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  “Not Frank—Zane.”

  “I’m talking about Zane.” Phin slowed to take the turn out of 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’s 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 because he’d made them throb. “I could stay like this all night,” she said, and then realized what she’d said. “I didn’t mean—” she began, and he cuddled her closer and said, “Good idea. How do you feel about sex in the morning?” She said, “With you?” and he said, “No, with Wes. Of course with me,” and she smiled, but then somebody knocked on the door and broke the moment.

  “Go away,” she called, but Davy said, “Sophie, I have to talk to you.”

  “If he’s trying to do the brotherly thing and warn you that I’m only after one thing, it’s too late. I just got it.” Phin drew the tips of his fingers down her back and made her shiver. “Get rid of him, and I’ll try getting it again.”

  “Sophie, now.”

  She’d never wanted to leave a bed less. “Hold on,” she called, as she rolled out of Phin’s arms and grabbed his shirt from the floor.

  “That’s my shirt,” he said, but she shrugged into it and held it closed as she opened the door.

  “Amy has a problem.” Davy’s voice was low and his face rain-spattered and dead serious, and Sophie felt a chill. “Get rid of him and come with me. Fast.”

  “Okay,” Sophie said, her heart pounding, and closed the door.

  “About my shirt,” Phin said. “Take it off and come back here,” and Sophie slipped it off and threw it to him.

  “All yours,” she said, and picked up her dress. “Thank you for a lovely time—let’s do it again real soon.”

  Phin sat up. “I was planning on doing it real soon. Where are you going?”

  She threw him his pants. “I forgot, Davy and I have plans, and I can’t stand him up just to have more incredible sex with you. That would be antifamily.”

  “What kind of plans?” Phin said, and she shoved his shoes closer to the bed. “So I gather we’re in a hurry here?”

  Sophie leaned over and kissed him, staying in the kiss a little longer than she should have because he felt so good. “I really have to go,” she whispered against his mouth. “But I really do want this again. I missed you so much. I’ll call you later tonight, I swear.”

  “The telephone is so impersonal,” he said, and caught her to him, pulling her back down on the bed, and if it had been anybody but Davy and Amy who needed her, she’d have fallen. But it was Davy and Amy, so she said, “Thank you, I have to go,” and rolled off the bed.

  She left him sitting there, looking puzzled and not a little grumpy, and when she got to the landing where Davy was leaning against the wall, she whispered savagely, “This had better be good.”

  “Where’s Harvard?” Davy said. “We need him off the premises.”

  “He’s getting dressed,” Sophie said. “And he’s not in a good mood, so don’t call him Harvard. And by the way, next time, I get to dump the guy I’m sleeping with.”

  “Later for that, we’ve got trouble,” Davy said, and Sophie felt chilled again.

  Phin came out of the bedroom, buttoning his shirt. “Just like the Waltons,” he said, as he walked past them.

  “No, we have better music than the Waltons,” Davy said, and then held Sophie’s arm until they heard the front door slam. “You can make it up to him later,” he told her as he pulled her down the stairs and out the back door.

  Sophie followed him as the instincts of disaster that had been dogging her from the beginning kicked into high gear. He led her around the side of the house in the pelting rain into the dark of the trees, and she saw Amy standing there, hugging herself.

  “I’m sorry, Sophie,” she said, looking like a soaked little cat. “Davy says this is a screw-up, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What?” Sophie said. “I still don’t know—” Then she went cold as she