Night of the Panther Read online

  The river where Johnny had found her was the nearest source of fresh water, and she and Johnny had traveled back to it several times to fill the small barrel he’d made from the bark of a birch tree. Now the thought of all that fresh running water on her hot, sweat-coated skin was enough to make her shiver with anticipation.

  A short time later she stood on the river’s turbulent banks, watching the churning white water and savoring the shade of the trees that bordered its shores. The rich scent of pine pierced her senses. The river was exhilarating and calming at the same time, she realized, exactly the sort of place where a soiled woman could cleanse body and spirit. Perhaps that sense of redemption and renewal was what she’d always loved about rushing water, even the stream where she and Johnny used to meet.

  Once she’d found a calm spot in the turbulence, she knelt on the river’s rocky shore to crush the aloe root she’d brought with her. Johnny had told her how to work the pulp into a foamy froth that would serve as soap.

  Moments later, naked as the day she came into the world, she crouched calf-deep in the icy mountain stream, washing out her camp dress and her underwear. When she was done, she laid the clothing out on the rocks to dry. Finally, freeing her braided hair—and her modest soul—she waded into the river and dived.

  The water was bracingly cold and heavenly wet, the answer to her dreams. Once the shock of its icy temperature had worn off, Honor swam and cavorted with a freedom she hadn’t felt since childhood, and perhaps not even then. The pressure of the water surging against her skin felt delicious, as did the bubbles that churned from the turbulence upstream.

  She dived deep and resurfaced again and again, letting the water stream over her body and flinging her head back to toss her hair off her face. Being naked was wonderful, liberating, and Honor was delighted at her own lack of inhibitions. Refreshed, she finally waded toward shore to get the aloe root and wash herself.

  Standing thigh-deep in the swirling currents, she soaped down her shoulders and arms with great satisfaction. She was getting ready to wash her hair when her pulse quickened in response to something she sensed more than heard. Above the rush of the water, a crackling sound caught her attention. She glanced up, scanning the trees, and spotted a sight that paralyzed her.

  A man was watching her, standing in the shadows.

  She couldn’t make out his features because of the light at his back, but she recognized his broad shoulders and his long hair. It must be Johnny, she realized. He’d been watching her bathe. Honor resisted the impulse to dive in the water and escape his eyes. Something held her there, barely breathing.

  She was sharply aware of her own nakedness, and of the effect it might have on him. She knew he must have fantasized about her; she had about him often enough. But she’d never imagined him watching her this way. Did she look the way he’d expected? She’d always thought of herself as too thin and pale. The kids had teased her about being all bones in high school. Did Johnny find her pretty? A desirable woman?

  All of those questions rushed through her mind as she glanced down at her own body and saw the beads of moisture clinging to her skin. Her breasts were full and flushed with color, perhaps from the invigorating swim. Whatever the reason, they looked larger than she remembered, and heavier. Her nipples were hardened and tingling.

  She felt a stirring of excitement as she surveyed her own jutting hipbones and the golden delta of hair that crowned her womanhood. The rise and fall of her belly as she breathed made her realize how sleek and sensual a woman’s body could look when sheened with water. She was seeing herself through a man’s eyes, through his eyes.

  She began to wash herself, drawing the foamy material across the rise of her chest. Bubbles streamed over her breasts and down her torso, clinging to the sensitive crests of her nipples and hiding in the crevice of her belly button. Her stomach muscles tightened as she imagined his finger tracing the same path.

  A shudder went through her that was as deep and sexual as anything she’d ever felt. Stimulation showered her senses. She was breathing deeply, heatedly. She wanted him, his touch. Johnny—

  A cracking sound exploded in her head. It sounded like a gunshot, but as her eyes flew open, she knew it must have been a twig snapping under someone’s foot. A man stood on the bank before her, as plain as day, but it took Honor several stunned seconds to come to grips with what she was seeing. He wasn’t Johnny.

  He was tall, even taller than Johnny, with storm-blown blond hair that swept back from his face and cascaded down his back. His brawny build and the black bandanna he wore tied around his head might have marked him as a biker if it hadn’t been for his marine fatigues. The olive-drab T-shirt and flak vest made him look like a soldier of fortune.

  “Who are you?” she breathed. Without waiting for the man to answer, she turned and plunged into the river.

  “Where is she?” Johnny was both angry and alarmed as he searched the empty campsite, looking for Honor. He’d returned, planning to break camp and head back to Whiteriver, and much as he might have wanted to, he couldn’t leave her behind in the mountains.

  He hadn’t completed all the tests required of him, but he’d had all he could handle of waiting for the spirits to speak and sleeping in a lean-to with a woman he wanted but was afraid to touch. He assumed she felt the same way. Now where the hell was she?

  After a quick search of the surrounding woods with no sign of Honor, Johnny returned to the campsite. He’d just set about dismantling the lean-to when he heard someone—or something—crashing through the trees toward the camp. He couldn’t imagine anything but a large animal making that much noise? A bear? Drawing the knife from his moccasin, he slipped behind the cover of the lean-to.

  “Starhawk?”

  The male voice sounded familiar, but Johnny watched and waited until the intruder came into view. He recognized the wild blond hair and black bandanna first. Johnny swore softly and rose from his hiding place as his former partner strode into the campsite. “Dias!” he growled in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

  Geoff Dias took one look at Johnny’s loincloth and roared with laughter. “They told me you were on some kind of quest, but I didn’t believe them. I had to check it out for myself! What are you doing, buddy? Playing cowboys and Indians?”

  “That’s right.” With a movement so swift it was barely discernible, Johnny sent his knife whistling past Geoff’s blond mane and stuck it in the snow-white back of an aspen tree just behind him. “And I’m damn good at it too.”

  Geoff glanced over his shoulder at the quivering knife handle. “Hey! Only kidding.”

  Johnny nodded and grinned. “Right, me too.”

  A moment later the two men, one dark as a jungle panther, the other tawny and golden as a mountain lion, were hugging and cuffing each other on the back.

  “What are you doing here?” Johnny asked, pushing his old friend away good-naturedly.

  Geoff chuckled, a wicked gleam in his rich green eyes. “You won’t believe me if I tell you. There’s some naked honey taking a bath down by the river.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah.” Geoff’s expression said what else? “She’s gorgeous, man, and hotter than the pistons on my Harley.”

  Johnny had a bad feeling about Geoff’s little adventure at the river. A very bad feeling. “What did she look like?” he asked.

  “A beauty. Long blond hair, long neck. Slim, but built—you know.” He cupped imaginary breasts and laughed, a husky male sound. “She looked right at me, man.”

  “She saw you?” Johnny’s hands curled into fists. “She knew you were watching her?”

  “Hell, yes, she saw me. I thought she was going to ask me to scrub her back.”

  By this time Johnny knew he had to be talking about Honor. How many women could there be on this mountain who fit that description? As Geoff went on, describing Honor’s body in detail, Johnny saw red. Blood red. For all of the emotion and heat and turmoil that he and Honor had been throug
h, Johnny had never seen her naked, and he couldn’t stand the thought that Geoff Dias had. He could easily have killed his long-lost buddy. At the very least he wanted to rearrange his handsome face.

  “Bastard,” Johnny muttered.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “You’re the problem!” Johnny snagged Geoff’s vest, jerked him forward, and launched a fist toward his chin. The blow that connected was an uppercut that should have knocked Geoff’s head off. When it didn’t, Johnny backed it up with a powerful left hook. The one-two punch set Geoff on his butt.

  Geoff shook his head like a stunned prizefighter. “What’s going on?” he said, glaring up at Johnny as he worked his jaw. “You got me all the way up here to fight?”

  Johnny had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean, I got you up here? What are you doing here?”

  “I got a call from a friend of yours. She said she was calling from the reservation, and you needed some surveillance done on a uranium-mining operation. When I showed up at Whiteriver, they told me you were up here.”

  Johnny was already regretting his decision to contact Geoff. He should have known better. Dias couldn’t be trusted around anything that shaved its legs, much less a beautiful woman. Since their glory days together rescuing POWs and hostages for the Pentagon, Geoff had become the “bad boy” of the American press. The fact that he was still doing recovery work on a mercenary-for-hire basis added to his roughneck glamour. Women couldn’t seem to resist the man’s raffish smile, and if that didn’t get them, the sexy, come-get-it-baby rumble of his motorcycle did.

  Still, the fact that Honor had contacted Geoff didn’t explain what he was doing up here in the mountains, skulking around like a Peeping Tom. “That operation’s in the hills near Coyote Gulch. Did you get lost trying to find it?”

  “I’m way ahead of you, Starhawk. I’ve already been to the site, and I’ve got all the evidence you’ll ever need.”

  Johnny rubbed his fist. He was still furious, but Geoff’s claim had piqued his curiosity. “Documented evidence?”

  “A photo album—you’ll love it. I’ve got copies of one of their own ‘confidential’ environmental impact studies, which shows the seepage from their holding pond is polluting the groundwater.”

  That might have been good news to Johnny under other circumstances, but he wasn’t in the mood to congratulate his ex-partner at the moment, or to explain why he’d tried to knock his teeth out. “How’d you get up here?” he asked.

  “Rode my bike until the trail gave out, then I hiked the rest of the way.” His dark gold eyebrows lifted innocently. “Did I come at a bad time? Woman trouble?”

  “You could say that.” Johnny’s cold laughter was meant to be anything but humorous. “Go back down and wait for me at the tribal headquarters in Whiteriver. I’ll be back tonight or tomorrow at the latest. We’ll talk then.”

  “No problem,” Geoff said, more than happy to end the hostilities. He pushed to his feet and brushed the dust from his jeans. Geoff Dias liked a good fight as well as the next guy. He was at least an inch taller than Johnny and probably outweighed him by fifteen pounds. But he’d known Johnny for a dozen years, ever since their days in the marines, and he knew what the half-breed Apache was capable of. Whatever had ticked his friend off this time, Johnny wasn’t just angry—he was in a murderous rage.

  Honor knew something was terribly wrong the moment she got a glimpse of the campsite. The roof of the lean-to had been demolished, and the coals from the fire were strewn everywhere. She called out Johnny’s name, half-afraid that the stranger who’d been watching her at the river would appear. Or that he’d already been there. Was he the one who’d destroyed their camp?

  “How was your swim?”

  The harsh question seemed to come from out of nowhere. Honor turned to see Johnny walking toward her from the gloom of the pine forest. She was instantly aware of the smoldering anger he carried with him like a shroud. “How did you know I was swimming?” she asked.

  “Your friend told me.”

  His voice was low, dangerously controlled. Honor wet her lips, sensing the kind of latent violence that would force such control. “He wasn’t my friend,” she said quickly. “I never saw him before. Do you know him?”

  “That doesn’t matter now. I want to know why you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Performed for him.”

  “I didn’t perform for him! How could you think that?”

  Hellfire leaped in Johnny’s dark eyes. “You knew he was there. You looked right at him.”

  “I couldn’t see him in the light. I knew someone was there, that’s all. I didn’t know who he was. He had long hair. I thought—” She broke off, realizing what she was about to say.

  “You thought what?” Johnny went still, as taut and alert as a big cat who’d caught the scent of his prey. “You thought what? That it was me?”

  She flushed hotly and looked away.

  Johnny’s heart was pounding thunderously. All he could see was the disarray of her still-wet hair, and the way her damp dress clung to her body. He couldn’t bear the thought of another man seeing her naked, lusting after her. But that didn’t drive him as wild as the possibility that she might have liked having another man’s eyes on her.

  “Honor . . . did you think it was me watching you?”

  With a sharp cry of defiance she met his eyes. “Do you wish it had been you watching me? Instead of him?”

  Jealousy ignited Johnny’s rage. Insanity reigned. He’d never wanted to manhandle a woman before, but that impulse was exploding through him now. He reached out, his hand shaking, and clenched his fist in the air. Yes, he wished it had been him, God, how he wished it had been him!

  “Get your clothes off,” he said, barely able to get the words out.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Strip down—the way you were at the river when you thought someone was watching.”

  She stepped back, fear rising in her eyes.

  But Johnny didn’t give a damn about her fear. He didn’t give a damn about anything but making her pay for the agony she was putting him through. The only thing that mattered to him now was personal pain, and personal justice. She could rip him apart with a word, a look. Now it was his turn to do some ripping, even if it was just her clothes.

  She turned as if to bolt, and he stopped her escape with one lunging step. “Show me what you showed him,” he said, burying his hand in her damp hair and pulling her to him. She went rigid in his arms, but her breasts were soft against his rib cage. Her heart was pounding like that of a wild animal.

  “Do it,” he said. “You performed for him. Now perform for me!”

  Honor choked back a cry of outrage. “No, I won’t!” She knew he was furious enough to hurt her, but she’d taken all the abuse she could tolerate. She couldn’t do what he asked. “Let go of me!”

  “Not until you’re naked.”

  He reached for the neckline of her blouse, and Honor twisted away, thrashing at him, screaming as his hand closed on the loose material. She reared back, and the placket of her blouse ripped out, buttons flying.

  “Let me go!” she cried, her fingernails raking down his arm. A soft gasp filled her throat when she saw what she’d done.

  Johnny grimaced in pain as he stared at the nasty crimson slash on his forearm. “You’ve drawn blood,” he said. “Again.”

  She tried to wrench away from him, a sob in her throat as he caught her by the wrist, locking her still.

  “Bastard!” She whirled on him, glaring at him furiously.

  Their eyes clashed and held, full of heat and fight and fury. The air came alive with their hot, panting breaths. Honor moaned, blinking away tears, refusing to expose any more of the hurt and anger she felt to his eyes. She would not cry. She would strangle on her own tears before she let that happen!

  Johnny tightened his grip, exerting a pressure that forced her closer. He loathed his own lack of control
, but emotion was battering him like a hailstorm. He wanted her with a passion that was blinding. And he resented her with that same staggering passion. That was what he couldn’t forgive, he realized. She had made him feel again. He hated her because he did feel something for her—something beautiful and terrible—even though he was desperate not to feel anything!

  He caught her by the arms, fury locked in his rigid muscles. The sight of her flying hair and flashing eyes aroused him to a fever pitch of pain and desire. “Bitch,” he whispered, the word shaking on his breath, as he lifted her to his mouth and kissed her.

  Honor stiffened against him for an instant, and then her body went limp. The touch of his lips sapped her of all strength. It dragged her under like the river. She couldn’t fight him any longer. If he was so determined to punish her for the past, then let him do it. She just wanted it over with. The panther had caught his prey. Now let him tear it apart, limb from limb, devour it.

  “I hate you,” Johnny breathed against her mouth. The emotion was raw, true. It came straight from his clenched gut. But his tone was hushed and reverent, and another word was locked in his heart, a word that was threatening to claw through his rib cage from the inside, to split open his chest.

  Love. He still loved her.

  The realization confounded him. It rocked him with wonder and despair. He didn’t want to let himself believe it, but the force of it overwhelmed him, pounding at him until he had no choice. He held her back, staring at her tear-streaked face and wild hair. “Honor?” he groaned, dragging her into his arms. “Honor, what is this? What are we doing to each other?”

  “Johnny,” she sobbed out, “I’m sorry.”

  Her broken cries came at him like physical blows. They knocked the sense out of him. He held her tightly, crushing her to him, his defenses destroyed. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He didn’t know how to stop the chaos. He had to be with her. He had to make love to her. There was no longer a choice. It had all caught up with him, all the wild longing, the desire to connect, the brutal need to love her, to hurt her.