She assumed Lucky had taken her luggage out of his pirogue. It probably wouldn't do for a poacher to be caught toting silk lingerie and a supply of makeup. Other swamp boys might get the wrong idea. But even if he had left her bags on the dock, they weren't going to do her any good because there was no way in hell she was walking out to get them. The ground was literally crawling out here at night. In her imagination she could picture herself trying to tiptoe across yards of writhing reptilian bodies.

«Stop it!» she snapped as a spasm of fear ran down her back and a wave of it rose up in her throat as thick and sour as grease.

From somewhere in the far distance beyond the front door came the crack! crack! of what sounded like gunfire.

Lucky.

«Oh my God,» Serena whispered. Her eyes teared up and she lifted a trembling hand to her lips. What if he were shot? What if he were killed? What if whoever did him in came looking for God knew what?

Her heart thudding like a paddle ball behind her ribs, she crept toward the door, straining her eyes to see something in the stygian blackness beyond. For a moment all she could hear was the blood roaring in her ears, then the raspy screech of frogs. Something screamed, a terrible bloodchilling sound that might have been an animal in its death throes or a woman on the brink of hysteria. The sound tore across the night like a knife ripping through silk and then it was gone, leaving an eerie stillness in its wake. Serena sucked back a sob and moved quickly away from the door and into the next room.

She resumed her pacing, picking up speed as she walked a path from the front window past the old horsehide sofa to the bed and back. The sore on the bottom of her foot had gone past the point of pain to numbness. She wished for the pain back; it would have been something else to think about besides this awful choking fear.

She tried to think about the situation at Chanson du Terre, but there were still too many pieces missing for her to make any sense of it. Thoughts of her last few moments with Lucky drifted through her head, but she shooed them away. She didn't yet want to consider the ramifications of getting that close to man who claimed to be crazy and carried a gun.

Her toe connected with something solid hidden under his bed as she turned the corner to pace back toward the front window. Hesitantly, she turned to face the bed. It was a mahogany half-tester with delicately carved details. A thick curtain of mosquito netting was draped back from the headpiece. The coverlet was an exquisite example of Cajun weaving in soft brown cotton with narrow indigo stripes.

The idea of Lucky, pagan and barbaric, stretched out naked on this elegant bed stirred the embers of desire deep inside her. Serena shook her head in amazement. How could she want a man who was so contrary to her idea of what a modern man should be?

She knew there were women who wanted to be dominated, women who would have melted into puddles at the feet of a man like Lucky Doucet. She was not among them. She had always held to the idea of equality between the sexes. Lucky was a throwback to the heyday of male chauvinism. She didn't trust him, didn't like him, didn't respect him. How could she want him?

Her gaze roamed over the bed again, and heat unfurled like a dozen ribbons in her belly, tickling, tantalizing.

Tearing her thoughts away from sex, she dropped to her knees on the woven rug beside the bed and lifted the edge of the coverlet. There were several large cardboard boxes stashed away and she reached for one, stopping herself just as her fingertips grazed the edge. She could find something she would be better off not knowing about. Or she could find something that would give her a clue to who Lucky Doucet really was. She nibbled her lip in indecision but jerked the box toward her as another strange scratching sound drifted in through the window.

The carton was packed with books.

«God, who would have guessed he even knew how to read,» she muttered to herself.

Her fingers drifted lightly over the spines of the hardbound volumes that had been so carefully packed. They were largely college-level text books on biology. There was a collection of Shakespeare, several tomes on art history, and a set of small, very old-looking volumes with French titles in faded gold print. Serena carefully lifted out one of the science books and turned back the cover. It smelled musty and sweet and the pages stuck together as she turned to the title page and read the handwritten note in the upper right-hand corner:

Etienne Doucet. USL. 1979.

College. She tried to imagine Lucky walking the hallowed halls of USL, going to class with books in his arms, but could picture him only in army fatigue pants and no shirt, climbing up into a tower with an assault rifle. But he'd been a student, and a serious one, if these books were anything to go by. Why then was he making his living by nefarious means?

«I'm over the edge. I might do anything.»

«He's been living like an animal out in the swamp ever since he got out of the army. Folks say he's half crazy.»

How did a student of science and the arts make the jump to the military and from the military to here? What had happened? What events had shaped him into the tough, sullen man he was today?

Her mind working on the question, Serena replaced the book and shoved the box back under the bed. She perched herself on the edge of the bed and sat there for a long moment, thinking, her gaze drifting around the room as she tried to make sense of the enigma that was Lucky.

The stillness crept in on her by degrees. By the time she was fully aware of it, it seemed absolute. The night that had seemed almost raucous with sound was suddenly silent. The eeriness of it felt like fingers tracing down her back.

She felt totally vulnerable. If someone outside the house were bent on coming in, the only thing to stop an intruder was a screen door. She thought she heard the scrape of a boot on the gallery floor, but the sound was gone so quickly she might have imagined it. The fear that had temporarily abated rushed back like a flood tide. There was more than snakes and alligators to be wary of in the swamp at night. The faces of the men Lucky had confronted at Mosquito Moutons came to mind with nauseating clarity, and the big man's threat came back loud and clear-I'll get you…

Serena blew out the kerosene lamp on the night-stand, dousing the room in blackness. Grabbing a heavy brass candlestick, she crept on tiptoe toward the front wall. Lucky could fight his own fights, she was sure, but if his enemies came looking for him, she was not interested in being made a secondary target for their violence.

She pressed her back against the wall beside the window and strained to hear. Nothing… a faint thump… or was that just her heartbeat? She inched her way toward the door, breath aching in her lungs, candlestick raised in a white-knuckled fist.

A hand grabbed her arm from behind.

She didn't have time to draw breath to scream before she'd been spun around and pinned to the wall. A large hand clamped over her mouth and a heavy male body pressed into hers, his weight holding her with ridiculous ease. The candlestick dropped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.

«You lookin' to put a few dents in my head, sugar?»

Serena went limp against the wall. The tension ran out of her, leaving the trembling afterglow of fear. Lucky. He dropped his hand from her mouth and eased back from her, an amused smile twitching his lips. The smile died the instant Serena launched herself at him.

«You bastard! Of all the rotten things to do!»

He caught her by the wrists and held her off. «Hey, cool out!»

«I will not cool out!» She aimed a kick at his shin, but he dodged it easily, which only made her angrier. «If you had any idea how frightened I was to begin with- Damn you!» she raged, tears of terror swelling over the dam of her lashes. She kicked again and won the satisfaction of hearing him grunt as her toe made contact. «If you had any idea…»