His eyes narrowing and the heat of pain replaced by the hotter flame of anger, Chantz stared hard enough at Tylor that the smirk slid from Tylor's lips.

"Get your ass down to those levees and start rebuilding before the next rains come and my whole damn house is washed to New Orleans."

Chantz forced his attention back on Max. The whites of Max's eyes were shot with red and his breath stank heavily of bourbon. Max was a mean drunk. And crazy. Chantz knew from experience that the slightest provocation could send him over the edge and anyone within punching distance would experience the repercussions- not just Chantz. Max would lay a whip against the back of man or woman just for spite if he was drunk and mad enough. Judging by the look and smell of him, he was definitely drunk and mad enough.

"I hold you personally responsible for this catastrophe, Chantz. Had you made certain the levees were properly constructed this fiasco would have been avoided. Now over half of my crops are ruined."

"I did what I could with what I had," Chantz snapped, doing his best to keep the contempt and escalating anger out of his voice. He hurt too damn much to put up with Max's tirade and the fact that Juliette was watching Max verbally ass whip him didn't help. "Maybe if you weren't so stingy with money, Max, we could build a levee that would hold."

Max shook his fist in Chantz's face. "Maybe if you didn't insist on feeding, clothing, and housing these slaves like they're white folks I'd have the extra money to invest! Tell you what, Chantz, maybe if I withhold half of your salary over the next year I'll have the money I need to spend on this plantation."

Max stepped closer and, glaring into Chantz's eyes, said in a quieter voice, "If I wanted this farm run by an idiot, Chantz, I'd put Tylor in charge."

With the sun beating down and the gnats and mosquitoes swarming around his head and shoulders, Chantz shoved free of Louis's hand on his arm, and moved into Max's face.

"You calling me an idiot, Max?"

"Stop this. Stop this right now!"

Chantz looked around.

Skirts hiked nearly to her knees, her gray-streaked brown hair hanging in damp tendrils around her face, Emmaline Boudreaux, Chantz's mother, waded through the murky water, her face pinched with concern and growing irritation.

"Stay out of this," Chantz told her.

"You're in enough trouble as it is, Chantz. For God's sake, look at you. You're half dead on your feet and looking to get in another fight. And you..." She turned on Max, thrust her sweating face up to his, and declared, "You would cut off your nose to spite your face, Max Hollinsworth. Chantz is the best overseer in this state and you know it. If you didn't know it, you would have fired him long ago. You know if you fired him there would be twenty other planters on his doorstep by nightfall offering him a job."

Frowning, Chantz opened his mouth- "Hush!" she snapped, red faced and shaking. "I don't want to hear another word out of either of you- two grown men so damn stubborn and full up with pride you've gone soft in the head. Chantz, you get to the house right now so Rosie can see to those injuries. Louis, you give him a hand 'cause by the looks of him he won't make it that far on his own. As for you, Max Hollinsworth, it would serve you right if Chantz quit you."

"If you got something to say to me, Emmaline, you best do it in the house," Max said through his teeth. "And you." He pointed at Chantz. "You should count your lucky stars that I don't have you tied to a pole and whipped... boy. Don't think for a second that I won't if I find you in the company of Juliette again without a chaperone. Now, I want you down to those levees in an hour or you're finished at Holly House. The other damn planters can have you and good riddance."

Rosie, her head bound in a red tignon, clucked and tutted as she wrapped Chantz's chest tight enough to nearly cut off his breathing. "Lawd, Lawd, you is a mess. A real mess. I ain't ever seen no man who could get himself into such trouble. Massa Max 'bout ready to pop when he find out you be with Miss Julie. As I live and breathe, that woman is bound for trouble. Best you stay away from her, Chantz. Far away. She got her mama all over her. Um hm. She the kind of woman who'll git a man killed quicker'n he can swat a fly."

Chantz groaned as Rosie made one last yank on the bindings and tied them off. There was no point in arguing with the woman. Juliette Broussard was trouble, all right. She was trouble even if she wasn't involved in Max's plans. When word got out that Maureen Broussard's daughter was back in Louisiana, there wouldn't be a man over the age of twenty who wouldn't come sniffing at her skirts. If they weren't old enough to have been seduced by Maureen herself, they'd been seduced by her legend.

"Yassa, you best git your mind off that child. Man who gits hooked up with the likes of her is gonna suffer. Puts the ruttin' fever in a man. Makes him crazy."

She plunked her big fists on her wide hips and frowned. "When it come to women you gots enough problems, Chantz Boudreaux. You and Miss Julie gits together and there won't be enough left of either of you to use as chicken scrap. 'Sides, you gots enough problem, what with Massa Max frettin' so 'bout his crops. That man is just plumb crazy anymo'."

The door opened and Emmaline stepped in. Her face looked white as the muslin strips around Chantz's chest. She always looked that way when she'd gone nose-to-nose with Max. Her gray eyes were a little dazed and her thin body trembled. She'd pace throughout the night and drag out the bottle of brandy she'd stolen from Max Christmas Eve two years ago. She'd pour herself one, maybe two fingers, depending on how hot the fight had become with Max. One finger made her tipsy. Two made her smashed. By the look on her face this was going to be a two-finger night.

Stopping just inside the door, she stared at him hard and said, "The levee can wait until tomorrow. You're to spend the remainder of the day in bed. Resting."

"When are you gonna stop fighting my fights for me?" he asked, flinging a wad of bandage into Rosie's medicinal basket.

"When you stop antagonizing the hell out of him," she replied angrily. "My God, Chantz, you're more like your father every day. Look at you. Willful. Spiteful. Full of fight. Always fight."

"Not always." He slid from the bed, carefully straightened, and walked to the dresser where he kept a bottle of whiskey. He reached for a glass and shot her a dark look.

"What happened between you and Juliette Broussard, Chantz?"

"Is that what this fit of pique is about?" He shook his head and splashed whiskey into the glass. "Did the son of a bitch ask you to find out if I seduced the young lady?"

"By the looks of her, I suspect it was the other way around."

He grinned, tipped his glass to her, then drank.

Rosie humphed and said, "I is gittin' while the gittin' is good. If there be anything left of you two when the fur stops flyin', I'll bring supper."

Rosie mumbled to herself and headed for the kitchen, water swirling around her skirt hems.

Chantz stretched out on the bed, propped his shoulders on the iron headboard, and drank the whiskey. He watched his mother pace, her face grow red with heat and anger.

"That young woman is trouble, Chantz. Stay away from her."

"That you talking or Max?"

"We both know why she's here. Max couldn't get Belle Jarod through Maureen, now he'll do it through Juliette."

"Maybe." He drank, then wrist-wiped his mouth. "She doesn't strike me as the type who would allow herself to be manipulated. Besides, I got the idea she wasn't too thrilled over the prospect of marrying Tylor." His mouth curled. He said in a lower voice, "I suspect she's as smart as she is beautiful."

Emmaline stopped pacing and glared at Chantz. "And if she's anything like her mother she'll have Max, Tylor, and you dead by the time the dust settles. I won't have it, Chantz. I won't have you getting killed over the likes of Maureen Broussard's daughter."

"If I was inclined to get myself killed over a woman, it would have happened by now."

"I'm certain Jack Broussard must have felt the same way, until he set eyes on Maureen Jarod. She destroyed him, Chantz. His dignity, his fortune, his life."

Chantz left the bed. He picked up a cloth and wiped the sweat from his face and throat, walked to the door and looked out over the brown water landscape. The avenue of slave shanties was elevated high enough so the flood didn't reach into the houses- at least this time. Children sat on the steps, dangling their feet in the water, squealing and pointing at fish and frogs that their parents rushed to net. They'd be eating something besides corn bread and smoked pork tonight.

"I'm not as naive or as stupid as Jack Broussard," Chantz finally replied, directing his gaze toward the big house. The image returned, of Juliette rushing out of the house and into the water before Max stopped her. Then he recalled her body, naked, perfect, curled against his in the bed as she slept- recalled the taste of her mouth.

Emmaline moved close. "I don't like that look on your face, Chantz. I haven't fought tooth and nail to see you grown only for you to get yourself shot over the likes of Juliette Broussard. Tylor is itching for an excuse to kill you, Chantz."

"If I don't kill him first."

"I'll kill him myself before I see you hanged over that sorry, lazy, worthless human being."

She gripped his arm and her voice became frantic. "I want us to leave this place, Chantz. I've wanted it for a long time, but especially now that she's come. There are a hundred planters out there who would hire you this quick." She snapped her fingers.

"I'm not going anywhere." He shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the house with its flowing gallery and white columns. It shimmered in the sunlight, hazy behind the steam rising off the water. "Not yet," he added softly.

"Damn you, stop this madness, Chantz. Walk away from Holly House and put Max Hollinsworth behind you. He isn't worth this pain you're putting yourself through."

"You should have thought about that thirty years ago." He turned his hard blue eyes on her.

Her tired eyes filled with tears as she drew back her shoulders. "You've become as hateful as Max. And hard. Detestably hard."

Chantz gave a cold laugh. "Thirty years of being called bastard white trash will do that to you, I guess."

"Accept it. I have, finally. He's never going to acknowledge you, Chantz. Get out of here while you're still young enough to start over. Buy you some land. Marry you a nice girl. Take all the rage you expend on Holly Plantation and grow your own sugarcane."

He turned on her then, his anger rising. "I'm not going anywhere, damn you. I've worked this goddamn sugarcane since I was ten years old. I took over the overseer job from a thieving inept old drunk who couldn't find his way out of his bed much less to the cane fields. I tripled Holly's profits in five years. I designed those sugar boilers so our sugar yield doubled with half the effort expended, and I sit here in this piece of shit shanty and watch that damn house grow and watch Tylor Hollinsworth lazy around on his fat butt waiting for Max to drop dead so he can inherit what I've sweated blood and tears to build. And you suggest that I just walk away?"

"You can't make him love you, Chantz." She touched his arm.

He snatched it away.

"I learned too late that he just don't have the capacity for it. Not anymore. Not since Maureen came into his life," she said wearily.

"I don't give a damn whether he loves me or not," Chantz said through his teeth. "I just want him to look me in the eye one time and acknowledge me for what and who I am. I want to understand why-"

"I've told you a hundred times, Chantz. A thousand times. Why won't you just leave it alone?"

"If I'm gonna be denied my birthright, I have a right to know why."

Emmaline walked away. Her back to him, she hugged herself as if the room had suddenly turned freezing cold. "I was young and foolish and he was... handsome and dynamic and, believe it or not, charming as hell. Much like you, when you want to be. When you're not simmering in anger and inviting the world to take a swing at you. Back then there was a kindness in him still. And a gentleness." She smiled at the memory. "He was easy to love. Too damn easy. Such a handsome man, and those blue eyes...

"The affair was passionate and brief while he was in Charleston on business. He was long gone by the time I discovered I was carrying you. When my father, the only family I had in the world, learned of my condition, he disowned me.

"I came to Holly House and discovered Max had married. My decision to remain here at Holly House was made out of stubborn spitefulness. Not to mention desperation. What was I to do, a young woman on my own with a baby? I had no money. And I was angry enough that I wanted him reminded every day of his life that he ruined me. He provided me employment and a roof over my head, such as it is, in exchange for my never telling Sarah, his wife, that you were Max's firstborn."

She turned to face him, chin squared, thin body rigid. "Do you think it's been easy for me, Chantz? I was forced to sew her pretty clothes and me wearing little more than rags. I wiped her brow and held her hand while she was giving birth to Tylor. I watched Tylor given everything Max's money could buy and there you were living on infested cornmeal and wearing hand-me-downs. I sometimes dreamed of killing him, but I held on to the hope that someday he would wake up and see what a fine son you are, or could be, especially when it became obvious that Tylor was worthless and lazy and had no interest in Holly House."

"And you loved him still." Chantz watched resignation settle in his mother's eyes. "You hoped he would come to love you again as well."

"He never loved me, Chantz. He never loved poor Sarah, nor did he love his second wife. Max Hollinsworth has loved only two things in this life, and those were Maureen Broussard and Belle Jarod."

She laughed and shook her head. "I'll never forget the day Jack brought Maureen here to meet Max. I'll never forget the look on Max's face. He loved her the instant she turned those big green eyes on him and smiled. He was... thunderstruck. Thank God poor Sarah died soon after. She didn't have to witness the onset of his madness as he fell deeper under Maureen's spell.

"After Maureen was killed I thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn't. Then the bitterness set in, and the guilt. What humanity once lived in his heart, little as it was, was extinguished.

"Chantz, honey, if you stay here you're going to turn out just like him. Mean and bitter and angry. I already see it in you. Now that young woman shows up here not much younger than Maureen was when she married Jack, a mirror image of her mother, and you've got a fire burning in you for her. Don't deny it. I know you better than you know yourself. I saw how you looked at her out there, the same way as Max looked at Maureen that first time. Those eyes don't lie, Chantz. They're predatory and right now they're fiercely hungry. Please. For me. Promise you'll leave her alone."

Drinking his whiskey, Chantz moved again to the open door. His mother knew him too well. Right now, even if he wanted to, he couldn't shake his thoughts from Julie Broussard, or the idea that Tylor Hollinsworth, his goddamn good-for-nothing half brother, might well get his hands on yet another piece of good fortune all because Max Hollinsworth wouldn't acknowledge Chantz's being his firstborn- not that it would make any difference if he did, thanks to the law. The only hope Chantz had of inheriting Holly was for Tylor to die and Max to suddenly get a conscience and confess his parentage. But while Chantz might fantasize about putting an end to Tylor with a well-placed bullet between his eyes, there would be nothing short of a miracle to sway Maxwell. Max Hollinsworth was not a man to acknowledge his mistakes...

Chantz had long since given up any hope of getting his hands on Holly Plantation... but Juliette was another matter.

Juliette might balk now at the prospect of marrying Tylor, but when faced with the reality of her situation, that could change. The thought of her walking hand in hand into the sunset with his sorry brother made a dangerous anger flirt with his thoughts.

He stepped from the house, into the steam of the day. The bandages were tight and hot around his chest and the humidity made the cuts on his face throb. His pants clung to his sweating legs as he watched the children and their parents chase catfish with nets. Dragonflies with iridescent wings darted through the air while dark clouds of gnats hovered over the water.

The sun would go down soon. The snakes would come out then. Lots of them, due to the waters that drove them out of the swamps and forests. Then the gators. Last flood, worse than this one, brought one old bull right into shanty row. Only a last-minute effort by a horrified parent had kept the hungry gator from snatching a baby right off the threshold of his mother's shanty.

"Boss Chantz!" the children cried, and threw up their hands in greeting.

Simon, a boy of nine years born with a clubfoot and frail as a reed, danced and splashed and held a giant frog in both hands. His sister Liza stepped from the house and, seeing Chantz, smiled and waded into the water.

Chantz felt the tension leave his shoulders as he watched Liza approach. She had a tall, slender body with nice curves accentuated by the thin soft cotton of her blue dress. Her sparkling black eyes were

concerned, and there was a hint of flush to her cheeks that were as golden as rich molasses. A coil of chocolate-brown hair spilled over her brow, and she brushed it back with her hand, frowning.

"You tangle with a bull gator, Chantz Boudreaux?" she asked, tipping her head to one side. "You a real

mess. Can't be havin' your nice face messed up, can we?"

"Try telling that to the thugs who jumped and robbed me." He grinned and lowered his voice. "You're looking pretty, Liza. Going somewhere?"

"I'm hopin'," she replied with a sly grin. "If you tell me it's all right."

"Be a shame to waste that full moon tonight, I guess."

"I'll wear that dress you brung me last week. Thought I'd wear my hair up like this." She swept the heavy

mass off her neck and anchored it with her long fingers at the top of her head. Her smile widened. "I understands that men likes to see the curve of a woman's neck."

"Drives us crazy." He smiled and drank his whiskey.

Liza sighed and her lashes lowered. "The crazier the better. That's what I'm sayin', Chantz Boudreaux."

Emmaline stepped from the house and stared, first at Chantz, then at Liza. Then she marched off toward her own house, a smaller version of Chantz's: white clapboard nestled under a live oak dripping with Spanish moss.

"She don't look too happy," Liza said. "And I can't say as how I blame her if what I'm hearin' is true. That you is bustin' your breeches over that Broussard girl, and her to marry Tylor. We don't need you to be gettin' yourself killed, now do we? We gots enough to worry 'bout 'cause of this water."

Chantz looked away, toward the big house.

And there stood Juliette, on the upper floor gallery. She had released her hair and it fell in heavy waves,

nearly to her waist. The humidity in the air made it look alive and wild, windblown when there wasn't a breath of wind to be felt in all of Louisiana in that moment.

Liza touched his arm briefly, then stepped away. When he forced his gaze back to hers, he found her