Welcome to Temptation (42 page)

"I doubt Phin's going to take care of it," Leo said. "From the way those people downstairs are talking, he just lost the next election."

Rachel shrugged. "He'll get over it. He loves Sophie, and he'll keep her no matter what. Phin's determined like that. Love'll do that to a person." She met Leo's eyes and he flinched.

"Right." Leo shut his suitcase. "Well, I'm ready. You want I should call a taxi so you don't have to—"

"No," she said, and pulled her dress over her head.

Leo took a step back. "Rachel, stop it."

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"I know you think you're leaving me." Rachel lifted her chin so it wouldn't quiver because that would ruin what she was pretty sure was the magnificent sight of her in Victoria 's Secret red lace. "But you're not. I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, Leo. And I mean professionally, too. I stopped and talked to Sophie on my way here, and we worked it all out. You can teach me to run that new vanilla porn section." She took a deep breath. "I think you should call it Rachel Films and use a cat for the logo that's like the lion on the Leo stuff. And I can do a lot of the promotion that you can't do, because I'm a woman. Sophie thinks it's a great idea."

"Rachel—"

"And I'm smart, Leo," Rachel said. "And I learn fast. Sophie says so. I'm going to do a lot for you, you'll see."

Leo looked at the ceiling. "Could we talk about this with you dressed?"

"No," Rachel said. "Because I'm going to sleep with you, too. I know you don't want to do this, but even just that one kiss with you was better than having sex with anybody else I've had sex with, and I'm coming after the rest of it now. And then we're going to go to L.A and live happily ever after." She narrowed her eyes at him. "If you think I'm settling for anything less, you don't know me." Leo closed his eyes.

"And you know me, Leo." She walked toward him while he kept his eyes closed. "Although, not nearly as well as you're going to."

*

Sophie was sitting on the porch swing waiting when Phin pulled up at the farm. Whatever he did, however much he yelled, she'd just take it. She deserved it.

When he came up on the porch and sat down beside her, he stopped the swing, and she curled her feet under her and sat there, suspended in air, not sure of where she was with him, or even where she wanted to be.

"Did Dillie see it?" she asked him, and he said, "No. Jamie Barclay's mother has a very fast hand with the remote."

"That was not our movie. That was Leo's movie. He took ours and cut the porn stuff into it."

"But you made a porn flick, didn't you?" Phin said, staring out across the yard. Sophie thought about explaining vanilla porn and decided it was hopeless. "Yes. Not like that one, ours wasn't hard-core, and it was good, but yes."

"And you used the stuff I said in bed," Phin said.

"Yes," Sophie said.

"I wondered why you were so easy," he said. "Research."

"No," she said. "I was so easy because you were so good."
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"Don't even try it," he said.

"You forget," she said. "We didn't start out like we are now. It was a game, remember? Julie Ann and the bear on the dock? You thought I was a one-night stand." She swallowed. "And I thought you were a safe chance to break some rules. I didn't think about writing that first scene until after you'd gone that night. And I didn't think you'd ever know. I didn't know you'd ever be important." He closed his eyes. "You kept on doing it. When you knew we weren't a one-night stand."

"I stopped a long time ago," Sophie said. "Before Stephen caught us in the kitchen, even. Before it was more than you just exercising with me."

"Sophie, it was never just exercise."

"Well, you never told me that." Sophie felt her temper spurt even as she said it. "You make jokes and you stay cool and you do not get involved, and I'm supposed to feel guilty because I don't recognize your deep emotional involvement?"

"You're not supposed to betray the people you sleep with," Phin said.

"By the time I realized there might be something to betray, it was too late," Sophie said. "I owed Amy, too. And we didn't think anybody would ever know. Nobody does know, except for you and Amy. And now the tapes are all gone. There's nothing left of all that work." She lifted her chin. "So you're off the hook."

"Then why does it still feel like it's buried in my back?" Phin said. He hadn't turned to look at her once, and she lost it and punched him hard on the shoulder so he jerked around. "What do you want from me?" she said. "An apology? I'm sorry, I really am. You want me to destroy the tapes? They're gone. You want me to feel guilty, to suffer? I do, I am. But you're part of this, too, you know. You never said, 'Sophie, you're important to me, Sophie,
this
is important to me. You never even said, 'I love you.' You remember what you said when I said it on Saturday? You said, 'Thank you.'"

Phin turned away from her, and she said. "'Thank you.' Yeah, that was a clear indication that you cared desperately about the sanctity of our relationship. You arrogant bastard."

"Wait a minute," Phin said. "Why are you yelling at me?" Sophie stood up, and Phin grabbed the chain as the swing bounced. She said, "Because you betrayed me ten times more than I betrayed you. You knew you cared and you didn't tell me, and now you come out here all wounded, saying it was more than just playing around and
I should have known that
?"

"I'm just saying," Phin said quietly, "that it's pretty much a basic rule that you don't make public what a lover says to you in private."

"What 'private'?" Sophie waved her arm at the yard. "We weren't private. You went down on me on the
dock
. You threw a
lamp
against the wall so you wouldn't have to be alone with me. You did me on a
car
. It was all a
game
. And now you change the rules and you want me to feel guilty? Well, I'm not going to, so there. I've changed my mind. This is your fault."

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"My fault." Phin stood up. "
My
fault. That's rich."

"Oh, that's good." Sophie nodded. "Now you can feel indignant and go back into town and lord it over the council meeting tomorrow and patronize everybody and think about how lucky you are to not be involved with somebody as irrational as me because you are clearly the cool one in control and—"

"Sophie, shut up." Phin leaned against the porch post, looking more tired than she'd ever seen him. "I'm so far out of control, I don't think there's anything left of my life."

"Well, then, do something about it instead of standing there all smug," Sophie said. "You're playing so many balls ahead, you don't even know there's a game in front of you."

"You know, I knew you were the devil's candy," Phin said, as if he wasn't listening to her at all. "As soon as I set eyes on you, I knew you'd brink me down. You and that mouth." Sophie stuck out her chin. "And I knew you were a town boy, out to get my virtue and leave me crying." She waited for him to say something snarky about her virtue, but all he did was shake his head.

"We should have gone with our instincts," he said, and started down the porch steps. Sophie stared after him, nonplussed. "So what did you come out here for?" she called after him." Vindication? Validation? Revenge?What?"

"I don't know," he said, as he jerked open his car door. "But I sure as hell didn't get it."

"Well, that's the first time you came out here and didn't get what you wanted," Sophie yelled. "You're long overdue to go home empty-handed, as far as I'm concerned."

He stood inside the open car door for a minute and then he said, "Do you know who pushed you into the river?" Sophie looked at him incredulously. "What?"

"What are you talking about? We're in the middle of a fight here." When he stood there, waiting, she said, "No, I've told you a million times, I don't know."

"Because it wasn't Stephen," Phin said. "Which means somebody else is gunning for you."

"It could be anybody," Sophie said. "The whole damn town hates me." Phin shook his head. "No, they don't. Most of them don't even know you, and the ones that do, like you. Nobody'd want to kill you."

"After tonight they all do," Sophie said,

"Oh, I think they're pretty much concentrating on me, thanks to Stephen." Phin looked grim in the moonlight. "And you're leaving anyway. I'm the one facing the music. And it ain't Dusty Springfield, babe. Have a nice life." He got in the car and slammed the door and started the engine, drowning out anything else she might say, like, Come back here and fight this out, you bastard.

When he was gone, Amy came out on the porch and handed her a Dove Bar. Sophie took it and followed her to the swing, which Lassie crawled out from under, now that the shouting had stopped.
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"That's not over, you know," Amy said.

"It might be," Sophie said, trying not to sniff. "He's such an uptight jerk, it just might be."

"Nah," Amy said. "He's just trying to figure out what hit him. And what he's going to do with the pieces. He'll be back. He's like us that way. Gets what he wants."

They rocked in silence for a couple of minutes, arid then Sophie said, "Are you okay with that? With Phin and me?"

"Yeah." Amy nodded. "Davy was right. And Wes likes him so he must be okay."

"What did Wes say about the video?"

"Not much." Amy bit into her ice cream. "He didn't care about the permit thing at all. He wants to know who switched the tapes and played porn to Temptation, and he wants to nail somebody for shooting Zane, preferably Clea or Davy. I don't know why he's so fixated on them, but he seems sure they know something."

"They're both gone, you know," Sophie said. "She left before he did. I don't think she even told Rob good-bye. So it's just us."

Amy nodded. "I'll stick with you through the council meeting tomorrow. And then I'm going to L.A. Unless we get arrested for violating the permit."

Sophie stopped the swing. "What?"

"Wes said it wouldn't be a big deal and we could come back to the farm. He said he and Phin would work it out because the whole permit thing was probably unconstitutional. But he also said we had to stay until they got it fixed. By Thursday, he said."

"Phin isn't going to fix anything for me," Sophie said. "And I was the only living Dempsey who'd never been in jail."

"Dad will be so proud," Amy said.

"There's a comfort," Sophie said, and rocked for a minute. "Phin said something else. He said Stephen wasn't the one who pushed me."

"And he got this information how?"

Sophie shook her head. "I don't know, but he was sure. And he hates Stephen so if he could have pinned it on him, he would have. So who did?"

"This doesn't make sense," Amy said. "I'd bet money Stephen switched the tapes. If he was out to get you—"

"Why would he be out to get me?" Sophie said. "Phin's the one in his way." Amy stopped swinging. "So it really was somebody else?"

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"Whoever it was, pushed me really hard," Sophie said slowly. "And then watched me fall into that river and get swept away. Somebody really had to hate me to do that. So who was it?"

"We all go a little mad sometimes,'" Amy said.

Sophie thought about Liz and Phin and Dillie, trapped together, tearing each other apart. "That has to end," she said. "I have to at least fix that before I go."

"You're not going to go see her, are you?" Amy said.

"I have to," Sophie said. "She's trying to kill me."

~15~

Atnoonthe next day, Phin watched Wes climb the steps to the bookstore. "Good, it's you. I couldn't take one more person telling me how disappointed they were in me, what a loss I am as mayor to have let that happen, or how delighted they'll be not to vote for me in November. It's been a real stampede in here." He rubbed his neck. "And not one of them bought a book." Wes sat down in his chair and put his feet on the rail. "So it's all over, huh?"

"Looks that way," Phin said. "I've still got six weeks before the election, but this is the kind of thing that sticks in people's minds."

"Yeah." Wes nodded sadly. "So how's Sophie?"

"Furious," Phin said, trying to sound detached about it. "She's decided it's my fault." He shrugged. "It's better this way. If I'd talked her around, I'd have had to listen to Dusty Springfield every day for the rest of my life."

"Yeah, and there'd have been all that sex, too," Wes said. "That would have gotten old."

"You can shut up anytime now," Phin said.

"And she could kick your ass at pool, too," Wes said.

"So, Amy still going to L.A. ?"

"Shut the fuck up," Wes said.

"We did real well, didn't we?" Phin said, giving up on detached. "Christ, I haven't seen a crash-and-burn like this since..." He shook his head at the sky. "I've never seen a crash-and-burn like this. We're good."

"Finest kind." Wes stood up, letting the legs of his chair hit the porch floor with a thud. "However, unlike you, I am not a quitter. I don't have a plan, but I'm not a quitter."

"I'm not a quitter," Phin said. "I just have no interest, in going out there and having Sophie slam the door in my face to 'All Cried Out,' shortly followed by Davy trying to beat me up."
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"He's gone," Wes said. "Hit the airport last night and flew to theBahamas." Phin straightened a little. "Did he now?"

"Yep." Wes went down the steps. "So did Clea."

"And you let them go?"

"I can get 'em if I want 'em. I think they're both guilty as hell, but I can't figure out what they did. So I'm not sure I want them."

"But you want Amy," Phin said.

"I'll get Amy." Wes started down the street and then stopped and came back a couple of steps. "Almost forgot. The ballistics report came back. Zane's bullet did not come from your dad's gun." Phin let his breath out. "Finally, something goes my way." Then he frowned. "So my mother used the gun to frame Sophie, not caring that the ballistics test would trip her up? That doesn't make sense. She's nuts but she's not stupid."

"I think the real gun's in the river," Wes said. "Everything about this yahoo so far says he's impulsive. It would make sense at the time for him to drop the gun in the water after he shot Zane. And with the current the way it's been, I don't think we're going to find it. If that's true, and somebody decided to frame Sophie as an afterthought, he'd have to get another gun. And if all he wanted to do was start gossip about Sophie he wouldn't care about the ballistics report."