back porch and watched you do it because I thought the poor son of a bitch was drunk.” He felt his
anger rise again, that he’d been that stupid, that she’d been that callous. “You can go to jail for that,
Clea. It’s called ‘depraved indifference,’ and you could go away for a nice chunk of time.”
“You can’t prove it,” Clea said.
“I can do you a lot of damage,” Davy said. “Temptation is the one place on earth where the mayor and
the police chief will listen to me.” She looked at him with unadulterated loathing and he shrugged. “Do
what I tell you to and neither one of us will have to go back there.”
Clea flopped back against the bench. “Great. Now I have to sleep with you.”
“I wouldn’t have you,” Davy said, and Clea glared at him. “Okay, it’s probably because I already have
had you, but I like to think it’s also because you’re such a cold, conniving, murderous bitch. Pay
attention. You’re going to sign over the deed to that farmhouse to Sophie.”
“No, I’m not,” Clea said. “I’m selling it to Frank for three-quarters of a million.”
“Sure,” Davy said. “Go back to Temptation, explain why you let Zane die, deal with the police and the
lawyers, and when you’re done, how much of that three-quarters will there be left?”
“More than I’d have if I just give the damn thing to Sophie,” Clea said.
“No, you’ll have three-quarters of a million if you give it to Sophie,” Davy said. “That’s how much I’ll
transfer into an account for you once you send off the deed.”
“And where would you get—” Clea began and then she turned on him. “You’ve got my money!”
“My money,” Davy said. “It’s been mine since the night Zane died and I copied the number and
password out of the book in your bedroom while you were talking to the police. One wire transfer, and it
was mine.”
“How could you do that?” Clea said. “I had the bank book.”
“It’s not a passbook account, dummy,” Davy said. “It’s a password account. All you need is the
account number and the password.”
Clea looked at him with such venom, he almost moved back. “You son of a bitch.”
“This is pretty easy, Clea,” Davy said. “You give Sophie the farm, I give you seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, you use it to find your next rich guy, and everybody lives happily ever after. Hell, you’ll
probably inherit more from Zane.”
“There was a lot more than that in that account,” Clea said.
“Sure was.”
“I could have had all of that and the three-quarters from the farm,” she said, and her voice had a vicious
edge.
“The key words being ‘could have had,’ ” Davy said. “That was then, this is now, and I’m bored with
this conversation. You have one hour to bring me that deed transfer and the number of an account where
I can transfer your money. After that, the price drops.”
Clea’s face smoothed out and became lovely again. “You know ...” she said, leaning closer.
“Nope,” Davy said warily. “I told you. I’m not interested.”
“If you really thought I was a murderer, you wouldn’t let me go,” Clea said, sliding closer to him, and
this time Davy did move back. “I know you. I know what you did to Chet in Iowa.”
“Chad.”
“You’d want me punished,” Clea said silkily as she leaned closer. “Want to punish me, Davy?”
“I already did,” Davy said flatly. “I took your money.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-nine minutes.”
“We could have it all,” Clea said, putting her hand on his arm. “You and me.” She was breathtaking in
the sunlight, like human whipped cream.
“No, we couldn’t,” Davy said, trying to ignore his body’s interest. “Sophie wants that farmhouse.”
“Sophie?” Clea laughed low. “Sophie’s just your sister. I—”
“You’ll never get it, will you?” Davy said.
Clea drew back. “What?”
“Family,” Davy said. “Strongest force in the world. Even trumps lust. Go get the deed.”
Clea looked at him with undisguised malevolence. “This is not over, you bastard.”
“Oh, yes it is,” Davy said. “Because I’m sure as hell finished with it. Go get the deed.”
Clea drew a deep breath and shoved herself off the bench, and Davy watched her stride back to the
hotel, magnificent in her fury.
“Actually it doesn’t trump lust,” Davy said, when she was too far away to hear him. “It just trumps you.”
“You’re sure I can’t talk you out of this?” Sophie said, as Amy threw her suitcase in the backseat with
the rest of the camera equipment.
“Positive.” Amy came back to the porch steps where Sophie stood. “I really need to just go. And
maybe after a couple of months, I’ll want to come back. This place has some good stuff in it.”
Sophie tried to sound skeptical. “You think the good stuff is just going to sit around and wait until you
come back?”
“If he’s the good stuff, he will,” Amy said. “But I’m not counting on it. He never even made a pass.
Three weeks, and he never made a move on me.”
“You didn’t give him any openings.”
“I didn’t want to.” Amy stepped back. “But he could have made one anyway. And he didn’t talk to me
today before the council meeting, he just took off to go to the airport for something.”
“I’m sure it was important,” Sophie said. “Things are a little hectic in Temptation these days.”
Amy sighed. “Yeah, but he knows I’m leaving and he went to the airport anyway.” She straightened her
shoulders. “And I really do want to see L.A. Even if Davy says I’ll hate it, I want to see it.” She gave
Sophie a weak smile. “I’ll come back for Thanksgiving. You’ll have me and Davy, just like always.”
“Good enough,” Sophie said, trying not to cry. She hugged Amy good-bye, holding on tight for a minute,
and then Amy pulled away to walk to the car without looking back.
“Be careful,” Sophie called after her, and Amy waved without turning and got in the car, and Sophie
realized from the way she bent over the steering wheel that she was crying. “It’s okay,” she called out to
Amy, “you’re doing the right thing. Stay out of bat country. Everything will be fine. Nothing but good
times.”
Amy nodded. She backed up the convertible and made her U-turn to get out of Temptation, and then
she was gone.
This is good, Sophie told herself. We needed our own lives. This is good.
She sighed once and then walked through the house and out the back door, letting Lassie out with her
this time. “So it’s just us,” Sophie said, as they walked down the hill. “A girl and her dog.” Lassie barked
and ran down to the dock, and Sophie followed her and kicked off her shoes to sit on the edge and
dangle her feet in the water. The river was still high from the rain, and fast, and it flowed cool and sweet
past her ankles.
“So here’s the thing, dog,” Sophie said. “We’re out of a job, living in a house we’re going to be evicted
from at any minute, deserted by our siblings, discarded by our uptight lover, and with nothing to show for
it because a creep of a politician stole all our work.” Lassie lay down beside her, evidently overcome by
the enormity of it all. “I’m looking for a bright side here, Lassie, I’m looking for a rainbow, but I am not
seeing one.” Lassie pricked up her ears. “Okay, forget the rainbow. What we need is a plan.”
Lassie barked and bounded off the dock, and when Sophie turned around, she saw Dillie on the porch,
crouched down to meet the dog, and Phin walking down the slope toward her, looking as
perma-pressed as ever in his white shirt and khakis. “Hello,” she said, and turned back to the river to get
a grip. Don’t throw yourself at him, she told herself, scrambling for a plan. At least not for the first
five seconds.
Phin sat down behind her on the dock, and Sophie hugged herself to keep from reaching out and
grabbing him. She could smell the sun on his shirt and feel the heat from his arm where it almost touched
her.
“I’d have been here sooner, but we were waiting for Amy,” Phin said. “Wes caught a ride with her to
L.A.”
Sophie forgot playing it cool and turned to look at him. “With Amy?”
Phin nodded, staring out over the river. “He’s got so much vacation time, he can take it anytime he
wants. So I suggested he take six weeks to go with her. He thought it was a good idea, and she didn’t
seem to mind.” He stared out over the river. “It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
His sleeve brushed her bare arm, and she stifled her sigh and told herself, Easy. “Although six weeks is a
long time,” she said to make conversation, and then she frowned as she thought about it. “That’s a really
long time. Can Duane handle it that long?”
“No,” Phin said. “Wes got somebody else to cover for him.” He met her eyes, and his weren’t as cool
as they should have been. “Can we stop talking about Wes now?”
Sophie swallowed hard and gave up on cool. “Listen, I am really, really, really sorry about the premiere
and the election, because we did make porn even though that wasn’t our movie—”
“I know,” Phin said. “You also helped Rachel elope with Leo, you didn’t tell us Davy and Clea skipped,
and you did something really vicious to Virginia Garvey. I’d love to know what that was.”
He didn’t seem angry as he went down her list of sins, and he was sitting awfully close to her just to give
her a hard time. Maybe she didn’t need a plan after all. “Right. So sue me.”
“For what?” Phin said. “You don’t have any money.”
Sophie stuck her chin in the air. “I’m going to own this farm pretty soon.”
“Really.” Phin seemed interested. “And how are you going to do that?”
Sophie let her chin drop. “I don’t know, exactly. Davy’s going to fix it.”
“Sure he is.”
“Davy’s never promised me anything he hasn’t delivered,” Sophie said. “I believe in Davy.”
“As he does in you.” Phin shook his head. “But he doesn’t have the—” He stopped and she stole a look
at him as she felt him straighten. He looked stunned. “Son of a bitch. He’s got Zane’s money.”
Sophie blinked. “I don’t think so. He didn’t say anything about it.”
Phin shook his head. “He’s got it.”
Sophie thought about it and decided he was right. It would be like Davy to find money and separate it
from those who didn’t deserve it. “Well, if he has it, I’m glad. At least somebody gets a happy ending out
of this mess. Although, I’d be happier if the film we slaved over for a month still existed.” And if you
were doing more than just sitting here. “I still can’t believe that lousy Stephen stole the tapes. And
now they’re gone and he’s going to be mayor.”
“Oh, you never know,” Phin said. “Those tapes could be stashed somewhere, just waiting to be found.
Anything can happen.”
Sophie looked at him, exasperated. “You know, just once I’d like to see you sweat over something.”
Phin scowled at her. “In the past three weeks, you’ve seen me sweat more than anybody else on the
planet, woman.”
Sophie waved her hand. “I meant—”
“I even yelled at you last night.” Phin eased up. “For which I apologize.”
“It was kind of nice,” Sophie said. “At least you knew I was there.”
“Oh, hell, Sophie, I always know you’re there.” Phin rolled toward her on one hip, and Sophie felt a
flare of hope, but he was just digging something out of his back pocket. “Here.” He held out an
emerald-cut diamond ring the size of her head. “Marry me, Julie Ann. Ruin the rest of my life.”
“Hello.” Sophie gaped at the ring. “Jeez, that thing is huge. Where did you get it?”
“My mother gave it to me,” Phin said, sounding bemused.
Then the other shoe dropped. “Marry you?” Sophie said, and the sun came out and the birds began to
sing and the river sent up a cheer. Marriage was probably out—Liz as a mother-in-law was too terrifying
to contemplate, and Phin would never get elected again if he was married to a pornographer—but
suddenly everything else was looking pretty good.
Phin was still talking. “After the council meeting, she said, ‘If you’re going to marry that woman—’ ”
“ ‘That woman’?” Sophie said. “Oh, gee, the holidays would have been swell.”
“—‘do it right,’ and she took this off her finger, and handed it to me.” Phin shook his head. “Surprised
the hell out of me. She didn’t seem upset about it at all.”
“I thought you were never going to speak to me again,” Sophie said.
“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” Phin said. “And the holidays are going to be fine. If I have to
put up with Davy, you can put up with my mother. I already told her we’d be using ‘I Only Want to Be
with You’ instead of ‘The Wedding March,’ and she took that pretty well, too. Concentrate. You want
this ring or not?”
It was so gorgeous. Against her better instincts, Sophie took it to hold it up to the sunlight. Amy could
have lit the entire house with it. “I don’t think I can live up to this ring.”
“You don’t have any choice,” Phin said. “All the Tucker brides get it. I thought I was going to have to
ice-pick Mom to get it to you, but she came through after all. There’s a question on the table here. Are
you going to marry me?”
Sophie looked at the ring again and sighed. “No,” she said and handed it back. “But I’ll love you forever
and you can come sleep with me whenever you want.” She stretched to kiss him, so happy that she felt
like bouncing.
Phin leaned away from her. “Why not?”
“Because I ruined your reputation,” Sophie said. “And because I don’t want to live in that damn big