I love you. Serena pressed her cheek to his chest and cried with a mixture of joy and relief and belated fear. Lucky loved her. She was safe. He was safe. They would have a chance at tomorrow together. But there was so much more left to face and so many feelings still to be dealt with, not the least of which were her feelings about what she had experienced tonight. They rushed to the fore now that she was in the shelter of Lucky s arms.
«I've never been so afraid,» she mumbled against his chest as the tears came harder.
«I know. I know, mon cherie. It's all right now. Everything's all right. You're safe.» He pressed fervent kisses to her temple, her cheek, her lips, trembling at the sweet taste of her. He couldn't get enough of just touching her, holding her, breathing in the faint scent of her perfume. With one shaking hand he began to carefully brush the leaves and twigs from her hair.
«Lucky?'
«Oui.»
«I really like having you hold me,» Serena said, twisting a little in his iron grasp, «but do you think you could untie me first? I'd kind of like to hold you too.»
Lucky pulled back abruptly, swearing in French. He turned Serena around and dealt with the cord that bound her hands. She almost cried at the pain as feeling came rushing back into her fingers and her shoulders were allowed to sag forward, but decided she was too glad to be alive to cry about it.
They dealt with Willis and Perret quickly. Lucky dragged Pou back inside and grumbled while Serena did a cursory first aid job on the man's bullet wound. Then he bound both men hand and foot and tied them each to a bedpost.
«Let's get out of here,» he said when the task was accomplished and the two thugs sat on the floor glaring up at him. «I'll bring the sheriff back later for these two.»
Serena nodded. Now that the danger had passed, she was feeling the effects of what she had been through. She ached all over and felt vaguely dizzy and rubber-legged. Lucky seemed to sense her fatigue and without a word swept her up in his arms. With long, purposeful strides he carried her away from the shack and into the woods.
He wound his way through the tangle of dark forest silently, surely. Serena put her arms around his neck and laid her head against his shoulder, marveling at the sense of safety she felt with him in this place she had feared for so long. But gradually the feeling of safety gave way to a subtle foreboding.
Lucky hadn't spoken a word since leaving the cabin. Serena thought she could actually feel him withdrawing from her. He might have, in a moment of intense emotion, told her he loved her, but she had the terrible feeling that love was something Lucky was more likely to shy away from than embrace. He had told her before that he didn't want her love, that he didn't have anything left inside him to give her. The discovery that he was capable of feeling would not be welcome to a man who had sentenced himself to emotional exile.
She sighed wearily at the thought that while the battle for her life was over and won, the battle for her heart was a long way from being over.
«Hey, it's a real boat,» she said in a weak attempt at levity as they emerged from the woods at the edge of the bayou and she saw the powerboat sitting in the black water. «It's got a motor and everything.»
Lucky eased her over the side and set her on her feet, then frowned as he pulled himself into the boat and dug the keys out of his pocket. «They have their uses,» he said shortly.
«Yes, they do. Be sure and thank the owner on my behalf for loaning it to you.»
«Can't.»
«Why not?»
«'Cause I stole it.»
«You what?» Serena clamped her mouth shut and sank down into one of the passenger seats, feeling giddy at the idea that Lucky would commit a felony on her behalf. It had definitely been too long a day. She needed to go to bed and sleep for a year. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.
«How did you know they had me?» she asked, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chills that were beginning to rack her body now that
Lucky didn't answer her until he'd found a blanket stowed in one of the boat's cubbyholes. He draped it around Serena's shoulders and tucked it carefully around her legs. «The distraction they sicced on me had a big mouth and a little brain.»
«And could she really suck the brass off a doorknob?» Serena asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her tone.
«I wasn't interested in finding out.» He tipped her chin up and tried to read her face in the dim light of the moon. «Were you jealous?»
«Yes,» she answered honestly.
He didn't respond to that, but turned and prepared to start the boat.
«We'll need to tell the sheriff about Burke too,» Serena said, finding practical ground safer footing than probing the uncertain territory of their relationship. «I think Burke is the one who paid Willis and Perret to-to-«
«No. He didn't. Skeeter Mouton says Burke was in the roadhouse when Willis and Pou left for their meeting this afternoon.» Lucky turned around and sat back against the console of the boat, crossing his arms over his massive chest. The look he leveled at Serena was serious. «I think you'd better face facts, Serena. Shelby did this.»
Serena's heart gave a painful jolt. «No.»
«You stood in her way, so she arranged to get rid of you.»
«No,» she said again, shaking her head. She didn't want to believe it. She didn't even want to consider the possibility. It was one thing to know she would never be close with her twin it was something else to accept that her twin had tried to have her killed. She knew Shelby was emotionally unbalanced; there was no denying that after the scene over the power of attorney, but murder? Serena couldn't bring herself to believe that.
«How would Shelby ever have hired men like Willis and Perret?» she argued. «She wouldn't go near a place like Mouton's.»
«She wouldn't have to. All she need do is call up your 'family friend' Perry Davis.»
«Perry Davis?» Serena said, bewildered. «But Perry is-«
«Crooked as a dog's hind leg,» Lucky finished. «He finances his nasty little gambling addiction by taking payoffs from poachers. He wouldn't have any trouble finding the right men for a dirty job. No trouble a'tall.»
Serena leaned over and rubbed her temples. This was all happening too fast. It was overwhelming. In the span of just a few days her entire orderly world had been flipped upside down and inside out. Now Lucky was telling her a man she would have trusted was a criminal.
«What was to stop Burke from using Perry as a middleman?» she asked, lifting her head as the question sorted itself from the chaos in her mind. «He wouldn't want to be linked directly with people like Willis and Perret. It doesn't mean anything that he didn't meet with them himself. He paid them to start the fire and he paid them to kidnap me.»
«I don't think so, sugar,» Lucky said. «But we'll find out soon enough.»
They arrived at Lucky s house sometime later. Serena had no idea of the hour. The night had taken on an endless quality. She sat huddled in the passenger seat of the boat with the blanket wrapped tightly around her while Lucky quietly piloted the boat through the swamp. Neither spoke. When they reached his dock, Lucky tied the boat and carried Serena into the house.
Serena didn't even think of protesting. The aftershock of what had happened, the knowledge of what might have happened, the questions of who had caused it all to happen bombarded her nerves until it was all she could do to keep from falling completely apart. Having Lucky hold her was the best medicine she could have thought to prescribe.
He carried her into the bathroom and undressed her carefully. She kept her eyes on his artists hands, long and strong and infinitely gentle, as they peeled away her torn, soiled blouse and the whiskey-soaked bra. She thought of the way Willis had touched her and shivered.