"But John is his son," Cutter said, all kidding forgotten. "It's not my place to come between them that way."

"Not even so you could get ahead at the mine?"

"I don't want to get ahead at the mine. There are lots of other guys who want Simon's job, and they've been working for Eugene a lot longer than me."

"But Daddy likes you."

Cutter knew that. Still, it didn't change certain things.

"If you don't want to be a foreman, what do you want to be?"

He rested his weight back on the heels of his hands and looked out across the street. "I don't know."

"Are you going to leave here and get a job in the city?"

"I don't know."

"Are you going to work in the mine all your life?"

"I don't know."

"But don't you dream things?"

"Not much," he said. He didn't dream of being rich or famous. He didn't dream of being a boss and ordering people around. His life now was so much better than it had been before that he was pretty satisfied. Sometimes he dreamed of little things-a little more money, a little bigger house, maybe a car, maybe even a car with a stereo. He figured he'd have those things one day.

"I think you ought to come to work in Boston. That's what Hillary's doing. She just got a job working for the paper. It's interesting, she says."

Cutter knew Hillary c.o.x, just as he knew almost everyone in Timiny Cove. She'd been gone awhile, but word had a way of filtering back. "Hillary's a writer. I'm not."

"You could be. You read all the time."

"Reading has nothing to do with writing."

"We read Lord of the Flies in English cla.s.s, by the way. I don't think I liked it. It was pretty depressing."

"It was supposed to be. It was supposed to be an example of what might happen if there wasn't any order to things." With deliberate nonchalance he asked, "What did your teacher say about it?" He liked it when Pam told him things like that. It made him think. Sometimes he even went back and reread a particular book after they had talked.

"Kind of what you did," Pam said, "about order and rules and laws. She said the author was making a statement that there's evil deep down inside us, but I'd never have done what Jack and Roger did."

He nearly smiled at the appalled look on her face. But evil wasn't a smiling matter. More than once he had wondered what he'd have done on that deserted island. "Are you sure? Not even if you were in the situation they were? Not even if you were lost and frightened and started imagining all sorts of things?"

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have. I couldn't have."

Cutter wasn't so sure he could say the same. He'd have done almost anything to feel safer when he was younger. "Maybe that's because you're a girl," he said a little distractedly.

"No." She was about to elaborate when John drove up in his Thunderbird. Pam's features immediately darkened. "What does he want?"

Cutter grew alert. He allowed himself to admire the car, a shiny blue convertible with the top up. As soon as John climbed out, though, looking perfect in cuffed khaki pants and a shirt with a little alligator on the front, his admiration died.

"I'm going inside," Pam murmured. Very slowly she rose from the step where she'd been seated. She looked at John for an impertinent minute, then, with incredible dignity, Cutter thought, turned and walked into Leroy's store.

"Did I disturb something?" John asked in a voice that was nearly as cold as his eyes.

Cutter was determined to be just as cool. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you two were sitting pretty close. What are you doing with my sister, Cutter?"

"Talking. Right here on Main Street where everyone can see."

"You see her more than that. I know she goes to your place sometimes. Is that by invitation?"

Cutter didn't bother to answer.

"If you're hoping to use her to get something from my father, it won't work."

"I don't need anything from your father."

"You need a job."

"I already have one."

"At our discretion."

"I do my work, and I do it well," he challenged, beginning to burn inside. "Fire me for no reason, and you'll have half of the others walking out on you."

"I'll have good reason if I find you diddling with my sister."

The burning increased. "Why would I want to diddle with your sister when I have a d.a.m.n s.e.xy woman doin' all the diddlin' I want?"

"She's not bad, Lenore isn't," John mused smugly.

Cutter couldn't help himself. "She doesn't think quite so highly of you."

John's smugness vanished. "Stay away from my sister, Cutter. You are aware that she's a minor, aren't you?"

"Minor? She's a little girl."

"No girl's too little to fool around with, but if I were you, I'd watch it. You touch a hair on her head, and you'll have me and half the lawmen in the state to answer to."

Struggling to contain his anger, Cutter rose. He was nearly John's height and every bit as strong, and while he didn't have money and polish on his side, he had pride. "Pam is my friend, just like she's a friend to everyone else in this town. And she's Eugene's daughter. I'd lay down my life to keep her safe." But he couldn't leave it at that. The demon inside wouldn't let him. "The way I see it, she has more to fear from you than from me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the one with the brains. You figure it out." He started off, but John caught his arm.

"You're asking for trouble."

Cutter gave the hand on his arm a long stare before raising his eyes to John's. "I'm not askin' for a thing 'cept that you leave me alone." He shook his arm hard. John's hand fell away.

"Stay away from Pam," he growled.

Not trusting that he wouldn't tell John to go to h.e.l.l, Cutter strode off to where he'd left his motorcycle, climbed on, revved the engine-never more appreciating the power of the mama he'd bought the year before than at that moment-and, without a look back, left a strip of rubber and a trail of dust behind him.

He rode hard, barreling out of town well past his place. He pushed the cycle to its limits, roaring past the occasional car as though it were crawling, taking curves at a precarious tilt. Only after he came within inches of hitting a cottontail rabbit that was hopping across the street in ignorant bliss did he careen to a stop.

Parked on the side of the quiet highway, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his fury settle. John was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d in every sense but the literal. He'd known that, but it didn't help much in soothing the insult he felt.

He didn't like John's suggestion that he was fooling around with Pam, that he'd ever harm her. Mostly, he didn't like the suggestion that he stay away from her, because, unless John was going around town telling everyone the same thing, it implied he wasn't as good as the others. But Pam didn't seek out the others the way she did him. She didn't tell them the things she told him. If John knew half of those things he'd be furious.

That thought and the knowledge that John could threaten all he wanted and it wouldn't matter made Cutter smile. If Pam wanted to come out to his place, she would. If she wanted to visit him at the mine, she'd do that, too. And if he saw her on Leroy's steps, he was going to sit right down beside her.

He'd be d.a.m.ned if John would tell him what to do, especially when it came to Pam, and if John didn't like it, that was his problem. He didn't scare Cutter. After living on danger's edge for so many of his early years, Cutter welcomed the challenge. Baiting him would be fun.

So, in hindsight, the confrontation on Leroy's steps wasn't so bad. Cutter's only regret as he turned the cycle in an arc and headed for home was that he'd been distracted from buying the six-pack he'd originally wanted.

Chapter 8.

WHILE CUTTER HEADED HOME, John drove Pam back to the big brick house. "Get your things together," he instructed, feeling little affection and even less patience as he walked through the large front hall. "I want to be on the road to Boston in an hour."

Pam followed him into the living room. "To Boston? But I thought we were staying all week."

He heard her disappointment and wasn't touched by it in the least. He didn't care how she felt, especially after the snotty way she'd walked away from him with Cutter sitting right there watching.

"We've changed plans," he said curtly. He reached for the tallest of the three sterling decanters that stood on the bar. "I want to be at the office in the morning."

Pam came up from behind. Although she was growing taller, she still had the sweet look of childhood that never failed to annoy him. Sweet she might look, but she was not. She was too smart for her britches. "I thought Daddy wanted you here."

"Simon will cover while he's gone."

"But there's nothing to do in Boston."

He took a healthy swallow of scotch. "Maybe not for you. I have more than enough to keep me busy."

"Okay. You go back. Marcy and I will stay here."

"Uh-uh. You have to be back by the weekend. I'm not making the trip again."

"Then Marcy will drive me home."

"Marcy doesn't have a car."

"We'll borrow one."

"No way, princess." Highball gla.s.s in hand, he headed for the stairs. "Be ready in an hour. And tell Marcy to be ready."

"John . . ." Pam's plaintive voice followed him up the stairs. Neither missing a step nor looking back, he went down the hall to his room and began to pack. He had the few things he'd brought from Boston stowed neatly and was packing his shaving kit when Eugene appeared at his door.

"Pam says you're leaving?"

John shot him a sharp glance. "I should have known she'd run straight to you."

"She didn't. I saw Marcy downstairs. I'm off to New York tomorrow, John. I was counting on you to keep an eye on things here."

He was using his tempered voice, the one that he used more often now, the one John found patronizing. He preferred the big booming sound that had shaken him so as a child. He wasn't a child anymore, and he didn't shake. Moreover, he could give back what he got. He enjoyed a good shouting match with his father.

"Simon can do it. You trained him. He knows what you want."

"I want you."

"I have things to do at the office."

"I want you here. You're my son. I want you here when I'm not."

John's patience waned. It didn't matter that Eugene was getting older and more gray, or that there were a few times when he actually looked lonely. He represented all that John despised, and John was helpless to hide that contempt.

"You don't need someone here. You don't need to be here yourself, but it's the one place you can be yourself. You don't fit in the city. Timiny Cove is where you feel comfortable, so you hang around here and tell yourself that they need you. Well, they don't. The mines practically run themselves. If you want to waste your time up here, fine, but I don't." He tossed back the rest of his drink, then took mellow pleasure from his father's reddening face.

"This is your living, these mines. You seem to keep forgetting that. Without them, you'd be back in the city in some small office kissing some big shot's a.s.s. That what you want?"

"It's a moot point, since we do have the mines."

"I have the mines. They're not yours yet."

"But they will be, because I'm the only one, next to you, who knows enough about the business to run it. You've done well in that sense. Even when I was fighting, you got me up here and involved. I have to hand that to you."

But Eugene shook his head. "I don't take credit for no failure."

John bristled. "You're calling me a failure?"

"I'm saying that I failed with you. Maybe I got you to know the business. Maybe I even got you to be important to the business. But I could never wring any feeling from you. You're cold as a fish, John. Ever since your mama died-"

"Don't bring her into this!" It was the one thing he couldn't take. Eugene had abused her. Even thirteen years after her death, it hurt John to hear her name on his tongue.

Eugene ignored him. "Ever since your mama died, you've been hard as a rock. You may know this business better'n anyone but me, but you sure don't have the love for it that I hoped you might."

John was incredulous. "Love? What's to love? A business is a business. We've got open pits and mountains and mines and dirt. We've got gemstones. We've got receipts from the sales of those gemstones. If there's anything to love, it's the bottom line-which would be a h.e.l.l of a lot more impressive if you would let me broaden the company a little. But you're so G.o.dd.a.m.ned narrow-minded-"

"Whoa," Eugene warned, his face heating.

"What? I shouldn't say that? But it's the truth, only you're still living like a hick so you don't know it."

"Watch it, boy."