eyes had poled his pirogue almost to the edge of the low bank. The boy’s yellow hair fell thick and straight across his brow. His thin mouth attempted a smile and quivered instead. In the bow was a plump basset hound dozing as lazily as if it were a summer day and she was secure and safe on dry ground.
An incredible joy that felt like a sudden tearing pain in Noelle’s chest filled her as she recognized the boy and his dog.
Garret’s child was taller, older; paler and more solemn than she remembered. But she loved him more than ever.
She formed his name on her lips but lacked the voice to speak it.
Louis...
His big blue eyes shimmered with pain and delight. Then his expression changed ever so slightly. He bit his lips, and he glanced away as if he were ashamed of his powerful feelings.
He was holding a clump of something white in his hands—early dogwood blossoms that he probably had found somewhere in the swamp.
With perfect aim he tossed the flowers carelessly through the trees at her. They landed at her feet the way Jess’s bridal bouquet had. Slowly she knelt to retrieve t
he scattered blossoms, picking them up, one by one.
When she looked up, there was only a gleaming ripple where his pirogue had been. Louis had gone.
Had he picked the flowers for her? Had he thrown them to her out of love or bitter despair?
Her entire body ached with the need to call him back, to hold him tightly in her arms. To explain why she’d had to tell him goodbye. To never, never, let him go.
She loved him as much as if he were her own. He was Garret’s flesh and blood. He could have been hers so easily if she had not been young and foolish, if she had not allowed herself to be so easily manipulated by her family.
She had lost her own baby, and now as Louis poled himself away from her, she felt his loss as keenly as if she were losing her own child all over again.
“Louis!”
Her voice was a thin light sound, dying away in the deeply shadowed bayou.
He did not look back or turn the pirogue. Had he heard her? Did she only imagine that he poled faster?
The overgrown garden seemed a maze of tangled paths. After he’d gone, she felt cold and empty. She stared helplessly at the freshly picked white blossoms blurred by her tears.
Mon Dieu! Why couldn’t she put his child out of her heart?
Why hadn’t she ever been able to forget his father? She had been sent away when she was seventeen to do so. Her family had believed Garret was a teenage infatuation, easily forgotten. But instead of forgetting, she’d wanted him more than ever when she’d finally ventured back to New Orleans seven years later to be a Mardi Gras queen, the same season her sister had also been favored with a crown.
Looking at the white flowers made her remember other flowers and another time.
Memories of that special night two years ago when she’d seen Garret again and they’d resumed their impossible love affair came back to her.
She shut her eyes, not wanting to remember the terrible hurt. But so much of what had gone wrong was as much her fault as his. She’d been uncertain, unwilling to choose.
Was she wiser? Was she mature enough to know what she wanted now?