Panther on the Prowl

by Nancy Morse

  “Well, he mentioned it once when he’d had too much to drink. When I questioned him about it the next time I saw him, he clammed up, saying only that accordingly to the legend, deep in the swamp lives something that cannot be imagined. That must be quite a story.”

  The legs of the chair scraped the tile floor as Lorena got up and began to hastily wrap the dress. As she swept the bundle into her arms, she paused to look at her son, her heart aching to see the look of stunned pain that was on his face. Quietly she said, “I’ll just put this away,” and left the room to give him a chance to handle this in his own way.

  For several moments John couldn’t speak. He took a swallow of the orange-flavored drink, but this time the sweetness almost made him sick. He had to say something, but what?

  Although it was clear that Rennie did not know what the legend involved, warning bells were sounding in his mind. If she were to find out about the ancient warrior’s disastrous mistake, in one way or another, it might lead to her finding out about his own fatal mistake, and he feared that she might see something of him in the legend, as he had come to see himself: that the same proud arrogance that sealed the ancient warrior’s fate had doomed him as well; that the warrior’s curse to wander the earth as only part human was no worse than his own fate to live his life only partly alive. Little did he know, when Rennie had asked earlier how she could possibly hurt him, how painful the answer would be.

  Chapter 8

  “I just don’t understand it.”

  Rennie had to speak loudly to be heard over the hum of the airboat as she and John buzzed across the alligator-laden waters, skimming over vegetation.

  John guided the boat along the smooth water through a thick cypress forest that was alive with birds. He tried to lose himself in the glowing, almost green sunlight that filtered through the trees, and to forget, for the moment, the promise he’d made to help Rennie with her work.

  How could he have agreed to such a stupid thing? What was it about her that had him doing things he swore he’d never do? That she brought out his protective instincts was obvious, painfully so, when he knew in his heart that he’d be the last person on earth she would want for protection if she knew how woefully he had failed in protecting Maggie. He told himself she had this effect on him because she was vulnerable and beautiful. What man, after all, could resist such a lethal combination? But it was more than just her looks and vulnerability that drew him, and he knew it.

  She was vulnerable, yes, but she was far from being weak. Physically, she was stronger than she looked. He knew only too well the strength contained in the slender legs that had wrapped about him when they’d made love and the hidden energy with which she had responded to him. She had a strength of spirit, as well, evidenced by her determination to continue with her work despite her handicap.

  He noticed that her tentative movements about the cabin had become more confident in the weeks she’d been in his care. She even ventured outdoors on her own to explore the area surrounding the cabin, asking him questions about everything she touched. She was as foreign to this place as anyone could be, yet she was eager to learn all about it. Secretly delighting in her curiosity, he taught her how to differentiate the native plants by the shapes of their leaves, how to recognize the calls of the birds, to smell rain on the wind. These days she often accompanied him on his morning canoe rides. With the vast Everglades as her classroom, she was an avid learner. And as he had discovered one fateful night, an eager lover.

  But the same curiosity that gave him such a thrill was also a source of constant worry to him, for by keeping his promise to guide her to remote places in her quest for myths and legends, he was breaking the vow he’d made to himself to remain detached and unaffected.

  “I don’t understand,” Rennie repeated. “You told me your mother knows all the legends, yet when I questioned her about the panther legend, she acted as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  He’d taken her to see his mother because he knew that while she could tell Rennie some fascinating stories, she would not share with an outsider the legend that carried such an awful truth. “Maybe she doesn’t know such a legend,” he offered, feeling more and more guilty for the lies and evasions.

  “I may be blind,” Rennie complained, “but I’m not stupid. I’m telling you, there was something she wasn’t saying. Why is everyone so closemouthed?”

  His emotions were guarded, but he answered truthfully. “You’re an outsider. You’re white. My people had three wars in forty years with your people. Those wars destroyed our families and separated my people. We’ve come to accept much of what we find in outside society and use it in our own way, but the elders, the ones who remember the old ways and what it was like to live without that outside influence, are the ones least likely to trust you, and they’re the ones with the stories you want to hear. The younger people, the kids in school, if you ask them what they are, they’ll say ‘American’ not Seminole. Most of them can’t even speak the old languages. You won’t learn anything from them, except maybe what video is number one on MTV.”

  Rennie’s frustration was mounting. Her inability to see, now coupled with her inability to gather any information about the legend, made her feel powerless. Not in the way she had felt before with the senator and with Craig, as if she weren’t in control of her life, but in a way that angered her. The dizzying kind of power she had experienced in John’s arms made her realize just how much she, and nobody else, was in charge of her life. And now, having tasted the freedom that power brings, she was loath to accept anything less.

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe that old man at the university didn’t know what he was talking about?” said John. “You said yourself he was drunk.”

  She hadn’t wanted to consider that possibility. It could only mean that she’d been wrong about one more thing, as if all the rest wasn’t bad enough. But the more she searched for the truth behind the legend and came up empty-handed, the more she began to think John was right. Might that look in the old man’s eyes, which she had interpreted as fear, been nothing more than the glassy effect of alcohol? It was distressing to think she’d been wrong in reading him, until she thought about Craig and remembered how easy it was to see only what she wanted to see.

  Dusk was settling over the Everglades when they arrived back at the cabin. John guided the airboat to the edge of the shore and killed the engine. A static silence greeted them as he slid down into the shallow water. Without a word, he reached up for her, hands encircling her waist to lift her down from the boat. The green water lilies parted as he carried her to the shore.

  Overhead a sudden flapping of wings drew Rennie’s attention skyward. Grateful for something to divert her mind from the strong arms that held her, she proclaimed, “A great egret.”

  “Very good,” he said.

  She strained to identify the rustling she heard nearby. “A marsh rabbit?”

  It would take a familiarity with the swamp that could only be achieved in a lifetime to recognize that sound, but he admired her for trying. “Fiddler crabs,” he said, “scuttling over the paw prints of the raccoons that tried to catch them last night.”

  He let her down beside him. The ground was unexpectedly soft and pliant, and she stumbled. His arms were back around her in a flash, holding her against him while she struggled for balance. Since the other night he had avoided touching her. There was no sense, he reasoned, in conjuring up all those emotions caused by the mere feel of her. But with her slender body leaning against his for support, her warm palms pressing against the front of his shirt, the smell of her tawny hair invading his senses, he could feel his reason flying right out the window.

  What took only seconds to occur felt more like a lifetime. She caught her balance and moved away, and his arms, which were reluctant to let her go, felt all at once empty and abandoned. It had the unexpected impact of a dousing in cold water, spiraling him back to the reality of who he was and what he was after and how
this woman played no part in it.

  He was edgy and apprehensive as he led the way along a small, beaten path back to the cabin. Soon it would be time for him to go out. Once again he would leave her alone and nearly naked in his bed, while he went on his insane hunt. But more and more these days he questioned just what he was hunting. The panther. Relief from the guilt. Rest from the pain. All that, yes, but something more, something different that didn’t used to be part of the equation. He couldn’t name it, but he knew it had something to do with Rennie. Damn, didn’t everything he did these days have to do with Rennie? When had she become such a deciding factor in his life? When had it become more important for him to stay with her instead of going out on the nocturnal hunt? He was angry with himself for even thinking it, and angry with Rennie for the unwelcome need she instilled in him.

  He had taught her to judge the time of day by the feel of the air, and what Rennie felt now told her it would soon be dark, and she would soon be alone.

  “I’ll start dinner,” she said. “Spaghetti?”

  John laughed in spite of himself. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll cook and you can set the table.”

  The rare and beautiful sound of his unguarded laughter took the edge off the tension that was palpable in the air. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Only that you make lousy spaghetti.”

  “My expertise lies in more complicated, extravagant dishes,” she boasted. “You’ve never tasted my beef Wellington or my Grand Marnier soufflé. When you do, you’ll forget spaghetti ever existed.”

  “I’ve never tasted anybody’s Grand Marnier soufflé,” he admitted.

  “And it’s no wonder, cooped up in this place. I know, I know, you have your work to do out here.”

  His work wasn’t the only reason he had chosen this sanctuary, but he didn’t tell her that. “If you’ve screamed down the water slide at one of those theme parks, or bungie-jumped off a cliff, I guess a million and a half acres of soggy plants might seem tame by comparison. But ‘cooped up’ isn’t exactly the way I’d describe it. I’ve found myself watching the Everglades sky with as much excitement as I’ve watched for alligators. There’s so much of it that the vista seems almost top heavy, like it might tip over. In any other forest it takes a bird two, maybe three seconds, to fly from one tree to another and be lost from sight, but in the Glades I’ve watched flocks of ibis take what seems like an hour to wing across the endless blue sky. No, I think it’s the rest of the world that’s cooped up.”

  Rennie sighed, thinking of the place in which she had grown up, with its affluence and privilege. “Life can be so small and confined,” she muttered. And lives can be manipulated, she was tempted to add.

  Misreading her dejection as boredom, he offered, “If you’d like, we can go to a restaurant for dinner.”

  “No!” She startled herself with the quickness of her response. “I mean, thank you, but there’s no need. This is fine. Really.” She pulled open a drawer and fumbled with the utensils. She knew first-hand how wide-reaching and all-consuming Craig’s influence was. She’d be crazy to go to a restaurant, or any public place, and risk being recognized.

  John stirred the spaghetti in the boiling water, oblivious to the steam that rose from the pot and moistened the tips of his hair. She was afraid of something. Most of the times she was good at hiding it. But other times, like now, when least expected, it surfaced to haunt her, causing her hands to tremble and an almost imperceptible wince in her voice. Something had made her run from the cabin that fateful night she wound up in his arms. He hadn’t pressed her to reveal what it was then, and he wouldn’t now. But if she was entitled to her private demons, he was entitled to his, and it irked him when she changed the subject, unwittingly turning the tables on him.

  “You don’t remember hearing anything about a panther legend when you were growing up?” she asked as she felt her way around the table, setting it for two with napkins and utensils.

  Her question made his dilemma over whether to go out or to stay even more difficult. He knew how dangerous it was to stay there with her and suffer through her questioning, yet the way her cheeks were flushed with exasperation made her even more appealing and harder to resist. She moved about the room like a great cat, angry and graceful in the small space she was by now completely familiar with, his dark eyes following her relentlessly.

  “Is it really that important?” he asked.

  She took two plates down from the shelf, saying, “Yes. It is. I worked hard for that grant. I’d hate to think it was for nothing.”

  For the hundredth time he asked himself whether his own pursuit would, in the end, all be for nothing, and if the thirst for vengeance that drove him would ultimately lead to his own undoing. He knew that Rennie’s need to know about the legend went beyond her work. It went to the heart of her. To that place inside that said don’t ever give up no matter how dismal things seem. He understood because he had such a place inside of him.

  He shifted his gaze toward the window. The light beyond it was rapidly fading. Night was on the prowl, and that place inside of him was starting to ache. The voice that wasn’t a voice called to him from the swamp.

  He looked back at Rennie, at the soft curve of her hips as she moved, at the smooth golden hair that brushed her shoulders, at the gentle heaving of her chest as she breathed, at her smooth white hands. With an inner groan he tore his gaze away and looked back at the window, where the flickering light beckoned to him. Back again at Rennie, at the lips she wet with an unconscious lick of the tongue. And again at the window, where his destiny lay.

  Everything inside of him tightened and rebelled. He wasn’t even aware of crossing the floor, but suddenly he was standing before her. He took the plates she was holding and placed them aside. With his hands on hers, he stilled her motions.

  “I don’t want to go out tonight.” There was a low and urgent plea in his voice.

  Rennie stared blindly up at him, her head tilted questioningly, lips parted as if to ask why.

  “Give me a reason to stay.”

  Her normally pale face rapidly filled with color. Before she could take another breath, she was in his arms. Before she could think, his mouth was on hers. Before she could protest, she was kissing him back.

  His mouth was firm, not as impatient as the last time, but insistent, telling her he would accept nothing less than total surrender. With one arm snaked around her waist he pulled her so close that her body seemed molded to his, the fingers of his other hand splayed in her hair, pulling her head back so that his kiss could go still deeper.

  She offered no resistance when his lips moved to her throat. The moist heat of his tongue sent swells of pleasure through her as he bent her back from the waist, supporting her in one strong arm while tearing at the buttons of her shirt, sending one arcing into the air in his desperate desire to bare her flesh.

  Under his hand her breasts rose and fell with her quickening breath. Taut nipples strained against the heat of his palms. When she thought she could bear no more of the maddening caresses, his mouth came back to hers and she felt herself swept up into his arms, his lips never leaving hers.

  He carried her effortlessly to the closest thing, the table. With one sweep of his arm he sent the silverware clattering to the floor. She felt the cool, hard surface of the table at her back, contrasting with the hot, pliant body that covered hers.

  Her trembles excited him, but he wanted more. He wanted her hands on him like the last time. He wanted to feel the incredible heat of her, to drown in it, to let it consume him in torrid flames until he forgot everything else except her. He moaned roughly against her flesh when he felt her hand slip between their bodies to grasp him and stoke those flames into an inferno.

  She had never felt anything like the surging power of him. Nothing in this world had ever made her feel so mindless and aching and alive all at the same time. She wanted him to take her then and there on the hard table, but he had more in mind for
her than she could have imagined.

  His head moved slowly, torturously from her mouth to her neck, to her shoulders, across each breast, his thick, silky hair brushing her flesh, tongue gently tasting and teasing. He raised himself up over her and unzipped her jeans, exposing a triangle of pale flesh at her belly which quivered at the smooth glide of his tongue over it. His hands pulled at the denim fabric. She arched her body to help him strip off her jeans. They fell to the floor in a soft heap.

  She lay naked and open before him, inviting him, coaxing him, while the need for her vibrated through him. He wanted to experience all of her, to taste every inch of luscious flesh, to breathe into his being the fragrance of her. He bent over her and lowered his head and heard her moan his name when his mouth found the sweetest part of her. She dug her fingers into his hair, gasping. Her muscles tensed and rippled against his mouth as he took her in a way she’d never dreamed it was possible to be taken.

  Just when she thought the world would explode, he stopped the maddening kisses. His hair slid through her fingers that remained outstretched for him as he got up. His breathing was hard and furious as he tore at the snap on his jeans and savagely ripped open the zipper. When he was as naked as she was, he moved into the space between her legs.

  Her responsiveness overwhelmed him. All restraint had fled. All the barriers were broken. With her hand she guided him to the place she needed him to be and arched her hips to deepen his penetration. She heard herself calling his name in a voice that was rough with need. She clung to him mindlessly, a breath away from tears as they soared through space and time.

  Later, he carried her to the bed and they lay spent in each other’s arms, covered in darkness. There were no lights on in the cabin, and the moon must have been sequestered behind a cloud. As he lay there with his arms wrapped around her, he realized that in the darkness he was as blind as she was. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was, only that she was. In all of his memory he had never known a more perfect moment as this one. That very first day when he had carried her bruised and blistered body into the cabin, little could he have known the depth of her passion or the effect it would have on him.