Both were filled with secrets. Both were cloaked with an air of mystery and shrouded in isolation and loneliness. It was no wonder Lucky had taken refuge here; the swamp understood him. Serena wondered if she would ever be able to comprehend him fully, if she would ever be able to unlock his secrets or if he would remain as much a puzzle to her as the swamp.

The yearning to know more about him yawned inside her like a sudden crack in her block of knowledge that needed filling with details. She wanted to know what he'd been like as a boy, why he'd left college, what incidents had sown the seeds of cynicism in him. The questions buzzed on the tip of her tongue, but Serena didn't give them voice. It was foolish to encourage the desire to deepen their relationship. Lucky had set the bounds very clearly and concisely: they could share each other's bodies for the duration of her stay, offer the rudiments of friendship on occasion, but nothing more.

«What are you thinking?'

Serena jerked her head up in surprise, looking at Lucky with what she supposed was an unfortunately guilty expression.

«Nothing,» she mumbled. She wasn't much of a liar. The word was probably emblazoned in red across her cheeks. Lucky frowned at her and she changed the subject before he could comment. «I'm not looking forward to dealing with this situation at Chanson du Terre. I don't feel it's my place to interfere.»

He planted the push-pole, and the pirogue slid forward. «You said yourself, you don't have a choice.»

«I know, but I don't have to like it or feel comfortable doing it. I feel like an outsider butting in. Shelby is going to resent it in a big way.»

«There are more important things at stake here than Miz Shelbys feelings,» Lucky said acridly.

Serena twisted around on the seat of the pirogue to get a better look at him. His jaw was set, his eyes trained on some point in the middle distance. His face gave nothing away.

«Is your family close?» she asked. Lucky flinched inwardly. Was his family close? Oh, yes, they were close, like the woven threads in homespun Cajun cloth… with one exception-him. He had kept his distance since returning, though he knew it puzzled them and hurt them. They were good people, his parents, his brothers and sisters, too good to risk tainting them with his experiences and his problems. He visited his parents dutifully if not often, and he saw the others from time to time, but he remained the loose thread in the fabric of the Doucet clan. The one that had come unraveled, he thought with bitter humor.

«Lucky?»

«Oui,» he said shortly. «They're close.»

«I've never been fortunate enough to say that about my sister and me. What's going to happen with the plantation isn't likely to help matters in that respect.»

«As I said, cherie, there are bigger things to consider.»

He steered the pirogue to the shore. Serena looked around them. They were in what seemed to be the heart of the swamp. There was no sign of civilization, certainly no sign of their destination. There was nothing much visible except black water and dense forest. She lifted a brow in silent question when Lucky glanced down at her.

«I need to show you something.»

He hopped out of the pirogue and pulled the nose ashore. Serena remained stubbornly in place as he offered her his hand.

«Where is this thing you need to show me?' she asked suspiciously.

«Down this path,» he said, motioning toward the woods.

Serena saw no evidence of Lucky's path. All she could focus on was the wild tangle of trees and underbrush and the knowledge of what might be under the underbrush. The old fear rose to the surface of her feelings like oil.

Lucky gently cupped her chin in his hand and turned her face up so she would look at him instead of the forest. «Don' be afraid of this place, chere,» he whispered. «You're with me. You're mine now. I won' let anything hurt you.»

Staring up into his hard face, Serena felt a strong elemental connection with him, a bond that had been forged without their knowledge or consent as they had come together in passion. She was his, Lucky Doucet's lady, bound to him in the most fundamental of ways. He would protect her as well as possess her, as males had protected their females for eons.

«You trust me, cherie?»

«Yes,» she answered. With my life if not my heart.

She trusted him. It would have been unthinkable just two days earlier. She would never have believed a man who seemed so unscrupulous, so untamed, a man who defied authority and solved his problems with violence would be trustworthy on any count, but she knew now that there was so much more to Lucky than what met the eye. He was like a diamond in the rough-hard and dark on the outside, a multitude of facets within.

She took his hand and allowed him to help her from the boat. As soon as her feet touched shore he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the place he wanted her to see. The path he followed was overgrown with ferns and thorny dewberry bushes and crowded on both sides by trees. The swamp was doing its best to eradicate the evidence of man's past intrusion. For the most part, Serena saw no trail at all, but Lucky walked on as steady and sure as if he'd been strolling down Main Street in town.

He took her to a small clearing at the edge of another stream. The clearing was framed with hackberry and magnolia trees, the magnolias scenting the air with the heavy perfume of their last few blossoms. The opposite bank of the stream was dotted with white-topped daisy fleabane and black-eyed susans. Silhouetted against the rising sun were a doe and twin fawns that had come to drink.

Lucky stood Serena down in front of him, keeping her within the shelter of his arms. He pointed to a raft of water hyacinth that stretched from bank to bank.

«That stuff can choke a bayou to death,» he said softly. «One plant can produce sixty-five thousand others in a single season. It blocks the light from getting to the plants beneath it and they die. The phytoplankton the fish feed on goes, and so go the fish. The pond weeds the ducks feed on die and the ducks leave. Man introduced that plant here by accident.»

He turned slightly and pointed to a stand of cattails along the far bank where the head of an animal that resembled a beaver was visible between the reeds. «There's a nut'ra. They were brought to Lou'siana in the thirties for breeding experiments. Some got away. Now there's so many down in the marshes, they're eatin' the place up. They chew the grass down to nothin' in places where the oil companies won't let trappers in. Without the grass roots to hold it together, the marsh soil breaks up and washes away, and saltwater leaches in from the Gulf and poisons everything. Man brought the nut'ra here.

«You look at this place and think it's a world away from anywhere,» he said. «But right here are two examples of man's intrusion. The swamp might seem an unforgiving, indestructable place, but it's a delicate place of checks and balances. Man could destroy it in the blink of an eye.»

«Why are you showing me this?' Serena asked, looking up at him over her shoulder.

«I just wanted you to understand before you go back to deal with Shelby and Talbot and Tristar. It's not just Chanson du Terre ridin' on this, angel, and it's not just your relationship with your sister or Gifford. It's a whole ecosystem,» he said, staring out at the wilderness as if he felt the need to memorize every aspect of it before it was too late. «This swamp is dying already a little bit at a time. Silting up from the big channels that were built to keep the Mississippi from flooding farm land that never should have been farm land to begin with. Tristar has plans to dig their own navigation channel. That'll bring in more silt, Le bon Dieu only knows what they'll dump out here where nobody can see. They have a rap sheet of environmental crimes as long as your arm.»