“I don’t think I like that decision,” he murmured in her ear.
“Hmm?” she questioned sleepily.
“Never mind. I just got the impression I lost that round.”
She didn’t even bother to marvel at his uncanny ability to read her mind. He was doing it far too often—the longer they were together the better they knew each other’s thoughts. It was one of the hazards of getting close to someone, but at least she’d avoid the other hazards. “You did,” she murmured. “G’night, Pulaski.”
“Good night, Maggie.” His voice was deep, raspy, and amused. “Pleasant dreams.”
They weren’t. They were nightmares, memories from some of the worst times in her life. Suddenly she was sixteen again, alone in the darkness, with rough hands all over her, pawing at her, pulling away her clothes, cruel hands that she couldn’t slap away, couldn’t escape from, could only lie there and cry. …
“Maggie? Wake up, Maggie.” The hands weren’t on her breasts, pulling her clothes off her. They were strong, gentle hands on her shoulders, shaking her awake, out of the deep morass of dream and memory that had torn through her sleep and her defenses.
She opened her eyes. The flames of the newly stoked fire were flickering up into the inky black sky, and the man kneeling over her was in shadows. But she knew immediately that he was no threat, and she felt the panic and tension drain from her body. “I’m awake,” she said. “I’m okay.”
As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she could see his face, the tenderness and concern in his eyes as they stared down at her. Slowly he sank down beside her, gathering her body against his own. “You want to sleep, Maggie?” he whispered in her ear. “Or do you want to tell me about it?”
She shrugged against him, but her hands reached up of their own accord and clutched the rough khaki shirt in unconscious pleading. His body was warm and strong and curiously soothing beneath her fingers. Her voice was at variance with her hands, cool and composed. “There’s not a whole lot to say. It happens to a lot of girls. The wrong man at the wrong time, in the wrong way.” She waited for him to make some response to that, but he said nothing, just lay there, holding her, waiting.
“Except,” she went on, unable to stop herself, “in my case it was my stepfather, when I was sixteen. And he wasn’t completely to blame—I had a mad crush on him and I suppose he thought I was old enough to know what I wanted. It was a very dark night, and there was no light at all in the deserted pool house. And he was too stoned to realize when I said no, I meant it.”
There was a long silence, and Mack’s hold on her tightened imperceptibly, in wordless comfort. “What happened?”
“My mother divorced him, of course. She’d been planning to anyway, but when she heard what happened to me that night she kicked him out of the house. She’d already caught him in bed with another young actor, and she’d been willing to overlook that. But in my case her long-submerged maternal instincts came out and he was handed his walking papers.”
“Another actor?”
“My stepfather was catholic in his sexual tastes. He took on all shapes, sizes, sexes, and relationships,” she said bitterly. “I’m just glad
he died of a drug overdose before he could get his hands on my stepsister.”
“Who was your stepfather?”
Maggie laughed, a raw bitter sound that scraped her throat. “I had three. There was my father, Count Alexander Lagerfeldt, then Sidney Zimmerman, a banker, Deke Robinson, the heartthrob of the fifties, and finally Peter Malcolm, my mother’s true love.”
“How come you don’t use your father’s name?”
She shrugged again. “Sybil changed it to hers before I had much say in the matter. I was never close to my father—there never seemed much reason to go to the bother of changing it back.”
“And it was Deke Robinson in the pool house.”
“Deke Robinson in the pool house,” she agreed. “Mother sent me to the best therapists. I survived the traumatic experience and I’m very healthy sexually. And I’d conquered my fear of the dark long ago.”
“So what happened?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It started again about a year ago. It built up slowly, and I haven’t had time to deal with it. I know if I just have some time I can face it and it’ll go away. I hate to be at the mercy of it,” she said passionately.
“I’m sure you do. Are you still healthy sexually, or did that come back to haunt you too?” He said it in a light, bantering voice, and she responded in kind, grateful for the gentle teasing that was no threat at all.
“That’s for me to know.”
“And me to find out?” he replied.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I’m sure you didn’t. Nevertheless, it’s going to come to that, sooner or later. You know that, Maggie. Don’t you?”
“Do I?” She was fencing, wary.