«No.»

«Why not?»

«Because I don't indulge in meaningless sexual flings with men I barely know,» she said, struggling to resurrect her facade of calm.

Lucky watched her lift her chin and straighten her shoulders and resented like hell the ease with which she seemed to throw off the need that still pounded through him. «You mean you'll fuck a man only if you think he'll put a ring on your finger,» he said brutally.

«That's not what I said.»

«Mais non, but that's what you meant.»

«That isn't what I meant,» Serena argued. «I don't believe in casual sex. I don't go to bed with men who have no intention of investing emotionally in a relationship just because they happen to be well hung. That's what I meant,» she said bitingly. «Are you going to try to tell me you're in love with me?»

Lucky forced a laugh. «Not a chance.»

Serena clenched her jaw against the unexpected stab of hurt his words inflicted. Of course he wasn't going to say it-not now, not ever. Nor did she want him to. «That settles it, then, doesn't it?»

«Only for tonight, sugar,» he said, hooking a finger beneath her chin and tilting her head back. He bent his head and brushed a mocking gentleman's kiss against her lips. «Bonsoir, cherie. Sweet dreams.»

Serena watched him saunter out the front door. She had no idea where he was going. She told herself she didn't want to know. At any rate, she was too exhausted to care. She'd been put through an emotional wringer, and every muscle and bone ached with it.

Avoiding even a glance at the bed, she curled herself into one corner of the sofa and tried not to think about Lucky, his heat, his passion… the way he had held her when she'd told him she was afraid.…

SERENA SAT IN THE PIROGUE, SHADING HER EYES from the fierce morning sun that had come up like a ball of fire to burn off the low-lying fog. It was not yet noon and already the heat was as oppressive as a fur coat in July. She had dressed in a sleeveless white cotton blouse and khaki walking shorts, but even these summerweight garments wilted and clung to her and made her think longingly of a swim suit and a quiet day at the beach.

Adding to her discomfort was the knowledge that Lucky was standing behind her. She could feel him glowering down at her, and she straightened her back to show she wouldn't be intimidated by his evil mood.

She had gone searching for him at seven-thirty, eager to get to Gifford's -partly because she didn't quite trust herself to be alone with him. She had slept all of two hours after they had parted company the night before. And those two hours had been full of erotic dreams starring Guess Who. Just the memory was enough to make her blush. She didn't want to begin to decipher its meaning.

Lucky Doucet was trouble; he was an outlaw. The fact that he had a body to rival Adonis's couldn't enter into the argument. She couldn't get involved with him. She kept repeating that to herself like a mantra, but every time she thought she had herself convinced, her mind would sneak in the memory of the way he had held her after she'd told him about getting lost in the swamp. For that moment he had been gentle and tender and compassionate……

He had been none of those things when she found him that morning. After searching the galleries back and front and finding only a trio of baby raccoons playing on the steps, she made her way up the exterior staircase to the attic.

Lucky stepped out and slammed the door shut behind him as she neared the landing, glaring at her with bleary, bloodshot eyes. His jaw was shadowed with morning beard. His hair was loose and disheveled, falling to his shoulders in unruly blue-black waves.

«What the hell are you doin' up here?» he demanded, his voice low and as rough as gravel. «I don' want you comin' up here. You got that?»

«Why?» Serena questioned, arching a brow. «Is this where you keep the bodies?»

«C'est pas de ton affaire,» he muttered. «Never you mind what I keep up here. It's nothin' for a pretty shrink to go sniffin' through. You're a helluva lot better off not knowing.»

The mere suggestion made Serena curious. What was he hiding? Stolen goods? Illegal liquor? Drugs? Guns? It could have been any of those things, all of them, or something even worse.

«I'm sure I don't care what you keep in there, Mr. Doucet,» she said with as much cool as she could muster. «I only came up here looking for you.»

He moved down to the step below hers, putting them nearly at eye level. Giving her a look that was at once calculatedly cruel and seductive, he lifted a hand to cup her cheek and brought his mouth down close to hers.

«Change your mind, sugar?»

«Certainly not.» Making a disgusted face and leaning back to escape his breath, she fanned the aroma away with her hand. «You've been drinking.»

«Heavily,» Lucky said, straightening away from her. «You oughta try it sometime. Loosen you up. From what I've seen, you could stand it.»

On that infuriating note, he turned and descended the stairs, his heavy boots barely making a sound on the wooden treads. Serena followed at a discreet distance, her mind wrestling with the conflicting facets of the man and with the conflicting emotions he aroused inside her. Her overriding thought was that the sooner she got to Gifford's, the sooner she would be free of Lucky Doucet and the strange spell he seemed to have cast over her.

While she sat at the table waiting impatiently, Lucky went through his morning ablutions without haste, shaving, showering, emerging from the bathroom barechested, wearing a pair of jeans that were nearly white with age. His wet hair was slicked back into its queue and bound with a length of leather boot lace. A scrap of red bandanna was tied around his right biceps, hiding the ugly wound he had acquired the night before.

Serena's gaze fastened on the makeshift bandage, and she felt something twist in her stomach. She told herself it was revulsion at the reminder of how this man made his living, but she knew that wasn't the whole truth. A part of that knot could be directly attributed to fear of what might have happened to him if the bullet had gone high and inside. He would have been dead and there would have been no chance left for anyone to reform him.

She shied away from the direction her thoughts were taking. That path was a dead end, a fast track to heartache.

«I suppose you'll tell me the other guy looks worse,» she said, still staring at the bandage and the massive arm it was bound to. Looking at it at least kept her eyes off his chest and the taut, hard muscles of his stomach.

Lucky looked down at the bandanna as if getting grazed with a bullet had slipped his mind. He flicked a speculative glance at Serena. «Mais yeah, but then, he was an ugly son of a bitch to start with.»

«Shouldn't you have a doctor look at that?»

«You're a doctor,» he said, his voice low and rough, his eyes capturing hers. He braced his hands on the arms of her chair and leaned down until his mouth hovered a breath away from hers. «You wanna look at it?»

«No,» Serena murmured, tensing against the waves of heat rippling through her. He was much too close. His body gave off an electrical charge that shorted out her common sense and stimulated the primitive instincts buried beneath her sophisticated facade. His clean male scent filled her nostrils, and she caught herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him when he tasted like toothpaste instead of tobacco.

«No?» he questioned softly, arching one black brow. «Is there some other part of me you'd care to examine, Dr. Sheridan?»

Her memory leapt at the opportunity to remind her of the way he had molded her hand to his erection. Serena bit back a curse, but she couldn't stop the heat from rising in her cheeks.