The Tristar rep was over the side of the boat and diving headfirst into the bayou before he could register a protest. He landed in the water like a whale and came up spitting mud.

«You hadn't ought to lean over the side that way, mon ami,» Lucky said, wading casually toward the shore. «You might fall in. You fall in, there's no tellin' what might get you in this water.»

As if he had conjured it up by magic to illustrate his point, a water snake slid out of some reeds near the bank. Burke swore and scrambled to get back over the side of the boat. Davis helped him, grabbing him by the back of his pants and hauling him up, shouting at Lucky all the while.

«I mean it, Doucet! I've had it with you running roughshod! Your days out here are numbered.»

Lucky made a face and waved him off. Serena met him on the bank, glaring up at him. Color had come back into her cheeks, he noticed.

«Can't you show respect for anybody?» she asked sarcastically.

«Mais yeah,» he said flippantly. «My maman, my papa, the Pope. Len Burke ain't the Pope, sugar. I don't think he's even a good Catholic.» He gave her an infuriating indulgent look. Behind them the motor of the game warden's boat roared to life, then faded into the distance.

«That's it,» Serena declared, stopping in her tracks. She threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat. «I've had it. There's something about this place that drives people over the edge. I can't stand it. Gifford is going around shooting at people. You- You're-«She couldn't finish the sentence, she was so upset. She gave in to the urge to stamp her foot. It seemed she could control little or nothing out there-not the situation, not her fears or her passions or her temper, least of all her guide.

«This whole situation is just ridiculous,» she said, pacing a short stretch of bank, her arms crossed tightly against her. «Why didn't Shelby call me? Why didn't she just explain all this to me to begin with?»

«Gee,» Lucky said with mock innocence. «Could it be she didn't want you to know? Could it be she thought she might pull off the deal without having you know a thing about it until it was too late?»

Serena shot him a look from the corner of her eye. «Oh, for Pete's sake, you make it sound like a big conspiracy.»

«That's because it is a big conspiracy, sugar,» he said, leaning back against the trunk of a massive live oak. He shook a cigarette out of the pack from his shirt pocket and dangled it from his lip without lighting it.

«Don't be ridiculous,» Serena snapped. «You're trying to tell me Shelby is in league with the Tristar people to drive her own grandfather from his land?»

Lucky shrugged. «C'est bien. You got it in one. It's a sweet deal. She gets a nice fat commission on the sale and her inheritance besides. On top of that, she and the politically ambitious Mr. Talbot bring industry to a town with a depressed economy. There's nothing like a local hero in an election year, you know.»

Serena planted herself squarely in front of him, settling in for the argument. «You're way off base. In the first place, Mason doesn't have an ambitious bone in his body. If he were any more laid-back, someone would have him interred.»

«You heard your grandpapa, chere. The powers that be want Talbot in office. His daddy wants him in office. Shelby wants him in office. You think he's gonna tell all those people no? You think Shelby would let him?'

«You make my sister sound like Lady Macbeth. Shelby is hardly that calculating or devious.»

Lucky knew exactly how devious and calculating Shelby could be, but he didn't give voice to his own experiences. He used Serena's instead. «Isn't she? Are you forgetting what you told me last night? She left you out here alone. You could have been killed.»

«That was an accident, a joke that went wrong.»

«Was it?»

Serena dodged his steady gaze. He was dredging up old hurts inside her and they had no place here. Besides, no one had been more relieved than Shelby when Serena had been found after her ordeal. Her sister had wept at her hospital bedside and had begged her forgiveness… and she had thrown her fear of the swamp, the fear that had resulted from that incident, up in her face time and again since then.

Serena shrugged off the grain of doubt trying to insinuate itself into her mind. Her feelings toward her twin were complicated enough already; she didn't need Lucky s dark suspicions adding to the morass.

«Stop trying to turn me against my own sister,» she said irritably. «I'm sure you have every reason to be paranoid, considering the kind of life you lead, but I refuse to fall into that land of thinking.»

«You shrinks have a word for that too, don't you?» Lucky said, arching a brow. «Denial?»

«Talk about denial,» Serena grumbled, changing the subject as she resumed her pacing. She threw a fuming look up at the cabin. «I can't believe Gifford. He says he's dealing with this his way. He's not dealing with it at all. He's making me-«

She broke off as the realization hit her like a brick square in the forehead. Making her deal with it was his way of dealing with it. He wanted to force her into caring more about the plantation. He wanted her to take up the banner and fight for the cause, and in doing so revive her sense of tradition and duty. God, he had even lured her into the swamp, the place she had lived in fear of for fifteen years.

«That old fox,» she muttered, planting her hands on her hips. «That old son of a boot.»

He had manipulated her as neatly as a chess master, and now there was no honorable way out. She was involved and she would have to do her best to resolve the situation or lose face with Gifford again. She might have run the risk of incurring his wrath, but she couldn't bear the thought of facing his disappointment in her. He had bet on that and won, the old horse thief.

«Take me back,» she said suddenly, turning toward Lucky. «Take me back to Chanson du Terre. I have to talk with Shelby. I'll straighten this mess out as best as I can. But if Gifford thinks he can guilt me into staying here forever, he can just think again.»

LUCKY DROPPED HER OFF AT HIS HOUSE, TELLING her he would be back in an hour to pick her up and return her to Chanson du Terre. Serena watched him pole away, then let herself inside. It was silent and cool. One of the baby raccoons peered in the back door at her, its long front paws pressed to the screen. When Serena moved toward it, the coon whinnied and scampered away, its claws clattering on the wooden floor of the gallery, making the exact sound that had scared her witless the night before.

She set her suitcases by the front door, then raided Lucky's small refrigerator and made herself a ham sandwich, taking great care to make certain the kitchen was as spotless when she was finished as it had been to begin with. When that small task was accomplished, she still had forty minutes to wait.

Her mind turned to the question of what she would find awaiting her at Chanson du Terre. It all seemed so unlikely. Mason running for office. Shelby plotting against Giff. The plantation's existence threatened.

Bulldozers, Lucky had said. Tristar would raze the place to make room for labs, offices, manufacturing facilities, warehouses. The possibility, as remote as it was, hit Serena in a tender spot. That old house had borne silent witness to a lot of history. It had seen the last days of French rule in Louisiana, the golden era before the war. Yankees had camped on the lawn, and the staircase still bore the marks where a drunken officer had ridden his horse up it. It had survived the Reconstruction and the Great Depression. Had it survived all that only to fall victim to greed?

No. Of course not. The current situation would be cleared up and life would go on at Chanson du Terre with Gifford ruling the roost as he had for nearly sixty years.