Nancy Morse - Panther On The Prowl

“The tribal council donated the money for my tuition. At that time I was one of the few of my people to even go to college, so I felt it was my duty to make them proud of me.”

“Duty,” she repeated dispassionately. Yes, she knew all about duty. Duty to a mother who married both times strictly for money and who tried to convince her to do the same. And duty to a stepfather who insisted that marriage to Craig Wolfson was the best thing for her. Maybe that was her problem: believing someone else always knew what was best for her.

“It’s a funny thing about duty,” she muttered. “While you’re busy fulfilling your duty to others, you can lose sight of your duty to yourself.”

“Are you talking from experience?”

“Some families are just more complicated than others,” she answered. “And you? Do you have any family?”

He didn’t mind her questions, as long as they did not delve too deeply or were too difficult for him to answer. “My mother lives on the reservation. I have an older brother who raises cattle. He’s divorced. He has a son in high school who likes to dress in baggy jeans and hundred-and-twenty-dollar sneakers and who spends his time watching MTV.”

“You sound as if you don’t approve.”

“Seminole parents send their kids to public school so they’ll be able to compete, but too often the kids forget the old ways. I guess it’s hard for a kid to go to school and at the same time learn his own culture. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great kid. He’s also Seminole and doesn’t know the difference.”

“You don’t seem to have forgotten the old ways,” Rennie observed, “if that tea you made is any proof of it.”

“That’s because my mother resisted every effort to Americanize my brother and me. When other parents were encouraging their kids to speak only English, my mother never gave up the old language at home. She taught us about healing, how to strain the poisonous juices from the otherwise edible roots of the coontie plant, how to clear brush for a garden, to gather palmetto fronds for thatching, to pole a dugout canoe, to hunt deer. Whatever I needed to know as a Seminole she taught me.”

“And your father?”

He replied matter-of-factly, “He ran out on us when we were kids.”

“And here I thought I had it rough when my father died when I was eight. At least he didn’t leave on purpose.”

“I don’t blame my father,” said John. “Not anymore. He’s like the rest of us. We can’t help being who we are. He was the restless kind who tried his hand at a lot of things. Beekeeping, trapping, cane grinding, running an airboat, gambling. There was always a poker game going in the back room when I was a kid. But I guess the thing he was best at was roaming.”

There was a faint fondness in his tone that children and grown-ups alike often have for a parent who has forsaken them, a love that suffers countless disappointments yet never quite goes away. To hear him speak about the father who deserted him, she realized that his feelings were no different from hers for the father who had died, and it made her feel a special kinship with him despite their differences.

“Why aren’t you raising cattle like your brother?”

Solemnly he said, “I guess you could say it’s my destiny to be here.”

How could he explain that the lure of the wild Everglades was too much for him to ignore? That this was where his heart belonged and where fate decreed that he be? Destiny. Fate. Curse. Whatever he called it, it all boiled down to one thing. He and this land were entwined in the deepest and darkest sense.

He touched his hand to her elbow and turned her gently around. “I think we should go back inside.”

Rennie was curious about the enigmatic man, but other than a few superficial facts about himself, she knew she would learn no more from him for now, for in the taut silence that followed them back into the cabin, she got the distinct feel of a door being shut in her face.

“If you’re not going to be around much, perhaps you should show me where things are,” she suggested.

John’s dark, quiet gaze strayed to the window. Again he thought of nightfall, when the haunting from the swamp would grow and obsess him. It usually began around that time of day when it was no longer light but not quite dark, that lazy limbo in which time seemed to stand still. And then, almost suddenly it seemed, it would be dark, and the longing that haunted him quietly by day would turn into full-blown obsession.

None of that would happen yet for many hours. But no matter how much he dreaded the approach of darkness, for the first time in a long time he could not wait for it to fall across the land. All the wild things of the night could not be as dangerous to him as this slender, tawny-haired woman was right now. Sure, they liked the same kind of soup. And okay, so maybe the loneliness they each experienced at college was not so very different. And losing a father was always tough under any circumstance. All right, so for some crazy reason they had these things in common. It didn’t mean she would understand the part he played in Maggie’s death and not hate him for it as much as he hated himself. Where would he even begin to tell her about it?

“John?”

Her soft voice called him away from the window and his tortured thoughts. “I heard you. I was just wondering where to begin.”

“Why don’t we start with the kitchen?”

There was no way to avoid taking her hand again and feeling her heat as he guided her through the doorway into the kitchen. He took her slowly around the small room, waiting patiently as her hands moved tentatively and then grew more confident as they explored the refrigerator, the stove, the sink, the cabinets.

“Soup,” he explained, when she examined the cans in the cabinet. “It shouldn’t be hard to remember that tomato is on the left, chicken noodle’s in the middle and minestrone is on the right.”

Disheartened, she said, “My life has been reduced to right and left.”

“There’s no guarantee that you’ll see again, but there’s no reason to think you won’t.”

Her shoulders slumped. The world was a scary place when you couldn’t see. Not knowing what was out there and whom to trust. Sometimes it was even scarier when your eyes were wide open. When you let yourself be swayed by what others thought was best for you. When you were too blind to see the mistakes you were making.

Rennie sighed and turned toward the sink. “Does this need washing?” she asked of the ceramic bowl in the sink.

“Yes, but—”

“Just because I feel like an invalid doesn’t mean I have to act like one.” Feeling around, she turned on the water, found a sponge and what she assumed was a plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid and proceeded to wash the bowl.

John gave her credit for trying, even if she did leave soap in the bowl after rinsing it.

“Where does it go?”

“In the cabinet. Top shelf.”

She reached up on tiptoe to place the bowl on the shelf, but when it wouldn’t quite reach, he stepped forward to give her a hand. His arms swept past her on either side to grasp the bowl that teetered on the edge of the shelf. The hard-muscled length of him came up against her as he leaned forward to push the bowl into place. For several moments neither of them moved. His hands came to rest palms down on the counter on either side of her. She could feel his arms coming to rest a hairbreadth from her body, which had gone all rigid.

“Turn around.”

The plea in his voice made Rennie catch her breath. She was confused and afraid. It was one thing to fantasize about him, but quite another to actually give in to this crazy attraction she felt for a man she couldn’t see.

“It’s not what you think,” he said. “I want to say something to you, and even if you can’t see me, I want to say it to your face. Turn around.” His tone was demanding, the plea slightly more urgent than before.

Rennie turned slowly around, brushing against his arms that did not withdraw until she was facing him. She knew that his eyes were upon her and felt herself melting from their heat.

“Please understand,” he said. “I would have taken you in even if you weren’t as beautiful as you are. And as far as telling no one that you’re here, I’ll respect that. But don’t expect anything more from me. The fact is, I’m going to stay as far away from you as I can get. Believe me when I say it’s for the best.”

Rennie was aghast. “If you’re assuming that I want more from you than a place to stay, you’re mistaken.”

“All I’m saying is, the imagination can play powerful tricks on us, and we all make mistakes when we’re feeling helpless.”

“I see,” she said tersely. “And I suppose that was my imagination just now when you leaned against me? That’s funny, because it felt more like—”

“I never said I wasn’t attracted to you,” he said. His arousal had been instantaneous and her alluding to it was embarrassing. “But let’s be frank. You didn’t exactly move away, either. And that’s the problem.”

“If there’s a problem here, it’s yours,” she said. “I’m not in the habit of passing myself around like a dish of salted peanuts, and certainly not to a man I don’t know.”

“And if I were to kiss you right now, what would you do?”

What would she do? Scream? Slap him? Melt into his arms and cling to his strength as if for dear life? For all she knew, the man resembled Godzilla. But what difference did that make? It wasn’t his face she was attracted to. It was his strength, his kindness, his difference. Even the distance he placed between them only drew her closer. It was the way he asked no questions. It was the honesty with which he confessed his own attraction to her. It was the plea in his voice when he said it, as if he were begging her not to test him. It was all that and everything she didn’t know about him. It was, simply, him.

How was it possible to feel such attraction to a man she couldn’t see, or to feel a longing for a man she had known for only a brief time? It had to be that she was feeling lonely and vulnerable in the aftermath of her experience with Craig.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I’d like to lie down.”

She made her way out of the kitchen on her own. With her hands outstretched before her, she groped her way back to the bed and sank down onto the soft mattress.

John let her go without offering assistance. She was right, it was his problem. He had created it a year and a half ago and now he was suffering the consequences of his actions in a way he never could have imagined. It was useless to deny his attraction to her, yet he could do nothing about it, and maybe that was the price he had to pay for his guilt.

Her voice from the bed called him away from his dark thoughts. “You’ve done so much for me.”

The soft, lilting tone should have warned him that it wasn’t as simple as that, but there was something about her vulnerability that drew him, and he heard himself say, “If there’s anything else I can do…” his words trailed off awkwardly. What could she possibly want from him other than a place to stay?

“Actually, there is. You can help me with my work while I’m here.”

“I don’t know much about anthropology.”

“Maybe not, but you must know about Seminole folklore.”

He looked at her curiously. “Why do you want to know about that?”

“I was recently awarded a grant to study the myths and legends of the Seminole people. That’s what I was on my way to do when my plane went down. I was looking for an airstrip. There’s supposed to be one at about 25© longitude.”