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.