When he next started toward her, she made for the kitchen, but he’d had enough of her evasion.A long armreached out and snagged her.She tugged, but he tugged right back, bringing her fully against him.She tried to twist away, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“Cutter!”
“Easy, babe.”
“I wanted to talk with you!”she protested, but her words were muffled in the sheepskin lining of his jacket, and her will to fight was dying fast.
“I’m here now,” he said in a low, soothing voice.“Calm down.You’re all tight and shaking.Relax, Pam.”
She felt his hands on her back, coaxing the tremors from her, while his cheek rubbed the top of her head.Slipping her arms inside his jacket, she took a deep breath and let herself be sedated by his strength and his scent.
“Oh, Cutter,” she murmured.
His lips brushed her forehead.“Better?”
“Mmmm.”She listened to the steady beat of his heart.“Pretty stupid of me, huh, to start in on you like that when you were the one I came to see?”
“Y’could say that.”
“I thought the weekend would never come.I’ve never been so impatient to get here in my life.”
“John didn’t give you trouble about coming?”
“Oh, no.I now have carte blanche as far as that goes now.”
He looked down at her.“He’ll let you come up here whenever you want?”
“On weekends.”Reluctantly she dropped her hands from his waist.This time when she left him, she sank into the easy chair opposite the foot of the bed.From there, hands folded like the demure young lady she hadn’t beenacting, she explained John’s terms.As she talked, the brief peace she’d found in Cutter’s arms dissipated.By the time she was finished, her hands were fluttering in the air to emphasize her protest.“Have you ever heard anything so cruel?Marcy’s job is dependent on my grades!I mean, it boggles my mind!And the house here—he’d actually sell it to spite me!”
Having removed his jacket, Cutter was sitting on the foot of the bed, his legs spread wide, elbows on his thighs.“Sounds like he’d have sold it awhile back if it hadn’t been for you.”
“No.If he’d wanted to sell it before, he would have.”
“Then he wouldn’t have had it to use as a lever.Don’t you see, Pam?That’s what he does.He finds what it is that means most to people, then threatens to take it away if they don’t comply with his demands.”
“But what’s so critical about my getting good grades?”
Cutter clasped his hands between his knees.“You’re smart.You could be doing better than you are.”
“But what does it matter?I did well on my SATs.I’ll get into a decent school.Why is it so all-fired important that I make honor roll?”Her eyes were glued to his face.She couldn’t figure out his expression.“Why, Cutter?”
“Because you can do it.”
“But I don’t want to.I don’t care about grades.They just don’t matter to me.I don’t like my classes, and I don’t see the point in killing myself for the sake of a mark.”
“You wouldn’t have to kill yourself and you know it.All you’d have to do is to pay attention in class.You’re quick, Pam.And you do like your classes—at least some of them.You like French, and you really like English.You don’t want to admit it, because you think that would be capitulating to John, but I don’t see why you’re sabotaging yourself because of him.You could graduate at the top of your class if you wanted to.”
She learned forward in disbelief.“What are you saying?”
His voice was gruff.“I think I said it pretty clearly.”
“You want me to study?You want me to do well in school?You want me to join that … that rat race worrying about grade-point average and class rank?Cutter,” she protested heatedly, “what’s with you?”When he didn’t answer, she said, “You didn’t think school was so terrific when you were going through it.You skipped it whenever you could and dropped out the day you turned sixteen.You didn’t care about grades or class rank or college.It was fine for you to do what you wanted.Why is it so awful for me to want to do the same thing?”
He had straightened and was looking appalled.“Is that what you’ve been doing—following my example?”
“Not directly, but what was okay for you should be okay for me.”
“Well, it isn’t!”he declared.Rising from the bed, he stalked halfway across the room before turning back to glare at her.“I skipped school because I thought I was stupid, and I didn’t like feeling stupid.I decided I didn’t need that any more than I needed parents.I could make it on my own.”He took a tight breath.“The truth is that I was scared shitless of life, and angry at the world and everyone in it for making me scared.Do you know that I actually liked it when Verne locked me up for a night?I was in a warm, safe place and there was someone elsenear.I’d have bought prison for a lifetime sooner or later if it hadn’t been for your daddy.He put me to work and made me feel less afraid and more sure of what I was doing, but by that time I was too old for school.I was a working man.The life I knew and trusted was goin’ back and forth to the mountain each day.”