Welcome to Temptation (40 page)

"Amy, I will always be here for you, but you're not getting my life anymore."

"No,
they
get it now." Amy sniffed. "Well, no problem. I can take care of myself."

"Actually, you can't." Sophie tried to smile to take the sting out of the words. "I wish you'd apologize to Wes and get him back. This is a man who not only fixed your funky sunglasses, he made them funkier. And he gave you a flexible showerhead that you've been using for immoral purposes ever since we got here. He may be the only man in the world who understands you and gives you what you need even before you know you need it. But you're giving him up for a dirty movie? Come on, Ame."

"This is my career, Sophie," Amy said stiffly.

"This is a home movie, Amy," Sophie said. "An amateur, direct-to-video skin flick. You are not Robert Rodriguez. Grow up and look at what matters in life."

Amy turned and walked out.

When Davy came up the stairs a few minutes later, he said, "What happened with Amy?"

"I picked Phin and Dillie," Sophie said. "Was that lousy of me?"

"No," Davy said. "It's past time for you to get a better plan than, 'I'll sacrifice my life for my grown brother and sister.' Way past time."

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"What about you?" Sophie said.

"I have a plan of my own," Davy said, grinning. "Everything's going to be fine."

"Not for Amy," Sophie said, and Davy's smile faded. "She'll be all right," he said, but he didn't sound convinced. The lights flickered, and he said, "Oh, great, she's plugged in all the computer stuff again. Didn't you tell her—"

"Over and over again," Sophie said, and got up to call down the stairs. "Amy? You're going to blow a—"

The lights went out downstairs.

"—fuse."

"I'll get it," Amy said coldly from the foot of the stairs. "How hard can this be if you do it?" They heard her slam open the basement door and stamp down the stairs.

"You know, she needs to be smacked," Davy said. "Spoiled brat."

"She's just hurt," Sophie said. "She—"

The lights came on for a split second, and then there was a
crack
and they went out again.

"Amy?" Sophie said.

"
Amy?
" Davy ran for the stairs, Sophie on his heels.

*

"Somebody pulled loose a wire in the fuse box," Wes said, when Phin had come back from the hospital.

"And poured water on the floor and set a trap for her."

"Not for her," Phin said, his voice grim. "Amy doesn't change the fuses. She doesn't do any scut work. She's the artist." He felt lousy even as he said it, remembering Amy's pale little face in the hospital bed, her fingers bandaged from the burns, her head shaved to stitch up the wound she'd gotten when the charge had blown her back against an old metal table.

"For Sophie," Wes agreed. "I got an anonymous phone call today. Somebody seemed to think there was a gun under Sophie's bed."

"Trace it?"

"The courthouse," Wes said. "Anybody in the world could have made it. And now this. Somebody wants Sophie out of the way pretty badly."

Phin closed his eyes. "I do not see my mother sneaking into a basement to fray a wire. Or putting a gun under a bed she knew I'd be sleeping in."

"Your mom is ... upset that you moved out," Wes said. "Extremely."
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"She'll get over it," Phin said. "So you going to the hospital to see Amy?" Wes turned away as he added,

"She asked for you. I told her you were investigating the accident and you'd be out to talk to her later."

"She wants to see me?"

"Sounded like it," Phin said. "She pretty much got the spunk knocked out of her, and she's stuck in the hospital for the night. Good time to go talk to her."

Wes turned on him. "You think I'd ask her about Zane now?"

"I meant about the two of you," Phin said. "She's leaving tomorrow after the premiere."

"She'll be out that fast?"

"They're just watching her for the night. Go see her."

"Maybe," Wes said. "Is Sophie—"

"Sophie's staying with me tonight."

"I thought Dillie—"

"She's staying with me and Dillie," Phin said.

Wes raised his eyebrows. "Your mother—"

"Go see Amy," Phin said. "I'll take care of my mother."

*

When Wes brought Amy home from the hospital the next day, Sophie had the entire house cleaned, their things packed, and the car full of gas. "If you don't feel like leaving tonight after the premiere, we can stay," Sophie said, and Amy said, "Whatever you want," and went upstairs to bed.

"I'll come back later tonight," Wes told Sophie. "She's okay, she's just nervous about the video." But when Sophie went upstairs to see her, she found Davy instead, packing his bag.

"You're leaving?"

"I've got a place I have to be, and somebody I have to finish things with." He closed the suitcase lid and locked it. "Harvard's watching your back here, probably better than I can. It's his turf, after all."

"I don't think—"

"Amy's okay and Clea's gone, so I'd say your problems—"

"Clea's gone?"

"Left about an hour ago," Davy said. His voice was light, but his face was grim.
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"Is that why you're leaving?"Sophiefelt sick."You're not going off with her, are you? You don't want her back?"

"You ask too many questions." Davy sat down beside her and put his arm around her. "Listen to me: Marry the mayor and keep the dog and live happily ever after in this house. That's what you want. Forget about me and Amy and go for it."

"Just like that," Sophie said.

"Have you tried?" Davy said.

Sophie smiled faintly. "Well, actually, yeah. I kicked the mayor's butt at pool."

"Good girl," Davy said.

"By not wearing underwear," Sophie said.

"Even better," Davy said.

"I just don't think that's going to do it," Sophie said. "And I know that's not going to get me the house."

"I have a deal for you," Davy said, and Sophie said, "This should be good. Scamming your sister."

"No," Davy said. "This one's a promise. You stay here and marry the mayor and I'll get you this house." Sophie blinked at him. "You have three-quarters of a million dollars?"

"Never ask people about money," Davy said. "It's rude." Zane's bank book. Sophie went cold. "Where did you get three-quarters of a million dollars?"

"Sophie—" Davy said and hit her with the Dempsey smile.

Sophie sighed. "Call me for bail when you get caught."

"You have an attitude problem," Davy said, and kissed her cheek. "Don't go back to Cincy, stay here. I'll have the deed for you by Monday."

He picked up the suitcase, and she said, "Wait," and he caught her as she flung herself at him. "Be very, very careful," she whispered in his ear, not adding
especially with Clea
, and he held her tight and said,

"Just for you, I always am." Then he kissed her cheek and was gone.

*

That night, Phin had just grabbed his car keys when Sophie knocked on the back door of the bookstore.

"I thought I was coming out to you," he said, letting her in.

"Amy is driving me crazy," Sophie said. "I left Wes to deal with her. She likes him better than me
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anyway." She slid her arms around his waist and he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. "And unlike Amy, you are calm," Sophie said against his shirt. "I like that in a man."

"That's been harder lately," he said. "Dillie's at Jamie Barclay's. Want to come upstairs and watch TV in my bed?"

"I didn't even know you had a TV," Sophie said.

"ESPN2 has billiards on Wednesday nights," Phin said.

"Then of course you have a TV."

She piled his pillows at the head of the bed while he opened the cabinet that held his TV and flipped the channels to Temptation cable, and when he turned, she was propped up waiting for him, looking fairly comfortable and really good, even if she was back in khaki.

"Do I get popcorn?" she said, and Phin looked at the kitchen clock and said, "We have five minutes before showtime. You may get something else."

"Oh, gee, a whole five minutes." Sophie rolled her eyes. "That's what I need, a guy with staying power." He stretched out on the bed next to her. "Before I forget,
Prizzi's Honor
." He patted the bed. "'Right here on the Oriental.'"

"How'd you get that?"

"Amy," he said. "I asked her when she was in the hospital. Of course, she didn't know what I was going to do with it."

Sophie laughed and kissed him, and he fell into all her softness and the heat of her mouth.

"Funny you should mention that," Sophie said as she snuggled closer. "I went to Hildy's today to take her Dove Bars as a thank-you for rescuing me off her dock, and she had this book of ballads."

"Good," Phin said, and bent to kiss her again, sliding his arm behind her head.

"And 'Julie Ann' was in there," Sophie said, ducking him a little so that he stopped. "And I think you had it wrong."

He lifted his head. "Wrong? My grandmother sang that song to me for years. You're telling me my grandma was wrong?"

"The last line," Sophie said sternly, "says that they never found Julie, and they never found the bear."

"Right," Phin said.

"So they both disappeared," Sophie said.

"Right," Phin said.

"So it's a pretty patriarchal assumption that the bear got Julie." Sophie turned away from him a little and
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slid her hand under the pillows. "I think Julie got the bear."

"Yeah, right," Phin said, and then he felt something cold snap on the wrist he'd put behind her head, and when he sat up, Sophie had him handcuffed to the headboard.

"Wes loaned them to me," she said. I have to give them back later tonight, though." Phin tugged once on the cuffs as he felt something closely akin to panic. "This isn't funny. Give me the key."

Sophie sat cross-legged on the bed and shook her head. "Nope. It's definitely Julie Ann's turn this time." Phin closed his eyes. "At least tell me you have the key."

"Of course I have the key." He could feel Sophie leaning closer, and then he felt her working the buttons on his shirt open.

"Sophie, I don't th—" Phin began, but then her fingertips brushed his stomach, and every muscle he had tightened, and he shut up.

She popped open the button on his pants and said, soft and slow, "Let me give you an orgasm you don't have to work for," and he looked into her liquid brown eyes and said, "Just don't lose the key." She laughed and kissed his stomach, and then he forgot about the key, and the murder, and Temptation in general, and surrendered to Sophie's cool, searching fingers and her hot, hungry mouth. Fifteen minutes later, he was staring contentedly at the ceiling, counting his blessings which now seemed numerous, when he heard somebody pound on the downstairs door. Sophie sat up beside him, and he tried to do the same, only to realize he was still handcuffed to the bed. "The key—" he began, and then he saw she was looking past him to the television, stunned. "What?" he said, and she said, "That's the wrong movie. That's
Cherished
."

He turned and saw Rob on-screen, naked, reaching for Clea, also naked, and heard him say, "'You definitely have discovery fantasies.'"

Phin froze as the dialogue rolled over him.

"'We're going to be having a lot of sex in public places,'" Rob said. "'You want to know why?'"

"'No,'" Clea said and stretched for the camera.

"'Because you like it,'" Rob said, and reached for her, and then the movie cut to grainier film of bodies writhing, and Sophie said, "Oh my God, that's
Hot Fleshy Thighs
!" The pounding got louder downstairs, and Phin turned to her and said, "Get me that key." Sophie scrambled for it on the bedside table and unlocked the cuffs with shaking fingers while he watched the film go into such a tight close-up that it was almost impossible to tell what body parts were being filmed.

Almost.

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Phin rolled out of bed and grabbed his pants. "Call Wes at the farm and tell him to meet me at the cable station."

"That's not our movie," Sophie said, as she grabbed the phone and punched in the numbers, "that's Leo's movie, I swear to God."

"I really don't give a damn, Sophie," Phin said. "My kid is watching that." The picture flipped back to a naked Rob who said to a naked Clea, "'Your soul is a corkscrew.'"

"Phin—" Sophie's voice broke, and then the picture snapped and turned dark, and she shut up. Either his TV was broken, or somebody had stormed the cable station and shut it down. He flipped the channel and saw a blond teenager kicking the hell out of a vampire. His TV was fine. His life, however, was broken.

"I'm sorry," Sophie whispered.

"Yeah, so am I," he said, and went downstairs to talk to the irate citizen pounding on the door.

~14~

Rachel sat across the table from Leo in Temptation's only diner, mired in misery, while Leo put on his glasses and read the receipt the waitress had just handed him with his Visa card. He was leaving. He was going back to L.A. and leaving her stuck here in Temptation. And she loved him, damn it. That was the worst of it. It wasn't that he was leaving her in Temptation, although that was bad enough.

It was that he was leaving
her
. He didn't
love
her. She couldn't understand it at all. He'd kissed her that one glorious time, and he'd taken care of her when she'd gone to Wes, but that was it and now he was going and she was miserable.

Leo checked his watch. "The movie started fifteen minutes ago," he told her. "How long is it?"

"The clean version? About half an hour." Rachel leaned forward. "Leo, stop ignoring me." Leo sighed. "I know you want to come to L.A. , kid."

"I'm not a kid," Rachel said. "I'm a good worker. I learn fast. You're stupid not to take me."

"I'd be stupid
to
take you." Leo signed the receipt and pocketed his Visa. "Even assuming your father didn't come after me with a shot-gun, I'd spend all my time looking after you. You stay here and have a normal life."