Читать книгу Panther On The Prowl - Nancy Morse - Страница 7

Rennie Hollander was desperate.

The practiced hands at the controls trembled and her usually steady grip was scared and unsure as she piloted the single-engine Cessna southward, hugging the Florida coastline.

All around, lightning snaked the black sky. The sudden, violent thunderstorm that ripped through the night shortly after takeoff should have forced her to turn around and head back to Palm Beach International, but the radio frequencies were flooded with diverted pilots trying to talk to tower controllers. And besides, it would have been a mistake to go back.

Fixing her coordinates, she flew on into the thick night. The steady hum of the engine was the only reassuring thing as the plane bumped its way through the turbulence.

South Florida was called the lightning capital of the world. It was a reputation well deserved, Rennie thought grimly. Two years ago the senator’s caddy was struck and killed by lightning on the tenth hole, and last summer a workman repairing the roof of the guest house was knocked into the air by a bolt of lightning.

Rennie knew from the weather report she received before take off that she was taking a chance flying in such weather, but she was an experienced pilot, and desperate to get away.

Far below, the Everglades stretched into the darkness. Rennie shuddered, recalling the only time she had ever been to the Everglades. It was the summer after her father died, when her mother’s friend, Senator Trevor Hollander, took her on an airboat ride. Of course, he wasn’t a senator back then, merely an overambitious businessman eager to impress an eight-year-old and her wealthy, widowed mother.

She found the place treacherous and frightening, with alligators sitting like partially submerged logs in the still water. Yet to her child’s eye it was also strangely beautiful. Though Rennie had been too young to understand the dichotomy, the Everglades haunted her until she grew older and came to realize the place mirrored her own life, for it, too, was filled with beautiful things and long, endless stretches of loneliness.

In the years following her mother’s marriage to the senator, the conflict within her deepened. Hers was the kind of life that most people only dreamed about, with private flying lessons, the best schools, summers in Southampton, winters in Palm Beach. But like the vast wetland somewhere down there in the darkness beyond the plane’s window, Rennie felt empty and alone. Something was missing. She referred to it as her missing link.

The family wealth notwithstanding, Rennie preferred to earn her own living as a professor of anthropology with the University of Miami. Her work gave her life some focus. She didn’t earn much, but at least she earned it herself. Besides, there was always the trust fund to fall back on. Not that she needed it. She already had everything she could want—except, of course the things that really mattered, like the love she lost when her father died and the attention she rarely received from a mother who had been too busy hosting lavish parties and fund-raising events for her husband.

Growing up, money had always been the only constant thing in her life. The more she had of it, the less she needed of everything else. But as she grew older, what was once difficult for a little girl to understand became frighteningly clear to the woman she had become. Where was the desire? The need? The sheer necessity for life? That old missing link churned deep inside, filling her with the need to need something…someone.

She had thought her fiancé, Craig Wolfson, was that someone. She’d met the handsome land developer at a fund-raising party for the senator. A whirlwind courtship led to a proposal of marriage. Craig would make a good husband, she had reasoned much the way her mother had reasoned that the senator would make a good husband after Rennie’s father died. Rennie hadn’t cared that she wasn’t head-over-heels in love with Craig. He was good-looking, smart, successful and utterly devoted to her. Almost too good to be true. Besides, the senator approved the match, and the senator always got what he wanted. Thank God she found out about Craig in time and broke off the engagement.

Rennie’s fingers gripped the stick tighter, knuckles whitening under the pressure as she contemplated the consequences of her actions. She didn’t want to be there when the Senator returned from Washington and learned what she had done.

Glancing up she noticed that the landing-gear-indicator light had burned out. Routine, she told herself. No reason to panic. And she didn’t, until several moments later, when the engine didn’t sound right.

Apprehension darted through her like a hard-driven nail. Like it or not, she had to turn around and return to the airport.

It was in the midst of a banked left turn to head back when the engine went to takeoff power. That’s when the world exploded.

There was a horrible noise, followed in less than a heartbeat by a jolt that pitched Rennie forward in her seat. A ferocious heat welled up behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know that the plane was on fire and that she was going to crash.

There was a bone-shattering thud when the plane hit the ground. Cushioned by the soft, damp earth, it remained in one piece. Rennie was shaken violently from side to side as the tail section spun around and around, churning over the muck and saw grass.

When the plane finally came to a stop, Rennie found herself miraculously alive and pinned beneath the wreckage. Jet fuel from the engine poured on her. Her fingers clawed at the seat belt. In her frenzy she got it unbuckled. Disentangling herself from the wreckage, she fell out of the plane into the swamp.

Worse than the awful sound of the crash was the crushing silence that greeted her. There was no noise, no movement, no life, it seemed in the cold, raw darkness that swallowed her up. She stumbled away from the plane, mindless of injuries and fearful of the sinister creatures that lurked in the swamp. Alligators came to mind. Snakes. And panthers. God only knew what was out there. It was so dark she couldn’t see a thing. Then a startling realization came over her. The darkness all around her was not caused by the veil of night or because her eyes were shut. Her eyes were, in fact, wide open. She blinked several times just to make sure. Yes, open. Her hands went up to her eyes, and she cried out at the horribly painful touch of her fingertips. With a strangled sob she realized that she could not see.

Panic unlike anything Rennie had ever known seized her, constricting the breath in her throat and threatening to choke her with fear. It was then that she began to scream.

In her terror, Rennie did not hear the sound of the frog hunter’s airboat. In her blindness, she did not see the light on his helmet leading him through the dark swamp to the woman who had collapsed unconscious on the soft, wet ground.

Images darted out of the darkness. Distorted images of Craig, his eyes filled with the same arrogance she had heard in his voice that night she stood in the doorway listening to him speak to someone on the telephone.

She had gone to his apartment to tell him the news that she’d been awarded a grant to study the myths and legends of the Seminoles. Letting herself in with the key he’d given her, she overheard him telling someone on the telephone of his plan to build a high-rise condominium on a prime parcel of coastal real estate he was receiving as a wedding gift. All he had to do was make a sizable donation to the senator’s reelection campaign…and marry a woman he didn’t love.

Rennie was devastated. She knew the senator had promised Craig the land, but she never dreamed that it was the only reason he was marrying her. It had all been a charade—their first meeting, the courtship, everything had been carefully orchestrated by Craig to get the land.

She thought that marrying Craig was a way to test her independence and find some shelter from the influence of her family, but his betrayal only proved that she hadn’t been making the right choices for herself. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to see. Maybe she’d been unconsciously trying to replace the father she lost at an early age. Whatever the reason, the eye-opening experience drove home the realization of just how important it was for her to stand on her own two feet and not to depend on someone else for happiness, especially someone as controlling as Craig.

Rennie struggled to awaken, but unconsciousness maintained its tenacious hold, and all she could do was thrash this way and that in a vain attempt to block out the images.

The images faded and returned and faded again until, in the end, she sank even deeper, to a place where there were no memories or images, only a nothingness in which to take refuge.

It could have been minutes, hours or days before she crawled painfully awake out of unconsciousness. There came to her the smell of the damp earth. It seemed somehow familiar, but her mind was hung with moss and cobwebs and was unable to make a connection.

Slowly she became aware of the sounds around her, the hum of insects, a bird’s cry in the distance, and a strange shhh that she could not identify, beckoning her into a state of semiawareness. Uncurling her fingers, she splayed them against the soft fabric on which she lay. Cotton, worn fine by age and cool to the touch.

She did not have to open her eyes to know that she was awake. Yet when she tried to open her eyes, she could not. Was she still dreaming? No, she was sure she was conscious. She could feel a thin ray of sunshine on her face and the dryness in her throat. Why, then, couldn’t she see? Her hands moved cautiously upward, coming to within inches of her face and pausing. She tried with a desperate force of will to tell herself that everything was all right, but when her trembling fingers felt the gauze that covered her eyes, she knew in one great gasping breath that it wasn’t.

A scream welled up within her but no sound emerged as darkness came again like a cold wind, wrapping chilly arms around her and leading her back to unconsciousness.

She had no idea how long she lay there, slipping back and forth from reality to dark dream. In the place in which she hovered, time had no meaning. It could have been day. It could have been night. She didn’t know where she was, or even if she was. For all she knew she was dead, and this was what heaven was like…or hell.

It went on like that until something called her away from the darkness and back to the conscious world. It was the touch of hands working with amazing gentleness to peel the dressing away, hands of mercy applying a soothing compress to the burned skin around her eyes, followed by fresh gauze.

Her voice, unsure and untested, scratched painfully at the back of her throat and emerged as a husky whisper. “Am I in a hospital?”

“No.”

The singular word uttered in a deep pitch that was both unfamiliar and unfriendly made her shudder.

“Wh-where am I?”

“You’re at my place.”

There was no mistaking the inhospitable edge to the voice that spoke, conflicting sharply with the tenderness of the hands that applied fresh gauze to her eyes.

There was a scent about him, of the forest and the damp soil, a scent that Rennie found both comforting for the mother-earth images it conjured up, and frightening with visages of wild things.

She could feel his presence in the very air she breathed, and she wondered how it was possible to be so aware of a man she could not even see.

She drew back, partly out of caution—she had no idea who he was—but mostly from the unanticipated warmth that began at the tips of her fingers and spread clear down to her toes. Appalled at such a reaction at a time like this, she waved his hands away, questioning, “Who are you?”

“My name is John Panther.”

Her mind clouded by the effects of unconsciousness, she echoed, “Panther? Is that some kind of joke?”

“Not that I know of.”

There was a hint of something savage in the deep-throated reply, of wildness and regret and things that Rennie didn’t understand. “I-I’ve never heard a name like that.”

“It’s not so uncommon in these parts.”

“Where are we?”

“In a place called Big Cypress Swamp.”

“Where…?”

“You’re in the Everglades,” he said flatly.

Yes, she remembered now, all that black, wet land stretching for miles in every direction. She began to grow even more afraid. “How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

She found it hard to imagine that she had been unconscious for three whole days, when it seemed like only moments ago her world exploded.

“Why are my eyes bandaged?”

“They were badly burned. The gauze is necessary to keep the area clean to prevent infection.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, but I know a few things about healing with plants and herbs.”

Rennie’s mind struggled to assimilate the information it was receiving and make some sense out of it. Everglades? Plants and herbs? A name like Panther? “What are you?” she asked. “An Indian?”

He answered stoically, “Seminole, to be precise.”

That would explain the essence of something wild that she felt about him, but what was the reason for that inhospitable tone of voice? She sank down onto the mattress…his mattress…his bed. She could smell it now, the scent of the Everglades, the scent of him, lingering on the pillow as her head fell back onto it.

She was scarcely aware of his footsteps retreating to the opposite side of the room, or of the quiet stirrings of his movements as he went about doing whatever it was he was doing. Within minutes he returned. The edge of the bed sank from his weight when he sat down beside her.

“Here. Drink this.”

His hand moved to the back of her head, strong fingers entwining in her hair as he lifted her head and urged a cup to her lips.

Rennie sipped the hot liquid that tasted like tree bark and dirt, and wrinkled her nose. “What are you trying to do, poison me?”

“It’s just an infusion of valerian root to calm you and some local plants to help ease the pain.”

In no time the raw pain around her eyes began to subside and her nerves started to feel a little less frayed around the edges.

The rough, unfriendly voice asked, “Do you remember what happened?”

For all its healing qualities, however, the hot tea could not erase the memory of the accident. She began to cry, the salt of her tears stinging the burned skin beneath the gauze, her shoulders softly shaking.

“It was so horrible. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

“Well, you’re safe now.”

But Rennie took little comfort in his taut assurance. Safe? From the plane crash, perhaps, but what about what she was running from? She would be a fool to think that Craig would let her get away so easily. He had entirely too much at stake, as he had caustically reminded her that night before she had fled in tears.

“Safe. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Panther.”

“We don’t stand on ceremony here. You can call me John.” Again, that reluctant tone. “And what do I call you?”

Her muscles tensed despite the calming effects of the tea. “My name is Rennie.”

She didn’t want to tell him that Rennie was short for Renata, or that she was the stepdaughter of Trevor Hollander and the runaway finacée of multimillionaire land developer Craig Wolfson, so she used the name her father used to call her, one she hadn’t heard for twenty-five years. She hoped he would not press her to reveal her last name. She’d never been a very good liar, and loathed the thought of having to make one up. His motive for helping her might be different if he knew that she came from a wealthy family, so she reasoned that it was better if he didn’t know who she was and what she was running from.

“Is there anyone I can contact for you?”

“No.” She spoke a little too quickly. Forcing a calm into her voice that she did not feel, she explained, “There’s no one. My parents are deceased, and I have no brothers or sisters.”

It was true, of course. Her impervious mother died a few years ago, her beloved father when she was young enough to feel the impact for the rest of her life, and she was an only child. Nevertheless, she felt as guilty as if she had blatantly lied to him.

Skirting the evasion, she ventured to ask, “Do you know how long it will take for my eyes to heal?”

“The skin around them will heal in a few weeks. As for your sight…only time will tell.”

“Am I…blind?”

“I had a doctor come by to examine you. He’s a Seminole healer from Big Cypress who’s also a licensed physician. He says your blindness is caused by a swelling of the optic nerve. In most cases the swelling eventually subsides and sight is restored.”

Rennie sucked in her breath at his brutal honesty.

“Would you rather I lie to you?” he asked.

No, not another lie. She didn’t think she could stand it. As far as she was concerned, the truth was infinitely preferable under any circumstance because at least it left you with some dignity.

Softly she said, “No lies.”

“In the morning I’ll take you to a hospital. The nearest one’s about fifty miles from here.”

“I would prefer not to go to a hospital.”

She held her breath, praying he would not press the issue and grateful that the bandages hid the fear that must surely be written in her eyes. She’d be crazy to check into a hospital, even under a fictitious name. If Craig found out that her plane went down, he would no doubt give her description to every hospital on the eastern seaboard. She could not take a chance on him finding her, not until she was able to think clearly—when her sight was restored and she could look him in the eyes and tell him what a despicable human being he was, although never seeing him again would also suit her just fine.

“Home, then?” that deep voice asked.

That was the first place Craig would look for her. She shook her head. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable stumbling around in the dark by myself.”

Rennie wasn’t eager to return to the life she left behind, to an overbearing stepfather, a fiancé who deceived her and a world in which the only decision she ever made for herself was the one to study anthropology, much to the displeasure of the senator who had other aspirations for her. Initially her desire to study the past was a way for her to connect with her own lost past, the one that ended with the death of her father. She never expected that she would come to love her work as much as she did, nor that her struggle to reconcile her past would lead her to this place.

“You’ve got to stay somewhere,” he said.

But for Rennie it wasn’t that simple. It had been easy for her to think that Craig was the answer to her self-sufficiency. Easy to imagine herself happily married to a man she now knew would have been as controlling as the senator. Easy to see her mistakes when, because of her blindness, she was unable to see anything else. For now, however, she was grateful for the gauze that sealed her sight, for despite John Panther’s unfriendly tone, she felt safe in his care.

“Couldn’t I stay here?”

She knew by the palpable silence that filled the room that he didn’t like the idea. Inwardly she cringed. Where had she gotten the nerve to ask such a thing? But desperate problems called for desperate solutions and brought out a certain recklessness she didn’t know she had when next she said, “I could pay you.”

He answered with wry annoyance, “With what? Whatever money you had with you is buried beneath the wreckage.”

Another man might have asked how much, and then been slack-jawed when she named a ridiculously high figure. She was no longer afraid to hide her wealthy background, because she also sensed that he was the kind of man who could not be paid off or bargained with.

“It’s just that…” She searched for the words to tell him why she couldn’t go back just yet without revealing things he had no right to know. “I can’t go back. Not yet. Not like this.”

She heard him expel a sharp, impatient breath and then say, with undisguised reluctance, “All right. You can stay here.”

Rennie drew in a deep breath of relief. “Thank you, John. You have no idea what this means to me.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he warned. “It can get pretty lonely out here. In a few days you just might change your mind and run screaming back to civilization.”

It wasn’t civilization she needed right now. It was peace and quiet and a safe place in which to heal not only her sightless eyes but her bruised emotions as well. It wasn’t easy finding things out about yourself that you didn’t like, and Rennie was no exception. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” she said. “You’ll be here, won’t you?”

“I have my work to do. I’ll be gone most of the day…” There was a pause, almost imperceptible except to someone whose hearing was already sharper to compensate for what her eyes could not see, and then he added “…and the night.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a biologist with the Everglades Research Center.”

“What do you research?” She was desperately tired and struggling to stay awake, but a part of her wanted to know…needed to know…more about the man in whose care she was entrusting herself. He could have been an ax murderer, for all she knew. But there was nothing sinister in the air around him, no hint of danger or violence. And except for that unsettling scent that hovered about him, of something wild and unforgiving, she felt no menace from him.

“I study the ecosystem of the swamp and monitor the animal population.”

“At night?” she questioned.

“There are creatures that live in the swamp that come out only at night.”

“Creatures?”

“Don’t worry. They won’t bother you here.”

Rennie didn’t share his confidence. “Are we near anything? A town or a village?”

“There’s nothing for miles.”

That would account for the acute loneliness that seemed to pervade every corner of the room. The secluded place, made even more secret by her sightlessness, made Rennie feel lost.

“You live here all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

The deep, single-word reply made her shiver. What kind of man shunned the company of others, preferring to live among the creatures of the swamp? What caused that alienating tone in his voice? Why did she sense that, despite the invitation, she was not welcome?

A part of her didn’t want to know. And maybe none of that mattered. She was safe, for the time being at least, and that’s what was important to her. Later, when she could think more clearly, she would decide what to do. Later, when her sight was restored and she could see the face of the man whose very essence was in the air she breathed.

Her exhausted mind battled to stay awake as her head grew heavy. “What if—” The words, almost too unbearable to utter, emerged as a choked whisper. “What if my sight doesn’t return?”

The wooden planks beneath his feet squeaked when he stood up and walked away. “There are no guarantees in life.”

There was no harshness in his voice, only a ring of hopeless resignation, as if he knew firsthand about there being no guarantees in life, and Rennie could not help but wonder what it was that had wrung all the hope out of him.

She felt herself growing drowsy. Her own voice sounded far off, her words as if she’d had too much to drink. “What did you put in that tea?”

“Something to make you sleep.”

She smiled weakly. “An old Indian remedy?”

“Nothing you can’t buy at a health food store.”

He was annoyed, but she was neither worried nor frightened. For one thing she was feeling far too light-headed to entertain any dangerous notions about him. For another, even in her muddled state something told her that beneath the annoyance and unfriendly tone beat the heart of a kind man. Why would he bother to help her if he were not good-hearted? The undercurrent of wildness she had initially perceived about him must have been the workings of a weak and vulnerable imagination.

The protective arms of sleep wrapped around her, drawing her to its breast as it whispered words of gentle comfort into her ear. She tried hard to concentrate on what it was saying and was surprised to find that it wasn’t words at all. It was a sound, an easy shhh somewhere beyond these walls.

In a small voice that hovered midway between conscious thought and dream, she breathed, “That sound. What’s that sound?”

“That’s the saw grass,” he said. “A river of grass swaying in the breeze.” His voice was low with reflection from across the room. “Sometimes I can sit and listen to it for hours. If you wade into it and look down, you can see the water moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, past your feet. So gradually it makes you wonder whether we move through life or life moves past us.”

But Rennie wasn’t listening. She was asleep, lulled into slumber by the effect of the tea, the shhh of the saw grass, and John Panther’s hypnotic, regretful voice.