Welcome to Temptation (34 page)

"What the hell happened?" he said, when he'd tracked down the Coreys.

"It's that stupid cheap paint," the older one said. "When that hard rain hit, it just peeled right off."

"It's cool," the younger one said. "Looks like blood dripping off. The newspapers were here taking pictures."

Phin looked back up the Hill where the tower did indeed look like a huge bleeding phallic symbol. "Can you get that red off and paint it white?"

"Oh, yeah, like we're gonna strip the water tower," the older Corey said. "Just give it a couple of days and it'll be off anyway. The tower's gonna be a weird color, though. That red doesn't stick, but it stains." That would explain why the tower looked rosier this time, even more like flesh than before. Wonderful. He let the Coreys go and drove out to the farm for sanity and comfort, and by the time he'd slammed the car door, Sophie was on the porch. He went toward her, feeling better just looking at her, but she shook her head and whispered, "This isn't a good time."

"Now what?" His irritation married his frustration and made him snarl. "Amy build a bomb? Davy decide he hates me again? Or are you just playing hard-to-get because you want to go out to dinner? Come on, Sophie, I've had a lousy day. Fuck me."

Sophie winced, and he frowned at her, wondering when she'd turned into a prude. The screen door slammed as he said, "What's wr—" and then a fist slammed into his eye and he was on his back in the dirt, his head throbbing.

" Brandon ," Sophie said, and Phin looked up though the pain at a guy the size of a tank.

"You son of a bitch," the therapist said.

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~12~

Sophie moved in front of the guy, blocking Phin's view which was pretty hazy anyway. "All right, stop it, Brandon . He didn't mean it the way it sounded—"

"
Nobody
talks to you like that," Brandon said, and Phin sat up and tried to figure out how he'd ended up the bad guy.

"It's his idea of foreplay," Sophie said uncertainly, and Phin felt like hell.

"It's his idea of diminishing you so that you know you're not important to him," Brandon said. "He's abusive, and you're enabling him."

Wait a minute. Phin tried to stand up but the world swooped around him, so he sat back down in the dirt again.

"He's not abusive," Sophie said. "He's in a bad mood. He can be perfectly lovely when he wants to be."

"Ouch," Phin said.

"And what do you have to do to make him lovely?" Brandon said. "Sophie, I know he's been exciting, but if this is the way he treats you—"

"He treats me just fine," Sophie said, and Brandon looked down at Phin in the dust and said, "He treats you like a whore."

" Brandon !" Sophie said, and Phin leveraged his way up, grabbing the porch rail to keep what little sense of balance he had.

"I will never understand why women stay with abusive men," Brandon was saying. "Especially somebody like you. You're a sensible woman, Sophie. Surely—"

"Oh, not really," Sophie said, watching Phin warily. " Brandon , I think you'd better go."

"Sophie, you can't—"

"Yes, I can," she said to Brandon . Then she looked at Phin, frowning. "Don't move until I get back." She prodded Brandon over to his car, and he went, still explaining her abusive relationship to her. Phin squinted at the car. A late-model Toyota . Practical of him. Then Sophie stretched up to kiss the giant therapist good-bye, and Phin scowled, which hurt, and leaned against the porch post, which also hurt, until the enemy was gone.

"Let's get some ice on that eye," Sophie said, as she came back to him and took his arm.

"I don't like him," Phin said, still dizzy.

"I know, bear," she said. "He doesn't like you, either."

*

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Fifteen minutes later, Phin was stretched out on the dock by the rushing river with his head in Sophie's lap, ice on his eye, and Lassie sniffing his ear.

"This is all my fault." She leaned down and moved the ice to kiss his bruised eye, and he felt some of his tension seep away. "I never should have told Brandon about you."

"Yes, you should have." Phin watched her face hover above him, concern wrinkling her forehead. She's mine, he wanted to tell Brandon , preferably on the phone. "You might have told me he was built like a truck."

Sophie put the ice back on his eye. "He played second-string football for Ohio State . He says he would have been first-string but he kept going to class."

"Don't tell him I played golf for Michigan . Although, if I'd had my four iron, this would have ended very differently."

Sophie's laugh bubbled out and he smiled at her because he loved her face when she laughed. "Why the hell did he hit me anyway? I thought you'd told him it was over."

Sophie's smile faded. "It was that crack you made about dinner and the ... language you used." Phin frowned and then winced as his face protested. "He doesn't want me to take you to dinner?" he said, as he moved the ice away from his eye. "Too damn bad, but that's not a reason to punch somebody. And you never minded my language before."

"He doesn't want you making me feel cheap," Sophie said. "I have a history of that." He scowled up at her and said, "What?" and then he listened with increasing guilt as she told him about the louse she'd lost her virginity to.

When she'd finished, he said, "This is the town-boy thing."

She nodded.

"Fuck. I'd have hit me, too. Maybe I can still catch him, and we can go to Iowa together. Beating up a middle-aged businessman would make us both feel better."

"Thank you, but no," Sophie said. "Davy took care ofChada long time ago."

"Good for Davy," Phin said. "I'm sorry, Sophie."

"You didn't mean anything when you said it," Sophie said, smiling at him. An "enabler," Brandon had said. "Call me on it when I'm being a son of a bitch," he told her. "Don't take that crap from me just because I'm tired and I can be nice when I want to be."

"Call yourself on it," Sophie said, a little waspishly, and he said, "Fuck," and moved the ice pack up to cover his eye.

"I'm sorry aboutChad," he told her. "I'm sorry about every guy who ever fucked you over. God knows, I probably did it to some girl, too."
Probably, hell. Definitely.

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"No, you didn't," Sophie said. "You married Diane."

"I used Diane to get what I wanted, and then paid for it," Phin said. "I don't think I get any awards for being a sensitive male on that one."

"I don't want a sensitive male," Sophie said. "I want you."

"Thank you," Phin said. "Damn good thing you have lousy taste in men or I'd be out in the cold."

"Oh, cheer up." She kissed him on the forehead and he frowned and then winced again.

"I'm sorry about the 'fuck me,' too," he said. "The therapist is wrong. You're important to me. You know that."

Sophie glared down at him, exasperated. "Well, you do, right?" He squinted up at her again. "Sure. Yeah." Sophie took a deep breath. "Forget Brandon . Let's make you feel better."

"The only thing that would make me feel better at this point is headbanging sex," he told her, guilt making him cranky. "But since Brandon pretty much banged my head for me, I think sex is out."
Probably part
of his plan, the son of a bitch
.

"Well then talk dirty to me," Sophie went on, now relentlessly cheerful. "You like that. What about your fantasies? We never talk about you."

Phin stared at the sky. The last thing he needed right now was Sophie being chirpy. Under ordinary circumstances, he'd have told her to can it, but that "abusive" bit had stung. "My fantasies," he said.

"Most of them start with you naked."

Sophie nodded. "Okay, then what?"

"Handcuffs, whips, chains, butter, the usual."

"Stick or tub?" Sophie said.

"What?"

"The butter."

Phin closed his eyes and gave up being sensitive. "Sophie, I know you're trying to be cute, but shut up. I have a headache." He felt his eye and winced and then tried to sit up.

"No, I'm serious." She put her hand on his stomach to stop him and he stopped moving to appreciate it.

"Tell me a fantasy."

He looked down at her hand. "About six inches lower."

"A
fantasy
."

He sighed, and her hand rose and fell with his stomach. "Okay. Let's see." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back into her lap. She was going someplace with this, so he went for something easy. "I'm sitting
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in a bar, being my usual cool, sophisticated self..."

"That's it," Sophie said. "A fantasy."

"...and this incredibly beautiful woman sits down beside me."

"This has to be something I can do," Sophie said.

"Stop fishing for compliments. And she says, 'I want you, I need you, I must have you, and by the way I'm not wearing underpants.' And then we go someplace, and she fucks my brains out." Actually, that sounded pretty damn good, now that he thought about it. The pain receded a little.

"You have no imagination," Sophie was saying. "That's like the oldest cliché there is."

"Don't say 'like,'" Phin said. "You sound like Rachel."

"That one's even been in the movies a couple of times," Sophie said. "Don't you have anything—"

"Hey." Phin opened his eyes and glared at her. "You asked, I told. I have others involving hardware and dairy products, but you made mock."

"You're not taking this seriously."

Phin closed his eyes again. "Christ, no. You should never take sex seriously. Terrible idea. Do you have any aspirin?"

Sophie sighed. "Okay. Meet me at the Tavern tonight at eight."

Phin opened his eyes. "You're kidding."

Amy came out on the porch and called to her, and Sophie gritted her teeth.

"Tell her to take a hike," Phin said.

"She's having a rough time." Sophie lifted his head to slide out from under him. "Wes hasn't called since that day he yelled at her for lying to him. And then there's this cable premiere thing. She's under a lot of stress."

"Who the fuck isn't?" Phin said.

"You, tonight." Sophie bent over and kissed him as she got up. "The Tavern at eight, bear." Phin let his head drop back onto the dock, missing her warmth. "Cool."

"Now
you
sound like Rachel," she said, and headed for the house and her sister, the problem child.

*

"Leo, I have to talk to you," Rachel said that night after she'd picked him up at the airport and they'd dropped Davy off at the farm. "This is really, really, really important."
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"I'm not taking you to L.A. ," Leo said automatically.

"I have to get out of Temptation," she began, and he said, "I know, I know," and she said, "Because I think I might have killed Zane."

"Pull over," Leo said, and Rachel did. "Tell me."

"I went out back of the house to meet Rob," Rachel said. "And Zane was there, sort of stumbling, and he grabbed me, and wouldn't let go and I had Sophie's Mace so I Maced him, and then I pushed him and he fell in the river and had a heart attack and died and I think it's my fault." She stopped, breathless.

"What were you doing meeting Rob?" Leo said, sounding cranky.

"He called me," Rachel said. "He wanted to break up with me because he's sleeping with Clea now. You're missing the point, Leo. What about Zane?"

Leo shook his head. "You're okay, kid. It was self-defense. They won't arrest you." Rachel shook her head and leaned toward him. "He told people I was chasing him. He told people I offered to sleep with him to get him to take me to L.A. , and I
didn't
. I know that's hard to believe, but I wouldn't have crossed the street with him—"

Leo put his arm around her as she started to shake. "I know, I know."

"—but nobody's going to believe that," Rachel wept into his shoulder, "because I've been chasing everybody, trying to get out of here, and they'll think he said no and I killed him because I was mad—"

"They won't." Leo patted her shoulder. "That's ridiculous."

"—and then we ran over him—"

Leo stopped patting. "You what?"

"Rob and I ran over him at the Tavern. We didn't know he was there. I don't even know how he got there—"

"Shut up for a minute," Leo said, and Rachel was so surprised, she shut up. He'd tightened his arm around her when he'd told her to shut up, and that felt good, too, to have him holding her that tight and sure, and, for the first time since Zane had grabbed her, she felt safe. If she could spend the rest of her life with Leo's arm around her, she'd be okay.

" L.A. is not your answer," he said. "We'll just go to Wes and tell him everything and you'll get points for being so honest."

Going to Wes sounded like a lousy idea, except he'd said "we'll go," and that sounded wonderful.

"But we should get there first, before anybody else. Who else knows about this?"

"Just you," Rachel said, feeling almost cheerful. "Rob knows about the Tavern because he was driving and he knows Zane grabbed me, but he doesn't know I Maced him and pushed him."
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"You only told me?" Leo sounded amazed.

"You're the only one I trust," Rachel said. "Besides, you'll know what to do. You know everything." It sounded dorky when she said it, but it was true.

"Oh, great."

Leo tightened his arm around her, so she leaned into him a little more, and that felt so good she put both her arms around him and hugged him to her.

"I know I'm a pain," she said into his chest. "I know I drive you crazy, but you're the only one I—"

"Rachel, don't—" He let go of her but she held on. "I need you," she said. "I need you and I trust you and I love you." She hadn't meant to add the last part, but there it was and it was true, and she felt wonderful as soon as she said it. "I know you think I'm just a hick kid, but I really love you. I just didn't realize until this happened and you were the only one." She swallowed and then raised her head so she could look in his eyes. "I want to be with you. It's okay if you don't—"

"I'm not what you think I am," he said. "Nobody could be what you think I am." She shook her head. "You can be. You are. You're the best."