Excerpt of Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag

You want to do what, chere?"

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.
Hls 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, chere? 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 theirboats, 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, cherie, 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, chere?"

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. "Etienne! 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 the shock wave of an explosion, jolting her chest
with a hollow thud and literally making her knees go weak —
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 massive, wide, and thick, slabs of 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. Serena was certain she could live to be a hundred
and never find a more prime example of the male animal.

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. She could feel his gaze like a
tangible caress, drifting insolently over her breasts, the
curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, the long length
of her legs. She had never imagined it possible to feel so
naked while dressed in a business suit.

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 americaine 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 as he stepped near enough for
her to feel the heat of his big body. 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, chere 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. `'Etienne 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, the 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.
Shelly. 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. There wasn't
anything about her that shouldn't have been carved in
alabaster and put in a museum. His gaze roamed over her
face, an angel's face, with its delicate bone structure
and liquid dark eyes— eyes that were presently flashing
fire at him—and desire twisted inside him.

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 Danielts, 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.