Lucky's Lady
TAMI
HOAG
LUCKY'S
LADY
BANTAM BOOKS
Contents
Praise for the bestsellers of TAMI HOAG
“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.”
The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.
—
FRENCH PROVERB
Author's Note
THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO DINOSAURS RULED THE
earth
.
Then came my career.
In some ways it does feel as if I've been a working writer since the dawn of time. In other ways it seems not that long ago that I wrote this book. When my editor pointed out to me that
Lucky's
Lady
was originally released in 1992—more than a decade ago—I was stunned. Time does go past in the blink of an eye, marked for a writer by deadlines and stories and the evolution of oneself and one's career.
I began my career as a sweet young thing writing romantic comedy for Bantam's now-defunct Loveswept romance line. Not interested in writing the same story over and over, I began dabbling with elements of suspense in the romance and eventually proposed
Lucky's Lady
—my first bona fide romantic suspense novel.
This book set me on a new path in the evolution of my work. While its roots were firmly in romance, it was larger in scope than anything I had written before and a grittier story than I had ever told before.
Lucky
cracked open a door I felt a strong need to go through to see what was on the other side. Each book that followed
Lucky
strengthened my love for writing suspense and strengthened my faith in my ability to write suspense, gradually molding me into the writer I am today, writing full-blown, hard-boiled thrillers.
Lucky's Lady
will always have a special place in my heart for that reason, and also because I simply love the characters, who endure to this day in my memory—and in the memories of the readers who have stayed fans of mine through the various incarnations of my writing life. No book-signing event goes by without several readers telling me how much they loved
Lucky
, that it was the first book of mine they ever picked up or the one they've reread the most.
I hope readers new to this book will feel the same way. In the lineup of my most recent releases—
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Dark Horse
—
Lucky's Lady
is definitely a horse of a different color. It is a book that began its life in another genre. A genre I am very proud to say gave me my start in this business. But it is also the book that encouraged me to try something different, and was a bridge from one part of my career to another
Lucky me.
T
AMI
H
OAG
CHAPTER
1
“
YOU WANT TO DO WHAT,
CHÈRE
?
”
Serena Sheridan took a deep breath and tried again. “I need to hire a guide to take me into the swamp.”
Old Lawrence Gauthier laughed as if at the punch line of some grand joke. His voice rang out through the shop, drowning out the Cajun music coming from the radio on the cluttered shelf behind him as well as the noises of the all-star professional wrestling emanating from the black and white television that sat on the counter. Lawrence sat on a stool behind the counter, his slender legs crossed at the knees, slouching in a posture reminiscent of an egret on a perch—thin shoulders hunched, head low between them. His face was narrow with a prominent nose and eyes like jet beads. His skin was tanned dark and lined like old leather.
His laughter ended in a fit of coughing. He reached for his cigarette makings and shook his head. “What for you wanna do dat,
chère?
You goin' after dem crawfish, you?” He laughed again, trying to shake his head and lick the edge of his cigarette paper at the same time.
Serena smoothed her hands down the front of the immaculate oyster-colored linen blazer she wore over a matching pencil-slim skirt. She supposed she hardly looked dressed to walk into such a place, much less make the request she had. “No, I'm not interested in fishing.”
She looked around the store, hoping to spot someone else who might be able to help her. It was the middle of the day and Lawrence appeared to be the only person tending the dingy, dimly lit sporting goods store, though some banging noises were coming from behind him, from a room Serena knew to be an even dingier workshop where men fussed with their boats, drank beer, swapped outrageous tales, and passed girlie magazines around.
She knew because she had once snuck in there as a girl. A headstrong child, she had taken exception to being denied the chance to go in with her grandfather and had stowed away inside his bass boat under a canvas tarp. Her vocabulary had gained a number of choice words that day that their housekeeper had later attempted to wash out of her mouth with soap.
“I need to find my grandfather, Mr. Gauthier,” she said. “Apparently he's gone out to his fish camp. I need someone to take me to him.”
Lawrence looked at her, narrowing his eyes. Finally he shook a gnarled finger at her. “Hey, you dat Sheridan girl what left to be a doctor, no?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, yeah!
Mais yeah!
” He chuckled, tickled with his powers of recollection. “You lookin' for Big Giff.”
“Yes, but I need someone to take me. I need a guide.”
He shook his head, still smiling at her as if she were a dear but infinitely dimwitted child. “
Non, chérie
, all what fishin' guides we got 'round here is gone busy now till Monday. Lotta sports coming down to fish these days. 'Sides, ain't nobody crazy 'nough go out to Giff's. Go out there, get their head shot off, them!”
He sucked on his little cigarette, holding it between thumb and forefinger in an unconsciously European fashion. Half of it was gone before he exhaled. He reached out with his free hand and patted Serena's cheek. “Ah,
ma jolie fille
, ain't nobody crazy 'nough to go out to Big Giff's.”
As he said it, a loud bang sounded in the shop behind him, followed by a virulent French oath. Lawrence went still with his hand halfway to a tin ashtray on the counter, an unholy light coming into his eyes, a little smile tugging at a corner of his mouth. “Well, mebbe there's somebody. Jes' how bad you wanna go,
chère
?”
Serena swallowed the knot of apprehension in her throat, clasping her hands together in front of her like a schoolgirl. Now was not the time for a faint heart. “It's imperative. I have to go.”
He bent his head a little to one side and gave a Gallic shrug, then shouted over his shoulder. “Étienne!
Viens ici!
”
What Serena had braced herself for she wasn't sure, but it certainly wasn't the man who filled the doorway. The impact of his sudden presence had the same effect as being hit with a shock wave—a phenomenon she had heretofore not believed in.
Her first impression was of raw power. Broad shoulders, bulging biceps. His chest, bare and gleaming with a sheen of sweat, was wide, and hard muscle beneath taut, tanned skin. The strong V of his torso narrowed to a slender waist, a stomach corrugated with muscle and dusted with black hair that disappeared beneath the low-riding waistband of faded green fatigue pants.
She raised her eyes to his face and felt a strange shiver pass over her from head to toe, making her scalp tighten and her fingers tingle. He stared at her from under sleepy lids with large, unblinking amber eyes, eyes like a panther's. His brow was heavy and straight, his nose bold and slightly aquiline. His mouth did the most damage to her nervous system, however. It was wide, with lips so masterfully carved, so incredibly sensuous they would have looked perfect on a high-priced call girl. The effect of that mouth on a face so masculine—all lean planes and hard angles and five-o'clock shadow—was blatantly sexual.
He regarded her with a subtle disdain that suggested he didn't much care for women other than to bed them—something he appeared to be capable of doing on a more than regular basis. Pulling a cigarette from behind his ear, he planted it in the corner of his mouth, lit it, and said something to Lawrence Gauthier in rapid Cajun French, a patois no Parisian could begin to understand. The dialect had nearly been eradicated by the Louisiana school system decades before. And although it was making a comeback of sorts due to the latest craze for all things Cajun, it was still not widely spoken. This man spoke it as if it were his primary language.
Having grown up in Louisiana's French Triangle, Serena had picked up the odd word and phrase, but he spoke too quickly for her to understand anything more than the implication. That was clear enough by Gauthier's reaction—another laughing and coughing fit and a slap on the shoulder for his barbarian friend.
Serena felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment as the man sauntered to the end of the counter and leaned a hip against it, all the while assessing her blatantly with those lazy amber eyes.
He took a leisurely drag on his cigarette, exhaled, and delivered another line to keep Gauthier in stitches. Serena gave him her coolest glare, defending herself with hauteur. “Excuse me, but I was raised to believe it is extremely rude to carry on conversations not all those around you can understand.”
One black brow sketched upward sardonically and the corner of that remarkable mouth curled ever so slightly. He looked like her idea of the devil on steroids. When he spoke to her his tone was a low, throaty purr that stroked her senses like velvet. “I told him you don' look like you're sellin' it or givin' it away,” he said, the words rolling out of his mouth with an accent as rich as Cajun gumbo. “So what could I possibly want with you? I have no interest in
américaine ladies
.”
He drawled the last word with stinging contempt. Serena tugged at the lapels of her blazer, straightening the uniform of her station. Her chin went up another notch above the prim collar of her fuchsia silk blouse. “I can assure you I have no
interest
in you either.”
He pushed himself away from the counter and moved toward her with the arrogant grace of a born athlete. Serena stubbornly stood her ground but her heart fluttered in her throat as he stared down at her and raised a hand to smooth it back over her hair.
“That's not what your eyes are tellin' me,
chère catin
.”
Serena dragged in a ragged breath and held it, feeling as if she were going to explode from sheer fury. She slapped his hand away and took a step back from him. “I didn't come here to be insulted or manhandled. I came here to hire a guide, Mister—”
“Doucet,” he supplied. “Étienne Doucet. Folks call me Lucky.”
Serena vaguely remembered a Lucky Doucet from high school. He'd been several classes ahead of her, an athlete, a loner with a reputation as a bad boy. The girls whose main interest in school had been guys had swooned at the mere mention of his name. Serena's interests had lain elsewhere.
She looked at him now and thought whatever reputation he had sown back then he had certainly cultivated since. He looked like the incarnation of the word
trouble
. She had to be half mad to even consider hiring him. But then she thought of Gifford. She had to see him, had to do what she could to find out what had made him leave Chanson du Terre, had to do her best to try to convince him to come home. As tough as Gifford Sheridan liked to pretend he was, he was still a seventy-eight-year-old man with a heart condition.
“I'm Serena Sheridan,” she said in her most businesslike tone.
Lucky Doucet blinked at her. A muscle tensed, then loosened in his jaw. “I know who you are,” he said, an oddly defensive note in his voice. Serena dismissed it as unimportant.
“I came here to hire a guide, Mr. Doucet. Gifford Sheridan is my grandfather. I need someone to take me out to his cabin. Mr. Gauthier has informed me that all the more reputable guides are booked up for the weekend, which apparently leaves you. Are you interested in the job or not?”
Lucky moved back to lean negligently against the counter again. Behind him, Lawrence had switched off his wrestling program in favor of live entertainment. In the background Iry LeJeune sang “La Jolie Blonde” in crackling French over the radio.
The pretty blonde
. How apropos. He took a deep pull on his cigarette, sucking the smoke into the very corners of his lungs, as if it might purge the feelings shaking loose and stirring inside him.
When he had stepped from the back room and seen her he had felt as if he'd taken a vicious blow to the solar plexus.
Shelby
. The shock had dredged up memories and emotions like mud and dead vines churning up from the bayou in the wake of an outboard motor—pain, hate, fear all swirling furiously inside him. The pain and hate were old companions. The fear was for the control he felt slipping, sliding through his grasp like a wet rope. The feelings assaulted him still, even though he told himself this wasn't the woman from his past, but her sister, someone he had never had any contact with. Nor did he want to. They were twins, after all, maybe not perfectly identical, but cut from the same cloth.
He stared at the woman before him, trying to set all personal feelings aside to concentrate on only the physical aspects of her. It shouldn't have been difficult to do; she was beautiful. From the immaculate state of her honey-colored hair in its smooth French twist to the tips of her beige pumps, she radiated class.
He swore, throwing his cigarette to the battered wood floor and grinding it out with the toe of his boot. Without looking, he reached behind the counter and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel's, helping himself to a generous swig. Lawrence said nothing, but frowned and glanced away, tilting his head in silent reproof. Resenting the twinge of guilt pinching him somewhere in the vicinity of where his conscience had once resided, Lucky put the bottle back.
Damn. He damned Gifford Sheridan for having granddaughters that looked like heaven on earth. He damned women in general and himself in particular. If he had a lick of sense he would send Miss Serena packing. He would go about his own business and let the Sheridans do what they would.
That was the kind of life he had chosen to live, solitary, and yet other lives kept drifting into his. He didn't want to be touched. He didn't need the trouble he knew was brewing on the Sheridan plantation, Chanson du Terre, didn't need the reminder of past pain. But Giff had dragged him into it to a certain extent already and there was too much riding on the situation for him to decline playing so slight a role in the drama.
He cursed himself for caring. He had thought himself beyond it, thought the capacity to care had been burned out of him by the acidic quality of his experiences. But it was still there, which meant he had to find the strength to deal with it. God help him.
Serena gave him one last scathing glare and turned on her slim, expensive heel, heading for the street entrance of the store. Lucky swore under his breath and went after her, catching her by the arm.
“Where you goin', sugar? I never said I wouldn't take you.”
She looked pointedly at the big dirty hand circling her upper arm, then turned that defiant gaze up to his face. “Maybe
I
won't take
you
, Mr. Doucet.”
“The way I see it, you don't have much of a choice. Ain't nobody else gonna take you out to Giff's.” He laughed without humor. “Ain't nobody else crazy enough.”
“But you are?”
He smiled like a crocodile and leaned down toward her until his mouth hovered only a few inches above her lips. “That's right,” he whispered. “I'm over the edge. I might do anything. Ask anyone 'round this town here. They'll all tell you the same thing—
Il n'a pas rien il va pas faire
. There's nothing he won't do. That Lucky Doucet, he's one bad crazy son, him.”
“Well, I'm a psychologist,” she said with a saccharine-sweet smile. “So we ought to get along just peachy, shouldn't we?”
He let go of her arm as if she had just told him she had leprosy. The expression of smug male arrogance abruptly disappeared, and his face became blank and unreadable. He turned and strode for a side door that stood open and led directly onto a dock.
Serena stood a moment, trying to gather some strength, her gaze on Lucky Doucet's broad bare back as he walked away. She could feel old Lawrence staring at her, but she didn't move. She'd never had such a . . . primal reaction to a man. She was a sophisticated, educated woman, a woman who prided herself on her ability to maintain control in every situation. But that foundation of control was trembling in the wake of Lucky Doucet, and she didn't like it. He was rude and arrogant and . . . The other words that came to mind were far too flattering. What difference did it make what he looked like? He was a Neanderthal.