"Embarra.s.sed. Guilty. Inadequate."

"Then I shouldn't say anything."

He arched a brow. "Depends on what you want to say. If you're angry enough-and you are angry-to yell at her and tell her how wrong she was and how badly she betrayed your dad, then you shouldn't say anything. She already knows those things. Hearing them from you would open up the wound." He paused. "How angry are you?"

"Right now? Not as angry as I was when I walked in here."

He grinned.

"But I was pretty angry when I first found out. It comes and goes. Sometimes it's anger, sometimes disappointment, sometimes pure revulsion. I mean, my stomach actually turns when I think of him-of them. It's sick."

"But it wasn't incest, Pam. Keep that in mind. They were two attractive people, close in age, each lonely in his way."

"If you're asking me to condone it, I can't."

"I'm not asking that. I'm asking you to try to understand what Patricia was feeling. She was frightened and insecure and alone. She fell into something that promised her relief, and when it delivered, she went back for more. She grew dependent on John emotionally, long before anything physical happened. In time, the emotional and the physical became interlocked. She needed one for the sake of the other. It was a package deal, sort of."

Pam sensed a familiar modus operandi. "That sounds like John. He gives with one hand and takes with the other."

"Now you got it."

"But she didn't have to sleep with him."

"She probably wouldn't have, if she'd been thinking clearly, but she wasn't. She is now. And what she needs most is forgiveness." He took a deep breath. "So. In answer to your question about whether to tell her what you know, I say that if you can find it in yourself to forgive her, it might go a long way toward helping her forgive herself."

Pam regarded him sadly. "That sounds pretty and n.o.ble and all kinds of other things."

He grinned. "You're pretty and n.o.ble and all kinds of other things. You can do it."

It took a while. The first time Pam saw Patricia, knowing what she knew, she felt strange. She brought coffee and sweet rolls-the light, raised kind Patricia liked, with cinnamon and icing, fresh from the doughnut shop-and they ate together. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inwardly, the question was there. Between sips of coffee, Pam looked at Patricia, trying to imagine her making love with John.

Two attractive people, close in age, each lonely in his way. Bob's words echoed in her mind. She recited them in a silent litany, and kept it up long after she left.

The next time she visited, she brought Patricia a knitted shawl from Bonwit's. It was shot with whispers of pink and green and seemed as delicate as Patricia herself. Pam also brought some pink nail polish to match the shawl and painted her mother's fingernails. When she had finished and was standing back to a.s.sess her work, with Patricia darting her quick, self-conscious glances, she had a glimpse of the lovely woman who suffered so inside.

On the third visit, she brought a small ca.s.sette player and a tape of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. More than once, when Pam was a child, Patricia had taken her to the ballet The music brought back fond memories of a happier, simpler time.

Patricia must have felt it too, because after the tape had clicked off and several quiet minutes had pa.s.sed, she asked wiih soft but intent curiosity, "Are you happy?"

"Happy? With my life?"

Patricia nodded.

Pam considered her answer carefully. "I've been lucky. I love designing jewelry. It's rewarding."

"But are you happy?"

It was the first time Patricia had pushed. Pam wanted to think it was a good sign. She also wanted to answer honestly and hoped it was the right thing to do. "Yes and no. Some things are great, some aren't."

"Do you love Cutter?"

The question surprised Pam. Of all the times she'd mentioned Cutter, Patricia had never given any response. Apparently, though, she'd been listening. "I've always loved Cutter."

Patricia betrayed nothing of her feelings as she considered that. "Is it an adult love?"

"Very."

"Why aren't you with him?"

Pam was slower in answering this time. She felt a spurt of anger at Patricia for having to ask, for not being around to know. She tempered the anger, drew in a breath, let it out. "John won't have it," she said.

Patricia's face showed no emotion, but her voice was weaker. "It shouldn't be John's decision to make."

"Tell him that," Pam blurted out. A second later she wished she hadn't. Patricia's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"I can't," she whispered. She kept looking at Pam, tears pooling in her eyes without falling.

Helplessness, desperation, sorrow-Pam saw them all. If the suddenness of their appearance stunned her, their intensity was even more gripping. In the past few years Patricia had been a pa.s.sive ent.i.ty, seeming almost dim-witted at times. Pam had known the emotions were there-Bob had told her-but she'd never seen evidence of them herself. Now she did. Emotions long buried had suddenly risen to the surface with the most inadvertent of provocations.

Looking at those emotions and the pain behind them, Pam felt a rise of fury. "It isn't right, y'know. It isn't right that you should be punishing yourself this way, while he goes merrily through life." Without quite saying the words, she had acknowledged that she knew about the affair.

Patricia's response was a frantic shake of her head. "I deserve the punishment."

"But when is it enough? When does it end?"

"When I die."

"No. You deserve more. Daddy would have wanted more for you."

"He hated me."

"He loved you."

"I betrayed him."

Pam tried to remember all the things Bob had said. "You betrayed him when you were feeling weak and unhappy, but you had help. You didn't do it alone. If John hadn't been there luring you on, it wouldn't have happened."

Patricia dropped her eyes to her lap, where her hands lay limply. She stared at them for a long time, although Pam doubted she saw much. Tears were trickling down her cheeks.

"You hate me, too," she whispered finally.

"I love you."

"You hate me."

"If I hated you, would I be coming here to visit this way?"

"You feel you have to."

"I want to."

"But I have nothing to offer."

"You're my mother. You gave me life. Isn't that enough?"

"I should have given you more."

"But it's over. You can't go back. Only ahead."

"I can't go ahead," Patricia wailed.

Pam felt utterly helpless. She didn't know what to say or do, since what she had done clearly wasn't right. Acting on nothing more than her own need, she took Patricia's hand and brought it to her cheek. "Someday," she said, pausing to swallow the knot in her throat, "someday you will. Someday you'll leave here and come home where you belong. Someday. You will."

Patricia gave another frantic little shake of her head, from which she went right into a nod. Then, as though the combination of the two gestures had short-circuited her mind, she seemed to wind down, and sank deeper into her chair and grew silent.

Pam continued to hold her hand for a time before kissing it, replacing it in her lap, and standing. "I'll be back in a few days," she said softly.

At the door, she looked back. The image struck her then of the frail, wheelchair-bound woman whose shrunken legs, bowed head, and hollow eyes reeked of the sadness of one living a life of self-inflicted punishment.

In that instant, Pam began to understand the depth of her mother's suffering. In the next instant, forgiveness took root. And in the instant after that, all the anger that might have been channeled toward Patricia was redirected toward John.

One week later, Pam flew to New York. Officially, she was there to meet with a client who wanted to commission several pieces of jewelry. Unofficially-and covertly-she was meeting with Cutter. A single night in Manhattan was all he had between ten days in Texas and a week in Paris, and while she might have preferred to pick a more leisurely time, what she had to discuss with him couldn't wait.

Her client was staying at the Lowell Hotel. Cutter had said that he'd meet her at the Pembroke Room at four for high tea, and Pam appreciated the whimsy. It was Cutter the miner, at his tongue-in-cheek best.

Concluding her meeting early, she reached the Pembroke Room well before him. So she settled into the French period furniture and antic.i.p.ated his arrival with growing excitement. Even then, she couldn't help but catch her breath when he came into sight. He was wearing a black silk shirt, gray pleated trousers, a loose-fitting tweed jacket, and imported loafers without socks. His immaculately cut hair was sensuously mussed. His face was lightly tanned, his jaw and upper lip lightly shadowed. There was a swagger in his step and a gleam in his eye. He looked spectacular.

"Hi, babe," he whispered, sliding onto the loveseat and kissing her neck. His grin was crooked.

"Hi," she whispered back. She put her fingers to his lips and skimmed their lean planes. "Did you plan that entrance?"

"What entrance?" His eyes took in each of her features.

"The one you just made."

"I just walked in the door." He tipped her head up.

"But beautifully." She took a shaky breath and opened her mouth for his kiss. Her breathing was even shakier when it was finished. "I've missed you," she whispered.

"Me too," he whispered back. He had a hand curved around her neck and was caressing her jaw with his thumb. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"Bull. You've been looking at gorgeous models all week."

"Six-foot amazons. I like pet.i.te women. Women I can look down on."

"What a s.e.xist comment."

"I'm a s.e.xist man. Contrary to the trend. I do believe in the differences between us." His gaze fell to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s at the same time as he lowered his hand to her hip. Against her mouth, he asked, "Want me to change?"

"Not on your life."

"Should I order tea?"

"Only if you want to drink it."

"Do you?"

She came forward the fraction of an inch necessary to fuse her mouth with his in a tongue-deep kiss. Cutter was more visibly shaken than she at its end.

His voice was low. "Let's go somewhere, Pam."

"My place or yours?"

"Yours is nicer, but mine is closer."

"Yours, then. I've been waiting for you forever."

Actually, it had been just shy of a month since she'd seen him, but it might have been an eternity for the impatience she felt on the way to his apartment. He led the way, holding her hand as he lengthened his stride. She half-walked, half-trotted. When traffic lights periodically pinned them to a corner, she pressed as close to him as she could.

Once inside his building, he rushed her into the elevator. The door had no sooner closed than he backed her to the smooth paneling, flattened his body against hers, and began moving. He didn't stop until they'd reached the apartment, stripped off their clothing, and made love.

At last, lying naked on her back beside Cutter, Pam gave a loud moan. "I should have known this would happen. One look at you and I'm not good for much of anything."

"You were real good for a lot of something," he argued, but his lips barely moved. He sounded half-asleep.

"I want to be good at a lot else." She pushed herself up on an elbow. "Marry me, Cutter?"

His eyes remained closed. He didn't move. "Mmmm."

"I want to get married. Now."

"I'm not dressed."

She shook his shoulder. "Cutter, I'm not kidding. I want to get married."

"I can't talk about this now. You've drained me."

"But this was the reason I came. I specifically want to discuss this."

"Then you shouldn't have let me make love to you first."

"I couldn't help it."

Throwing an arm around her, he brought her back down to his side. "Let me hold you for a minute. Then we'll talk."

So he held her. Tipping her head back, Pam studied his face. In total relaxation he looked young and vulnerable. Not that thirty was old. But he hadn't been vulnerable for a long time. He was strong and independent, a man of friends and means. She was the vulnerable one. His world had broadened. She could lose him so easily.

A faint shiver pa.s.sed through her. His arms tightened, but it was an instinct. The evenness of his breathing told her that he had dozed off. Nestling her cheek in the soft, curling hair on his chest, she closed her eyes, breathed in the warm, male scent of his skin, and concentrated on the pure heaven of being there with him.