Tempestuous/Restless Heart
Page 34
“Danielle! Hey, Danielle!”
Danielle slowed her step and shook her head, certain she was hallucinating. But the shout came again, whiskey-hoarse and masculine. The throng on the sidewalk flowed around her like a river around a boulder as she turned slowly and looked back.
“Remy,” she whispered, as if saying his name louder would somehow break the spell and make him vanish.
He stopped a full six feet away from her and stood there looking rumpled and road-weary and uncertain. His eyes were bloodshot and the shadow of his beard looked blue against cheeks that were thinner than she remembered. He wore jeans and sneakers and a pale pink oxford shirt creased with the marks of sleeping in a plane seat. She had never seen anything more wonderful.
He dropped his duffle bag and said, “I don’t know if I oughta kiss you or turn you over my knee for all the heartache you’ve caused me, chère.”
Danielle solved the issue by swaying unsteadily on her feet and keeling over unceremoniously. His heart in his throat, Remy jumped to catch her.
“Danielle? Sweetheart? Are you all right?”
“What are you doing here?” she mumbled, trying to bring him into focus.
“Holdin’ you,” he murmured, his lips just above hers, his dark eyes intense. “And it feels pretty damn good.”
“I mean, how did you find me?” The strength came back to her knees and she straightened, but Remy made no move to release her. They stood thigh to thigh, breast to chest, in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Butler tracked you down through your agent,” he explained. “Mon Dieu, chère, you get around. It’s gonna take me a while to get used to this pace.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I love you,” he murmured. “I was plenty ticked off when you split that night at the hospital without even sayin’ good-bye. I went out to the swamp and stayed with my brother Lucky for a while. But the more I listened to his grumbling about how rotten women are, the more I missed you.”
Danielle stared at him, bemused, not sure whether she should thank him or slap his face.
“It took me a while to get used to the idea of leavin’ Lou’siana,” he went on. “Leavin’ my family. But the more I thought about it the more I realized how much I want you to be my family.” He paused, screwing up his courage, giving Danielle warning that what he was about to say was momentous. “I want to marry you, Danielle.”
Her head swam at the idea and for an instant Danielle was certain she was going to go down for the count, but she locked her knees and managed to remain upright. Lord, what a delicious fantasy. To marry Remy and live happily ever after. But it was just that—a fantasy.
“No, Remy,” she murmured, backing out of his embrace, shaking her head sadly. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Let me?” he said, incredulous, jamming his hands at his waist. He looked like a man at the frayed end of his temper. “I been chasin’ you all over the ever-lovin’ world! I’ve borrowed enough money to fly so much I’ve got enough Frequent Flier miles for a free trip to the moon! I finally run you to ground and you tell me you can’t let me marry you?”
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said, shaking her head as she began shuffling backward toward her hotel. “I’m old and I have a curse on me. You could do lots better, Remy. Marry Marie Broussard. She seemed like a nice girl.”
“Mebbe I don’t want a girl. Mebbe I want a woman,” he said, advancing aggressively. His hand shot out and he caught her by the wrist and hauled her up against him again. “Mebbe I don’t give a fat rat’s rump about some moldy old Scottish curse. I want you, angel, and I don’t care if I have to go to the ends of the earth to get you. Now what do you think?”
Danielle stared up at him as all her blood drained into her feet. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Really, Remy,” Danielle said, coming out of the bathroom, her bare feet slapping on the cool tile floor. Her head was a little clearer now that she had brushed her teeth and splashed some cold water on her cheeks. She felt much more capable of talking him out of ruining his life. “I’m impossible to live with. I’m selfish and self-absorbed. I’m set in my ways, and I’m pretty sure my fanny has started to fall. Why would you want to get stuck with all that?”
Remy lounged on top of the hunter-green bedspread, his back against the rattan headboard, a suspiciously wise gleam in his dark eyes. He gave her a lopsided smile, his dimple cutting into his cheek as he pushed himself up off the bed and sauntered toward her. “Because I love you and you love me and if your fanny’s gonna fall I wanna be the one to catch it.”
He wrapped his arms around her, his hands sliding down over her hips to cup her bottom through her shorts. He waggled his eyebrows. “Feels pretty good to me. What is this really all about?”
“I don’t understand,” Danielle whispered, suddenly serious, suddenly overcome by the emotions that had pushed her to run away in the first place. She looked up at him, her gray eyes somber and uncertain. “I don’t understand why you would still want me after what happened.”
“Danielle, what happened was an accident. It wasn’t your fault—not what happened to Jeremy or what happened to your friend’s baby. Bad things happen, sugar. Mebbe Jeremy wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you’d gone with him, mebbe you would have gotten hurt instead. That would have been Jeremy’s fault then, yes?”
“Well, no, of course not—”
“You’re not infallible, Danielle. Everybody makes mistakes.”
“I just don’t want me to be one of yours,” she murmured, fear and misery crowding the words in her throat and pushing at the tears behind her eyes. She loved him so much, wanted him so badly, but she wanted his happiness above her own. “I want you to be happy, Remy.”
His heart gave a big thump and he felt moisture rise in his own eyes. Some selfish, self-absorbed woman she was—putting his needs first. He’d been terrified that when he finally caught up with her, he would discover that she didn’t really need him, didn’t really love him, that she’d been glad to get away from Louisiana and the threat of a family. But while she’d been in the bathroom tossing her cookies, he had made a quick reconnaissance of her apartment, finding the most telling evidence he could have hoped for—the photographs. Danielle unmasked her own feelings in her art, whether the picture depicted the loneliness of a closed door or her tender love for a child. What he’d seen had been emotions unfurling, longing revealed, love. So much love in that restless heart of hers just waiting for him to claim it.
He brushed a wild strand of angel’s hair back from her perfect cheekbone and said. “I’ll only be happy with you. Can’t you see that, angel? I love you more than Lou’siana. I missed you so much I thought I’d die of it. I don’t care if we have to live in Manhattan or Madagascar. Home is where the heart is, and my heart is with you, Danielle.”
Two fat teardrops spilled over the dam and down her cheeks. Her soft mouth trembled. “Oh, Remy, I’d live anywhere with you if I thought it could work, but there’s my muse to consider—”
“Tell your muse to move over, baby,” he said on a sexy growl. “ ’Cause I’m not givin’ you up.”
“But you’re so young and—”
Remy cut her off, stepping back and holding up a hand. “We’re gonna settle this age thing right here and now. You got a pen?”
“A pen?”
He nodded impatiently, spying one himself and snatching it off the night stand. He dug two fingers into the hip pocket of his jeans and produced a folded piece of paper which he opened and spread out on the small round table by the window. Danielle watched, bemused, as he pulled a small bottle of White-Out from the breast pocket of his shirt. “What is that?”
“Your birth certificate, courtesy of Butler, God bless him.”
“My—?” She peered over his shoulder as he pulled the little brush out of the White-Out and stroked it with an artistic flourish over the year of her birth. “You can’t do that!”
Remy grinned like
a pirate. “Why not? Loosen up, chère. Let the good times roll!”
Danielle laughed, caught between hysteria and bliss, as Remy took up the pen and carefully inked in 1960.
“There you go, darlin’. We are now officially the same age.” He rose and handed her the document, his dark eyes sparkling with wicked merriment.
Danielle looked down at the paper in her hand and smiled. “Gee, I feel younger already.”
Remy slid his arms around her waist and started a slow dance to some secret music in his head. “Do you feel like gettin’ married?”
She looked at him, amazed and in love. The man was determined; who was she to argue? He was handsome and sexy and wicked and wise beyond his years. She would have had to have been an idiot to give all that up. “Yeah, I do,” she murmured, swaying in time with him.
Remy pulled her closer and kissed her, savoring the taste of her as if she were his first and last sip of a life-giving elixir. Danielle wound her arms around his neck and basked in the joy of touching him again. She felt renewed. The glow of love filled her with golden warmth. Her heart swelled in her breast as she thought of telling him about the baby… later… after they’d given each other a proper lover’s welcome.
“You know,” Remy said, lifting his head just enough to speak. “I suddenly feel in need of a long, long shower.”
Danielle gave him a sultry, sexy look. “You need any help with that, cher?”
“Oh, yeah,” he drawled, his dark eyes dancing. “Absolutely.”
about the author
TAMI HOAG’S novels have appeared regularly on national bestseller lists since the publication of her first book in 1988. She lives in Los Angeles.
TEMPESTUOUS / THE RESTLESS HEART
A Bantam Book / August 2007
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Tempestuous copyright © 1990 by Tami Hoag
The Restless Heart copyright © 1991 by Tami Hoag
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-57528-9
These titles were originally published individually by Bantam Books.
www.bantamdell.com
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