Lucky's Lady (5 page)

The elements of their relationship were complex. As a psychologist, Serena might have found it fascinating—had it been someone else's relationship, had she been able to look at it with cool objectivity. But she was too close to the subject; there were too many painful memories binding all the facets together like vines, and she was too afraid of what she might find if she ever did tear all the clinging creepers away, afraid the core might be as shriveled and dead as a sapling that had been smothered by the growth around it. And then what would happen? She would have to let go of the hope she still harbored in a corner of her heart. It was easier for them both to simply leave it alone.

As she neared the landing, her niece and nephew came running from the bank, screaming as if the devil were chasing them. They ran past her without slowing down, flying toward the safety of the house and their mother. Lucky stood on the dock smoking a cigarette, one hip cocked and a nasty smile tugging at a corner of his mouth. Serena scowled at him.

“Can't you go ten minutes without terrorizing someone?”

“Your ten minutes were up five minutes ago. You're just lucky I didn't leave without you.”

“That's a matter of opinion,” she grumbled. “What did you say to them? You ought to be ashamed, trying to give little children nightmares.”

Lucky rolled his eyes and tossed the butt of his cigarette into the bayou. “Those two
are
nightmares.”

“I wouldn't say that within Shelby's earshot if I were you.”

“There are far worse things I could say to that one,” he said, almost under his breath.

Serena gave him a curious look. His expression had gone cold and closed. He had slammed a door shut, but she felt compelled to push at it anyway. “You know my sister?” she asked. It seemed as unlikely as . . . as herself going into the swamp with him.

Lucky didn't answer. His relationship with Shelby Sheridan had never been shared with anyone, not brother or stranger or priest. He certainly had no intention of sharing the story with Shelby's twin. It had happened in another lifetime, in another place. He preferred to leave the wound scarred over, if not healed. There was no way on earth he was going to tear it open for this woman. In addition to the sin of being Shelby's sister, she was a psychologist. The last thing he needed was some college girl digging around in his psyche.

He turned his attention to the luggage she carried and the stylish outfit she wore. “Where do you think we're goin',
chère
? Club Med?”

Serena gave him one of her haughty ice-princess looks. “For your information, Mr. Doucet, my wardrobe doesn't hold an extensive collection of army fatigues and waders. You may find this hard to believe, but I don't particularly care to spend my free time in the swamp.”

“Oh, I don't find that hard to believe a-tall. I'm sure you're far too busy givin' dinner parties and goin' to concerts to even think of a place such as the swamp.”

“Why should I think of it? It doesn't require anything from me. It simply is.”

Not for long. Not if your sister has anything to say about it
. The thoughts passed instantly through Lucky's head, but he didn't speak them aloud. He was as involved as he intended to get, ferrying Serena out to Gifford's cabin and doing the odd reconnaissance job. It wasn't up to him to save the swamp. It couldn't be.
Dieu
, he had his hands full just trying to save himself.

What would be the point in arguing with Serena anyway? She was a slick, sophisticated city dweller who obviously had no affinity for the area she had grown up in. What would she care if Tristar Chemicals furthered the ruination of a delicate ecosystem man had been bent on destroying for years? For all he knew she was well aware of the situation and was going out to Giff's only to badger him into selling his land. She was her sister's twin, after all. How could he expect anything better of her than deceit and treachery?

He looked at her now in her prissy little designer sportswear outfit. She was a woman born to money, used to fine things. It stood to reason she would want more. That was the way of women of her class—see to the comfort and luxury of number one and to hell with the rest of the world. She wouldn't listen to him. He was just a means to an end . . . again.

“Get in the boat,” he said with a growl, his temper rising like a tide inside him.

She took another step toward him, her chin lifting to a stubborn angle. “You know, Mr. Doucet, we would get along a whole lot better if you would stop bossing me around.”

Lucky all but closed the gap between them, leaning over her, trying to intimidate her with his size and the aura of his temper. “I don't want to get along with you. Is that clear enough,
Miz
Sheridan?”

“Like crystal.”

She tilted her head back to meet his furious gaze, refusing to back away from him. It didn't seem to matter to his eyes that she was everything he needed to stay away from. It didn't matter to his hormones that she represented more trouble than he could afford to handle. For an instant, as he leaned close and the scent of her perfume lured him closer still, desire flared hot and bright inside him and burned away all common sense.

His gaze drifted over the elegant line of her cheek and jaw, the perfect angel's-wing curve of her brows, the delicate pink bow of her mouth. He wanted to kiss her, taste her, plunge his tongue into her mouth. It was crazy.

Crazy.

A shudder went through him and he tore his gaze from her. He turned away from her abruptly, jerking her suitcase from her grasp and climbing down into the pirogue with it. He settled the bag on the flat floor of the boat, up in the bow with the rest of his cargo, and moved back toward the stern, taking up the push-pole. His hands were shaking.

Sweet heaven, he thought, gripping the pole and looking away as Serena eased herself into the boat; the sooner he got her to Gifford's, the better. He didn't need this kind of torment in his life. All he wanted was to be left in peace.

Peace
, a derisive voice sneered inside his head, what was that? A dream. Something he was continually longing for that seemed forever beyond his reach. Something Serena Sheridan seemed to hold effortlessly, he thought, taking in the air of calm she wore like a queen's cloak as she settled herself primly on the seat of his pirogue. He couldn't help but envy her that. But if she were a cold, unfeeling bitch like her sister, why wouldn't she feel peace? Nothing would penetrate her armor of selfishness. She would be safe from caring and pain.

He heaved a sigh as he poled the boat away from the dock and steered it around, pointing the bow upstream, away from civilization and toward his home, his heartland—the cypress swamp of Bayou Noir. He focused on the wilderness that had been his salvation, never turning his head to catch the bright flash of yellow on the gallery of Chanson du Terre.

CHAPTER
                        

4

THE FIRST THING THAT ALWAYS STRUCK SERENA
about the swamp was the vastness of it. What land there was in this part of the state was crisscrossed by a labyrinth of waterways, some so wide they appeared bent on swallowing up everything in their path, some so narrow they were hardly more than a series of puddles cutting through the dense overhanging growth of willow and moss-draped hardwood trees. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but water and woods twisted together in combat with one another—water eating away at land, land rising up where water had been.

It was a place where one could literally spend days wandering the bayous, trying to reach a point only a few miles away. It was a place where trails twisted and turned, cut back and looped around until the traveler had no concept of direction. A place where shadows distorted the perception of time.

The area was inhabited by few people. Those who still made their living in the swamp generally preferred the comfort and convenience of civilization, buzzing into the wilderness in their aluminum boats only to return at the end of the day, leaving the bayous to such native inhabitants as snakes and alligators . . . and Lucky Doucet.

The waterway they were on branched off again and again like cracks in a windshield. It seemed to Serena that Lucky turned at random, steering the pirogue east, then west, then turning south again, then north. They weren't thirty minutes away from Chanson du Terre and already she was hopelessly lost, her fear robbing her of the ability to remember the route. She sat on the hard bench with her back straight, arms at her sides, fingers curling around the edge of the seat, bracing herself as if for a fierce blow.

“What'sa matter, darlin'? You afraid the boat's gonna sink?” Lucky punctuated the question by shifting his weight to set the pirogue rocking.

Serena felt the meager contents of her stomach rise up the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, concentrating on keeping her fear contained inside a shell of outer calm.
Don't let him know you're afraid. Don't let him know you're afraid
.

“O-of course not,” she stammered.

Lucky sniffed, offended. “The only way this pirogue is gettin' water in it is if it rains. I built it myself. This one, she rides the dew.”

“Is that what you do for a living? You build pirogues?” Serena asked, looking at the paraphernalia in the front of the boat. There was an assortment of gunny sacks and red onion bags, wire and mesh crawfish nets, a bundle of mosquito netting. Fisherman's gear. She thought of the knife he carried and corrected herself. Poacher's gear.

“
Non
,” he said shortly.

“What do you do?” she asked, twisting around to squint up at him. He looked like a giant looming over her. She wondered if he would take the opportunity to lie to her or try to shock her by telling the truth. He did neither.

“I do as I please.”

Serena arched a brow. “Does that pay well these days?”

Lucky tilted his head and looked away, giving her his profile. “
Pas de bétises
,” he muttered. “Sometimes it doesn't pay at all.”

He thrust the pole down into the muddy bottom and pushed. The boat shot ahead, nosing the edge of a floating platform of water hyacinth, delicate-looking lavender flowers shimmering above dense masses of green leaves. They turned again and the bayou grew narrower and darker. The pirogue skimmed the inky surface like a skater on ice, cutting across a sheet of green duckweed as they aimed for a narrow arbor of willow trees with streamers overhanging the water from either bank.

Serena took a slow, deep breath before they entered the tunnel of growth. Her throat constricted at the sudden absence of light. Her skin crawled as the willow wisps brushed against her like serpents' tongues.

When the boat emerged on the other side of the bower, they had an extra passenger. A thick black snake lay like a coil of discarded electrical cord on the floor of the pirogue near the toes of Serena's red shoes. Serena tried to scream, but couldn't. She bolted back on the seat, pulling her feet up and rocking the pirogue violently as she scrambled to escape, reacting on sheer instinct. She might have flung herself out of the boat if Lucky hadn't caught her.

He banded her to him with one brawny arm, bending her over backward as he reached down to snatch up the snake and fling it into the water.

“Just a little rat snake,” he said derisively as he released her.

Weak-kneed, Serena wilted down out of his embrace. A shudder passed through her as she watched the snake swim for shore, nose above the water, body undulating like a ribbon in a breeze. She didn't care if it was made of rubber and came from Woolworth's. It was a snake. Still, she didn't like the idea of this man knowing her fears, so she forced herself to recover quickly. Control was her best defense.

“Pardon me for overreacting,” she said primly.

Lucky scowled down at the back of her head. Wasn't there anything that could put a permanent wrinkle in that serene demeanor of hers? She'd come unglued at the sight of the snake, but that fast she was Miss Calm-and-Cool again, apologizing as if she had burped at the dinner table. He felt ready to explode from pulling her against him for that brief second; she sat there looking unmoved.

An irrational burst of anger shook him. How could she look so unaffected? How could he want her so much? How could he stand there looking at her, wanting her, knowing what she'd done—

What her
sister
had done . . .

Everything inside him went still as he realized what he was doing—substituting Serena for Shelby, letting an old hatred bubble up like rancid air that had been trapped in the bottom of a pond. After all these years it could still emerge, just as acrid as ever.

“
C'est ein affaire à pus finir
,” he muttered, shaking his head in an effort to clear it.

“I beg your pardon?” Serena asked, turning a questioning look up at him.

“I said, you'd better get used to seeing snakes if you think you're gonna stay out here, sugar. There are fifteen species of nonvenomous and six venomous—coral snakes, cottonmouths as long as whips, copperheads as thick as a man's wrist.”

Serena squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would somehow keep her from hearing him. Her mind took advantage of the blank screen to throw up one of her most terrible memories—muddy water swirling toward her, three dark, slender shapes writhing at the base of her perch, black heads shaped like arrows and mouths that flashed pinkish-white as they opened and came toward her . . .

What the hell had possessed her to come out here? She hated this place. It terrified her the way nothing else could. It shattered her sense of control. She looked around at the ghostly gray trunks of the huge cypress trees, the impenetrable growth beyond them, all of it shrouded in sinister shadows and hung with a tattered bunting of dirty-looking moss. It was a place of nightmares.

Tears stung Serena's eyes. She wanted to cling to her façade of calm, but she could feel her grip on it slipping. It inched away as if through sweaty hands that struggled frantically to hang on. To this point she had run on stubbornness and steam, but her anger and her singlemindedness had suddenly seemed to desert her, leaving only her fear.

Think, Serena. Think about something, anything.

This boat is too damned small.

“Hand me that canteen.”

Her heart jolted at the sound of Lucky's voice. She snapped back to reality, glad for the distraction. She picked up the canteen and handed it back to him, giving him a wry look as she turned to sit sideways.

“Please, Miss Sheridan?” she said sweetly. “Thank you, Miss Sheridan. You're most welcome, Mr. Doucet.”

Lucky rolled his eyes. He unscrewed the top on the canteen and took a long drink, the muscles of his throat working rhythmically as he swallowed.

“What is that you're drinking?” Serena asked, trying to drag her eyes away from the thick column of his neck.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Water,” he lied.

Serena's gaze flicked to the canteen. Unconsciously, she drew the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip and swallowed.

He thrust the canteen toward her in an ungracious offer, angry with himself for caring at all about her comfort and angrier still for not being able to control his body's response to her.

She took the canteen and sniffed dubiously at the opening.

“This isn't water, it's liquor,” she said, making a face.

Lucky scowled at her. “It has water in it.”

Serena gave a little snort of disbelief. “You drink it like water, which probably accounts for your foul temperament.”

“I like my temperament just fine,” he said on a growl.

“Well, you're a minority of one, from what I've seen.” She sniffed again at the canteen and grimaced.

“Are you gonna take a drink or are you afraid you might catch something drinking out of the same can as the likes of me?” Lucky asked sarcastically.

Serena narrowed her eyes at him and took a swig from the canteen, partly to prove him wrong and partly to bolster her flagging courage. The professional in her frowned on the latter reason. There wasn't anything healthy about rationalizing alcohol consumption. But she ignored the disapproving inner voice. She wasn't a professional out here; she was scared. The kind of fear that she was experiencing was terrible. She would have done just about anything to escape it. If nothing else, this experience was giving her a renewed sympathy for her patients who suffered from phobias.

As she had suspected, the brew in the canteen was nothing that had ever graced the shelves of a liquor store. It was homemade stuff so potent there probably wasn't a proof percentage high enough to categorize it. It was the kind of stuff that could double as paint thinner or battery acid in a pinch. Liquid fire seared a path down her throat and sizzled as it hit her belly, spreading warmth through her.

Perhaps this physical attraction to him was some kind of temporary insanity, she reasoned. Perhaps Lucky Doucet with his mile-wide shoulders, his panther's eyes, and courtesan's mouth was the thing her mind wanted to focus on instead of the swamp. That was the only reason that made any sense. Aside from his looks, his list of faults was endless. He was rude, crude, chauvinistic, overbearing, arrogant, had a violent temper, and he drank. No sensible, self-respecting woman would entertain a single thought about getting involved with him on any level.

Her gaze drifted once again over his physique. Well, maybe there was
one
level . . . but of course she wasn't interested in that. She didn't involve herself in affairs that were strictly sexual. In fact, she hadn't involved herself in an affair of any kind for what suddenly seemed like ages.

She kept busy with her practice and her volunteer work at a mental health clinic in one of Charleston's poorest areas. She had friends and a nice social life, but no serious romantic entanglements. She'd been married once to a fellow psychologist, but the marriage had fizzled for lack of interest on both their parts. It had been based on friendship, mutual interests, convenience. Noticeably absent had been the kind of intense physical magnetism that often acts as an adhesive to hold the other parts of a relationship together. They had drifted apart and divorced amicably four years after taking their vows.

Since the divorce, Serena had dated sparingly, casually, never finding a man who motivated her to anything more than that. She had decided that perhaps she simply wasn't a sexual creature. She hadn't inspired that much passion in her husband, nor had he excited her to the kind of mind-numbing ecstasy she'd heard about from other women. She had decided she simply wasn't made to react that way to a man. It probably had something to do with her need for emotional control. Looking up at Lucky Doucet, she decided she might have to rethink the issue.

“Like what you see, sugar?” he drawled lazily, staring down at her with those unblinking amber eyes.

“Not particularly.” She thrust his canteen back at him in an effort to keep him from noticing the telltale blush that warmed her cheeks.

“Liar.”

It was a statement of fact more than an accusation. He took the canteen, deliberately brushing his fingertips over hers. Serena jerked her hand back, winning her an amused chuckle.

Serena lifted her chin a defiant notch. “You have an amazingly high opinion of your own appeal, Mr. Doucet.”

“Oh, no,
chère
, I just call 'em like I see 'em.”

“Then I suggest you make an appointment with an optometrist at the earliest possible date. A good pair of glasses could save untold scores of women the unpleasantness of your company.”

Their gazes locked and warred—hers cool, his burning with intensity. She congratulated herself on defusing a potentially disastrous sexual situation. He congratulated himself on goading her temper. Both went on staring. The air around them thickened with electricity.

On the eastern bank of the bayou an alligator roused itself from a nap, plowed through a lush tangle of ferns and coffee-weed stems, and slid down into the water.

Serena jumped, jerking around to stare wide-eyed at the creature. The alligator was lying in the shallows among a stand of cattails, just a few feet away from the pirogue, its long, corrugated head breaking the surface of the murky water as it stared back at her.

Lucky gave a bark of laughter. “
Mais non, mon ange
, that 'gator's not gonna get you. Unless I throw you overboard, which I have half a mind to do.”

“I don't doubt it—that you have half a mind, that is,” Serena grumbled, snatching the canteen away from him to take another swig of false courage.

And just how much of a mind do you have, Serena, antagonizing this man?
Good Lord, he was a poacher and a bootlegger and who knew what else. He gave her a nasty smile, reminding her enough of the nearby alligator to give her chills.

“No wonder Gifford's holed up out here,” he said, taking up the push-pole again and sending them forward with the strong flexing of his biceps. “I don't see how a man could stand to be stuck in a house with two just like you.”