Lucky couldn't hold back a soft, incredulous laugh. He stared down into her earnest face, something like wonder rising inside him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd given a moments thought to his health. Not because he doubted bis own mortality, but because he didn't care. For a long, long time he'd felt as if he had nothing left to lose, including his own life. When he first returned from Central America, he spent night after night staring at a 9mm Beretta, his death awaiting him in a sleek black casing filled with hollow-point ammunition. The only thing that kept him from sticking the thing in his mouth and pulling the trigger was the knowledge of what it would have done to his parents, who were staunchly Catholic.
He had lived with death as a constant companion and now Serena stood looking up at him, warning him of the dangers of smoking.
«Why is that funny?» she asked, looking annoyed with him.
Lucky sobered. «It's not.»
He turned without leaving her embrace and crushed his cigarette in a decorative china cup sitting on a stand. «Happy?»
«Hardly.» Serena sniffed. «That was my great-grandmother's teacup.»
«This old house is full of stuff like that, isn't it?» he asked, looping his arms loosely around her. «Antiques, heirlooms, family treasures passed down and down.»
«Yes,» Serena answered, her own gaze wandering over a dozen things in this room alone that had seen generations of Sheridan's come and go. «It's like a microcosm of history. It ought to be renovated and opened to the public as a museum.»
«Instead, it could be razed and lost forever.»
She looked up at him, her brows pulling together over troubled dark eyes. «Could we not talk about it for a while? I'm so tired.»
Lucky ran a hand over her hair, an unexpected wave of sympathy sweeping over him. He would have liked to have taken her away from all the problems, protected her, kept her all to himself for a little while, but that wasn't an option. He knew he should have steeled himself against the tenderness stirring inside him as he looked down at her, but he gave in to it for an instant, leaned down, and kissed her. She looked tired. She looked confused and battered. What could it hurt to offer her a little comfort?
Her lips were soft and warm beneath his. Eager, yearning. She clung to his kiss as if it might intoxicate her past thinking. She pressed herself against him as if she wished to be absorbed directly into his body. The desire to protect her rose up even stronger inside him and he tried to push it back. He couldn't be anyone's savior; he had all he could do just to hold himself together.
When he lifted his head he touched her cheek and murmured regretfully, «I'm sorry, chere. I know you didn't ask for this fight.»
«It's mine by birthright, I suppose,» Serena said, drawing away from him. She wandered in the little pool of lamplight, absently touching objects on the table and dresser with one hand and clutching the sheet to her breasts with the other.
«It's ironic, you know,» she added, trying unsuccessfully to smile. «I left here because I thought my life was somewhere else, because I didn't think I'd ever become my own person if I stayed. And here I am…» She gestured to the room, to the house in general, looking around her with a vague sense of bewilderment. «Here I am. They say you can't go home again. I can't seem to get away.»
«You'll be able to get away permanently if your sister has her way,» Lucky said, watching her with a hawkish gaze. «Is that what you want-to be out from under the burden of your heritage forever?»
Serena looked around at the room, feeling the personality of the great house bearing down upon her. She was too tired to fight it. Resignation flowed through her and her shoulders sagged. She would be forever tied to this house in a way time and distance couldn't alter even if she wanted them to. This was her home. It would always be her home. Chanson du Terre was where her roots were and they went two hundred years deep.
«No,» she said softly.
She didn't want to see the old house destroyed. She didn't want to see strangers living here. She didn't want Tristar Chemical building a processing plant where the old slave quarters stood in silent testimony to past lives. She didn't want to see high wire fences surrounding what once had been cane fields. She wanted Chanson du Terre to be owned by a Sheridan; she just didn't want it to be her.
«Then you'd better be ready for a fight, sugar,» Lucky said. «Len Burke means to have this land. He'll fight dirty to get it and your sister will be there right beside him.»
«It's not Shelby I'm worried about.»
He gave her a guarded look. «Don't underestimate her, Serena. I don't think you realize what she might be capable of.»
Serena shrugged off his warning and the niggling doubts that had taken seed in her own mind over the past few days. Shelby was flighty and selfish, but she wasn't ruthless. «She's my sister. I think I probably have a better idea of what she's capable of than you.»
«Did you think she was capable of abandoning you in the swamp?»
The jab found its target, hitting the nerve with stinging accuracy, but Serena stubbornly shook it off. «We've been over that ground before. She didn't intend anything bad to happen. Shelby doesn't think things all the way through. She doesn't consider all the consequences of her actions, just the immediate effect.»
Don't count on it, sugar, Lucky thought, but he kept the idea to himself. He supposed it was only natural for Serena to have a blind spot where her twin was concerned. What kind of person could look at their own flesh and blood and see evil? He only hoped that blind spot didn't keep her from seeing something truly dangerous before it was too late.
The explosion came just before dawn. It rattled the windows and shook the foundation of the old house. Serena was able to smell smoke before she was fully conscious. She shot up and out of bed, the instinct to flee danger pumping adrenaline through her bloodstream.
It took several seconds for her brain to catch up, sorting through the questions of where she was and what was the source of the danger. Her room was dark and in the aftermath of the blast the only sound was the rumbling of thunder. For a moment she thought that might have been all that had awakened her, but then the scent of smoke came again. It drifted in through the open French door, carried on a strong cold breeze that heralded the coming storm.
Grabbing her robe and throwing it on hastily, she rushed to the open door and looked out across the gallery and across the yard. A ball of orange glowed in the distance, and flames licked up the side of the machine shed. Shouts cut through the silence and men arrived at the scene, their shapes silhouetted against the brightness of the fire.
Serena whirled toward the bed, suddenly thinking of Lucky, but he was gone. His absence struck her like a physical blow, but there was no time to contemplate where he had disappeared to, or when or why.
She grabbed clothes out of the wardrobe without looking and jerked them on, not bothering with underwear. She stepped into her tattered espadrilles and ran out onto the gallery, down the steps, and across the garden, flying as fast as her legs would take her toward the building that was already engulfed in flames.
Workers were directing hoses at the conflagration by the time she got there, but to no avail. Fire was devouring the building. James Arnaud rushed back and forth between the workers, shouting to be heard above the roar, telling them to concentrate on wetting down the part of the enormous old wooden shed that wasn't already ablaze.