Panther on the Prowl
Page 18
Rennie reached dejectedly for the cell phone. It was time to call Willie Cypress. Time for her to admit, however painfully, that she had lost.
She started to dial, when a sound close by drew her head up. Her eyes flared wide upon seeing him.
“John!”
It was part declaration, part gasp. Her first impulse was to run to him and throw her arms around him, but something stopped her. She searched his face, but found only an unreadable look fixed on those handsome features. Had he failed? Her heart wept for him and for herself.
He walked into the clearing. “I thought you would have been back at the cabin by now.”
There was no anger in his tone, no disillusionment. Nevertheless, it was with icy caution that she replied, “I was just about to call Willie.”
He couldn’t blame her for being angry with him for not returning last night. He glanced at the bed of leaves she had gathered beneath the branches. The thought of Rennie alone out here was not a pleasant one.
“Forget the call,” he said. “Why don’t you help me gather some firewood for tonight instead? I figured we’d spend another night here before heading back in the morning.”
Rennie glared back at him incredulously. “Another night? Here?”
He shrugged haphazardly. “Why not?”
She stormed up to him then. “I’ll tell you why not. Because you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to spend another night out here alone while you race off after that damned cat.”
“Well, actually—” he began.
“Never mind,” she said heatedly. “If you want to stay and continue this vendetta, you can do it without me. I don’t know, John, but maybe coming in and out of someone’s life is easy for you, but for me it’s hard.” Her face was flushed with angry emotion.
“What are you talking about?”
“About us. You and me. About you thinking you can just wander off and then wander back in. I’m talking about how hard it is for you to admit your feelings. How you think you have to shut them up inside until you settle the score with that cat. What is it you’re most afraid of, John? Loving someone, or being loved? Is it that you hate yourself so much that you can’t imagine someone actually loving you? Dear God, John, it was a mistake. A mistake! You didn’t set out to hurt anyone. It just happened. Don’t you see that?”
He came forward in several long, catlike strides. “Yes,” he said, “I see it. Somehow I got the two of us confused, me and the cat. All this time I thought it was him I hated, but you’re right, it was really myself. And for what? For something I did that I thought was right. For something that no longer matters.”
He shook his head with sad comprehension. “If it weren’t for you, I never would have realized it. I owe you my thanks.”
“Oh, God, John,” Rennie cried. “It’s not your thanks I want. It’s your love. But that’s something I know now I’ll never have. You loved Maggie, but that was before this thing with the panther, when it was possible for you to love without doubt or reservation or guilt. As long as that panther is still out there, you’ll never be able to love me the way I need to be loved, and I’ll never be able to accept the fact that he comes first.”
Her anger turned to sadness. “I’m sorry you didn’t catch him, John. Really I am. But if you think I’m going to wait around indefinitely until you do, then you haven’t learned a thing about me…or yourself, for that matter.”
“But I did catch him.”
Her look turned sharply skeptical. “I did,” he insisted.
Rennie struggled to make sense out of what he was saying. It was only when she looked at him, really looked at him, that she saw what she’d been too angry and hurt to see before. There was an expression on his face that could only be described as peaceful. The tension was gone from his brow. There was no trace of anger in his dark eyes, no sign of the usual disillusion tugging the corners of his mouth into a frown. In the starkly handsome face that looked back at her, she saw only honesty.
“Did you—” She bit her lip, nervously anticipating his reply.
He shook his head and gave a fateful little shrug. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill him.”
The revelation, coming so unexpectedly and so calmly, stunned Rennie. “You mean you let him go?”
“He’s just like me, Rennie. He can’t help being what he is. But that’s where the similarity ends. He can’t let his prey go, but I can. He can’t love, but I can. And I do. God, Rennie, I love you so much it scares me to death.”
In a soft, almost childlike voice she said with disbelief, “You do?”
“I told myself a hundred times that what I was feeling for you was wrong, but in the end, who am I to question it? I know I have no right to ask anything of you, least of all that you care for me, but I can’t let you go on thinking that I don’t love you. It would be dishonest.” He gestured to the phone in her hand. “If you want to make that call, I won’t stop you. But before you do, there’s something else you have to know. It wasn’t because of you that I caught him, but it was because of you that I let him go. In the end it was the easiest thing in the world to do, and you know why? Because you love me. And that’s what matters. It’s gone, Rennie. The past. The grief. The guilt. When that sun came up this morning, it brought a new hope for me and that hope, Rennie, is that you’ll stay. I can’t promise you lots of pretty things, but I can promise you my love. What do you say, blue eyes? Will you stick around one more night? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than make love to you in the grass.”
“And after tonight?” she questioned.
“After tonight we’ll have the rest of our lives.”
“And the panther? Will he be back?”
“I think he knows that I could have killed him but didn’t. We have nothing to fear from him. It’s over.”
Rennie melted into his arms that opened wide to receive her. A flutter caught in her throat, and in a breathy whisper she said, “I’ll stay. Tonight and forever.” She drew his head toward hers and kissed him deeply, sealing her promise.
In this place of sunlight and shadow, filled with stark reality and steeped in mystery, Rennie’s heart had found its home. This was where she belonged. This was her destiny.
While deep in the swamp, among a dwindling population, one big cat followed his own unique destiny.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0389-1
PANTHER ON THE PROWL
Copyright © 2002 by Nancy Morse
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