LITMIR.BIZ

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painter?”

      “The very one. He knew a thing or two about pain.”

      “And it sounds as if you know a thing or two about art,” she replied, her opinion of him rapidly changing.

      “I know enough to get by. But then, that’s how I am about most things in life—whatever it takes to get by.” He shifted, ran a hand over his long, curly bangs. “But I didn’t bring you here to get you down or talk about art.”

      She wanted to ask him exactly why he had brought her here, but then the smile was back, taking her breath up and away. The tiny bells hanging on a silvery chain just inside the open pagoda door tinkled and laughed along with him, but to Willa, the sound changed in the wind.

      It almost sounded like weeping.

      “Well, this is a strange and mysterious place,” she said, her voice low. “Do you come here a lot?”

      “Depends,” he said, pulling her into the cool darkness of the rustic structure. “Look over that way.” He pointed through one of the open windows toward the path they’d traveled.

      Through a gap in the trees and brush, Willa saw the mansion. From this spot atop the small mound, Bayou le Jardin could be seen in all its splendor just to the west. The great evergreen oaks and ever-changing gardens cascaded from the house like colorful lace on a belle’s ball gown, while the mansion stood brilliant and sparkling with its Doric columns and classic Greek Revival design.

      “How lovely.”

      “Oui. I like to come here and look back at it. I’m close enough to watch over things, but far enough away that I can’t be bothered if I don’t want to be found.”

      If I don’t want to be found.

      Willa watched him, knowing that there was much more to Lucas Dorsette than he wanted the world to see. He was witty, flirty, a charmer, no doubt. But there was a serious side to him that she could see clearly, in spite of the shaded, secluded garden where he’d brought her. Or maybe because of it.

      “Do you bring all your conquests here?” she asked, smiling at him.

      “Actually, you’re the first,” Lucas told her, his mood as dark and hard to see into as the swamp below them. “Conquest, that is.”

      And that’s when Willa knew she was treading on very dangerous ground. Lorna had warned her about Lucas’s lighthearted, carefree nature.

      But her friend had failed to warn her about the other qualities that made up Lucas Dorsette. He was obviously a very complex, interesting man. A man who had a deeper, more spiritual side that he hid from the world with a nonchalant shrug and a breathtaking smile.

      But then, maybe he didn’t want the rest of the world to see that side of him. The side that cared enough to set God’s creatures free when he could just as easily destroy them. The side that tended and nurtured a secret, tragic place, finding beauty hidden in the midst of pain. The side that didn’t want to be found.

      Taking all that into consideration, Willa stopped asking questions and quit worrying about being his next conquest. Instead, she sat next to him on the carved bench inside the pagoda. Sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the swamp, the starlings fussing as they flew overhead, the bullfrogs singing in the marsh. Listening to the soft, sweet melody of hundreds of tiny chiming bells.

      Across the shore, a blue heron posed on a toppled branch from a bald cypress tree, listening and watching right along with them. And somewhere in the coolness of the swamp, a mourning dove cooed a forlorn song of longing.

      “Thank you for showing me this place, Lucas,” she told him after a few minutes.

      “Thank you for letting me bring you here,” he replied, his tone neither carefree nor careless. Instead, his husky voice held a reverent longing of its own.

      Which made her wonder all over again.

      Why had he opened up to her, let her see the real Lucas Dorsette, here in this ancient, tragic spot, of all places on God’s green earth?

      “Set another place for dinner,” Lorna told Rosie Lee that afternoon. “Willa O’Connor will be joining us.”

      Lucas walked in the kitchen in time to hear this bit of news. “Willa? Well, I think the dinner hour just got more interesting. Glad I actually dressed.”

      He’d never admit that he’d taken great pains to get cleaned up in hopes of seeing her here tonight. Crisp button-up shirt, pressed and pleated khaki trousers. Shoes that didn’t have scuff marks and caked mud all over them. He’d even found a belt.

      “And where have you been since breakfast?” Lorna asked him as she opened the oven to check on Rosie Lee’s baked turkey cutlets. “Willa came back to the house without you. Did you do something to upset her?”

      “Which question would you like me to answer first?” he asked, perturbed that his baby sister had automatically jumped to the wrong conclusion. And she hadn’t even noticed that he’d tried to clean up nicely.

      “You did do something, didn’t you?”

      Giving Lorna a direct look that matched her own assumptions, he nodded. “Yes, I sure did. I kidnapped her and took her deep into the swamp and then—”

      “Oh, hush up,” Aunt Hilda said, coming into the kitchen at a slow pace, one hand leaning heavily on her cane. “I can tell you where Lucas was today, Lorna. He spent most of the afternoon with me at the office, handing out school supplies to the area children.”

      “School supplies?” Lorna adjusted her chef’s hat, then shrugged. “Will wonders never cease.”

      “I even went into Kenner to that big superstore and bought them, too,” Lucas told her. “Can you believe Aunt Hilda assigned me such a monumental chore?”

      Lorna stuck out her tongue at him. “Yes, I can believe it. And I’m well aware of the local effort to help our children with their supplies this year. Between the tornado and then the flood, we all know everyone around here is tapped out, both emotionally and financially.”

      “That’s right,” Aunt Hilda said, placing an arm around Lucas’s shoulder. “School will be starting in a few weeks, and we need to do everything we can to make it a normal transition, in spite of all the havoc nature has created this year.”

      “Okay,” Lorna said. “But that still doesn’t explain why Willa came back to the house by herself.”

      “I escorted her to the garden—the official garden,” Lucas explained. “She wanted to go to her room, so I bid her good day, then I went on my merry way.”

      And wished he could have stayed in his secret garden with Willa for, oh, maybe the rest of his life.

      He couldn’t explain what had happened this morning. He only knew he’d needed to take Willa to that particular spot. Call it instinct, call it a need to let her into his secret hopes and dreams. Or call it a coward’s plea for someone to see inside his soul, but Lucas had been sure and solid in his decision.

      And…she’d understood.

      Willa hadn’t questioned him. She hadn’t condemned him. She’d sat there with him, in the quiet of the summer morning, with the bayou and the birds and bees all around them. And she’d…accepted.

      Lucas had been around many beautiful women, too many, when he really stopped to think about it. But none of them had ever accepted him for what he was. They’d all wanted to dig too deep, wanted more than he could give. They’d all tried to corner him, change him, rearrange him into fitting husband material. Which only made him bolt right out the door.

      Maybe it was because she was worldly and world-weary, but Willa didn’t seem to expect a whole lot from him. He supposed that could be good or bad, depending on how you looked at things. Maybe Willa didn’t expect too much because she’d hardened herself to men in general.

      Or

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