«I know he isn't me.»
«What if you're wrong?»
He wheeled on her, letting all the frustration and pain and rage surface in one explosion of feeling. «What do you know about me?» he roared. «Nothing! You've pieced together some fantasy profile, made me out to be a hero when I'm nothing. I'm nothing but a man hanging on to his sanity by his fingertips. I'm nothing but a trained killer who might go off the edge in the blink of an eye. I don't have anything inside me but nightmares. Is that what you want? Is that the kind of man you need?»
Eyes wild, nostrils flaring, he stalked to the bed in a half crouch, meeting Serena at eye level. «You wanna have a peek inside the man you think you love, Doc?» he whispered. «You wanna know what makes me run?
«I spent a year in a private prison in Central America. My commanding officer arranged it because he was dirty and I was on to him. Our mission down there was one of those little soirees our government doesn't own up to. They told my family I was killed in a training accident. And for a year I sat in a filthy, rat-infested cell in total darkness. The only time they took me out was to torture me.
«Do you know what that does to a man's mind, Dr. Sheridan? Do you know what that leaves him with?» He straightened and slowly backed away. «Nothing. Nothing. I don't have anything to give you. I live for myself, by myself, and that's the way I like it. I don't want your help and I don't want your love. The only thing I ever wanted from you was your body.»
He turned away from her and went back to the window, feeling bleak and empty.
Serena sat there for a long moment, absorbing his words, aching-not for herself, but for Lucky, for the sensitive young man who loved his family, the scholar, the artist who had had his life systematically destroyed. She hurt for the man he was now, tormented, frightened, alone. She wanted so badly to reach out to him, but she knew he would only push her away.
«If you wanted me to believe you were nothing but a heartless bastard, you should have left me at Gifford's that first night,» she said, a part of her wishing he had done just that.
«You got that right,» he answered derisively. «I should have left you. But don't tell me I led you on, sugar. I told you from the first what this would be.»
«Yes, you did.» And from the first it had been a lie. They had come together in passion and anger and need, but it had never been as simple as «just sex.» Never.
«Then keep your pretty words to yourself,» he muttered. «I don't want to hear them. I have no need of your love.»
Serena wanted to cry. She'd never seen a man more in need of love. He pulled himself away from people, hid from the world. He had retreated to the solace of his swamp to heal his own wounds, but they weren't healing. They lay open and raw, and he retreated further still to some desolate place within himself. Her foolish heart ached to help him. The woman in her yearned to be the one to make a difference. But the psychologist knew it wouldn't happen and she knew why, small consolation though that was.
She didn't have the strength to fight the inevitable. All things considered, it seemed best to make the break there and then. Going on would be an exercise in futility, like beating her head against a brick wall. She had lost any kind of perspective that could have maintained a sexual relationship between them even if she had been able to stomach that kind of affair. And God knew she had other problems to take care of. She would chalk this up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.
As she moved to gather her clothes, she studied Lucky, still standing framed by the curtainless window, and wondered bleakly how the wrong man could seem so right.
He turned and watched her, cast in a mix of silver light and black shadow that made a perfect portrait of him. «Where do we go from here?'
Serena paused as she buttoned her blouse, considering options and answers, and decided to take his question at face value. «Chanson du Terre.»
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS A LONG RIDE BACK. AS LUCKY STOOD SILENTLY behind her, Serena sat in the pirogue taking in the sights and sounds of the swamp. This would be her last trip through this wilderness that had haunted her for so many years. She had no intention of coming back for Gifford again. He had pushed things too far. Next time he would have to come to her. And as for any other reason she might venture out here, there wasn't any, she told herself, refusing the urge to turn around and look up at Lucky.
She focused instead on the swamp, looking past her instinctive fear at the primitive beauty, the delicacy, the place that Lucky loved. The rain had passed and the sun had returned with a vengeance, turning the place into a natural sauna. Moisture rose like steam from the surface of the water and dripped from the lacy festoons of Spanish moss. Wildflowers glistened, brilliant spots of color among the drab grays and browns. Serena wondered if Lucky had ever painted it this way.
They held their silence by tacit agreement until the landing at Chanson du Terre came into sight.
«What are you gonna do?» he asked quietly as he steered the boat in an arch for the dock.
«End it,» Serena said, still facing forward, her eyes on the big house. «Send Burke packing. See that the matter of the fire and insurance claim are settled.»
«And then?»
She didn't answer him for a long moment. The pirogue snuggled in along the dock and settled. Finally she turned and looked up at him as she rose to her feet. «Why should you care, Lucky? You got what you wanted.»
Lucky said nothing, but he stood wrestling with the emotions twisting inside him. He didn't care, he told himself. She could go back to Charleston, where she belonged. It didn't matter to him. He would have his swamp and his peace and no Sheridan's to upset the placid surface of his life. He ignored the pain in his chest as Serena stepped from the boat and walked away without looking back. He didn't need her, couldn't need her, and that was the end of it.
With strong strokes of the push-pole he moved his pirogue away from the dock and turned south for Moutons. It was going to be a good night for getting drunk and raising hell.
Serena crossed the yard slowly, her attention on the white Cadillac parked beside Shelby's BMW. Burke's, no doubt. As Giff had said, the man was as tenacious as a pit bull. And as charming. She wondered how he would take the news of her decision. Not well. He didn't strike her as a graceful loser.
Shelby was liable to take it badly too. She didn't like having her plans interfered with, particularly when personal glorification was at stake. She saw selling the plantation as the one and only means to achieve her goal of putting Mason in the legislature and putting herself on a public pedestal all in one fell swoop. She wouldn't be happy about having that means taken away from her. Added to that frustration would be the old feelings of competition between them. Gifford had played favorites, giving Serena the one tool that would have made all of Shelby's dreams come true.
Serena cursed Gifford for putting the land above all else. She cursed herself for coming back. But the die was cast now. The hand had been dealt and there was nothing to do but play it out.
They were gathered in the front parlor. Shelby was resplendent in a sleeveless red silk dress with a snug bodice and full skirt. Her hair was curled back neatly in a style that made her look like a movie star from the Carole Lombard era. Mason was in another one of his junior-senator outfits, charcoal slacks and an ivory shirt with the tie of some illustrious British regiment slightly askew at his throat. Burke wore the same western-cut suit he'd worn the previous night, but had opted to forgo the bolo tie. They turned as one toward Serena as she entered the room, their faces registering various expressions of surprise.
Shelby frowned. «My word, Serena, is this how people dress for dinner in Charleston? You look a mess!»
Serena glanced down at her rumpled cotton blouse and black walking shorts that were creased and wrinkled. A quick peek in the gilt-framed mirror on the wall showed her hair escaping the bonds of its clip.