Serena shrugged off the grain of doubt trying to insinuate itself into her mind. Her feelings toward her twin were complicated enough already; she didn't need Lucky s dark suspicions adding to the morass.
«Stop trying to turn me against my own sister,» she said irritably. «I'm sure you have every reason to be paranoid, considering the kind of life you lead, but I refuse to fall into that land of thinking.»
«You shrinks have a word for that too, don't you?» Lucky said, arching a brow. «Denial?»
«Talk about denial,» Serena grumbled, changing the subject as she resumed her pacing. She threw a fuming look up at the cabin. «I can't believe Gifford. He says he's dealing with this his way. He's not dealing with it at all. He's making me-«
She broke off as the realization hit her like a brick square in the forehead. Making her deal with it was his way of dealing with it. He wanted to force her into caring more about the plantation. He wanted her to take up the banner and fight for the cause, and in doing so revive her sense of tradition and duty. God, he had even lured her into the swamp, the place she had lived in fear of for fifteen years.
«That old fox,» she muttered, planting her hands on her hips. «That old son of a boot.»
He had manipulated her as neatly as a chess master, and now there was no honorable way out. She was involved and she would have to do her best to resolve the situation or lose face with Gifford again. She might have run the risk of incurring his wrath, but she couldn't bear the thought of facing his disappointment in her. He had bet on that and won, the old horse thief.
«Take me back,» she said suddenly, turning toward Lucky. «Take me back to Chanson du Terre. I have to talk with Shelby. I'll straighten this mess out as best as I can. But if Gifford thinks he can guilt me into staying here forever, he can just think again.»
CHAPTER 9
LUCKY DROPPED HER OFF AT HIS HOUSE, TELLING her he would be back in an hour to pick her up and return her to Chanson du Terre. Serena watched him pole away, then let herself inside. It was silent and cool. One of the baby raccoons peered in the back door at her, its long front paws pressed to the screen. When Serena moved toward it, the coon whinnied and scampered away, its claws clattering on the wooden floor of the gallery, making the exact sound that had scared her witless the night before.
She set her suitcases by the front door, then raided Lucky's small refrigerator and made herself a ham sandwich, taking great care to make certain the kitchen was as spotless when she was finished as it had been to begin with. When that small task was accomplished, she still had forty minutes to wait.
Her mind turned to the question of what she would find awaiting her at Chanson du Terre. It all seemed so unlikely. Mason running for office. Shelby plotting against Giff. The plantation's existence threatened.
Bulldozers, Lucky had said. Tristar would raze the place to make room for labs, offices, manufacturing facilities, warehouses. The possibility, as remote as it was, hit Serena in a tender spot. That old house had borne silent witness to a lot of history. It had seen the last days of French rule in Louisiana, the golden era before the war. Yankees had camped on the lawn, and the staircase still bore the marks where a drunken officer had ridden his horse up it. It had survived the Reconstruction and the Great Depression. Had it survived all that only to fall victim to greed?
No. Of course not. The current situation would be cleared up and life would go on at Chanson du Terre with Gifford ruling the roost as he had for nearly sixty years.
And when Gifford was gone and Shelby was off in Baton Rouge and Serena was back in Charleston… what then?
«Oh, no, you don't,» Serena muttered, pushing herself up from her place at the table. This was exactly what Gifford wanted-to rouse her sentimental streak.
Instead, she turned her mind to another puzzle- Lucky. She wandered the two rooms of his cottage, trying to discern as much as she could about him from the things she found. It was an exercise in perception and reasoning, she told herself, not simple curiosity about the man.
What she found in examining Lucky s lair was almost nothing. Utilitarian furnishings that happened to be antique. Nothing frivolous, nothing personal, nothing more revealing than a respect for his heritage and a need for order. He kept no books in sight, no magazines, no photographs, no art on the walls. But that in itself was a revelation. He was a man in hiding. His house was hidden. In his house, everything personal was hidden. He let nothing of his inner self show if he could help it at all.
Why was that? It didn't seem like a wholly natural reticence. It seemed more as if he had carefully constructed a maze of walls around himself for protection. What would a man like Lucky need protection from? He seemed so tough, so self-reliant. And yet there were the contradictions. He gave food to orphaned raccoons. He had defended her to Gifford. He had held her when she had felt miserable and afraid.
She opened the tall door of the armoire in the dining room. The shelves of the cupboard were stocked with only the kind of things one would expect to find in a dining room. Serena groaned a little in disappointment and hesitated a moment before crossing into the other room, which was, with the exception of the quality of the furnishings, barren as a monk's cell.
«Jackpot,» she whispered as she swung open the door of the large armoire that stood opposite the foot of the bed.
The closet had a column of cubbyholes along the left side, with an area for hanging clothes on the right. A set of three deep drawers created the base. She glanced over his wardrobe, which consisted of jeans, fatigue pants, T-shirts, and an army dress uniform with a chest full of decorations. The uniform interested her, but the smaller shelves on the left drew Serena's immediate attention.
They held framed photographs. The Doucet family captured at all different times of their lives. There was a sepiatoned wedding picture of his parents-a handsome, smiling couple gazing at each other with love. There was a battered black and white snapshot of his father standing with his hand on the shoulder of a gangly boy who was proudly displaying a trophy-size fish and a gap-toothed grin. Lucky, she assumed, looking much younger and lighter of heart. There were more recent photos of other members of the clan, unmistakable by their resemblance to one another, children of various ages, chubby babies in frilly baptism gowns, and grade-schoolers taking first communion in their Sunday best with their faces shining and their cowlicks slicked into submission.
Serena felt her heart melt a little as she looked at the photographs. Lucky had a family and he loved them. He wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of framing the pictures if he hadn't cared deeply. Why did he isolate himself from them? Shelby had said his parents were nice people, respectable people. Did Lucky feel unworthy of them because of the life he led? Or was there something else that made him feel separate?
She reached out to touch the photograph of Lucky and his father, brushing her fingertips over the smiling face of the boy he had been. What had happened to that boy to put shadows in his eyes? What events had turned him into the dangerous, brooding man he was today?
A yearning to know that was deeper than professional curiosity ached inside Serena. She wanted to know Lucky's secrets, wanted to reach past them to offer him something-solace, comfort. This longing wasn't wise, and it brought her no joy, but she didn't try to deny it. She just stood there, hurting for him, hurting for herself, wishing to God she had never left Charleston.
«Mom sent over a chocolate cake and some cookies and two loaves of French bread she baked today. I just set 'em on the counter.»