Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag Page B

looked around at the ghostly gray trunks of the huge cypress trees, the impenetrable growth beyond them, all of it shrouded in sinister shadows and hung with a tattered bunting of dirty-looking moss. It was a place of nightmares.
    Tears stung Serena's eyes. She wanted to cling to her façade of calm, but she could feel her grip on it slipping. It inched away as if through sweaty hands that struggled frantically to hang on. To this point she had run on stubbornness and steam, but her anger and her singlemindedness had suddenly seemed to desert her, leaving only her fear.
    Think, Serena. Think about something, anything.
    This boat is too damned small.
    “Hand me that canteen.”
    Her heart jolted at the sound of Lucky's voice. She snapped back to reality, glad for the distraction. She picked up the canteen and handed it back to him, giving him a wry look as she turned to sit sideways.
    “Please, Miss Sheridan?” she said sweetly. “Thank you, Miss Sheridan. You're most welcome, Mr. Doucet.”
    Lucky rolled his eyes. He unscrewed the top on the canteen and took a long drink, the muscles of his throat working rhythmically as he swallowed.
    “What is that you're drinking?” Serena asked, trying to drag her eyes away from the thick column of his neck.
    He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Water,” he lied.
    Serena's gaze flicked to the canteen. Unconsciously, she drew the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip and swallowed.
    He thrust the canteen toward her in an ungracious offer, angry with himself for caring at all about her comfort and angrier still for not being able to control his body's response to her.
    She took the canteen and sniffed dubiously at the opening.
    “This isn't water, it's liquor,” she said, making a face.
    Lucky scowled at her. “It has water in it.”
    Serena gave a little snort of disbelief. “You drink it like water, which probably accounts for your foul temperament.”
    “I like my temperament just fine,” he said on a growl.
    “Well, you're a minority of one, from what I've seen.” She sniffed again at the canteen and grimaced.
    “Are you gonna take a drink or are you afraid you might catch something drinking out of the same can as the likes of me?” Lucky asked sarcastically.
    Serena narrowed her eyes at him and took a swig from the canteen, partly to prove him wrong and partly to bolster her flagging courage. The professional in her frowned on the latter reason. There wasn't anything healthy about rationalizing alcohol consumption. But she ignored the disapproving inner voice. She wasn't a professional out here; she was scared. The kind of fear that she was experiencing was terrible. She would have done just about anything to escape it. If nothing else, this experience was giving her a renewed sympathy for her patients who suffered from phobias.
    As she had suspected, the brew in the canteen was nothing that had ever graced the shelves of a liquor store. It was homemade stuff so potent there probably wasn't a proof percentage high enough to categorize it. It was the kind of stuff that could double as paint thinner or battery acid in a pinch. Liquid fire seared a path down her throat and sizzled as it hit her belly, spreading warmth through her.
    Perhaps this physical attraction to him was some kind of temporary insanity, she reasoned. Perhaps Lucky Doucet with his mile-wide shoulders, his panther's eyes, and courtesan's mouth was the thing her mind wanted to focus on instead of the swamp. That was the only reason that made any sense. Aside from his looks, his list of faults was endless. He was rude, crude, chauvinistic, overbearing, arrogant, had a violent temper, and he drank. No sensible, self-respecting woman would entertain a single thought about getting involved with him on any level.
    Her gaze drifted once again over his physique. Well, maybe there was
one
level . . . but of course she wasn't interested in that. She didn't involve herself in affairs that were