The Cowboy's Forever Family. Deb Kastner

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СКАЧАТЬ part he played in a cycle of vengeance begun by some ancient warrior and which lived on inside of him.

      Why couldn’t he have left the panther alone instead of tracking it relentlessly? Was it the panther that caused Maggie’s death, or was it really he himself for tampering with a greater plan and not leaving well enough alone? A year and a half later the questions remained unanswered. All that was left was the guilt, and an overriding vengeance for the panther. Yet as much as he hated the panther, that was as much as he blamed himself. For him, the only way to get past the sickening guilt was to kill the panther. It didn’t matter if it made any sense. It was just the way it was.

      In the distance through a break in the trees the sun was slowly sinking into the gulf. Fiery patches of orange and purple burst across the sky as if shot from cannons. It was the most beautiful and terrible time of the day, for soon it would be dark and the memories would come flooding back as they did every night. Sometimes just the sheer anticipation of it was more than he could bear.

      Tonight, however, in addition to the dark glimpses into the past, there was something else John was remembering, something he wished he could forget. He turned his head away from the spectacle of the setting sun and his own image in the windows that filled him with disgust, and looked at the woman sleeping in his bed.

      For three days she lay unconscious, like a beautiful star that literally fell from the sky, while he stared at her and remembered, to his intense dismay, what it was like to want a woman.

      Why did the frog hunter have to bring her here to him? Why did he have to feel things just from looking at her that he thought were dead inside of him?

      Even with bandages wrapped around her eyes, she was beautiful. Her tawny hair sparkled in the buttery light that penetrated the thick cypress branches. Her skin, paled by her ordeal, glowed iridescently. Her sightless blue eyes had beamed out blinding quantities of light when he had applied fresh bandages, taking his breath away unexpectedly.

      Her clothes were torn and scorched, but obviously expensive. Her hands were smooth-skinned and soft, bearing none of the calluses that scarred the palms of hardworking Seminole women. Her voice, weakened by the trauma and lulled by the infusion he’d given her, sounded different from any voice he’d ever heard. In it he could hear the culture and refinement that told him she was from a world very different from his.

      She was running away from something, of that he was certain. But he wouldn’t press her to reveal what it was. Who knew better than he did what it was like to run from something? He could not help but wonder as he watched her sleep how safe she would feel in his care if she knew that he had not been able to keep Maggie safe and the awful shame he carried over it.

      Growing up in the company of alligators and os-preys did little to prepare John for the unexpected and unwelcome company of a pampered socialite, which seemed to be what she was. Hell, he didn’t know anyone who flew their own plane. Again he reproached himself for the weakness in him that had him agreeing to let her stay. He hadn’t known he possessed such weakness, having worked so hard to harden his heart, until she’d asked, and he’d looked at her beautiful, pale face and heard her quivering voice and found himself acquiescing.

      Maggie’s death had driven him behind a defensive wall that showed dangerous signs of cracking with Rennie’s intrusion in his life. His all-too-human heart longed for a woman’s love, but a deeper, more primal part of him knew how dangerous it would be for him to love any woman. Look at what had happened to the last woman he loved.

      Well, he’d made the offer, now he would have to live with it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. He would be gone most of the day. He’d ask Willie Cypress to look in on her. Willie didn’t hunt frogs until night, and it was the least the old man could do to make up for dumping this trouble in his lap. At night he’d be gone, too, roaming beneath the stars as he did every night, following a primal instinct for revenge deep into the swamp and into the depths of his own soul.

      He wondered if someone like Rennie could ever understand the obsession he had to wander the swamp at night in search of some peace for his battered soul. Being a woman, would she see it as some irrational male thing?

      He told himself that his attraction to her was hormonal. Beauty and vulnerability. What man could resist such a lethal combination? It brought out a crazy notion to protect her, although the only thing to protect her from out here was himself. And the best way to protect her from himself was to not get involved, which was really a laugh considering that he was in it up to his eyeballs.

      John left his place by the window and crossed the room, his feet brushing the cypress planks with a noiselessness that came from years of tracking animals through the swamp. For many long moments he stared down at her. The brew he had given her would make her sleep through the night. Beyond the window some voiceless thing beckoned to him. Come. Hurry. The moon rises and it’s time to go hunting. If he left now, he would be back by sunrise and she would never know the difference.

      But he didn’t move, not while there was still a sliver of daylight left and it fell so bewitchingly upon her face. Not while he was caught up in remembering what it was like to hold a woman’s soft body in his arms and feel her breath against his neck.

      For just that moment the memory did not hurt. Instead, it gave him a feeling of undisciplined delight just to feel it again and to realize that he was human after all.

      Chapter 3

      “Don’t worry, she doesn’t suspect a thing. The wedding is in two months. If she finds out after that, I’ll handle it, but for now there’s too much riding on this marriage for anything to go wrong. That piece of prime coastal real estate is worth marrying a woman I don’t love.”

      The words haunted Rennie even now as she tossed and turned in a sleep from which there was no waking.

      She would never forget the look on Craig’s face as he talked on the telephone. She’d seen that look before—cold, inscrutable, wickedly determined—the night they met at a fund-raiser for the senator, when he asked her out and she declined, explaining that she had a faculty meeting to attend. His eyes had gone all cold and distant, and it was impossible to tell what he’d been thinking. In the next moment the chilling expression was gone, replaced by a smile friendly enough to charm a cobra. He’d asked her out for another night, making it clear that he would not take no for an answer.

      She should have gotten an idea then of the lengths he would go to, to get what he wanted. A successful land developer like Craig Wolfson didn’t get where he was by letting opportunities slip by. At the time she was flattered to think that what he wanted was her.

      He liked to boast that one of the advantages of being rich was possessing things that most people could not, like the expensive and illegal Cuban cigar he extracted from a silver-inlaid case and placed between his lips as he spoke. Even now, as she lay upon John Panther’s bed in the middle of the Everglades, her nose wrinkled at the awful smell of the cigar, and she shivered at the words that had been delivered like a slap across her face.

      But as she had stood in the doorway, her shock turned slowly to outrage, and then to anger, raw and hot. She stormed into the room, her face white with fury, and broke off the engagement. She had no memory of taking the private elevator downstairs to the lobby, or of the doorman who held the door for her and wished her a good evening. All she could think about was the cold certainty with which he had assured her that the wedding would take place as she fled in tears.

      Why hadn’t she noticed his condescending attitude before? Or that little smirk that she mistook for a smile? She had such little experience with love, how was she to know that she had been fooled by a clever manipulator?

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