“Oh, Molly,” he whispered, “I’m going to despise myself tomorrow. You’re so sweet!” He kissed the corner of her trembling mouth.
“Tell me what to do,” she breathed against his lips.
“No,” he muttered and continued dragging his lips over her face.
“Tell me.” She brought her hand up to his face and turned his lips toward hers.
His hands slid down her back and as if the feel of her shocked his senses, she felt his body shudder.
“I want you. I want to make love to you,” he said, and then urgently, against her cheek, “open your mouth for me!” She parted her lips and his mouth covered hers.
The hungry demand of Adam’s mouth was a whirlpool into which she thought she would drown. Now she knew why her earlier kisses had been so unfulfilling. His mouth was conveying his tortured need of her more powerfully than any words could say. He had aroused her and now she was no longer in control of her emotions. His hands stroked down her body with an eagerness he didn’t try to disguise, which made her flame into receptive response.
He wanted her so much it was agony, but he knew so much better than she what this kind of lovemaking would lead to. A stab of remorse tore through him, and he pulled himself out of her arms and got to his feet.
“Molly, are you aware of what this is leading to? I want no regrets!” he said harshly. He took a long deep breath and looked at her as she lay where he had left her, her face hidden in the cushions of the couch.
A frightening awareness of the seriousness of what had happened came over her. She felt hot, shamed blushes covering her face and neck. Flushing with humiliation and self-disgust, she kept her face turned from him.
“Molly,” he said softly. “You’re young and beautiful. I’m alone here with you. I’m a man, Molly; a man with a man’s desires. I’ve been used to having a woman and it’s going to be a long winter.”
The callous words struck Molly like a cold dash of water. “It’s going to be a long winter”; he had used the words before. Tempestuous feelings were threatening to overpower her.
Love and hate,
she thought. She ran her tongue along the inside of her lower lip where his had been moments before. The cold fingers that had touched her heart on hearing his callous words had turned into a firebrand that was a burning anger.
Adam was still talking softly; whispering, persuading. “You’ve a lot to learn, my little innocent,” he whispered, “but I guarantee it won’t be against your will.”
At that Molly raised her head. Her voice, when it came, was shaking.
“Oh, damn you, damn you,” she said with trembling lips, her eyes dry and blazing with fury. “It’s going to be a long winter and you think you’ll amuse yourself with a new experience, a stupid, foolish, willing virgin!” The words tumbled from her mouth. “And to think I was beginning to think you as wonderful as your father said you were. You’re nothing but an opportunist. You married me to get my father’s files and while you’re about it, you’ll sleep with his daughter because it’s going to be a long winter. Let me tell you this Adam Reneau, I’m a stupid innocent, but I’m no man’s plaything. If it’s a whore you want—”
Adam grabbed her and shook her hard, his hands biting into her arms.
“Stop it! Don’t use that word! You’re my wife and what I suggested was for our mutual pleasure.” His hard dark eyes were fastened onto her flushed, angry face.
“Your pleasure, not mine!” She glared at him, her face stiff with rebellion.
“Your pleasure too, Molly, I’d have seen to that.” The irony of that ate into her. The anger had gone out of his voice and he tried to draw her close. “I’m not the kind of man to take a woman against her will.”
Molly wrenched herself away from him. “I don’t know what kind of man you are.” She looked him in the eye, her mouth firm now with determination. “You’re leaving in a year. You want no ties or emotional entanglements. You made that clear before we made the . . . agreement.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I’m leaving at the end of the year. My plans have been made for a long time.” His voice was level and controlled, but his dark eyes were bright with an emotion which she was not quite certain she recognized. “But that has nothing to do with now.”
“Then there’s no more to be said. Thank you for the valuable lesson I learned tonight.” She flipped her hair back behind her ears and walked calmly from the room.
In spite of himself, Adam grinned.
When she closed the door on him, she leaned against it and wished she was far away, anywhere away from him. The thought of Aunt Dora’s house was not as awesome as before, but this was her house and she would not leave it! Her frantic mind tried to think of ways to get him out of her house, out of her life. She could fake an illness and insist on staying in town. She could say she wanted to visit a friend in Portland. She could go back to the convent. She didn’t want to do any of those things. What a fool she had been! The year to her now seemed endless. How could her father have been so wrong about a man’s character?
She shut the door leading to the bathroom. With slow movements she undressed and slipped into her nightdress. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and pulled the tangled hair out from under the neck of her nightdress. Divided in the back it fell down the front of her, almost to her waist. She looked at it and hated it. In a sudden fit of rebellion at all that had happened to her, she grabbed the hand shears from her dressing table and began to cut. She cut off handfuls of hair and cried, her eyes so blinded with tears she could hardly see what she was doing. Doggedly, she sawed with the shears and threw the hair on the floor. When none was left to cover her breasts, she stopped, turned off her battery light, lay down in her bed, and buried her head in the pillow. Misery and humiliation flowed over her. She had acted like a recalcitrant child.
She slept fitfully during the first part of the night, chased by nightmares, then in the small hours of the morning fell into a deep sleep to awaken with a pounding headache, a hangover of the emotional evening before.
She got out of bed, dressed herself in jeans and shirt, and kept her eyes averted from her dressing table mirror. After making her bed and picking up the strands of hair from the floor, she turned to look at the results of last night’s ravages. She brushed the tangled hair that came now in uneven lengths to her shoulders. Her face was pale and her eyes were rimmed with deep, dark circles. Her mouth was slightly swollen as if it had been kissed many times, but it was set, now, in a grim line. She noticed, with a surge of humiliation, a small blue spot Adam’s lips had made on her neck and drew up the collar of her shirt and buttoned it to hide the brand he had left on her.
Before her humiliation reached an intolerable level and she would be unable to face him, she picked up a ribbon, flung her hair back and gathered it in at the nape of her neck, and tied the ribbon around it.
A strange kind of calm had come over her by the time she was ready to leave the bedroom. She went into the kitchen as she did every morning. Tim-Two had already been there and the range was ready for breakfast. She put the granite coffeepot on to boil and set the table with one place setting. While placing the slices of bacon in the skillet she heard Adam’s door open and turned to face him.
He stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets with the same black thundercloud expression on his face that he had the first day they met. Under the slanting brows his eyes were blazing black between the narrowed lids. Not at all unnerved by his mood she looked straight at him.
“Good morning.” She said it calmly. “You did wish to have breakfast?”
He lifted his shoulders and his frown deepened, if that was possible.
“Why did you do it?”
She turned back to the stove. “Why did I do what?” She was still calm and proud of it.
“You know what I’m talking about.” His voice was louder. “Why did you cut your hair?”
“It’s no business of yours what I do.”
“It was a foolish, juvenile thing to do,” he grated between clutched teeth.
Her silence showed her regard for his opinion. She set his breakfast on the table. The coffeepot was on a pad near at hand. Still not looking his way, she lifted her parka from the peg by the door. After putting on the coat she took the remainder of the chocolate cake from the shelf and went out the back door toward Tim-Two’s cabin.
The first snow will be coming any time now,
she thought as she walked along the lakeshore. Tim-Two had been away from his cabin, and she had left the cake on his table. She and Dog walked the path toward the lake. The sky was a gray blanket and the dreariness of the day weighed on her. Tim-Two would be taking out the dock now that the lake would be freezing over. The crush of the ice would split the boards and break the posts. Always she had loved the coming of the winter. The evergreens would bow down under the heavy load. The whole world would be bright, clean, and shining. The small animals would scurry around leaving tracks in the snow. She would get out her cross country skis. She and Dog would take long hikes when the weather permitted.
How could she have been so wrong? she asked herself for the thousandth time. How could she have ever thought she might love him or that he was capable of love? He loved his father, but she didn’t think he was capable of loving a woman, only using them. His father must have known that and that was why he was so pleased by their marriage. The thought came to her that Adam was a cruel man. You could tell by the cold way he had treated Donna at the reception. Not that she hadn’t deserved it. Well, she was cured! It had come about the hard way, but she was cured. She would abide by her father’s wishes, but at the end of the year she hoped she would never again set eyes on Adam Reneau.
Molly trudged back to the house. The cool wind had cleared her head. She made the firm resolve to take one day at a time until she was free of him.
The kitchen was empty when she came in. Adam was working in his room. She could hear his typewriter going. She shivered. It was colder and she would have to build a fire in the small potbellied stove in her bedroom.
Halfway through the morning she heard Jim Robinson’s welcome voice come in on the radio.
“KGF 1452 calling KFK 1369. Come in, Molly, darlin’. Big Bird is flying over and he’ll set down on your lake if you have the coffeepot on.”
She lifted the microphone and pressed the button. “That’s a big ten-four, Big Bird. I’ve got the fastest coffeepot in the North.”
“Well get it perkin’, pretty girl. I’ll be there in a few.” His voice came back and added because regulations demanded it, “KGF 1452 mobile clear and will soon be land bound.”
Molly put fresh water and coffee in the pot and wished she hadn’t taken all the chocolate cake to Tim-Two. She got out coconut bars she had baked several days ago, set out two cups and saucers, put on her parka, and went to the porch to wait for Jim.
Her eyes misted a little when she saw the familiar figure come swinging up the path, the usual friendly grin on his face. She ran down the steps and onto the path to meet him. His arms went across her shoulders and he enveloped her in a bear hug.
“I’m glad to see you.” She fought back the tears.
“How’s my Molly girl?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” she said and the desire to cry left her.
They walked arm in arm up onto the porch and into the house. Jim hung his coat on a peg near the front door, while Molly was removing hers. He turned to look at her and the surprise showed on his face.
“You’ve cut your hair?”
“It’s much easier to keep this way, Jim.”
“Evelyn always envied your beautiful hair. She—”
“It’s much easier to dry this way,” she broke in. “Sorry I don’t have your favorite cake. Will coconut bars do?”
“Is everything all right with you, Molly girl?” he asked quietly.
“Why wouldn’t it be, Robinson?” Adam’s voice came from the doorway of his room.
“Hello, Adam. How’s the work going?”
“Fine.” Adam came into the kitchen and got a third cup from the shelf. “I’ll pour the coffee, Molly.”
Molly sat across from Jim. Adam pulled his chair up to the end. The two men made small talk about the weather and compared the two floatplanes, now at anchor on the lake. Molly sat quietly, looking mostly at Jim, and entered the conversation only when necessary. Finally Jim rose to go.
“Anything you need, Molly?”
Before she could answer, Adam said, “Nothing, thanks, Robinson. I go to Anchorage each week and I get what we need.”
“Well, anytime . . .” He spoke directly to Molly.
“There is something you can get for me, Jim. You know the lamp I use in my bedroom? Will you get a supply of batteries for it? The next time you go over, you can drop them.”
“Sure, Molly. I know the ones you need.”
“Charge them to my account at the hardware in Fairbanks, Jim. The one where Dad and I always trade.” The stubborn, determined look on her face was disturbing to Jim.
“Sure thing,” he said, putting his big fist beside her chin. “I’ll have them for you in a day or two.” He shrugged into his coat.
“Oh, Jim,” Molly said, reluctant to let him go, “tell Evelyn I’ve almost finished the sweaters for the boys and I have yarn left for mittens if she’ll send me the size.”
“Will do, Molly. So long, Adam. Take care of my little sweetheart here.”
Adam nodded.
Molly went to the porch and watched Jim go down the path. It was cold and she hadn’t put on her coat, yet she dreaded going back into the house to face Adam. He was still sitting at the trestle table when she went in. She picked up the coat she had left on the chair and walked past him to hang it on the peg, then went to her room and closed the door.
She was standing beside her dressing table when the door crashed open. Adam stood there filling the doorway. His face was stiff with anger, his dark eyes spitting at her.
“Are you going to pout like a silly, sulky child all winter?”
“Get out of my room. I have a right to my privacy.” Her nerves screamed, but her voice was cool and calm.
“You made me look a fool in front of Robinson.” The words thumped at her like small blows.