Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag

wanted, but he damn well knew what his body wanted.
    It was going to be a long couple of days.
    He pulled the pirogue up out of the water and left it with its cargo of suitcases and crawfish to join Serena on the gallery. He didn't like having her there. This place revealed things about him. Having her there allowed her to get too close when his defenses were demanding he keep her an emotional mile away. He might have wanted her physically, but that was as far as it went. He had learned the hard way not to let anyone inside the walls he had painstakingly built around himself. He would have been safer if she could have gone on believing he lived like an animal in some ancient rusted-out house trailer.
    “It's very nice,” she said politely as he trudged up the steps onto the gallery.
    “It's just a house,” he growled, jerking the screen door open. “Go in and sit down. I'm gonna take the sliver out of that foot of yours before gangrene sets in.”
    Serena bared her teeth at him in a parody of a smile. “Such a gracious host,” she said, sauntering in ahead of him.
    The interior of the house was as much of a surprise to her as the exterior had been. It consisted of two large rooms, both visible from the entrance—a kitchen and dining area, and a bedroom and living area. The place was immaculate. There was no pile of old hunting boots, no stacks of old porno magazines, no mountains of laundry, no litter of food-encrusted pots and pans. From what Serena could see on her initial reconnaissance, there wasn't as much as a dust bunny on the floor.
    Lucky struck a match and lit a pair of kerosene lamps on the dining table, flooding the room with buttery-soft light, then left the room without a word. Serena pulled out a chair and sat down, still marveling. His decorating style was austere, as spare and plain as an Amish home, a style that made the house itself seem like a work of art. The walls had a wainscoting of varnished cypress paneling beneath soft white plaster. The furnishings appeared to be meticulously restored antiques—a wide-plank cypress dining table, a large French armoire that stood against the wall, oak and hickory chairs with rawhide seats. In the kitchen area mysterious bunches of plants had been hung by their stems from a wide beam to dry. Ropes of garlic and peppers adorned the window above the sink in lieu of a curtain.
    Lucky appeared to approve of refrigeration and running water, but not electric lights. Another contradiction. It made Serena vaguely uncomfortable to think there was so much more to him than she had been prepared to believe. It would have been easy to dislike a man who lived in a hovel and poached for a living. This house and its contents put him in a whole other light—one he didn't particularly like to have her see him in, if the look on his face was any indication.
    He emerged with first aid supplies cradled in one brawny arm from what she assumed was a bathroom. These he set on the table, then he pulled up a chair facing hers and jerked her foot up onto his lap, nearly pulling her off her seat. He tossed her shoe aside and gave her bare foot a ferocious look, lifting it to eye level and turning it to capture the best light. Serena clutched the arm of her chair with one hand and the edge of the table with the other, straining against tipping over backward. She winced as Lucky prodded at the sliver.
    “Stubborn as that grandpapa of yours, walkin' around half the day with this in your foot,” he grumbled, playing the tweezers. “
Espèsces de tête dure
.”
    “What does that mean? Ouch!”
    “You're a hardheaded thing.”
    “Ouch!” She tried to jerk her foot back.
    “Be still!”
    “You sadist!”
    “Quit squirming!”
    “Ou-ou-ouch!”
    “Got it.”
    She felt an instant of blessed relief as soon as the splinter was out of her foot, but it was short-lived. Serena hissed through her teeth at the first sting of the alcohol, blinking furiously at the tears that automatically