Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag Page A

wondered if he would take the opportunity to lie to her or try to shock her by telling the truth. He did neither.
    “I do as I please.”
    Serena arched a brow. “Does that pay well these days?”
    Lucky tilted his head and looked away, giving her his profile. “
Pas de bétises
,” he muttered. “Sometimes it doesn't pay at all.”
    He thrust the pole down into the muddy bottom and pushed. The boat shot ahead, nosing the edge of a floating platform of water hyacinth, delicate-looking lavender flowers shimmering above dense masses of green leaves. They turned again and the bayou grew narrower and darker. The pirogue skimmed the inky surface like a skater on ice, cutting across a sheet of green duckweed as they aimed for a narrow arbor of willow trees with streamers overhanging the water from either bank.
    Serena took a slow, deep breath before they entered the tunnel of growth. Her throat constricted at the sudden absence of light. Her skin crawled as the willow wisps brushed against her like serpents' tongues.
    When the boat emerged on the other side of the bower, they had an extra passenger. A thick black snake lay like a coil of discarded electrical cord on the floor of the pirogue near the toes of Serena's red shoes. Serena tried to scream, but couldn't. She bolted back on the seat, pulling her feet up and rocking the pirogue violently as she scrambled to escape, reacting on sheer instinct. She might have flung herself out of the boat if Lucky hadn't caught her.
    He banded her to him with one brawny arm, bending her over backward as he reached down to snatch up the snake and fling it into the water.
    “Just a little rat snake,” he said derisively as he released her.
    Weak-kneed, Serena wilted down out of his embrace. A shudder passed through her as she watched the snake swim for shore, nose above the water, body undulating like a ribbon in a breeze. She didn't care if it was made of rubber and came from Woolworth's. It was a snake. Still, she didn't like the idea of this man knowing her fears, so she forced herself to recover quickly. Control was her best defense.
    “Pardon me for overreacting,” she said primly.
    Lucky scowled down at the back of her head. Wasn't there anything that could put a permanent wrinkle in that serene demeanor of hers? She'd come unglued at the sight of the snake, but that fast she was Miss Calm-and-Cool again, apologizing as if she had burped at the dinner table. He felt ready to explode from pulling her against him for that brief second; she sat there looking unmoved.
    An irrational burst of anger shook him. How could she look so unaffected? How could he want her so much? How could he stand there looking at her, wanting her, knowing what she'd done—
    What her
sister
had done . . .
    Everything inside him went still as he realized what he was doing—substituting Serena for Shelby, letting an old hatred bubble up like rancid air that had been trapped in the bottom of a pond. After all these years it could still emerge, just as acrid as ever.
    “
C'est ein affaire à pus finir
,” he muttered, shaking his head in an effort to clear it.
    “I beg your pardon?” Serena asked, turning a questioning look up at him.
    “I said, you'd better get used to seeing snakes if you think you're gonna stay out here, sugar. There are fifteen species of nonvenomous and six venomous—coral snakes, cottonmouths as long as whips, copperheads as thick as a man's wrist.”
    Serena squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would somehow keep her from hearing him. Her mind took advantage of the blank screen to throw up one of her most terrible memories—muddy water swirling toward her, three dark, slender shapes writhing at the base of her perch, black heads shaped like arrows and mouths that flashed pinkish-white as they opened and came toward her . . .
    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