No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(77)

“And yet you stayed on the pill.”

She forced herself to look at him again. “In case...”

“In case he were to force you,” Dawson guessed, spelling it out.

She hesitated to go that far. Sly hadn’t ever raped her, exactly. It was more that he made her feel cornered, as if giving him what he wanted was the only way out—or the best way out. “Maybe, in the back of my mind, I fear it’s a possibility. Because I’ve been absolutely religious about taking that pill. It’s an act of defiance, in a way. He’d love it if I were to get pregnant again. Then I’d have to come back to him. It was during my last pregnancy that he became so controlling, because he knew he had me at even more of a disadvantage.”

Dawson shook his head. “You have no idea what I’d like to do to that man.”

She got off the bed, too. “See? That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. There’s nothing you can do about Sly, nothing that won’t get you hurt or in trouble. Our hands are tied. The only answer is for me to leave town—and to make sure he can never find me.”

“That’s not the only option,” he argued. “You should be able to live where you want. He’s a police officer, for God’s sake. I’m going to pay him a visit and let him know that he’d better not ever touch you again.”

She grabbed hold of his arm. “No! You have to promise me you’ll stay clear of him. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you or anyone else.”

“Are you mad, Sadie?” The emergency in Sadie’s voice had finally drawn Angela’s attention. “Dawson, did you make Sadie mad?”

He cleared his throat. “No, I’m mad at someone else.”

“Who?” she asked.

“A bad guy,” he responded.

“What bad guy?” she asked.

“You don’t know him, honey. And you don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got everything under control.”

Too interested in what she was doing to bother asking any more about some generic “bad guy,” she returned to making jewelry with Jayden.

“Dawson, please,” Sadie whispered. “I’ve got enough to worry about. You can’t get involved.”

“Someone has to stop him,” he said.

“The police will do that. Like I told you, I filed a complaint against him today, and I applied for a restraining order.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “And how was that received?”

She could hear the skepticism in his tone. “Chief Thomas was a little patronizing,” she admitted. “He suggested I might be exaggerating, especially after he called Pete, and Pete said he’d seen what happened and it wasn’t that big of a deal. But Chief Thomas promised me he’d talk to Lolita, too. She could tell the threat was real. She’ll back me up.”

“Even if she does, he didn’t actually strike you, so they’ll minimize it and sweep it under the rug. You realize that, don’t you? In their minds, he hasn’t done anything to be suspended over, and they can’t have an officer on active duty walking around with a restraining order against him.”

Again, it came back to the fact that she had nowhere to turn. But she couldn’t expect Dawson to do any more than he already had. “Even if Thomas only threatens him to stay away from me, it should help. I only need to buy a few months.”

“Maybe it’s time to go on the offensive.”

“Offensive how?”

“Sly believes he’s got his boot on your neck. That’s why he had the nerve to set the fire in the first place.”

“He does have his boot on my neck,” she pointed out with a humorless chuckle.

“It’s time for the power paradigm to shift,” he mumbled as if he wasn’t really talking to her.

“What’d you say?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. Angela had decided she wanted more of Dawson’s attention and asked him to come over and make her a necklace. “We’ll talk about it later.”





20


After they left Stanley DeWitt, Dawson was too tired to drive home, as originally planned, and it wasn’t comfortable for him to sit in the middle so Sadie could drive. He was too big for that spot. So he suggested they get some dinner, stay over at a motel and head back early the next morning.

He thought Sadie might balk. A motel room was close quarters, and neither one of them had money to waste on renting two when they could get by with one, but, when he mentioned it, she readily agreed. He got the impression she was eager to be gone from Silver Springs for as long as possible. She wanted to be gone for good.

He didn’t feel too great about seeing her go, however. He had no idea if their relationship would progress, but he was enjoying her friendship and support, even if she never gave him anything more. He hated to think of her on the run, always looking over her shoulder for fear Sly would catch up. He also hated that Sly had had her at such a disadvantage—and capitalized on it—for so long. In Dawson’s mind, there had to be a better way for her to escape her current situation than to start over somewhere else, with nothing and no one except her child.

Fortunately, Sly might’ve unwittingly provided her with a better chance to escape. If they could only prove he set the fire, he’d go to prison.