Panther on the Prowl

by Nancy Morse

  She placed her hands tentatively at his jaw and moved them slowly up the sides of his face, the tips of her fingers brushing hair that was thick and fine, like silken rope. She swept one loose lock aside to reveal a smooth forehead, with straight, thick brows. His eyes were closed, and lashes that were uncommonly long tickled her fingertips. Delicately she traced the line of his straight nose and high, chiseled cheekbones. The skin of his cheeks was softer to the touch than she had imagined. His lips were full and finely shaped. She felt them part and heard him inhale a short, quick breath as she traced their contours with a featherlight touch.

  She had never even considered how old he might be, until now, when the smooth, taut skin of his face confirmed that he was a man in his prime. Something inside of her quickened. She withdrew her hands and dropped them into her lap. “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Thirty-six,” came the deep-throated reply.

  She ran her tongue nervously over her lips. Why did knowing this about him make her feel suddenly uneasy? The memory of that day in the kitchen came to mind all at once. The same feelings of anticipation and danger overwhelmed her now. Deep in her heart she knew it wasn’t him she was afraid of. It was herself, for wanting a man she couldn’t see and scarcely knew. For wanting his strong arms around her as they had been only minutes ago. For wanting him to hold her close and tell her that everything would be all right. For wanting all that and so much more.

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “Do you believe in fate?”

  He emitted a long, low breath he’d been holding trapped in his lungs. “The Seminoles believe that a person is responsible for his or her own fate, and that it’s what you do with your life that determines your fate.”

  If that were true, she thought, then was it possible that all her mistakes had been for the dual purpose of teaching her about herself, and leading her here…to him? If it was her fate to be here with him, then maybe it was also meant to be that she give in to this crazy attraction she had for him. For the first time in her life she realized that maybe she was responsible for her own fate after all.

  Perhaps it was precisely because she couldn’t see that she felt suddenly bolder. It was kind of like the feeling she got wearing sunglasses—knowing that nobody could see her eyes made her feel absurdly safe and somehow braver than usual. She wet her lips and tilted her face up at him.

  “And what do the Seminoles say about two people coming together for only one night? Would they say it was expediency or fate?”

  His whole body tensed. “They would say that a man and woman coming together can change the course of the world and must not be taken lightly.”

  “I don’t want to change the whole world. Only my world.”

  There was a soft plea in her voice that touched something deep inside of him. What he told her about people being responsible for their own fate was true. The warrior of the legend proved it. Hell, he had proved it himself with his obsessive behavior toward the panther. He didn’t want to think how his fate might be altered if he did this dangerous and impetuous thing she was asking.

  Yet every fiber of his being, every muscle in his body, every thought in his mind was consumed with curiosity and need and desire, and suddenly the urge to protect her from himself was overpowered by a more basic instinct.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

  “I’m not a schoolgirl.”

  “I didn’t mean that way. I meant that you’re vulnerable right now, you’re confused, you don’t know what you really want.”

  Her hands came up to caress his face. “For the first time in my life,” she gently admitted, “I know exactly what I want.”

  He had endured the sweet torture of her exploration of his face with the breath trapped in his throat and a knot in his belly, willing his skin not to jump and his excitement not to show. But the touch of her hand on his face now was even worse, for it carried an implicit message that sent the blood pumping through his veins forcing instant arousal. In the end he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he tried.

  A shower of moonbeams penetrated the densely forested canopy of the swamp and threw soft shadows across the cabin walls. There was no need for any more words or explanations. It was as if this moment had been decreed from the start, as if every minute had been leading up to the feel of her lips beneath his as he brought his mouth down upon hers.

  She met his kiss greedily, lips parting and tongue searching, teasing, tasting. His flavor was as sweet as she had imagined. She felt the erratic pounding of his heart against her own, and it filled her with a feeling of desire and power that she had never experienced before. She made no protest when he laid her back against the mattress and covered her body with the lean length of his.

  She had wanted to connect with another human being, to feel needed and wanted and necessary, with no questions asked and no regrets. But this was rapidly turning into so much more.

  She strained against him. There was a sudden urgency in her, a dire necessity that went beyond logic or reason. Passion was too mild a word for what she felt. Excitement barely described it. Even when his kiss grew stronger, lips almost brutally devouring hers, she returned his demand with her own. There was nothing but him—his lips, his arms, his scent, the hard bite of his arousal against her. In a detached part of her mind came a fleeting thought that it wasn’t just the connection she wanted, it was him.

  The strength she felt in his lean, hard muscles warned her that he would not be an easy lover. But she didn’t want easy. She’d had that all her life.

  He had tried not to give in, really he had. But with her trembling body so close to his and her hand caressing his cheek making him ache for her, the last vestige of resistance crumbled away. It had been so long since he had wanted a woman with such fierce intensity, so long since he had lain with one, that he was frightened. Not for himself, but for her. He tried to go slowly, gently, but the way she clung to him, her fingers in his hair, her slender body arching to meet his, told him that her need was as great as his own. And even if it was just for this one night, they would be forgiven.

  He slid his hands beneath her T-shirt, the one he had given her to wear. He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself how much the thought of wearing it had excited him, but it aroused him now beyond imagining to slip it up over her head and toss it to the floor.

  He gave in to the driving urge he’d had from the very beginning to let his hands touch every part of her. Her skin was inconceivably soft, flesh quivering in the wake of his touch. His hands moved from exquisitely smooth shoulders, to hips that were gently flared, to thighs that were slim and strong. When he could stand it no more, he slid his hands up to her breasts and cupped the soft mounds, guiding each one in turn to his lips, where he nipped at the swell of flesh while his fingertips traced a slow, torturous path around the other. Lips and fingers working in incredible unison until she was writhing beneath him.

  She had never felt this kind of need before. To have his hands on her body and his mouth on her mouth were, at this moment, the most important things in the world to her, save one.

  Dragging her mouth from his, she placed her hands at his shoulders and pushed him back, feeling his resistance and pushing him harder.

  Immediately awash with confusion and guilt and shame for having misread her signals, he staggered up onto his elbows and looked down at her, cursing the bandages that concealed her eyes, which otherwise might have given him a clue as to what was coming. “I’m sorry,” he said raggedly. “I thought…I didn’t mean to…”

  She interrupted in a breathless whisper, “No, don’t be. It’s not that. I want to see the rest of you.”

  It took a moment for the impact of her statement to hit him. When it did, he was relieved to know he’d been wrong about her intentions, and near out of his mind with arousal. He rolled off her, quickly undressed and sank back onto the bed beside her, his chest rising and falling heavily from his rough breathing.

  Again he was forced t
o remain rigid while her hands did a slow exploration, not hesitantly and shyly the way she had touched his face, but with a boldness he hadn’t known she possessed. He assumed that her fragile, confused state was to blame for the aggression she would no doubt regret tomorrow. But tomorrow was a long way off for the two of them, and he certainly wasn’t one to make any judgments.

  She felt his flesh quiver in the wake of her palm as she moved it in slow motion from one shoulder to the other, her mind subconsciously registering an image of broadness. And down along his chest where the smoothness of his skin was broken only by a dusting of softly curling hair and nipples that were erect and aroused. Her touch moved slowly, purposefully across his belly, where the taut muscles twitched involuntarily. She forced herself to go slow, familiarizing herself with every inch of him, as if she could somehow absorb the essence of him through the flesh of her palm. Up and down the length of each lean thigh, lingering at the rigid scar on the inside of his right thigh, tracing its raised edge with the tip of her finger before moving upward and coming to rest upon that part of him that kept no secrets. She heard him gasp and felt his body convulse with a shudder when her hand closed around him, and she felt powerful in a way she’d never felt before. She had wanted to “see” him, and what she “saw” thrilled her.

  With a groan he tore her hand away and pulled her hard up against him. His body was like an anchor, securing her to him and to her own fragile instincts, and with this incredible intimacy, she took the first step in learning to trust.

  Without gentleness or calmness, they sought each other, lips taking, kisses possessive, hungers urgent. The molten pleasure that ruled her became like white liquid heat surging through her, searing her from the inside out. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she rolled on top of him, then he on her, until they were tangled in each other’s arms and legs and passion. She heard her name tear from his lips and words she didn’t understand, Seminole words, muffled against her. At the moment of his possession she cried out in a voice, that to her dazed and drunken mind, didn’t even sound like her own. Higher and faster they climbed, his mouth clinging to hers, swallowing her moans and fusing them with his own, both consumed with the shock and power of it.

  Even after he rolled off her, she couldn’t stop the shudders. They continued to speed through her long after he lay silent and still beside her. What had happened between them had never happened to her before. In some intuitive place within herself she knew it never would again with any other man. It was his strength and his untamed lovemaking and his complexity that made him so unique, and gave her a glimpse into a part of herself she had not known existed.

  Her voice split the stillness. “What are you thinking?”

  He stirred beside her. “To tell the truth, I was trying not to think.”

  What could he say? That he was sorry for what had happened? That if it were up to him, it would never happen again? Their lovemaking only complicated things. It wasn’t as if they could continue on this crazy path. It wasn’t fair to either of them, although only he knew why. The attraction he’d felt for her from the start had been threatened by the guilt that was eating away at him and by his fear that she would find out about it. For him the empty longing was filled, if only for one night, and even if she only wanted him for the comfort his body could give her. But it couldn’t happen again, not when there was something lurking in the swamp that was a danger to any woman he might care about. Yet even as he made the decision he fought the impulse to take her again.

  “John?”

  His name, spoken in that breathless, vulnerable voice that tore at his sanity, steered him away from his thoughts.

  “You should sleep now,” he insisted softly.

  “You’ll stay?” The words were drowsy and soft as she fought off her exhaustion.

  He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath of night air into his lungs, which he let out with a long, low whoosh of resignation. “I’ll stay.”

  Chapter 7

  “You want me to what?”

  John tried to keep the panic from rising in his voice. After what happened between them last night, and the reproaches he heaped upon himself the following morning, the last thing he needed was this.

  Rennie had been reticent much of the morning, showing none of the unrestraint she had exhibited the night before, remembering and regretting. She pushed around the flakes of cereal in her bowl with the tip of the spoon, her face averted shyly, and repeated, “I want you to teach me the folklore of your people.”

  John stood rigid by the window, staring at the sunlight that slanted through the branches, not really seeing it. He knew what was happening to him. No, what had already happened. He was getting in deeper with a woman he should never have touched. A woman whose life depended on him. Not just for having saved her from a plane wreck, but for keeping her safe from the panther’s revenge. He could not care about her…would not care about her…if it carried with it the possibility that he could lose her to that beast the way he had lost Maggie.

  The cat had left an implicit message. It would attack and kill any woman John loved as punishment for his having killed one of a dwindling species and taken its mate. He would never be able to love again. That was his fate, just as sadly as it was the warrior’s.

  “I can’t keep going canoeing with you every morning and then just sit here by myself at night like I’ve been doing,” she said. “I have to get on with my work sometime, so why not now?”

  Everything in his being told him to refuse. He knew the danger in getting involved in her work. Roughly he questioned, “How come a professor of anthropology doesn’t already know most of the Seminole myths and legends?”

  “I do. The common ones. The ones that are essentially universal among all Native American tribes. How the people came into existence. Why certain animals are sacred among certain tribes…the white buffalo among the Sioux, for instance. But I want to learn about the ones that are specific to certain cultures. I’ve chosen the Seminole culture because, well, frankly, it intrigues me. There was an old Seminole man who worked for the university as a night janitor. He’s the one who got me interested a few years back. Sometimes, when I’d be working late, he would come in to clean up and we’d talk for a while. His stories were fascinating, but there was something he wasn’t telling me.”

  John turned back to her. She was too slender, he thought, too vulnerable despite last night’s show of passion and strength, to deal with the threat of what could happen.

  “I can’t imagine what that might be,” he said.

  She thought she detected evasion in his voice, but after last night she wasn’t sure of anything. “Well then, do you know of anyone I can ask who would know?”

  John shook his head, silently repeating his vow to see her through this and keep her safe until it was time for her to leave. And then he’d get out of her life. Until then, he had to maneuver carefully around her. The thought of telling her the stories himself was bad enough considering his own tragic and lurid tale, but having someone else tell her could be worse.

  His people kept the legend of the panther to themselves, learning as children to guard it from the outside world, for it was a sacred lesson that carried a grim reality. But what if someone made an unwitting slip of the tongue? What if one thing said here and another said there led Rennie to put the clues together and figure it out for herself? He had to find a way around this. A way to do what she asked without arousing any suspicion or letting it lead to questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. He reasoned that if he were to guide her to the right people, he could steer her away from anything that could open up a devastating can of worms for him. After a tense silence he said, “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  In the fifties, at a time when few Seminoles spoke English, the elders sent young Lorena Osceola to Washington to translate Miccosukee into English before Congress in order to convince the U.S. government not to terminate the Seminole tribe. Lorena had learned to speak English as a
child during the summers she spent in a carnival, traveling with her mother and an alligator wrestler who posed for the crowds as her Indian father. Her own father had abandoned the family when she was just two years old, and the family had to survive somehow.

  After the hearings, no Seminole termination bill was introduced again. Later, when the elders created the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc. to oversee the tribe’s business enterprises, Lorena was appointed as the first secretary. Meanwhile, she was busy being a mother, raising her sons to get the education she knew they would need to survive in the white world.

  In the old days Lorena lived with her family in a big chickee with a roof made from palm fronds supported by posts, not walls. They got up when the roosters crowed and went to bed when the sun set. Today she lived in a modest, yet comfortable, house on the Big Cypress Reservation. The cypress trees were gone, but she had all the amenities of modern life.

  She answered the knock on her door, not knowing what to expect. Her son had sounded anxious on the phone, speaking the mixture of Miccosukee and Creek that was their native tongue, telling her that he was coming by that afternoon and he’d be bringing someone with him. When pressed, he admitted that, yes, it had to do with the white woman who was staying at the cabin. The one he had called Billie Gopher in to see, the one he tried to avoid in conversation.

  Lorena knew the terrible shame her son carried over what he perceived to be his hand in his wife’s death. In these past few months, however, he’d begun to come by more frequently, and she thought that maybe he was finding a way out of his lonely exile. But whenever he spoke in steely tones of his need for revenge, she realized how far he still had to go, and it gave her cause to worry. Why had he brought the white woman to see her, and what was it about the woman that had him so uneasy?

  He knocked out of respect as he always did, even though he was welcome without invitation and her door was never locked. She opened the door and saw his unsmiling face, and knew immediately that something was wrong.