Much of the previous season's crop had been lost to disease. Heavy spring rains had hurt die present crop's growth in several fields where drainage was an ongoing problem. As a result, there was no extra cash to replace aging equipment and they had been forced to cut back on help. All in all, Arnaud thought it was more than most seventy-eight-year-old men would care to deal with, and he said he wouldn't blame Gifford a bit if he did indeed sell the place and go to Tahiti.
What they needed, Arnaud said, was an influx of money and possibly a new cash crop to rotate with the sugarcane. But money was as scarce as hen's teeth, and Gifford was resistant to change.
Serena walked away from the conversation more depressed than she had been to begin with. Even after this business with Tristar Chemicals had been settled, the ultimate fate of the plantation would still be up in the air. She would go back to Charleston. Shelby and Mason would go off to Baton Rouge. Gifford would remain; an aging man and an aging dream left to fade away.
She walked along the crushed-shell path with her hands tucked into the pockets of her shorts, her wistful gaze roaming over the weathered buildings, looking past the pecan orchard to a field of cane. The stalks were already tall and green, reaching for the sky. In her memory she could almost smell die pungent, bittersweet scent of burning leaves at harvest time, when machines the size of dinosaurs crept through the fields and workers bustled everywhere. Harvest time was one of her favorite childhood memories. She had loved the sense of excitement and urgency after the long, slow days of summer.
It had been a good childhood, growing up here, she reflected as she climbed the steps to die old gazebo that was situated at the back of the garden behind the big house. She slid down on a weathered bench, glad for the shade, and leaned back against the railing, staring up at the house. Odille came out the back door wearing an enormous straw hat with a basket slung over her arm, and brandishing garden scissors and a ferocious scowl as she headed for a bed of spring flowers. At a corner of the house John Mason crept around a pillar, intent on scaring the living daylights out of Lacey, who was sitting on the grass playing with dolls. It was the kind of scene that brought memories to the surface-hot spring days and the unencumbered life of childhood in the shadows of Chanson du Terre.
It was the only home Serena and Shelby had ever known growing up. Their parents had settled in immediately after their wedding. An only son, Robert Sheridan, their father, had been groomed from an early age to take Gifford's place at the helm of the plantation. Serena couldn't help but think how different things would have been if he had lived. But he hadn't. He had died in a plane crash the day she and Shelby had turned fifteen.
His wife had preceded him to the grave by ten years. Serena barely remembered her mother except in random adjectives-a pretty smile, a soft voice, a loving touch. She remembered that her father had been devastated by her mother's death. She could still hear the terrible sound of his crying-wrenching, inconsolable grief confined to his bedroom while ladies from their church had placated everyone else with tuna casseroles and Jell-O. There had been no second marriage, no more children, no sons to carry on the line or take up the reins of the plantation.
What was it like to love someone that much? To love so that death meant the death of one's own heart. Serena couldn't imagine. She had never known that depth of emotion with a man, had never expected to. In her work she'd seen too many crumbled relationships to believe the other land came along very often.
Her thoughts drifted to Lucky. She told herself it was only natural. She'd just spent a long hot night in his arms. That didn't mean she was thinking of him in permanent terms. But she couldn't help but wonder if he had ever known that kind of love. He would deny being capable of it. Of that she was certain. He didn't want anyone to know there was a heart under that carved-from-granite chest. Why? Because it had been broken, abused?
He had known Shelby, had been involved with her to some extent. Every time she thought of it, Serena felt a violent blast of disbelief and jealousy. Had they been lovers? Had they been in love? Was it Shelby who had bred that distrust of women in him? The idea brought a bitter taste to her mouth. It was yet another perfectly logical, practical reason for her not to get involved with Lucky Doucet, but she had taken that ill-advised step anyway. She had seen all the warning signs and plunged in headfirst in spite of them.
What a mess, she thought, a long sigh slipping between her lips. She picked absently at a scab of peeling paint on the railing and shook her head. She'd left Charleston with nothing on her mind but thoughts of a pleasant vacation and had fallen into a plot worthy of a Judith Krantz novel.
That was another reason she had left Chanson du Terre to begin with. In Charleston she had no complicated family relationships to deal with. She didn't have to wonder if her own sister was up to no good. She didn't have to look at her ancestral home and wonder what would become of it after two hundred years of Sheridan stewardship ended. She didn't have to worry about falling short of Gifford's expectations. She didn't have to watch him grow old. She could come back for the occasional dose of nostalgia and leave before it became necessary to deal with anything as unpleasant as past hurts and old fears.
«You can't hightail it out of Lou'siana first chance you get, then come on back and try to run things on the weekend.»
Gifford's voice still rang in her ears. The old reprobate. He had hit a nerve with that line, had scored a bull's-eye, sticking the dart right smack in the center of her guilt. And even while he'd been doing it, he had been maneuvering her so she would either have to deal with the problems or dig her guilt a deeper hole. He had her right where he wanted her, in the last place she wanted to be, dealing with questions she had never wanted to face.
«Serena, I don't believe you've met Mr. Burke from Tristar Chemical,» Mason said smoothly. He came forward, innocuous smile in place, and took her gently by the arm as she entered the front parlor.
«We haven't been formally introduced, no,» Serena said, extending her hand to the big man in the western-cut suit. «I'm afraid you mistook me for my sister the other day out at Gifford's, Mr. Burke. I'm Serena Sheridan.»
Burke let his eyes drift down over her, taking in the subtle lines of her figure revealed by the straight cut of her toffee-colored sleeveless linen sheath. He pumped her hand and grinned. «By golly, who'd a guessed there'd be two this pretty? It's a pleasure, Miss Sheridan?» His brows rose with a hope that made Serena loath to answer his implied question.
«Yes,» she murmured. She extracted her fingers from his meaty grasp and managed a twitch of the lips that passed for a smile. His gaze homed in on her breasts like radar.
«Now, what was a lovely young thing like yourself doing out in that swamp anyway?» he asked, settling a too-familiar hand on her shoulder.
Serena shrugged off his touch on the excuse of reaching up to smooth her fingers over her loosely bound hair.
«Serena is here on a visit from Charleston. She was trying to persuade Gifford to return so we might all deal with this offer in a proper manner,» Mason explained.
«And did you?»
«No, unfortunately not,» Serena replied. «As you no doubt realize by now, Mr. Burke, my grandfather can be a very stubborn man.»
«It goes a mite beyond stubborn, if you ask me,» Burke said, baring his teeth. «I have my doubts about his sanity.»
«Do you?' Serena arched a brow. «Are you a psychologist, Mr. Burke?'
«No-«
«Well, I am,» she said, her tone as smooth and cool as marble. «And I can assure you that while Gifford may be unreasonable and cantankerous, he is very much in control of his faculties.»