Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (65 page)

CHAPTER 2

Sophie felt a kind of perverse excitement about going to a party she knew would make her parents croak. It occurred to her that since she'd skipped over any semblance of a teenage rebellion, maybe it was hitting her now, but she discarded that idea. She'd been a model daughter for as far back as she could remember, but for the first time in her life she felt free. Free to go and do whatever she pleased without worrying about disappointing her parents.

Disappointing her father and his wife, she corrected. Justine was no longer a parent. She was no longer a part of her life.

Emboldened by the lingering effects of the wine, she felt like wearing something to the party that would shock the hell out of Justine. Something tight that showed a lot of cleavage. Her father would be shocked too, but he was in no position to demand she wear skirts below her knees or tops above her collar bones. He'd married a woman who'd spent half her life screwing men, yet still managed to bury her disreputable past and settle into middle-class respectability.

She chuckled softly to herself. The one who'd be the most shocked would be Rick, but thankfully he wouldn't be at the party. She wasn't in the mood for a lecture from him. But he didn't know what it was like to grow up in a straitjacket, then one day discover that everything she'd been taught had been a lie, and she didn't want to try and make him understand. Some things in life were just too complicated to explain.

For tonight though, she felt like an emerging butterfly who'd spent a lifetime in a cocoon and was now ready to fly off and mate. That, too, she'd considered, though most of it was talk, jerking Rick's chain some, though she didn't know why he'd always affected her that way.

Hearing Rick's mother in the hallway, Sophie poked her head out of the bedroom, and said, "Aunt Susan, are there any clothes shops around here where I could buy something to wear to the party that doesn't look like it came from a store selling private school uniforms?" It still seemed strange calling Rick's mother Aunt Susan, but that's what she'd insisted, claiming she'd hoped to be looked on as a sort of pseudo aunt, if not a mother figure, which suited Sophie fine.

She liked Susan. She had an openness about her that invited discussions about anything and everything, even Sophie's feelings about sex, and the fact that she had urges that until now she'd quashed because, like she'd been taught since puberty, thoughts about sex led to a natural curiosity, which led to a desire to check out things like porn sites and R-rated movies, which led to wanting to act on what was seen. Just like having Barbie dolls, an absolute taboo as far as her father and Justine were concerned.

It was also strange seeing Susan in an entirely different light. All she'd ever heard from Rick were the negatives. His mother dumped his father for another man. She had live-in boyfriends. She drank too much. Good old Rick. Mr. Goody Two Shoes. She could assimilate the words in her mind now. But Rick probably never stopped to realize that a failed marriage could be a reason to live with a man instead of marrying him. It was a whole lot easier to ask him to leave if the relationship turned sour than to go through a divorce.

"Maybe I have something you could wear, honey," Susan said. "Let's take a look in my closet. We're about the same size."

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Sophie asked.

"I'd be happy to loan you something. Come on, we'll look together." Susan led Sophie into her bedroom, a spacious room with a king-size bed and double wardrobe closets with mirrored doors. There was also a line-up of full-length mirrors on the opposite wall.

"I like lots of mirrors," Susan commented, when she saw Sophie staring at them with a puzzled expression on her face. "It makes the room seem bigger."

"Yes, it does," Sophie agreed, though the mirrors seemed to take up most of the wall, leaving no room for pictures.

Susan went to the closet and glided open one of the mirrored doors. Sorting through the clothes, she selected a top and lifted it out on its hangar, and said, "This might be a little snug, but you have a nice figure, so it will look good on you. It also has a kind of built-in sports bra so you don't need to wear anything under it. It's your color too. Blonds look good in bright blues."

Sophie eyed the thing on the coat-hanger. Unquestionably snug. And low. And rt to reveal a bare midriff. "It's perfect," she said, wishing Justine would be there to see her.

"And these pants are both casual and comfortable. They're intended to ride low on your hips, but you have a nice flat tummy so they'll look cute on you, and they go with the top," Susan said, while pulling out a pair of white, jersey Capris with turned up cuffs lined in the same bright blue as the top.

Too tight, too low, no bare middle, go back in your room and change...

She could almost hear her father's voice.

"Thank you, Aunt Susan," Sophie said. "What about shoes? What do people around here wear to parties?"

"It's supposed to be casual, so most will probably be barefoot by mid-evening," Susan replied. "I have an assortment of really cute flip flops, and I'll treat you to a pedicure this afternoon. We'll have the manicurist decorate your toenails with blue stars or something." She smiled then, a sweet, sincere smile, and said, "This is fun. I've never had a daughter."

Impulsively, Sophie hugged Susan, and replied, "Well, you do now. And thanks for caring. It's what I need most right now."

As Sophie started out the room with the clothes draped over her arm, Susan said, "I didn't mention it earlier but there's a high school boy living here right now, Kenny. He's having some problems at home and needs a temporary place to stay for until it's all sorted out. He spends a lot of time downstairs on the gym equipment, and he sleeps on the cot in the exercise room."

Sophie gave Susan an ironic smile. "You seem to be collecting young people with family problems, and I really appreciate it," she said, then turned to leave. 

"Honey, one thing more," Susan called out. "Tonight at the party, have fun, but be careful. And you can always call me to come get you if you want to leave early."

"I'll be fine," Sophie assured her, feeling a warmth inside that Susan actually cared, which was as surprising as it was welcome. "Rick seems to think I can't take care of myself. He forgets I've been away at college for four years." Four years at an all-girl's school while living like a nun, Sophie felt like adding, but that was all behind her now. There was a whole new world waiting for her, and it could not have opened up at a better time.

***

Adam eyed Rick with uncertainty. "I know you have a thing for Sophie," he said, "but don't you think crashing a party's going a little too far? She's twenty-three. I doubt she'd appreciate you carrying her off like a Viking warrior."

"I just want to show up and see what's going on," Rick said to his cousin. "If everything's okay we'll leave. And I don't have a thing for Sophie. We're friends, and right now her head's all messed up and she needs help."

"Hell Rick. You've been sniffing around Sophie for years, and you're not even subtle about it. Even Maddy's figured it out."

"What do you mean?"

"She told Dad you were always staring at Sophie and it wasn't polite to stare. Dad just laughed it off and said that's because you like her and she's pretty. Yeah, you definitely have a thing for Sophie."

"I don't want to get into that right now," Rick said, "but what's it going to be? You coming along as backup?"

"Backup for what? Sophie telling you to shove it, or Buzz Newman and his brothers taking offense to a couple of Hansens showing up uninvited and deciding to throw us out bodily. We're not exactly welcome over there."

"This isn't high school," Rick countered. "I like to think we're adults now. Besides, we'd just be stopping by to see if Sophie needed a ride home in case there's drinking."

"You know there'll be drinking," Adam said, "which is why Buzz's bashes end up with everyone screwing everyone and staying overnight. Guaranteed. From what I've heard, they don't even break into separate rooms. It's all done right out in the open. You watch me and I'll watch you and we'll all get horny together."

Adam had a way of laying it all out, which didn’t ease Rick's mind. "That's exactly why I can't let Sophie be there," he said. "She has no idea what goes on at parties like that, and I know she's never had sex before."

Adam looked askance at him. "Is that what she told you?"

"She didn't have to," Rick said. "You know the way she's been raised."

"I also know she probably wouldn't admit to you if she had had sex because she'd get a lecture from you. Maybe if you stopped treating her like a big brother and started treating her like you do the women you date she'd start to look at you differently?"

"If I ever tried anything with Sophie she'd put me in my place, " Rick said. "She laid out the rules years ago and I don't intend to test them right now. Maybe someday, but not while she's in a self-destructive mode."

"Do her folks know she's here?" Adam asked.

"Yeah. I called and told them. I imagine they're on their way by now."

"Pretty lame for the parents of someone Sophie's age to do," Adam said. "No wonder she's finally broken loose."

"There's nothing wrong with the way Sophie was raised," Rick snapped, even though he'd wondered over the years if her folks weren't far too strict. But Sophie never seemed to mind the rules when she was growing up, so he never thought to question them, and until this visit, she'd been every guy's dream of the perfect wife. Maybe more his than the others. But now he was having a little taste of reality, and what he tasted was pretty bitter. "It's already after eleven and I want to get going," he said. "You coming?"

"I suppose," Adam replied. "But if things get out of hand, you owe me."

Rick rapped Adam on the back. "Things won't get out of hand," he assured him, then wished he believed it himself.

The Newman ranch was over eight miles of winding gravel road by truck, which gave Rick time to mull over his approach in explaining to Buzz why he and Adam stopped by, close to midnight... Which fell flat, fifteen minutes later, when Buzz eyed him with suspicion, and said, "Sorry, Hansen, this is a private party."

"I know, but I need to talk to Sophie."

Buzz gave him a one sided smile. "She's busy right now."

"Doing what?"

"If you really want to know, getting screwed."

"The hell she is!" Rick shoved Buzz aside and marched into a dimly-lit room reeking of pot smoke and filled with bodies sitting and reclining and standing pressed together. "Where is she?" he asked Buzz, who was standing a few feet away.

"Look around, Hansen," Buzz replied. "You might have to lift a few guys off her though. She's a pretty hot little number. Where have you been hiding her?"

Rick's gaze dragged over couples entangled in every conceivable position, whether having sex or making out, he didn't know or care, but from what he saw, Sophie wasn't among them. Then he heard the distinct sound of her laughter. Not the laughter when she was happy and being the Sophie he knew, but the laughter he'd heard earlier when she was half drunk.

Catching sight of her sprawled across a guy's lap, with one of the guy's hands inside her top and the other shoved down the front of her pants, he rushed over and dragged the guy's hands from her, drawing a gasp of surprise from Sophie, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her out the house, and headed to where Adam was leaning against the truck.

To his surprise, Sophie didn't protest, only wrapped her arms around him and tucked her face into his neck and said, in a sluggish voice, and with a breath reeking of pot and booze, "I never got screwed. Close, but no cigar."

"Yeah, well in a few minutes you're going to have a cold shower and then we
are
going to talk." He opened the passenger side of the truck and told Adam to drive, then shoved Sophie inside and climbed in beside her.

Sophie cuddled up against him, and said, in a slow, measured voice, "Are... you gonna... be Mizter Goody Two Shoezzz... tonight? See, I got it right thiz time. Or are you gonna finish... what that guy started?"

Adam peered around Sophie and said to Rick, "You might want to rethink the virgin thing. She knows her way around a man."

"Thank you Adam," Sophie said. "Rick doezn't seem... to think I'm cabaable."

"You're capable," Rick said, "and you damned near completed the job. That guy, whose name you don't even know, had his hands all over you and you didn't do a thing to stop him. You want guys touching you all over?"

"I want something," Sophie said. "I'm tired of being... Mizz Pure-azz-the-driven-snow. If you hadn't showed up... I wouldn't still be. Pure that izz. Not snow."

"Pull your top up," Rick said. "It's halfway down your front."

"Actually it'z haveway down my breasts," Sophie enunciated. "But you probably never notizzed... since vets are doctors... and doctors don't look at womenzz's breasts... well I guezzz they do... but not that way. But that guy at the party did. He pulled my top down... and he looked... and I juzzz laughed. And then you came and ruined things."

"You're drunk and you're disgusting," Rick said. "So just be quiet."

"Juzz be quiet," Sophie mimicked, then cuddled against Rick and put her hand on his thigh.