marrying a woman of color and the other is..." Hazel snapped her mouth shut.

"Marrying a prostitute," Phyllis finished as she fixed her attention on a pair of young boys attempting to balance their wicker baskets on their heads. "I'm not sure which is more shameful."

Juliette stared at her.

Andrew cleared his throat and uncrossed his legs. "I understand there's trouble again with that old bull gator."

"Mean, hungry son of a bitch," Tylor remarked nervously. His brow creased as he sat forward with his

elbows on his knees. "I heard him last night-"

"There you go again with stupid talk," Max interrupted.

"I tell you, Daddy, I heard him. 'Round midnight. 'Bout froze my blood. There's fifteen feet to him or I

ain't sitting here. Bull that big could bite a man in two like that." He snapped his fingers.

Max shook his head. "You'll have to excuse Tylor. He has an inordinate fear of gators."

"Not just any gator. That gator. He's crafty and he has a taste for humans. Once they get a taste of a man

they just ain't satisfied with anything else."

"You're not serious." Juliette leaned against a column. "You don't really mean there's a creature that eats people skulking up and down the river." Fred nodded sleepily. "Took his eighth last week. Came right out of the water and plucked one of Bartholemew's slaves out of a boat while he was fishing."

Tylor left his chair and started to pace. His gaze swept the river. He wrung his hands.

As Liza returned with a glass of water and handed it to Hazel, Andrew looked up at her and grinned. "You know what they say about fear and gators, Liza?"

She shook her head, her cheeks turning dark and her lips curving as she stepped away, self-consciously pushing back a strand of hair spilling over her brow. "What do they say about fear and gators, Mr. Andrew?"

"Fear is like an aphrodisiac to a bull gator. The scent of it lures him in. Makes him hungry. If I was Tylor, I'd be real careful about how much fear I show. Considering we're on the tail end of gator mating season, I suspect that bull will be eager to sweet-talk about anything he can wrap his mouth around. Why, I'll bet he's lying out there right now swimming in the scent of Tylor's fear. Next thing you know, it'll be crawling up those stairs tonight-"

"Shut your mouth," Tylor shouted with such vehemence his voice cracked. "I ain't afraid of that damn bull. I'm just respectful of him."

"I'm glad to hear it. Then you can join us in the hunt. We'll need all the hands we can get."

"Hunt?" Liza asked. Her face suddenly intense and her dark eyes sharp, she stared at Andrew and said, "You got no business huntin' bull gators. You best be leavin' that up to Chantz."

"Speak of the devil." Andrew grinned and pointed.

Chantz rode his big bay gelding up the drive. He didn't bother to use stirrups. His calves in boots to his knees held the animal's lathered sides just snugly enough to maintain his balance. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat cocked low over his eyes. His shirt was mostly unbuttoned, exposing a plunge of glistening copper skin.

Andrew moved up beside Juliette, leaned against a column, and glanced down at her. "You're looking a little flushed, Miss Julie. Maybe you should lie down awhile."

She shoved a heavy coil of hair behind her ear, sank harder against the column, only vaguely aware that Phyllis Buley had moved up beside her, between her and Andrew. Her gaze fixed on Chantz, Juliette felt the air steam her face and the heat of the sun-baked porch sizzle her bare feet.

Chantz rode the gelding close to the gallery, removed his hat, and blotted his forehead with his shirtsleeve. His hair looked black with sweat. It tumbled over his forehead and around his ears in damp waves as he turned his blue eyes up and rewarded them all with a curl of his lips that made the blood rush from Juliette's head.

She tried to look away from his face- those blue eyes made all the bluer by his sun-darkened face and black hair- but she realized in that moment that she might as well tell the Mississippi to stop moving. The pull of the man straddling the tired animal, his face streaked by dust and sweat, was as powerful as the river tow.

"Ladies," Chantz greeted with a smile. "You all look cool and pretty this afternoon." His gaze locked on Phyllis and he raised one eyebrow. "Miss Buley. How are the wedding plans coming along?"

Unblinking, Phyllis stared down at him, silent so long that Juliette frowned and narrowed her eyes, assessed her profile closely. The woman whose complexion had glowed with heat since her arrival at Holly House appeared, suddenly, as sickly yellow as Rosie's tallow candles. And her eyes- fairly glittering with a kind of intensity that electrified the air.

Realization struck Juliette.

Phyllis Buley was sick in love with Chantz!

It was as obvious as the temperature was sweltering.

Phyllis drew in a breath and replied, "Very well, thank you. It promises to be the finest wedding Baton

Rouge has ever seen. I'm a very lucky woman."

His grin stretched and the horse shifted under him. "Well, if nothin' else you'll have a fine plantation to show for it."

Andrew made a noise and Phyllis's spine went rigid.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said in a tight voice.

"What he means," Andrew said, looking down at his sister, "is that if you're marrying for reasons other

than love, you damn well better get something out of it."

Her face flushed with anger as she turned on Chantz again. "I'll have you both know, I adore Horace

Carrington." Eyes narrowing, she added, "He's the kindest, most considerate man I've ever known. The fact that he owns the largest plantation in the area has nothing to do with it."

"That'll change soon enough," Andrew pointed out as he turned his focus on Juliette.

She forced herself to shift her attention from Phyllis. Thank God for the column at her back or she might

surely have collapsed in a pool of her straw-colored cotton skirt. Fixing on Andrew's eyes, she struggled to breathe normally as Andrew added, "Belle Jarod is the largest plantation in the area. Now that Miss Julie has come home, I suspect the old place might yet rise from the ashes."

Lifting her chin, Phyllis said in a flat tone, "She won't get very far without a husband. Besides, what could she possibly know about planting- raised in a convent all these years? She'll need a husband with money-"

"Or muscle." Andrew cut her off. "Land is there already. House is there. Or most of it, what didn't burn. The mills are there. Heck, with a few months' work to clear the grounds and plant, this time next year Miss Julie could be looking forward to her first harvest."

"Do you think so, Andrew?" Juliette forced a smile.

"Absolutely." He nodded.

"Andrew tells us that you're gator hunting tonight, Chantz." Max planted himself in front of Juliette.

Chantz nodded. "Bartholemew is offering a reward to the man who kills that bull."

"Tylor is joining us." Andrew grinned as he thumbed at Tylor whose face was slowly turning the same sickly shade of green as the moss draping from the trees.

Chantz laughed. "He'll make good gator bait, I guess."

Juliette squeezed between Phyllis and Max, neither of them willing to give an inch. She finally shouldered Max hard enough so he was forced to step aside.

"Tell me about a gator hunt," she said. The words were more like a challenge than a request. She dared him to look her in the eye with the same smoldering intensity as he'd regarded her that night on his porch steps. She'd know right then and there if her suspicions were right- that there was a good reason for Phyllis's moon-calf expression. A woman didn't look at a man with such blatant longing unless something had passed between them. As Juliette set her shoulders and curled her fingers into her limp skirts, she thought with a fresh blaze of heat over her cheeks that she must surely look as pitifully desperate as Phyllis.

Chantz looked away, shook his head, put his hat back on so it cast a shadow over his eyes when he finally focused on her. "I'd hate to upset your sensibilities again, Miss Julie. Most women find the process of gator hunting distasteful and alarming."

Her lips curved, another challenge. "In case you haven't noticed, Chantz... I'm not most women."

Phyllis gasped and went stiff as the column at Juliette's back.

Chantz shifted in his saddle, causing the horse to move to better balance his weight. His jaw looked chiseled of granite and dark with a day's growth of beard. Silence pulsated the hot air. Even the hound stopped panting, his face drooping and his eyes peering up at Juliette from under folds of loose skin.

Of course, she wasn't like most women. She was Maureen Jarod's daughter. What other woman would dare stand here with her naked toes curled over the edge of the hot plank gallery flooring, her hair allowed to spill around her face and shoulders, her body radiating a challenge to a man who personified the forbidden?

"Well," she said, her cheeks burning, "are you going to answer me or not?"

"Folks meet at dusk," Andrew offered, though Juliette continued to look down into Chantz's shadowed eyes. "On the banks of the deep bayou. That's where he lives. Not in the big river. Too open. Too fast. He likes the marshes where the water is still and a little stagnant. More trees and reeds the better. Especially now. He's rutting. He'll stay close because he's territorial. He won't like interlopers be it another gator or a man. Could be what happened to Bartholemew's slave. Could be he boated too close to a nest or a pod and the bull reacted.

"Men go out in their boats at dark and bait the water and banks with animal and fish entrails. Bloodier the better. Louder they stink, the better. They come back in and spend the next few hours around bonfires. They eat. Sing. Dance... pray."

Andrew's voice dropped, barely above a whisper. While everyone else leaned toward him, rapt by his story, Juliette continued to be held by Chantz's gaze. What, exactly, did she see there?

"'Round midnight everything goes real quiet. Firelight dwindles. Night gets so heavy you can feel it weighing down on you. River sounds begin to thump at you like a heartbeat growing so loud you want to cover your ears. Something primitive crawls into your blood then. Makes you do things that come morning will cause you to question your sanity. You become the bayou. Earth. Stars. Water. Animal.

"Suddenly there is silence and absolute stillness. Not so much as a cricket chirp to be heard. Then, somewhere out in the dark, comes the low grunt of that old bull. Sound like you won't ever hear again. Starts deep in his belly and rolls up through his snout like a growl of thunder.

"Men reach for their weapons and take to their boats, one to paddle, the other to hold the torch high. It's the light from that torch that will give the bull away. While his body is submerged in the water, those two eyes will reflect the firelight like mirrors. You give the water a pop with the flat of the oar. Then watch that bastard move in real slow, attracted by the slap of the water, the torchlight, the smell of fresh meat and fear. Oh, there is plenty of that, all right, especially when that old bull sinks out of sight. You know he's coming up somewhere, you just don't know where or when. So you take your lance in both hands and wait. You usually got only one chance. If you don't time it just right you're either dead or you can give up the hunt until another night."

Andrew eased down the gallery, toward Tylor who stood with his back to them, his hands knotted into white fists as he stared out at the river. The shirt clung to Tylor's back with patches of sweat. His body visibly shook.

"One chance," Andrew said quietly. "Got to get him in his soft underside. Just the moment he comes scooting out of that water to make a grab for you, you take that sharp lance and drive it deep and fast into his throat-'cause if you don't, those big jaws are gonna open right up and chomp!"

He slapped Tylor's ribs hard. Tylor yelped and toppled off the porch, landed in a mud puddle and came up spitting and glaring at everyone who howled in laughter. His face, or what they could see of it behind the spatters of mud, was colorless as a corpse.

"Gotcha," Andrew laughed.

"You're a cruel bastard, Andrew Buley!" Tylor coughed and slung mud from his hands.

"What's wrong, Tylor? I thought you wasn't scared of that old bull."

Tylor turned on his heels and stormed away.

Chantz shook his head and rode away. Juliette watched him go, then turned her attention back to Phyllis whose gaze remained fixed on Chantz, her countenance hardly belonging to a woman looking forward to her wedding day. She looked, Juliette thought with a sinking heart, like a woman desperately in love with Chantz Boudreaux.

?Eight.

When Juliette scaled the stone wall secluding the convent from the village at the bottom of the dale, as she rushed through midnight shadows to watch and wager on cockfights with ale-swigging men whose foul curses made her ears burn, she considered that the Reverend Mother could be right about her character- except she had prided herself on the fact that while she might find a certain spiteful pleasure in defying decorum where cocks and ale were concerned, men had been another matter.

She had vowed to herself, since she was old enough to understand her father's reasons for despising her, that she would remain chaste before marriage- unlike her mother. And afterward... faithful and loving and devoted to her beloved husband- whoever that might be.

That, of course, was before she woke up with her arms and legs wrapped around Chantz Boudreaux, drowsily gazing into his sleeping features. That was before she knew what a man's hard body felt like under her hands. Before she'd ever touched hair so thick and soft, that coiled around her fingers and lay

upon her pale skin like a silken shadow. Before the scent of a man had filled up her raw senses and intoxicated her blood.

Before sensations, dormant until that moment, surged to life and plunged her into a whirlpool of dark

prurience.

Before the thought of a man occupied her every hour- her every dream- and made her heart ache so fiercely at times she thought she would surely expire.