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  That night, Phin had just grabbed his car keys when Sophie knocked on the back door of the bookstore.

  “I thought I was coming out to you,” he said, letting her in.

  “Amy is driving me crazy,” Sophie said. “I left Wes to deal with her. She likes him better than me anyway.” She slid her arms around his waist and he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “And unlike Amy, you are calm,” Sophie said against his shirt. “I like that in a man.”

  “That’s been harder lately,” he said. “Dillie’s at Jamie Barclay’s. Want to come upstairs and watch TV in my bed?”

  “I didn’t even know you had a TV,” Sophie said.

  “ESPN2 has billiards on Wednesday nights,” Phin said.

  “Then of course you have a TV.”

  She piled his pillows at the head of the bed while he opened the cabinet that held his TV and flipped the channels to Temptation cable, and when he turned, she was propped up waiting for him, looking fairly comfortable and really good, even if she was back in khaki.

  “Do I get popcorn?” she said, and Phin looked at the kitchen clock and said, “We have five minutes before showtime. You may get something else.”

  “Oh, gee, a whole five minutes.” Sophie rolled her eyes. “That’s what I need, a guy with staying power.”

  He stretched out on the bed next to her. “Before I forget, Prizzi’s Honor.” He patted the bed. “ ‘Right here on the Oriental.’”

  “How’d you get that?”

  “Amy,” he said. “I asked her when she was in the hospital. Of course, she didn’t know what I was going to do with it.”

  Sophie laughed and kissed him, and he fell into all her softness and the heat of her mouth.

  “Funny you should mention that,” Sophie said as she snuggled closer. “I went to Hildy’s today to take her Dove Bars as a thank-you for rescuing me off her dock, and she had this book of ballads.”

  “Good,” Phin said, and bent to kiss her again, sliding his arm behind her head.

  “And ‘Julie Ann’ was in there,” Sophie said, ducking him a little so that he stopped. “And I think you had it wrong.”

  He lifted his head. “Wrong? My grandmother sang that song to me for years. You’re telling me my grandma was wrong?”

  “The last line,” Sophie said sternly, “says that they never found Julie, and they never found the bear.”

  “Right,” Phin said.

  “So they both disappeared,” Sophie said.

  “Right,” Phin said.

  “So it’s a pretty patriarchal assumption that the bear got Julie.” Sophie turned away from him a little and sliding her hand under the pillows. “I think Julie got the bear.”

  “Yeah, right,” Phin said, and then he felt something cold snap on the wrist he’d put behind her head, and when he sat up, Sophie had him handcuffed to the headboard.

  “Wes loaned them to me,” she said. “I have to give them back later tonight, though.”

  Phin tugged once on the cuffs as he felt something closely akin to panic. “This isn’t fanny. Give me the key.”

  Sophie sat cross-legged on the bed and shook her head. “Nope. It’s definitely Julie Ann’s turn this time.”

  Phin closed his eyes. “At least tell me you have the key.”

  “Of course I have the key.” He could feel Sophie leaning closer, and then he felt her working the buttons on his shirt open.

  “Sophie, I don’t th—” Phin began, but then her fingertips brushed his stomach, and every muscle he had tightened, and he shut up.

  She popped open the button on his pants and said, soft and slow, “Let me give you an orgasm you don’t have to work for,” and he looked into her liquid brown eyes and said, “Just don’t lose the key.” She laughed and kissed his stomach, and then he forgot about the key, and the murder, and Temptation in general, and surrendered to Sophie’s cool, searching fingers and her hot, hungry mouth.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was staring contentedly at the ceiling, counting his blessings which now seemed numerous, when he heard somebody pound on the downstairs door. Sophie sat up beside him, and he tried to do the same, only to realize he was still handcuffed to the bed. “The key—” he began, and then he saw she was looking past him to the television, stunned. “What?” he said, and she said, “That’s the wrong movie. That’s Cherished.”

  He turned and saw Rob on-screen, naked, reaching for Clea, also naked, and heard him say, “ ‘You definitely have discovery fantasies.’ ”

  Phin froze as the dialogue rolled over him.

  “ ‘We’re going to be having a lot of sex in public places,’ ” Rob said. “ ‘You want to know why?’ ”

  “ ‘No,’ ” Clea said and stretched for the camera.

  “ ‘Because you like it,’ ” Rob said, and reached for her, and then the movie cut to grainier film of bodies writhing, and Sophie said, “Oh my God, that’s Hot Fleshy Thighs!”

  The pounding got louder downstairs, and Phin turned to her and said, “Get me that key.”

  Sophie scrambled for it on the bedside table and unlocked the cuffs with shaking fingers while he watched the film go into such a tight close-up that it was almost impossible to tell what body parts were being filmed.

  Almost.

  Phin rolled out of bed and grabbed his pants. “Call Wes at the farm and tell him to meet me at the cable station.”

  “That’s not our movie,” Sophie said, as she grabbed the phone and punched in the numbers, “that’s Leo’s movie, I swear to God.”

  “I really don’t give a damn, Sophie,” Phin said. “My kid is watching that.”

  The picture flipped back to a naked Rob who said to a naked Clea, “ ‘Your soul is a corkscrew.’ ”

  “Phin—” Sophie’s voice broke, and then the picture snapped and turned dark, and she shut up. Either his TV was broken, or somebody had stormed the cable station and shut it down. He flipped the channel and saw a blond teenager kicking the hell out of a vampire. His TV was fine.

  His life, however, was broken.

  “I’m sorry,” Sophie whispered.

  “Yeah, so am I,” he said, and went downstairs to talk to the irate citizen pounding on the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rachel sat across the table from Leo in Temptation’s only diner, mired in misery, while Leo put on his glasses and read the receipt the waitress had just handed him with his Visa card.

  He was leaving. He was going back to L.A. and leaving her stuck here in Temptation. And she loved him, damn it. That was the worst of it. It wasn’t that he was leaving her in Temptation, although that was bad enough.

  It was that he was leaving her. He didn’t love her. She couldn’t understand it at all. He’d kissed her that one glorious time, and he’d taken care of her when she’d gone to Wes, but that was it and now he was going and she was miserable.

  Leo checked his watch. “The movie started fifteen minutes ago,” he told her. “How long is it?”

  “The clean version? About half an hour.” Rachel leaned forward. “Leo, stop ignoring me.”

  Leo sighed. “I know you want to come to L.A., kid.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Rachel said. “I’m a good worker. I learn fast. You’re stupid not to take me.”

  “I’d be stupid to take you.” Leo signed the receipt and pocketed his Visa. “Even assuming your father didn’t come after me with a shotgun, I’d spend all my time looking after you. You stay here and have a normal life.”

  “I don’t want a normal life,” Rachel said. “If I wanted a normal life, I’d have done what my mother wanted and married Phin.”

  “Phin?” Leo scowled at her. “Phin’s not right for you.”

  “I know that—” Rachel began, and then stopped as she realized somebody was standing by their table.

  “You the guy that made that movie?” the man said, looking red in the face.

  “No,” Leo said. “Why?”

  “Because whoever did that is a fuck