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

by Ann Major

  Garret drank the liquor in a single swallow, letting it burn all the way down his throat, willing it to burn away the emotions that consumed him. Then he poured another.

  “Garret why did you want me to follow you here if you’re just going to ignore me and drink?”

  The glass hit the counter violently, and liquor spilled over his tanned hand onto the table top.

  In the smoldering silence, he turned slowly and regarded her in the dim lamplight. She looked different in the golden velvet dress. The color made her eyes look like fire or maybe her eyes would have blazed just as fiercely anyway. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. His own feelings were equally powerful.

  “Because I want to settle this issue about Louis once and for all.”

  “So do I.”

  Garret picked up the glass and downed the remaining liquid, again in a single swallow. “You want it all, don’t you? Me? My son? Everything?”

  “Yes. Is that so wrong?”

  “It always has been in the past. You destroyed me...Louis... I can’t forget that, Noelle.”

  “You won’t even try.”

  “Because you don’t even try to live up to your one promise to me.”

  “You forced me to make that promise.”

  “Right. And you swore you’d stay away from him.”

  “And I did stay away from him…even though it broke my heart.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Garret, would you listen to me for once? He came to me. Twice. I can’t turn my back on him again. It would be like rejecting my own child. I lost my baby. Our baby. That’s something I’ll never get over.”

  “Shut up about our baby.”

  In a fury of frustration he reached for the bottle again. Noelle crossed the room and took his arm before he could touch it. “Don’t—”

  There was an electricity that went from her skin to his the second she touched him. It was like a shock burning the length of his body.

  “I love you,” she said. “I want you. And I want your child. I said before...that he could have been ours. Sometimes...I almost feel that he is...my son.”

  Garret jerked free of her and clenched his hand into a ball and unclenched it. “Do you really? Or are you still the rich, fickle Martin girl, bored by your easy life, who’ll go running off to Australia or Europe or with Vincent or somebody else that’s as rich or richer than he is whenever it suits you?”

  “When are you ever going to realize I was never that person?” she asked hopelessly, even as she was touching him with her hands and kissing him with her lips.

  “Don’t do that, chere—”

  “Don’t do what?” she purred, lifting her head, peering at him with those gorgeous eyes that bathed his face with golden heat.

  Her fingertips were hot seductive velvet. His hand closed over hers. “I don’t want to be a toy you play with when you’re in between rich lovers.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “Don’t forget I’ve read every story ever written about you in the society columns.” His voice was softly ominous.

  “Every one of them was for Grand-mère and Papa. Those parties and stories were things I felt I was forced to do. I always felt bored and restless—and so lonely. Those people paid attention to me because I was a Martin, not because I was me.”

  “Go home, chere—”

  “I would if I could live without you, Garret.”

  Her hands were against his thigh. His skin became flame. And she was flame.

  If he had a grain of sense he would throw her out. She was a Martin, and he’d never had much luck with Martins.

  But the flame was inside him, devouring him. There was confusion in his heart, but part of the confusion was a love so intense he couldn’t ignore it. He could no more do without her than he could do without the air he breathed. He scarcely knew how his lips came to be on hers or how his hands began to rip the tiny buttons of her bodice apart.

  He wanted her, and this wildness to have her was like nothing he had ever felt for another woman. His hands were shaking like a boy’s as he caressed her breasts.

  He knew that this woman could probably never be true to him or to Louis, but as long as he could have her, he would.

  With an eagerness he could no longer restrain he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  He forgot his exhaustion and made love to her for hours. She was as insatiable as he.

  But if she thought Louis was an argument that she could win in bed, she was wrong.

  Afterward, when it was nearly dawn, Garret said, “You can’t imagine what Louis was like after Annie died. And then again after you left him. Stay away from Louis, chere. Or we’re through.”

  “So that’s how it is. You won’t listen. You won’t relent. You’re determined to cling to your poor-boy chip-on-the-shoulder attitude even if it costs us everything.”

  “Don’t pin this one on me!”

  She said nothing because there was nothing more to say. “All right,” she said. “I’ll try to do as you say for now…even though I think what you want hurts all of us.”

  Outside, creepers of rosy light were shining through the black trees.

  But the icy darkness in the bedroom was like a wall that crushed down upon them both.

  In that cold darkness, Noelle got up and dressed quietly.

  In that same thick darkness, she walked quickly out of Garret’s house.

  And in his own darkness, he listened to the purr of her diesel engine when she started her car outside in his drive.

  *

  Noelle stood beneath the shelter of the veranda, shivering as she sipped a cup of tea. Rain was pouring from the gutters of Martin House. Beyond the bayou was darkly forbidding. For the past two days it had been raining, ever since that last night Noelle had spent in Garret’s arms. In New Orleans several parades had been canceled. Mardi Gras itself was in jeopardy.

  At least the rain meant that Louis couldn’t come to Martin House, and she hadn’t been faced with the decision of rejecting him if he defied Garret. No sooner had she thought this than she saw a slim shape moving on the bayou through the rain.

  “Mon Dieu!”

  Noelle’s teacup clattered when she replaced it in its saucer. She could hardly believe her eyes as she recognized boy and boat.

  Louis was poling his pirogue steadily toward the dock through the driving rain.

  She dashed out into the rain; in seconds she was soaked through. The bayou was so swollen that the water was lapping over the dock.

  For a moment both boy and woman stood in the rain, staring at each other, hesitating. His eyes were big and blue and desolate, as desolate as her own. He was disobeying his father to come to her.

  She loved Garret, yet she knew that by loving his child, she was risking everything. Still, Louis was only six. He’d watched his mother die violently. Since then he’d lived apart from his father. Louis was reaching out to her. How could she deny him?

  She thought of the two long years in Australia when she’d tried to forget her own tragedies. Louis was a child. He hadn’t been able to run away. Perhaps she was his salvation. Perhaps he was hers.

  He smiled crookedly, charmingly, and she could resist no longer. She pulled him from the pirogue into her arms. Together they secured his boat. Then they raced to the house where she took him into the bathroom. Pulling off his wet clothes while he shivered, she wrapped him in thick Turkish towels while she dried his clothes in the dryer. By the time she’d changed her own clothes, Grand-mère came down, and the three of them had tea on the veranda. Noelle was aware of Grand-mère watching her when she was with Louis with a much keener interest than usual.

  Louis stayed for lunch and the rest of the afternoon, leaving when there was a lull in the weather just before sundown.

  After he had gone, Marlea shakily followed Noelle into her bedroom. Marlea was feeble, but her mottled, wise old eyes saw deeply and clearly. “It’s quite hopeless this time, I suppose?” s
he said raspily in her ancient, beloved voice.

  She had caught Noelle completely unawares.

  “What?”

  “Your love for the boy’s father—that Garret Cagan?”

  Marlea hobbled toward the rosewood bed and fussed with a lace coverlet. Noelle watched her, relief flooding her as she realized her grandmother was not reproaching her but had accepted this reality. No explanations were being asked.

  “Quite...hopeless,” Noelle replied with as much dignity as possible.

  “He thinks he’s such a tough guy. I told you he’d make you unhappy.” Grand-mère spoke a bit too smugly as she leaned on her cane.

  “He wants me to stay away from Louis.”

  “That poor motherless child needs you. What are you going to do? Knuckle under spinelessly or fight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No matter what else happens, never forget that you’re a Martin. You have to make him respect and listen to you.”

  Noelle felt her grandmother’s strength of will pouring into her in a warm powerful tide of love. Noelle had come to her room in defeat, not knowing what to do.

  “You’ll have to fight,” Marlea said, taking Noelle’s young, smooth hands in her old gnarled ones. “Garret Cagan’s as stubborn as they come. I don’t believe I ever saw anyone struggle harder to get somewhere in this world than that boy. I thought he was a gold digger, but there’s more to him than that. Unfortunately, he’s in the wrong on this issue. Not that he doesn’t mean well.”

  “Thank you, Grand-mère.”

  It seemed a miracle that at last her grandmother understood and supported her. They’d been so close when she’d been a child, but her grandmother’s opposition to Garret had driven a wedge.

  Louis came the next day again, and the next. Noelle could not turn him away even though she knew that she was risking her relationship with Garret by not doing so.

  On Mardi Gras it was still raining, but lightly as Noelle drove up to Annie’s mother’s house. Noelle jumped out of the car and ran up the wooden stairs. Before she could even knock, the door opened.

  Louis’s grandmother stood there in a white apron, holding a dishtowel.

  Usually Louis was first to the door. Noelle felt a vague unease.

  “Where’s Louis, Analise?”

  There was sudden alarm on the woman’s broad, kindly face. “I thought he was with you. He said you were coming around ten.”

  Noelle felt panic welling up in her. “I’m running nearly an hour late. Eva called about the business.”

  “He came into the kitchen. It must have been a little after ten. He said something about you. I was baking. I assumed you’d come for him in your car.”

  Without another word both women ran down the stairs toward the bayou only to discover that his pirogue was gone.

  “I told him the bayou was flooding and not to take the pirogue again,” Analise whispered frantically as she stared at the empty dock. “Usually he minds me.”

  “I’ll go look for him at Martin House.”

  But he wasn’t there.

  And when Noelle called Analise, she discovered that he hadn’t returned home, either.

  The sky darkened, and the rain began to fall more thickly. A wild, furious wind roared through the trees. Noelle turned on the television and learned that the bayous were already out of their banks. The river was swelling, and the levee was weakening in several places. A dangerous weather system was moving swiftly into the area. There were flash-flood warnings. If the levee went, the low swamplands would be completely flooded.

  Noelle glanced out the window. Lightning set the entire sky aflame. Then a bolt exploded right outside the house.

  There was a rending crash. The world shuddered as a giant live oak split and fell to the ground, taking the power cables with it.

  The room melted into darkness. The television set went black.

  Noelle went to the window and watched with numb horror as the storm moved in.

  Marlea hobbled shakily into the living room. “There you are...”

  “Grand-mère, Louis is out in the swamp! Alone! He’s probably in trouble. I have to find him. She handed her grandmother her cell phone and prayed that there was service. “Call Garret. Oh, please. Tell him that I’m sorry, that I love him, that he has to come... Oh, Grand-mère... in case I fail...”

  “Wait, chere.”

  But Noelle was already running out of the room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One thing Garret knew—Mrs. Martin would never call him unless she was completely desperate.

  He rolled up the windows of his truck and pressed his cell phone against his ear. Even so he could hardly hear the frail elderly voice above the shouts of the Mardi Gras crowd. Despite the black clouds hovering above the city, Rex had left his den, and his subjects thronged both sides of Canal Street.

  “I said your boy’s lost in the swamp, and my Noelle’s gone to find him.”

  Garret’s blood seemed to freeze solid. “You’re telling me that there’s a violent storm and that they’re both out there in it?”

  The crowd roared again. Another float, no doubt, passing by.

  Damn! He couldn’t hear a thing.

  “Could you speak a little louder, Mrs. Martin?”

  “Two years ago when I nearly lost Noelle... I—I—”

  Hell, he didn’t want to be reminded of that. But he heard her fear, as great as his own, and his heart filled with unwanted compassion. For once it didn’t matter that she’d always been against him.

  “Mrs. Martin, don’t you worry, no. I’ll get there just as fast as I can.”

  Before his pager had gone off, Garret had been trying to settle a fight that had erupted between a pair of drunken maskers waiting for Rex and his parade—a sheik and a potbellied bumblebee. Johnson had been cuffing the bumblebee and the sheik while Garret had gone to his truck to phone in.

  Mrs. Martin continued speaking, but as hard as Garret strained to hear her, he couldn’t quite make out her words.

  “I’m coming, Mrs. Martin. I’m coming,” he yelled before hanging up on her.

  He whipped out his portable light and clamped it onto the roof of his truck. He turned on his siren, backed down an alley and then rushed down a narrow side street that led away from the parade and the crowds. He contacted the dispatcher and told her to notify Johnson that he was on his own.

  A child ran into the street. Garret hit his brakes and swerved. His truck careened into a pair of garbage cans and sent them bouncing into a brick wall, but the child scampered to safety.

  Damn!

  Noelle! Always Noelle! Always testing his love for her in some wild defiance of fate! But this was worse because Louis was involved.

  She never gave a damn about what he, Garret, wanted, only about what she wanted. If he got Louis and her out of this one alive, he really was through with her.

  This time for good.

  If...

  The truck jounced into a pothole and Garret’s teeth bit into his tongue so hard he tasted the bitter flavor of his own blood.

  If...

  *

  It wasn’t much past noon, but it was as dark as dusk when Garret’s truck swerved into the driveway that curved through the familiar tunnel of perpetual twilight that held the promise of glimmering white columns at its end.

  It hadn’t been raining in the city, but it was falling in sheets so thickly here that he’d barely been able to see to drive the last twenty miles.

  There were lights in only one room of Martin House. Despite the storm, Garret could hear the thunder of a generator as he ran up the brick walk to the house.

  The hand-carved door stood ajar. He ran through it without knocking. The old lady was just inside, sitting in the dark on her rosewood sofa, waiting for him.

  Her raspy voice came from the corner. “Garret...”

  She struggled to get up, but she was thin and weak and shaking even more than usual because of her fear.

  H
e went to her and lifted her gently, steadying her. He reached for her cane, but she clung to him instead.

  “You have a fine boy.”

  “He’s like his mother.”

  “He’s like you, too. I was wrong about you,” she said.

  Her hands holding on to him felt like claws.

  “Tell me everything, Mrs. Martin.”

  “Louis’s pirogue was missing. We think he was trying to pole his way over here, but he never made it. Noelle took her pirogue to look for him.”

  “She what! That leaky thing has been in the boat house for years!”

  “It was all we had.”

  “If they’d stayed apart the way I told them to, none of this would have ever happened. The levee could go at any minute. Then everything out there will be under ten feet of water.”

  Garret was about to go.

  “Garret—”

  Despite his urgent desire to leave, something in her deadly quiet voice stopped him.

  “Noelle wanted you that night. She kept calling for you even when we thought she was dying. She wanted your baby.”

  “But you told me...”

  Heartbreak and weariness possessed the frail old woman, and she dropped her head in her hands. “I had raised her. She was like my child. I thought I knew what was best for her. But I was wrong.”

  He drew a deep breath. “I wasn’t good enough.”

  “I’m an old woman, used to the old ways.” Her swollen red eyes met his, naked and pleading. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Garret.”

  “And I don’t deserve Noelle’s. You see, I believed you. All this time I still believed you.”

  His face hard, he stared down at Marlea without the slightest intention of forgiving her. She had always been his nemesis. She’d been against him for as long as he could remember—even when he’d been a child. For years he had hated her. She had heartlessly thrown his mother and him out. And now here she was admitting that she had deliberately made him believe that Noelle was glad that their baby had died.

  But the old lady was crying now, and he had never seen her cry. He had never thought that women of her strong character had tears. Against his better judgment, a flood of unwanted tenderness swept through him. For the first time he saw Mrs. Martin as the frail human creature she was—a spoiled old matriarch, fragile, terrified by her failing powers and the changing world, but courageous enough to tell him the truth at last.