Panther on the Prowl by Nancy Morse

Author:Nancy Morse
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-02-21T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The morning broke quiet and calm.

John sat with his back pressed against the trunk of a giant cypress tree, oblivious to the cobweb of moss that hung from an overhead branch, and brushed his face in the breeze as he watched the soft buttery light crest the trees and infiltrate the swamp. He hadn’t slept a wink all night, but neither had he gone in pursuit of that devil beast. Instead, he just sat there hour after lonely hour, reliving last night over and over again in his mind.

He’d left the cabin in the dead of night after he swore to himself that he wouldn’t. He had wanted to stay there with her, God how he’d wanted to. But the sound of her breathing as she slept, the smell of her, the very thought of her was too much to bear, and if he stayed, he would only have made love to her again. Racked with guilt over the danger he had put her in, he had dressed quickly and left.

He had walked aimlessly all night, driven by a host of emotions. He was angry at the weakness in him that had put her in such danger. Now, more than ever, he had to find that beast and kill it, before it took from him a woman who had somehow come to mean too much to him.

But it was more than anger that tore at him. The startling truth was that he was jealous of her relationship with another man. The thought of someone else touching her, kissing her, possessing her the way he had done last night drove him crazy. He didn’t need another obsession in his life, not when he already had one that threatened to destroy them both.

He looked around him. A curve of grass suddenly became a great blue heron. The bark of a dead cypress limb trembled and became a whippoorwill. A shred of white cloud tore off and turned into an ibis. But the magic was lost on him. For the first time in his life he did not see the swamp as a place of beauty and enchantment. On this warm summer morning, all it was to him was a place of heartache and loneliness.

The ground was squishy from last night’s rain. His shirt and jeans were still wet from the drops that had pelted him. The air was humid. And everywhere the mosquitoes buzzed maddeningly. He should have been used to them, but he wasn’t. Just like he would never get used to the loneliness.

He thought he had it all under control. He told himself that if it ever got too lonely, he could always go to the reservation anytime he wanted to see his mother. And old Willie Cypress came by to visit him every now and then, which helped break up the monotony of his self-imposed exile. But it wasn’t until Rennie fell into his life that he realized how all-pervasive that loneliness really was. How it invaded every corner of the cabin, every inch of the swamp, every fiber of his being.

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