Lucky’s Lady

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 betises» 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 a 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 facade 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, chere, 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.»

Serena kept one eye on the alligator and both hands firmly clamped to the edge of the seat. «For your information, my sister and I are nothing alike.» «I know what your sister is like.» The cold dislike in his statement made her glance over her shoulder at him. «How? I can't imagine the two of you run in the same social circles.»

Lucky said nothing. That mental door slammed closed again. Serena thought she could almost hear it bang shut. He looked past her, as if she had ceased to exist, his face a stony mask. His silence left her free to draw her own conclusions.

Perhaps Shelby had made some kind of public statement against poachers or places like Mosquito Mouton's. It would be like Shelby to get on a soapbox and publicly antagonize people she thought of as unsavory. Her views would be met with widespread approval among the upstanding members of the community, something that would appeal enormously to her ego.

Shelby had always required a great deal of attention and praise, and had been willing to go to whatever length she needed to get those things. It wouldn't have been beyond her to pick on a man as dangerous as Lucky Doucet. She would have considered the potential for self-aggrandizement long before giving a thought to the potential for trouble.

Serena wondered if her sister had any idea she'd made an enemy of a man who carried a hunting knife the size of a scimitar.

They moved on up the bayou, the silence of the swamp as heavy and oppressive as the heat. The denser the vegetation became, the more overwhelming the stillness. It played on Serena's nerves, tightening them so that something as innocent as the «quock» of heron set them humming.

The deeper they penetrated into the wilderness, the less it looked like man had ever intruded upon it. The most conspicuous sign of human habitation Serena saw was the occasional slip of colored plastic ribbon tied to a branch to mark the location of a crawfish trap.

Lucky pulled up beside one of these-a red ribbon tied to the branch of a willow sapling-and set about emptying the dip net set in the shallow water beneath it. The thin mesh was brimming with red crawfish. He raided four nets along the same bank, emptying their contents into the onion sacks he had stored in the bow of the pirogue, going about his task as if Serena were nothing more than an annoying piece of cargo he had to step around. She watched him with interest, not daring to ask if the traps he was harvesting were his.

«Are we nearly there?» she asked as Lucky once again began to pole the pirogue north, then east.

«Nearly. You'll know when we're just about onto Gifford's.»

«I doubt it. It's been years since I've been out here.»

«You'll know,» he said assuredly.

«How?»

«By the gunshots.»

Serena made a face. «That's ridiculous. Old Lawrence said something about people getting shot at too. I know my grandfather can be cantankerous, but shooting at people? That's absurd. Why would he shoot at people?»

«To scare them off.»

«And why would he want to scare people off?»

«So they'll leave him alone.»

Serena shook her head impatiently. «I don't understand any of this. In the first place, it's not like Giff to desert the plantation for so long a time, not even during crawfish season.»

«He's got his reasons,» Lucky said enigmatically.

Serena gave him a long, searching look. She didn't like the idea of this man knowing more about her family's concerns than she did. It made her feel like the outsider. It also threw a glaring spotlight on her deficiencies as a granddaughter. She didn't come home often enough, didn't keep up with the local news, didn't call as often as she should. The list of venial sins went on, adding to her feelings of guilt. Still, she couldn't keep herself from asking the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

«And just what do you think those reasons are, Mr. Doucet?» she queried, looking up at him.

His face remained impassive. «Ask Gifford, if you want to know. I don't get involved in other people's lives.»

«How convenient for you. You have no one to worry about, no one to answer to except yourself.»

«That's right, sugar.»

«Then what are you doing bringing me out here when you would clearly rather have come alone?»

Lucky scowled at her, his black brows pulling together like twin thunderheads above his eyes. When he spoke his voice was soft and silky with warning. «Don' you go tryin' to get inside my head, Dr. Sheridan.»

Serena rolled her eyes. «God forbid. I'm sure I'd rather fall into a snake pit.»

One and the same thing, cherie, Lucky said to himself, but he refrained from speaking that thought, knowing it was the kind of statement a psychologist would pounce on. He was managing just fine. If everyone would just butt the hell out of his life, he would be great.

«How come you don' know Gifford's reasons for comin' out here?» he asked, going on the offensive. «Don' you ever talk to your grandpapa on the telephone? Mebbe you don' care what goes on down here. Mebbe you don' care about this place or Chanson du Terre, eh?»

«What kind of question is that?» Serena bristled, rising to the bait like a bass to a fly. «Of course I care about Chanson du Terre. It's my family home.»

Lucky shrugged. «I don't see you livin' there, sugar.»

«Where I live is none of your concern.»

«That's right. Just like it's none of my concern if someone wants to come in and flatten the place with bulldozers. It's not my family what's lived and worked on that land two-hundred-some years.»

Serena stared up at him, feeling as if she'd been hit in the chest with a hammer. «What do you mean, flatten the place? What are you talking about?»

«Chanson du Terre, angel. Your sister wants to sell it to Tristar Chemicals.»

«That's absurd!» she exclaimed, laughing at the sheer lunacy of the statement. «Shelby wouldn't want to sell Chanson du Terre any more than Scarlett O'Hara would put Tara on the market! You obviously don't know my sister. It would never happen. Never.»

She went on chuckling at the idea, shaking her head, trying to ignore the terrible certainty in Lucky s eyes as he stared down at her. The look was meant to assure her of the fact that he knew many things she didn't have a clue about. A part of her rejected the notion outright, but another part of her churned with a sudden strange apprehension.

At any rate, there was no time to question or argue the issue, because as they rounded a bend in the bayou there came the sudden deafening explosion of a shotgun-firing at them.