Tempestuous/Restless Heart by Tami Hoag

Author:Tami Hoag [Hoag, Tami]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0553385208
Amazon: B0030P1WM2
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1990-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

The Restless

Heart

one

“AUNTIE DANIELLE, JEREMY SPIT ON MY dessert!”

Danielle Hamilton quickly wiped a grimace of distaste from her face, lest Jeremy see it and catalog it away for future reference in his diabolical nine-year-old brain. Almost too exhausted to think, she leaned heavily against the white framed archway that led into the family room.

“Well, spit on his, Dahlia,” she suggested. What did she know about kids? Nothing. She’d had an easier time of it dealing with the Bushmen of Kenya. The Tibetan nomads had been less of a mystery to her. Even as a child, she had known nothing about kids; she’d been raised in a world of adults.

“I did spit on his,” declared eleven-year-old Dahlia Beauvais. “He ate it anyway.”

“Gross,” Danielle muttered as the doorbell rang. With a tremendous effort she pushed herself away from the door frame, sidestepping the carnage a plastic fighter jet had wreaked on a field of miniature soldiers.

“Hey, look out!” Tinks Beauvais shouted indignantly. The seven-year-old tomboy crouched behind a wing chair, poised to send a spaceship into the fray. “You’re in a war zone!”

“Tell me about it,” Danielle grumbled dryly.

North and South revisited. And this time the South was winning. One world-renowned photographer from New Hampshire didn’t stand a chance against this quintet of seasoned veterans in the kids-versus-adults power-struggle game. She was seriously outnumbered. They also had an age advantage she didn’t care to dwell on. Their energy reserves were amazing. Hers were depleted. She was running on empty and the one person she had counted on to help her through this babysitting fiasco had been knocked out of commission on the first day of their mission.

She envied Butler. He was now lolling the hours away in the quiet seclusion of his quarters, happily numbed to the situation by a substantial dose of Darvon.

Lord, how the Beauvais children had rendered Butler immobile, she thought with a shudder. The indomitable Alistair Urquhart-Butler, who had run her father’s household for four decades. The man who had stood the test of time, who had outlasted Laird Hamilton’s five wives, and helped raise six Hamilton children, had finally been brought down by a roller skate. It was unthinkable. It was especially unthinkable because he had helped coerce her into coming to New Orleans in the first place.

“Aye, lass, I’ll go with you,” he’d said. “I’ll lend you a hand. You can count on me.”

All the counting she’d done on him so far was to count him out when he’d hit the polished pine floor with a bone-jarring thud.

As the doorbell sounded a second time, she glanced up, ignoring the intricate plaster moldings on the ceiling of the beautifully preserved Garden District home. Her interest was focused on an even higher plane. “Lord,” she muttered, “this had better be the nanny or we’re going to be looking at serious infractions of some of the major commandments.”

I could always plead temporary insanity, Danielle thought. In fact, it had to have been some kind of temporary insanity that had allowed her to agree to stay with Suzannah’s children in the first place.

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