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  “Careful with that,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said, and when she looked up, he bent and kissed her on the mouth, a quick kiss that turned into something longer, as rich and sweet as the song they were dancing to. He stopped moving and held her close, right there in the middle of the dance floor, and she forgot everything and kissed him back, clinging to him as the heat spread and her knees went weak.

  When he broke the kiss, the music had stopped and he looked as mind-whacked as she felt. “If they didn’t know before, they do now,” he said, and then he looked past her shoulder, and his face changed. “Oh, Christ.”

  “What?” she said, still dizzy from his kiss, but he was already pulling her toward the crowd around the table where Frank and Zane were squaring off.

  “Family values,” Zane was sneering. “You and your town council brag about your family values, but you won’t do a damn thing to stop a porn film right in your own backyard.”

  “I’m not making a porn film,” Frank shouted back, and Sophie said, “Oh, no.”

  “And nobody wants to do anything about it,” Zane said, talking to the crowd now. “You all just sit home, holding on to your secrets, pretending there’s nothing wrong. Well, there’s a lot wrong, and I know it all. I’ve warned everybody and nobody listens, so I’m telling you all now: You stop that damn movie, or none of you will have a secret left. Especially you, Lutz.”

  Frank stepped closer. “I told you, I wouldn’t make porn. I support family val—”

  “Your family values?” Zane’s laugh spurted out. “Hell, your kid is fucking my wife, and your wife is fucking me.”

  Frank went white, and Phin said, “Okay,” and pushed through the enthralled crowd to Zane.

  “Not that she’s any good,” Zane said, looking at Georgia, and when she made a little cry of protest, he added, “Hell, Georgia, even Jell-O moves when you eat it.”

  “You’re done,” Phin said to Zane as he reached him. “Go home.”

  Zane toasted him with his glass. “And here’s your mayor who is fu—”

  Phin had him by the throat before he’d finished. “I said, go home,” he said, and then Wes was there, too.

  “Let go of him,” he said, and Phin did, and Zane tried to say something through his bruised throat. “I wouldn’t,” Wes said to Zane and hustled him protesting to the door, making it look like no effort at all, and Davy followed them both out.

  Frank was staring at Georgia as if he’d never seen her before, and Sophie went to her. “Zane lies all the time,” she said to Frank, putting her arm around a still-frozen Georgia. “He—”

  “He’s not lying about you, is he, Georgia?” Frank said dully. He turned to look through the mass of fascinated faces. “Where’s Rob? Was that true?” He looked at Sophie. “Was that true about Clea and Rob?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I really don’t. I just know I wouldn’t trust anything Zane says. He’s awful, Frank.”

  “It’s all true,” Frank said, and left without a backward glance at Georgia.

  “Frank!” she cried, and it came out like a mew.

  “We’ll take her home,” Phin said from behind Sophie, and she nodded.

  “Well, that was ugly,” Phin said, when they’d dropped Georgia off at home and made sure she was marginally all right. It had started to rain as they left the Tavern, and Georgia had cried right along with it, the mascara running in black tracks down her face while the rain ran silver down the windshield and Sophie thought vicious thoughts about Zane.

  “What is wrong with that man?” Sophie said now.

  “He’s trying to hold on to his wife,” Phin said. “Men get tense when their women leave.”

  “Not Frank—Zane.”

  “I’m talking about Zane.” Phin slowed to take the turn out of the Frank’s development and onto the main road. “Sophie, are you making porn?”

  “No,” Sophie lied, and felt like hell. The rain was sheeting down, and the wipers clicked back and forth, and she tried to concentrate on how happy she was to be back with Phin again, but guilt got in her way. “Zane just wants Clea’s money,” she said, to change the subject.

  “He wants her, too.” Phin squinted through the windshield. “I’ve never heard one man say ‘my wife’ so many times. He’s all but branded her.”

  “She is spectacular.”

  “Yes, she is,” Phin said. Sophie lifted her chin and he added, “Don’t even try it. You know I wouldn’t have her.”

  “Just wanted to hear it,” Sophie said. “Not that I have any right to assume—” She broke off as Phin pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. “What? Is the rain—”

  Phin turned to face her in the light from the dash.

  “Okay, I know you’ve been mugged by my mother, but you’ve got to get past this. You want me to tell you I love you?” Sophie opened her mouth and Phin said, “Because I’ve known you ten days. That’s too damn fast to start planning futures, don’t you think?”

  The rain pounded on the roof and Sophie felt lost. “Well, ye—”

  “And you’re mad because I wasn’t happy you’d met Dill,” Phin said. “Well, you’re going off to Cincinnati day after tomorrow. I’m not happy about seeing my kid lose somebody she likes.”

  “She only spent a hour with me,” Sophie said.

  “You got me in the first minute,” Phin said, and she flushed. “I’m so nuts for you, I’m not even asking the questions about that damn video that I should. I don’t care. I just want you. Can I come see you in Cincinnati?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said, her heart racing as fast as the rain.

  “Can I see you Monday before you go?”

  Sophie smiled in the dark. “Yes.”

  “Can I see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see you naked tonight?”

  “Oh, God, yes,” Sophie said, and met him halfway for his kiss.

  Several minutes later when they were both breathless and the car was back on the road, he said, “Listen, that stuff you said on Wednesday, about me crossing the tracks to get to you, that was just to annoy me, right?”

  “Well, you’re definitely crossing a river,” Sophie said.

  “Don’t buy into that, Sophie. That’s so damn dumb, I can’t—”

  “That’s because you’re the one on the Hill,” Sophie said. “I understand from a very good source that you’re either born there or you earn your way in.”

  Phin was quiet for a long moment. “I may be a little late coming to see you tomorrow,” he said finally. “I’ll be killing my mother first.”

  “Yeah, well, if I’m a little late coming to the door, it’ll be because I’m disarming my brother.”

  “Still hates me, huh?”

  “I cried some when you left.”

  “Oh, fuck.” He reached for her hand in the darkness. “I’m sorry.”

  She laced her fingers with his and closed her eyes because it was so nice to be alone with him again, in the dark, just talking. “Not a problem. Davy’s not that good a shot anyway.”

  “Screw Davy. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “I’m excellent, actually.”

  “That you are.” He turned down the lane to the farm, taking his hand back to park in the sea of mud that was the yard. Then he curled his arm around her neck and pulled her close and kissed her again, and she fell into him, warm and safe. Everything she’d felt while they’d danced came back and she gave in to it, knowing it would only get better. “You do that so well,” she whispered, and he said, “We do it well. Imagine if we practiced,” and kissed her hard again.

  An hour later, they were in her bedroom, damp from the rain that came in the open window and from each other, tangled in her sheets on her lumpy, noisy mattress, gasping in each other arms. “We’re getting good at this,” Phin said between breaths, and Sophie nodded, too satisfied to do anything but agree. He stroked her back, and she stretched like a cat, feeling all her muscles