Welcome to Temptation

  Then he hit the bottom of the stairs and saw Sophie.

  She was bent over the table, racking balls and humming “Some of Your Lovin‘,” looking very hot in her pink dress, and the memory of where they’d just been and what they’d just done lessened his annoyance considerably.

  “Hey, you,” she said, and came around the table to kiss him, no hassles and no nagging, and when she broke the kiss and smiled lazily at him, he smiled back.

  “How about a game?” she said. “We’ve got time for nine ball.”

  “You know nine ball?” he said, and she said, “Everybody knows nine ball, although I’m not in your league, of course. Do you want to play?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Davy said you were really good,” Sophie said. “Try not to beat me too bad.”

  “I’ll go easy,” he said, planning on blowing a few shots. It really wasn’t fair to play her straight-on when she wasn’t as good as he was.

  She smiled at him again. “This is a magnificent table,” she said, and the last of his tension eased away as he watched her stroke the rosewood rails. “But then, everything about you is magnificent.”

  He felt a faint stir of alarm, but then she came to the end of the table with cue in hand. She took a stance that dynamite couldn’t have shifted, gripped the cue firmly with her thumb and two fingers and bent to sight down it in perfect form. Phin tilted his head to see her better. Perfect form and the world’s best butt in a short pink dress.

  She looked up at him, still smiling. “You playing, here?”

  “Yeah.” He picked up his cue and bent to shoot for the lag, but she was close beside him in that pink dress, and she shook his concentration and took the break away from him.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Very nice.”

  “Rack ‘em.” She chalked her cue, and then, while he watched, her smile evaporated and she pocketed the seven on the break with a power stroke that banished “cute” from his vocabulary for her forever.

  “I never told you this before,” she said, after she’d chalked and taken aim on the one. “But I come from a long line of felons.”

  “Really.” Phin watched the ball fall into the pocket without hitting the back.

  Sophie stood and chalked. “My father’s on the lam right now on a fraud charge.” She bent and fell into perfect position again, and Phin stifled a sigh. “He’s a recidivist. A big one.” She pocketed the two with a follow shot that left her exactly where she needed to be, and stood to chalk again. “Then there’s my brother.”

  “Davy.” Phin watched her bend again.

  “He makes his living defrauding people who defraud people.” Sophie pocketed the three. “They’re not really in a position to go after him, so he gets away with it, although there are a considerable number of people who don’t like him.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Phin said, and Sophie chalked again.

  “Amy had a few small problems with the law, but in general she’s pretty straight now.”

  “That’s good.”

  “And then there’s me,” Sophie said.

  She pocketed the four on a beautiful stop shot, and Phin said, “You.”

  “Yeah.” Sophie nodded and chalked again. “I’ve been ducking my destiny, trying to go straight and be good. But you know—”

  She bent to take her shot, aimed carefully, and followed through with such perfect form that Phin went a little dizzy for a moment.

  “—that’s not really me,” she said as she straightened. “I was born to be bad.” She smiled at him. “I learned that from you. Thank you so much.”

  Phin swallowed. “You’re welcome.”

  Then Sophie put away the six, and he thought, Hell, she could beat me. It was a strangely arousing thought. But there was a limit.

  “Actually, I already knew about your family,” he said. “Zane told me.”

  She had chalked and bent to shoot again, but now she hesitated. “He did?”

  Phin nodded. “He seemed a little annoyed that I didn’t care.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said, and sighted down the cue to the eight. When she missed the shot, it was by such a tiny miscalculation, hitting the ball just a fraction too hard, that he was almost sorry.

  But not sorry enough not to put the eight and nine away. This was, after all, pool. He chalked his cue and looked at the eight. She’d left him a cut shot, not an easy one, but one he could make. He bent to shoot, and she said, “There’s something else you should know.”

  “What?” he said, without raising his head.

  “I’m not wearing any underpants.” She sat down out of his sight line, and when he turned his head to look at her, she smiled at him innocently with her legs crossed, the slender, curving line of her thigh disappearing into her short, clinging pink dress. “Sort of like your fantasy.”

  His cue wavered, and he straightened. “You really think I’m going to fall for that?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Check your back pocket.”

  Against his better judgment, he did, and felt the slippery slide of nylon and lace. He pulled it out and held it up in front of him. Definitely Sophie’s pink lace drawers. He shrugged. “Big deal.” He stuffed them back in his pocket and bent to take his shot, and then he thought about her bending over the table, making draw and follow shots with such elegance, hitting that one stop shot that had been so simply beautiful that he’d felt dizzy just looking at her. All without underpants.

  Steady, he told himself.

  Then he thought about the incredible things she’d just done to him in bed, and for the first time in his life, he thought seriously about having sex on his pool table. The hell with the felt. Great-grandpa would understand.

  “You going to take that shot anytime soon?” Sophie asked, and he lined up the shot, thought of Sophie’s naked butt, and miscued, just a fraction of a fraction of an inch, but a miscue just the same.

  “So close,” Sophie said as she stood up. “But then pool, like love, is not a forgiving sport.” She went to the table, and he watched her make the cut shot with perfect draw and then pocket the nine with that stop shot that made his heart clutch.

  “God almighty,” Wes said from the doorway, and Phin looked up and said, “I know. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “Thank you.” Sophie put her cue carefully back in the rack, and Phin followed the line of her back as she did, lingering on her naked-under-that-dress butt.

  He had to do something to get some blood back to his brain. “I need to see you upstairs.”

  “I don’t think so.” She reached for his back pocket and pulled her underwear out as she walked past. “Turn around, Wes.”

  Wes raised his eyebrows at the underpants and then turned his back, and Sophie stepped into her drawers and pulled them up over her firm, round butt.

  Phin said, “No, really. Upstairs.”

  “No, really, I can’t. If I go up there, I’ll just lose my head and ask for commitment. So later for you.” Sophie drifted past Wes, a vision of skill and sex, and Phin let his breath out as she went.

  “I missed something, didn’t I?” Wes said when she was gone.

  Phin leaned on his cue, staring at the doorway where he’d seen her last, her pink dress imprinted on his retina.

  “I knew it. I knew it the first minute I saw her. The devil’s candy.”

  “What?”

  “She just fucked me six ways to Sunday.”

  “She beat you at pool, too,” Wes said, looking at the table.

  “That’s what I mean,” Phin said. “It’s going to take me years to recover from this.”

  “It’s just pool,” Wes said. “She’s leaving after the premiere on Tuesday. Get a grip. I need to talk to you.”

  Phin ignored him to replay Sophie’s stop shot in his mind. Then he replayed her body in his bed. Then he remembered the way he needed to talk to her every night, and the way she’d stood up for Dillie at the game, and the way she laughed and made his heart pound harder every tim
e she met his eyes, and he knew it wasn’t just sex.

  It wasn’t even pool.

  “Phin?” Wes said.

  “I think I’m going to have to marry her,” Phin said. “Dillie likes her. I could teach her to read. This could work.”

  Wes shook his head. “Your mind is clouded by pool. You’ve only known her three weeks. Wait until the game wears off and rethink this.”

  “Okay,” Phin said, and thought about Sophie’s stop shot again.

  For that alone, he had to love her.

  “Clea got to Rob,” Wes told Phin, when they were sitting on the bookstore porch. “She’s been telling him that the only thing standing in their way was Zane. She’s got him convinced she’s in love with him.”

  “Just like Dad,” Phin said. “Helluva tradition, those Lutz boys.”

  “She gave him her cell phone and sent him out after Zane that night with instructions to call if Zane got into any trouble. She told Rob he was drunk and if he fell in the river, he’d drown.”

  “And Rob didn’t get the hint.”

  “No, thank God. He followed him to the back of Garvey’s, and then Zane stopped and waited there, so Rob called Rachel on the cell phone to come out and meet him.”

  Phin frowned, incredulous. “Why—”

  “He thought Zane would make a pass and Rachel would scream and Stephen would come out and it would be all over. This is Rob, remember. No execution. For which we should all be grateful. So Rachel Maced him and shoved him in the river, and then Rob took her out to the Tavern and Zane climbed back to the path and met somebody with a gun.” Wes sighed. “With the stuff I dragged out of Amy about the body, I’ve got a better time of death. Zane went into the water alive and unshot about nine forty-five. Amy came back from the Tavern and went upstairs a little after ten, but you and Sophie were... loud, so she went out to the dock to cool off and found Zane. Her best guess is ten-thirty.”

  “Forty-five minutes,” Phin said. “Anybody have an alibi?”

  “You and Sophie,” Wes said. “Rob and Rachel at the Tavern. Leo in L.A. Hildy and Ed.”

  Phin raised an eyebrow. “Hildy and Ed?”

  “Watching porn at his place,” Wes said. “Police work turns up a lot of stuff you wish you didn’t know.”

  “So that leaves ... ?”

  “Frank, who didn’t go home. Georgia, who was home alone after you dropped her off. Your mom, who was home with Dillie in bed. Stephen, who was home, but who sleeps in a different room than Virginia.”

  “Christ, this guy can’t catch a break,” Phin said, and then thought about Virginia. “Or maybe he can.”

  “And Clea, Amy, and Davy,” Wes said. “None of these people can find the guns that are supposed to be in their respective houses. All of them had access to Sophie’s bedroom to plant the gun we found there, which, by the way, is now in Cincinnati for a ballistics test.”

  “Davy and Amy wouldn’t put a gun under Sophie’s mattress,” Phin said.

  “Amy might,” Wes said. “She’s used to Sophie carrying the can for her. And there was a good chance that gun would never be found. But Davy’s the one I’m really interested in.”

  “I don’t think Davy Dempsey is a killer.”

  “You’re forgetting Clea. They were lovers five years ago until she dumped him for Zane, and I’m picking up some tension there now. It’d be like Clea to hedge her bets by sending two guys after Zane. What if she told Davy she’d made a mistake, that she’d come back to him if Zane were gone?”

  “Davy Dempsey is not a killer,” Phin said. “And if he decided to become one, he wouldn’t shoot his victim in the shoulder with a popgun.”

  “Unless he knew his victim had heart problems,” Wes said. “Then that becomes a smart thing to do. You can’t be convicted of murder, but you can cause a man to die, just the same. That’s devious enough for Davy. In fact, it’s so devious I’m starting to think it can only be Davy.”

  “What are you going to do?” Phin said.

  “Keep digging,” Wes said. “Wait for the ballistics report on the gun in Sophie’s bed. Watch Davy Dempsey. Pray for a miracle.”

  “You’re doing a helluva job with this,” Phin told him.

  “One other thing,” Wes said, and Phin tensed at the tone in his voice. “The gun in Sophie’s bed was your dad’s.”

  The worst part, Phin thought, was that neither of them was surprised. “I don’t want to know this.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s the gun that shot Zane,” Wes said.

  “No, but it is the gun that framed Sophie,” Phin said. “I need to talk to my mother.”

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  When Phin got home, Liz was waiting for him in the hall, glowering.

  “Now what?” he said, and she said, “You took her to Dillie’s softball game.”

  “Yes,” Phin said, looking around for his daughter, and Liz said, “She’s not here. I took her to Junie’s so we could have this out.”

  “Good,” Phin said. “You put Dad’s gun under Sophie’s mattress. A loaded gun, under Sophie’s mattress. You could have killed her.”

  “I suppose she told you that,” Liz stood stone-faced, framed by the big front door. “She lies. She’s trying to destroy this family and you’re letting her. You’re going to have to choose. If you’re going to continue to consort with her, you can’t live under my roof. I won’t let you destroy this family for sex.”

  “It’s not sex,” Phin said. “And I’m not destroying the family, but you might be.”

  “Choose,” Liz said, and Phin said, “You’re right. It’s time anyway.”

  Her face relaxed and she smiled. “I knew you’d see—”

  “I’ll pack my stuff and move down to the bookstore tonight—”

  “No,” Liz said, her face twisting.

  “What did you expect? I’ll get one of the bedrooms cleared out tomorrow and come back for Dillie and her things then.”

  “No!” Liz said, and Phin said, “You can stop shrieking ‘no’ at me. This was your idea.”

  “If you have to move out to be with that—”

  “Careful.”

  Liz drew a deep breath. “—that woman, that’s your mistake, but you’re not taking Dillie. You’re not capable of—”

  Phin took another step toward his mother so that he towered over her. “You have no idea of what I’m capable of when it comes to my daughter,” he said softly. “Don’t try to find out.”

  “You’re being a fool,” Liz said.

  “You’re being a bitch,” Phin said, and Liz drew back as if she’d been slapped. “Stop harassing Sophie. I’ll come get Dillie tomorrow.” Then he turned and went up the stairs to pack, not looking back at all.

  It took Phin and Sophie all Sunday to move the books from one of the bedrooms—the one with the window seat in the tower corner because Sophie insisted Dillie would love it—and when they were done, they were both covered in dust and sweat in spite of the air-conditioning.

  “Dillie’s going to go nuts for this room,” Sophie said, wiping the sweat from her forehead and leaving a dirt streak behind. She looked at him cautiously. “Speaking of nuts, how’s your mom taking this?”

  “About as well as can be expected,” Phin said, trying not to think about his mother. “Which is not well at all. Can I interest you in a shower?”

  “I assume this is a twofer,” Sophie said.

  “Water conservation.” Phin reached for her, knowing exactly how she’d feel against him and wanting her even more because of it. “Also sex. Come here.”

  “The things I give up for you.” Sophie moved toward into his arms. “Private showers, vintage mattresses, money, my reputation—”

  “So you’re not losing anything you really needed.” He smiled down at her as she cuddled close, and then what she’d said registered. “What money?”

  She stopped to look up at him, caught, her eyes wide. “Money?”

  He moved his hands up to her shoulders, exasperated with her
and loving her anyway. “Sophie, listen to me, if you know where Zane’s money is—”

  “Oh, I don’t,” Sophie said, meeting his eyes without hesitation, clearly telling the truth. She slid her arms around his waist and pulled him close, and she felt great against him, but not great enough to distract him. “About that shower—”