For a brief minute, Pam considered countering with a threat of her own.She ached to call his bluff.But she couldn’t.Marcy’s well-being was at stake, as was the house in Timiny Cove.Tarnishing John’s image was nothing compared to the loss of either of those.
The days that followed were long and tense.John seemed to take pleasure being around her, eyeing her inhis scornful way, knowing that his presence was a threat.She couldn’t move into the dorm until the Sunday night before classes resumed.Meanwhile, she was stuck at home.
She spent a good deal of time trying to persuade Marcy to look for another job.“Daddy hired you for me as much as for the house.If I won’t be here, what’s the point of your staying?You could be doing the same work for someone far more reasonable than John.”
“He pays me well, Pam.I couldn’t match that somewhere else.”
“Would it be so terrible to take less money?”
“I need it.”
“For your mother?”
Marcy nodded.“Things are real bad between her and Jarvis.I give her everything I can.”
Judging from what she saw, Pam believed that.Marcy lived simply.She bought few clothes, cut her own hair, and most often spent her days off babysitting for the three-year-old son of the housekeeper who worked around the corner.“I could help.”
Marcy shook her head.“You don’t have extra money.”
“I do too.I don’t need all I have.”
“I won’t take your money!”
“Then let me make some calls.Someone must need help—either my friends’ parents or one of my mother’s old friends.Maybe the pay wouldn’t be so bad.”
“But the freedom wouldn’t be the same.I get up to Timiny Cove one or two times a month to tend to the house.John pays me, but I get to go home, too, and he letsme use the car.He even helps out with the medical bills at my ma’s.I can’t afford to quit, Pammy.”
That was pretty much what John had told Pam, and it angered her.Cutter was right: John bought people; he gave them what they badly needed, then held the threat of withdrawal over their heads.She wanted only the best for Marcy, but the day when she could guarantee it herself was a long way off.
Everything good seemed a long way off.Pam brooded on that during the nighttime hours when she lay awake with her eyes on the bedroom door.She felt constrained and defenseless.If she were older, she’d be safe.She’d have money to use at her own discretion.She’d come and go at will.She’d be free of John.
If she were older, she’d have Cutter.She would be in a position to offer him a place in the company, and he’d do well.He was too smart not to.He could wear a tie and jacket as well as the next man.
She thought about that a lot.She pictured him dressed up, driving a sports car, pouring scotch into a glass in the waterfront apartment he might have if he was working in Boston.She pictured him approaching her, looking urbane and sexy—but the image was superimposed by one of him in his cabin in Timiny Cove, wearing nothing but jeans, his hair rumpled, his jaw shadowed.Urbanity couldn’t improve on his sex appeal, she decided.Thoughts of him just as she’d always known him made her feel restless and achy inside.
Still, she resisted going to Maine.Being with Cutter, wanting him badly but knowing that he wouldn’t even kiss her, was agony.So she stayed home during that firstweekend after her return from Palm Beach, and kept busy getting ready to move into the dorm.By the second weekend, though, she had done everything there was to do, and she was on edge.She was tense from the minute John walked in the door to the minute he left, and she hadn’t once slept the night through.
So, early Saturday morning she left for Timiny Cove.Cutter was out when she reached his place.She pictured him buying food or browsing for books or getting a haircut.In a way, she was glad to be alone.She was dead tired.
Climbing into his bed, she pulled the sheets and blankets up to her neck and, wrapped in his scent, was asleep in minutes.
For a time, her sleep was deep and dreamless.Then, as had happened every night since Palm Beach, the nightmare of John’s assault brought her awake with a cry.It was a minute before she realized that she wasn’t in Boston, another before she realized that the man whose arms flanked her shaking body wasn’t John.
“Cutter,” she whispered.Sitting up, she threw her arms around his neck and held on tight.“God, I was dreaming awful things.”
He hugged her close, ran a soothing hand over her back.Slowly she stopped trembling, but still she clung to him.For the first time in days, she felt secure.
“It’s been so long,” he said, voicing her thoughts in a low, gritty tone.His arms tightened around her.
“Three weeks.”
“I missed you.”
“Me too.”
His mouth brushed her forehead, nudging her face away from his neck.“You were sleeping soundly.You look tired.”
She nodded and closed her eyes against his chin.Seconds later, she nestled closer.If she’d been able to dig her way inside him and curl up there, she would have.
