by Tami Hoag
She shot a glance at Remy, who had gone back to the crib to check on Eudora. Like magic, the sexual tension that had hung thick in the air had vanished. She wondered wildly if she had imagined it. Maybe it had been a combination of exhaustion and wishful thinking. Practical though she was, she wasn’t above fantasizing about handsome, virile men with more hormones than sense. In fact, as forty loomed on the horizon like a black cloud, she could probably count on a lot of moments of temporary lunacy concerning such things.
“How long are the parents gonna be gone?” Remy asked. He picked the baby up and tucked her under one arm like a football as he began snooping around the well-equipped nursery.
“Three weeks,” Danielle said absently, frowning. “Are you sure that’s how you’re supposed to carry a baby?”
“Oh, absolutely.” It seemed the most natural way to tote a baby for a man who had gone to LSU on a football scholarship. He reached his free arm into the small white linen cupboard that was situated in one corner of the blue-walled nursery as he lied smoothly. “It’s the first thing they teach us at nanny school.”
“Oh. Well…”
Eudora squealed in delight, lending credence to Remy’s questionable statement. She stuck her arms out like a miniature flying Supergirl and said, “Brrrrph!,” spraying drool in all directions.
Danielle grimaced. “They wanted a second honeymoon to celebrate the fact that Suzannah is the only Hamilton in nine generations to have a marriage last more than five years. We’re cursed, you see.”
Remy shot her a suspicious look. “Cursed? Like black magic?”
“Cursed, like a good old-fashioned Scottish curse,” she explained. “I don’t ordinarily believe in that kind of thing, but there’s plenty of documentation to back it up. A rival clan chieftain put a curse on Ramsay Hamilton in 1516 for stealing his bride. We’ve basically been failures in marriage ever since. So I guess Suzannah is justified in wanting to celebrate. She and Courtland have made it twelve years.
“Personally, I think three weeks is a little excessive as honeymoons go. I mean, how many different ways can you really… ah… well…” She stammered to a stop and blushed furiously.
Remy turned suddenly and leaned down close to her. “Come on, Danielle,” he said in that sandy warm voice. “Where’s your sense of romance? Wouldn’t you like a three-week-long honeymoon?”
“Sure,” she quipped, her head swimming. “Where do you want to go?”
His voice dropped another rough note from satin to black velvet. His gaze caressed her lips. “I’d take you to heaven, angel.”
“They’d never let you in,” she managed to murmur as shivers washed over her skin.
He chuckled, a deep, masculine sound that rumbled up from his chest. “No, but then it’s the gettin’ there that’s all the fun, eh?”
The man was incorrigible. Here he stood, his future in her hands and a baby in his own, and he had the audacity to flirt with her shamelessly. She might have been offended if she hadn’t been so close to having a birthday. The fact of the matter was she liked Remy Doucet a lot. Probably too much.
“Here,” he said, flipping off the animal magnetism again as easily as he’d turned it on. “Take the baby.”
He thrust Eudora into her arms and Danielle latched on to the poor child with all the awkwardness of inexperience and blind terror. She juggled the baby like an overloaded grocery bag.
“Be careful,” Remy added as an afterthought just as Danielle managed to squeeze the baby up against her. “She’s soakin’ wet.”
“Ugh!” Eudora was immediately thrust an arm’s length away. She gurgled and kicked her feet merrily in the air. Danielle stared down at the big wet stain on the front of her lavender silk T-shirt and spoke through her teeth. “When Suzannah gets back I’m going to commit unspeakable atrocities on her person. And then I’m going to get really mean.”
Remy frowned as he took the baby and put her on the changing table. “I take it you’re not so happy with any of this business.”
“It’s not that I don’t like kids,” Danielle explained. “They’re fine as long as they don’t throw up or wet on me or have criminally insane minds. Unfortunately, that leaves Suzannah’s kids totally disqualified.”
Remy clucked as he changed Eudora’s diaper. “They can’t be that bad.”
“Did you ever see The Omen?” she asked casually as she plucked her soggy blouse away from her skin. “I suppose I might be exaggerating. I don’t have much experience with kids. My mother divorced my father when I was two. I was raised mostly on fashion shoots. If you need someone to babysit a temperamental model or placate a high-strung photographer, I’m your girl. But when it comes to babies … I’m not so good.”
Her voice thinned and trailed off, and Remy noted with interest that her gray eyes darkened and a shadow passed over her features like a storm cloud as she glanced away from him. She suddenly looked sad and lost. Her fingers toyed nervously with the fringe on a knitted afghan that lay folded over the back of the rocking chair. He sensed there was more to the story than she was telling, and he knew an intense desire to have her confide in him, though he doubted she would.
“So you’ve never stayed with your nieces and nephews here before?” he asked, sounding vaguely amazed. It seemed his life was constantly overrun with little relatives.
“No,” Danielle admitted, annoyed that she should feel even a pinch of guilt over that. They weren’t her children. She wasn’t responsible for them. That was a fact that should have made everybody breathe easier. “I travel a lot in my work. I’ve just returned from a yearlong stay in Tibet.”
“Tibet?” Remy echoed, his face the picture of distaste. He plopped the baby down in her crib and handed her elephant back to her. “You got family there?”
“In Tibet? Of course not.”
“And you stayed there for a year?”
Not liking the disapproval she thought she saw in his dark eyes, Danielle turned the conversation back in the direction it should have been going all along. “So, how long have you been a nanny?”
“Oh … not long…” he mumbled, head down as he went to the little white porcelain sink set in the counter beneath the linen cupboard. He devoted what seemed to Danielle to be an inordinate amount of attention to washing his hands.
“I suppose I should ask to see your résumé or references or something.”
“Oh… darn… I guess I forgot my résumé,” he said, hoping she might forget about it too. “I’ve got lots of experience, though, and I did remember to bring the agency agreement along.”
He dried his hands on a little pink towel, then dug a folded two-page form out of his hip pocket and handed it to Danielle. She dragged her eyes away from the spot where his fly had snugged up against a very impressive part of his anatomy and took the form, just barely resisting the urge to fan herself with it.
“Actually, I don’t think we’ll be needing this,” she said in a high, breathless voice. She sent Remy a brittle smile and tried frantically to rally her common sense. She really couldn’t keep a nanny who unleashed mad desires in her. “You just don’t quite fit my needs at the moment.”
“Sure I do, sugar,” Remy drawled, backing her up against the rocking chair again. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Maybe I fit your needs a little too well?”
Danielle tried to talk around the heart that was suddenly lodged in her throat. Her eyes fastened on the masculine curve of his lower lip and her palms started to sweat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You hadn’t ought to fib, angel. That’s a bad example for the little ones.”
He moved back a fraction, giving them both room to breathe. He needed this job. He needed the money, for one thing. But overshadowing that practical reason was a lady with quicksilver eyes and hair like winter moonlight. More than the job, he wanted the chance to explore this volatile chemistry that simmered between himself and Danielle Hamilton. While he was at it he could certainly manage to take care of a fe
w little kids. The first thing, though, was to get the position, and he wasn’t exactly doing a great job of that. It didn’t take a genius to see Danielle was nervous about the attraction pulling them together. It was the reason she was trying to push him away.
He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. Putting on his most contrite expression, he said, “Look, chère, you need a nanny and I need a job. I promise you, I’m good with kids and I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“That’s probably not saying much, considering what I’ve seen so far,” Danielle said, folding her arms defensively over her chest.
“I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you I’m not attracted, sugar, ’cause I am. But like I told you, I need this job and you need a nanny. Who else you gonna call?”
“Well, Rambo was next on my list.”
A small figure wearing a Ronald Reagan mask suddenly appeared at the door of the nursery. Bright orange hair stuck up like a rooster’s comb above the mask. Below it was a pair of rumpled Spiderman pajamas. There was a ragged, dirty black and white stuffed dog tucked under the child’s right arm. “Auntie Dan-L?”
“Hi, Ambrose.” Danielle smiled warmly at the four-year-old. “What’s happening?”
“Jeremy’s hanging Tinks from the roof by her feet.”
three
REMY PAUSED OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR of the Savoy Agency to pull himself together. The agency was housed in a narrow three-story red brick building built during the last days of the French rule of New Orleans. Like the others that crowded shoulder to shoulder along the street, it still gave all the appearances of being an elegant town house with its black lacquered front door and shutters and the delicate ironwork balconies that graced the second and third floors. Only the polished brass plate on the door gave any indication that a successful business was conducted behind the quaint façade.
Remy straightened his tie, slicked his hair back with his fingers, and took three slow deep breaths. Bon Dieu, those Beauvais kids were monsters! Damned if he was going to admit that to his sisters, though. He pasted on a brilliant smile that lit up his dark face, pushed the door open, and sauntered into the air-conditioned cool as if he’d just come from a refreshing walk through Audubon Park.
The interior of the building was every bit as gracious as the exterior. Burgundy velvet drapes hung over white sheers at the tall window in the reception area. Two camel-backed sofas in the same color invited clients to sit and browse through the magazines scattered over the walnut coffee table. The overall effect was of understated elegance only slightly broken by the pink beanbag chairs and assortment of toys that were nestled into one corner for clients’ children.
Remy’s younger sister Annick sat behind the delicately carved walnut reception desk with the telephone receiver sandwiched between shoulder and ear. Two thick books lay open on the desk before her. She scribbled in a spiral notebook as she spoke, effectively dividing her attention between the call and her studies in the way only a harried law student can. As she glanced up at Remy, she smiled and brushed her black bangs out of her dark eyes with the eraser end of her pencil.
He spread his arms wide and executed an ambling pirouette as if to say “Here I am, and in one piece yet.” Annick bid her caller good-bye and hung up the phone, never taking her eyes off her big brother. Remy perched a hip on the corner of the desk and stuck his hand out, palm up. “Fork it over, ’tite soeur.”
“What?”
“What! The twenty bucks you owe me, that’s what.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. You don’t, either, if Giselle asks you. I already got the sharp side of her tongue when I told her you’d gone out. You were supposed to work the desk until four.”
“I couldn’t very well do that and prove to you what a good nanny I could be at the same time, now could I?”
Unconcerned by her warning, Remy pulled the agency agreement out of his pocket and handed the crumpled papers to Annick. “I am now officially the Beauvais family nanny. Here’s your proof, darlin’, signed, sealed, and delivered.”
Annick unfolded the forms, her pretty mouth turning in a frown of distaste. “This is filthy! What’s all this here down at the bottom?”
Remy glanced away, rubbing a hand across his mouth as he grumbled. “Um—that’s nothin’ much, there. Just a little blood, that’s all.”
“Blood? Yours, I hope,” Annick sassed. “You a nanny. Talk about!”
Her mocking laughter cut off abruptly and she winced as the door behind her flew open and Remy’s twin sister Giselle stormed out of her office, blustering like a human hurricane. Her black eyes flashed as she rounded the desk and planted her hands on her nicely rounded hips. She may have been dressed like a businesswoman in her fitted blush-pink suit, but her expression was more that of a tag-team wrestler.
Both Remy and Annick instinctively leaned back away from her as she let loose a string of backwater Cajun expletives that singed Remy’s ears. When she switched back to English, her temper thickened her accent and eroded the proper grammar she normally used.
“What’sa matter wit de two of you? You tryin’ to ruin my business or somethin’? Me, I got a fine reputation in this town, no thanks to the likes of you! Annick, you coverin’ for Remy while he goes out masquerading as one of my nannies. What he knows about babies, that one, you couldn’t feed a crawfish!” Giselle wasn’t in the least softened by her brother’s hurt-offended look. “And you!” She jabbed his sternum with a neatly manicured forefinger. “You oughta know better. You ain’t a nanny, but you sure oughta have one!”
“I got the job,” Remy said softly.
Pacing back and forth in front of the desk, Giselle ranted on. “Impersonatin’ one of my nannies! My nannies are de finest in all of N’Awlins—trained, experienced—” She brought herself up short and stared at him suspiciously. “You what?”
He picked up the agency agreement Danielle had signed and waved it, a smile of smug satisfaction lighting up his handsome face. Giselle snatched it away from him and studied the document with the critical eye of a business-school graduate, grimacing at the ratty state the thing was in. “What did you do to this, cher? Run over it with your car?”
Getting run over by his car was about the only indignity the contract had escaped. It had been to the roof of the Beauvais house where he had rescued Tinks from Jeremy’s evil clutches and been kicked in the shin for his troubles. Ambrose had tried to feed the form to the dog, who had opted to bury it in the rose garden. Remy had extricated the thing from under a freshly fertilized bush that was mostly thorns, and had bled all over it before he could hand it to Danielle for her to sign.
“The only thing that counts is the bottom line,” he grumbled.
“No matter.” Giselle shook her head, her fashionably bobbed black hair swinging around her face and falling neatly back into place. “You got no training, you got no experience—”
“I got plenty of experience!” Remy argued. “How many times have I taken care of your kids? Or Alicia’s? And how about cousin Emile’s boys? I’ve looked after them plenty.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“It’s the Beauvais house.” Annick said with appropriate awe as she tapped at the agency agreement with the end of her pencil.
Giselle’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What?” She jerked the form back up in front of her face and read the line twice. “I told that woman we didn’t have anybody to send there.”
“She gave the name Hamilton when I talked to her,” Annick said.
“Huh! I’ll bet,” Giselle snorted. “She must have gone through every agency in the book, found out no one was crazy enough to send a nanny to that house, then started all over again with an assumed name. Of all the low—”
“It wasn’t exactly a trick.” Remy jumped to defend Danielle, then purposely relaxed as his twin’s keen eyes fastened on him a little too intently. With studied nonchalance he asked, “So, you got anybody else you’d send there?”
“I would
n’t send the devil himself to that house.”
“Remy’s the next best thing,” Annick said with a giggle. He slanted her a look and pinched her cheek.
Giselle’s expression was apprehensive. “You sure you want to do this, Remy?” she asked, as if he were volunteering for a suicide mission.
He gave a lazy shrug that said it didn’t matter much to him one way or the other, while visions of Danielle danced in his head. He could still taste her, sweet and warm on his lips. He could still see the look of unabashed wonder in her eyes as she had recognized the electricity that hummed between them. He could still sense the sadness and uncertainty in her when she’d told him she wasn’t much good with kids. Was he sure he wanted this job? Was he sure he wanted to spend day and night in the company of Danielle Hamilton? What a question!
“I’m good with kids.” Grudgingly he added, “I need the money.”
Giselle patted his cheek and gave him the same look of sympathy she would have given one of her own children. “I know you do, cher.”
She had hired him to help answer the phone while her regular receptionist was on maternity leave, but that wasn’t much of a job as far as pay or prestige went. Her brother was a proud man. He didn’t like the position he’d been put in by unemployment. He hadn’t complained, but Giselle knew. As twins, there was a level of communication between them that needed no words.
She nibbled at her lush lower lip. “Well, it’s a sure thing that woman isn’t going to find anyone else to help her. And you are good with the little ones. I guess the job is yours, if you really want it.”
Remy barely managed to keep from leaping up and dancing his sister around the room. He thanked her with his smile.
Giselle picked up the agreement again and studied it more closely. “Who is this Danielle Hamilton? Why didn’t Mrs. Beauvais sign this?”
“Mrs. Beauvais is away on a second honeymoon with Mr. Beauvais. Danielle is her half sister. She agreed to stay with the kids, but—”
“Danielle, is it?” Annick questioned, brows lifting above wickedly sparkling dark eyes. She leaned over the desk and poked him with her pencil. “Who is this Danielle, Remy? Is she pretty?”