Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  “I can ask them,” Amy said from behind her. “I want plumbing that works and electricity that won’t kill me.”

  Sophie tried to keep the exasperation off her face but the mayor must have seen it anyway because he grinned at her, a real smile this time, and she thought, Of course you’d be gorgeous.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, straightening away from the porch post, and all Sophie could say was, “Thank you.”

  When they were gone, Sophie turned to Amy. “Let’s review the plan. It’s going to be just the three of us and we’re not going to attract attention.”

  “You know there’s such a thing as being too cautious,” Amy said. “We need the plumbing and electricity fixed and they’ll do it for free.”

  “The hell they will,” Sophie said, thinking of the mayor. “We’ll pay one way or another.”

  “And I don’t care what you say,” Amy went on. “The mayor is hot.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t hot.” Sophie stood up and let the swing bounce behind her. “I said we were going to stay away from him. He’s trouble, it’s in his eyes. He’s a hard mark.”

  “I bet he is,” Amy said.

  “Will you concentrate? We stay away from the mayor.”

  “Yes, but will the mayor stay away from us?” Amy said.

  “God, I hope so,” Sophie said, licking her lip as it started to bleed again, pretty sure she meant it.

  Phin sat in the passenger seat of the squad car and considered running the Dempsey sisters out of town on a rail. He had no legal grounds, of course, but it was his job to ensure the peace, and he had a feeling that getting rid of the Dempseys would be a good start, even if it was only for his peace. There was something wrong there.

  Besides the brunette’s lush, red, swollen lip.

  He shook his head to get rid of the image and Wes said, “What?”

  “The brunette. She bothers me. Why is she so tense?”

  “That’s not why she bothers you.”

  Phin ignored him. “The way she twisted her rings, I thought her fingers were going to fall off. And then she turned on the charm. She’d have had me, too, if she hadn’t been so abrupt about it.”

  “She had you anyway,” Wes said. “Her name’s Sophie. I like her, but it is hard to believe she’s Amy’s sister.”

  “Amy’s a hot little number.” Sophie hadn’t been hot, he thought, concentrating on the older sister’s shortcomings so he could forget about her mouth. She’d had the potential to be as attractive as Amy—all that dark curly hair knotted on the top of her head, and a good-enough ivory-pale face with those big brown eyes—but the tension had radiated off her so hard that it had been exhausting just standing next to her. “Sophie’s wound so tight she doesn’t even breathe,” he told Wes. “That cut on her lip had to hurt like hell, and she never mentioned it, never even touched it.” He shook his head. “She’s trying too hard to pretend everything’s all right. Which means she’s up to something, and it has to be about that movie.” He didn’t like women who were up to something. Not that they all weren’t. “Which reminds me, you’re going to have a new ordinance to enforce next week. Antiporn. So if they’re shooting sex, you get to arrest Amy and her tube top.”

  Wes closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck, why didn’t you kill it?”

  “Because the majority of the council wanted it, and we’re not likely to see a lot of movie companies coming in here, so—” Phin shrugged.

  “I don’t think Clea Whipple should be discouraged from making pornography,” Wes said. “That’s just wrong.”

  “Yeah, well, you run for mayor and fight the good fight.” The vague uneasiness Phin had felt about the porn ordinance returned and made him cranky. “I thought I handled it pretty well, considering.”

  “Nobody died.” Wes drove across the New Bridge and surveyed the town as it spread out before them with satisfaction. “That’s pretty much my bottom line. No blood, no death, no sweat.”

  “It’s an elemental life, law enforcement,” Phin said.

  “Beats mayor.”

  “Right now, yes.”

  Wes was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “That Amy is something.”

  “Go for it,” Phin said. “You’ve got until Sunday.” That was a cheering thought, that the Dempseys would be gone that soon. “Maybe once they’re gone, Stephen will give up on this porn thing.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Wes said. “The election’s coming up.” He slowed and made a U-turn to park in front of the bookstore.

  “In two months,” Phin said in monotone. “As I keep telling my mother. Plenty of time.”

  Wes shook his head. “Stephen’s determined not to lose this time. It’s been twenty years since his father won and made a mess of everything. People forget. He could win if you just sit on the porch and watch the world go by, and I don’t even want to think about what could happen then.”

  Phin felt a real stirring of alarm. “Are you saying I should be campaigning? Okay, we’ll put the posters up early.”

  “I’m saying,” Wes said carefully, “that Stephen is standing on years of Garvey defeats. Losing over and over again like that wears on a man’s soul. He’s obsessed, Phin. I think he’ll do damn near anything to win this time, and if he does he’ll spend the next two years trying to drag us back to the Stone Age.”

  Phin got out of the car. “There’s irony for you. I’ve had enough mayor to last me a lifetime, and Stephen wants it bad, and we’re both stuck.”

  “That makes it worse,” Wes said. “You don’t even want what he craves. And you won’t give it to him, either. At least, I hope you won’t.”

  Phin looked down the street to the sandstone-and-marble courthouse. Tuckers did not lose. “Okay, we’re watching that movie company, then, since that’s where Stephen seems to be going with his latest dumbass legislation. Especially we’re watching what’s-her-name. Sophie. A woman that tense and devious is going to be trouble for anybody who gets involved with her.” Phin thought about her mouth again, and the smile she’d hit him with when she’d decided to snow him. If she ever relaxed, she’d be the kind of woman his father had warned him about, the devil’s candy, a woman who’d ruin you as soon as look at you. Phin had been enthusiastic about the idea until he’d run afoul of one.

  “You’re safe, then,” Wes was saying as they went up the steps to the bookstore. “Seeing as you’re not getting involved.”

  Phin nodded as he unlocked the door. “Yeah, but I’m going back with you tomorrow to find out what she’s up to with this movie.”

  “That’s what you’re going back for, huh?”

  “That and to see if Georgia Lutz strangles Clea Whipple when she finds out what Frank’s up to.” Phin held the door open for Wes.

  “Don’t even joke about it,” Wes said. “We haven’t had a murder here for forty years, and I don’t want the next one on my watch.” He glanced up the street, which was as empty as usual for the dinner hour. “Do you have to get home to Dillie or do you have time for a game?”

  “I always have time for a game.” Phin motioned him inside. “It’s my reason for living.”

  “I thought that was politics,” Wes said as he went in.

  “No, that’s my mother’s reason for living. I live for pool.”

  “Loose women would be good, too.”

  Phin thought of Sophie, wound so tight she vibrated. “Yeah, well, if you find any, let me know. In the meantime, we play pool.”

  Before dinner that night, when the sun had gone down and the air had cooled off a little, Amy made them go out on the porch to talk. She’d grouped what looked like a thousand candles on the porch rails and the upper windowsill near the swing, and Clea reclined on the end that had the candlelight, which was fine by Sophie. She sat in the relative dimness at the other end, listening to the crickets and the soft wash of the river, calming down in the twilight as she swung them back and forth with the tip of her foot. Even the creak of the swing was nice. Mayb