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,
