Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  She couldn’t remember ever having wanted a dog. It would have been impossible on the road anyway; the last thing she and her mother had needed was something else to take care of. And then she’d been stuck in that little apartment at seventeen, trying to raise Davy and Amy, and a dog was really the last thing she’d needed.

  But there was something in the patient way this dog looked through the screen door at her, not trying to get in, just watching her. From the outside.

  It rolled over on its back outside the screen door so all she could see was four stubby white feet pointed to the sky. “Okay,” Sophie said, and let him in. “But you’re covered with mud, so don’t get on the furniture or anything.” The dog sighed and lay down at her feet, and when Amy called her name and she went out to the front yard, it followed her.

  Amy was standing behind the camera, talking to Phin, but she stopped when she saw Sophie coming. “We’ve got a problem,” she said as Sophie got close, and then she saw the dog. “Cool. A dog.” She looked at it more closely. “I think.”

  The screen door slammed as Wes came out. “You now have a new bathroom showerhead,” he said to Amy as he came down the steps. “But the shower drain still needs work. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Oh, well—” Sophie began, but Amy said, “Fantastic.”

  “Your guests need work, too,” Phin said, and Sophie turned to look at the porch, where the Lutzes were having one of those intense, whispered conversations that married people have before they kill each other.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem I called you out here for,” Amy said to Sophie. “We may have pushed this too far.”

  “I’m blaming this on you,” Phin said. “Before you got here, they only did this when they’d had too much to drink.”

  “Good,” Sophie said. “Now they’re out in the open. We’re clearing the hypocrisy out of Temptation.”

  “A little hypocrisy never hurt anyone,” Phin said.

  “So were you born a politician?” Sophie started off for the porch. “Or did you have to work to achieve this level of immorality?”

  “Oh, I was born to it,” Phin said, sounding a little grim.

  Sophie went up the porch steps to the Lutzes, with the dog at her heels. “We were so grateful that you were helping us with the filming that we forgot to feed you. Can I make you a sandwich?”

  “Oh.” Georgia straightened a little. “Oh, no, we have to be going anyway. But how nice of you to offer.”

  “Well, we’re supposed to cater to the talent.” Sophie smiled at her, and Georgia flushed with pleasure and smiled back.

  “That’s a good one.” Frank looked at his wife with contempt.

  “Amy says you both looked great on camera,” Sophie lied. “Maybe you can come back out tomorrow.”

  “You bet.” Frank perked up, and even Georgia began to look less fried around the edges.

  “We’ll do anything we can to help.” Georgia looked at Sophie with unqualified approval. “And maybe you can use Rob, too.”

  Sophie looked into the yard to the minivan, where Clea was laughing up at a dazzled Rob. “I’m sure we’ll be using him,” she said flatly.

  “That was kind of you,” Phin said, when the Lutzes had gone and Sophie was sitting on the porch steps with the dog at her side surveying the yard as if it belonged there, its mascaraed eyes half-lidded in complacency.

  “I’m a kind person,” Sophie said, her chin in the air.

  “You know, all evidence to the contrary, I think you are.” He leaned over to pat the dog, his face was close to hers, and Sophie’s pulse kicked up. “What I can’t figure out is why you’re so damn nervous.”

  “I’ve been under a lot of stress.” Sophie scooted up a step, and the dog climbed to stay with her. “And I come from a very tense family.” She thought about her father and Davy and Amy, all of them absolutely nerveless, and honesty made her add, “Well, some of the Dempsey women have been high-strung.”

  “A weekend in the country should take care of that,” Phin said, still watching her as he scratched the dog behind the ear. “There’s nothing stressful in Temptation.”

  Just you, Sophie thought, and he grinned at her as if he’d read her mind.

  “Nice seeing you, Sophie Dempsey,” he said, and straightened to go out to the car where Wes was waiting for him.

  “Same to you,” Sophie said, as her pulse slowed again. “And if I don’t see you again, thanks for all your help.”

  “Oh, you’ll see me again,” Phin said without turning around.

  “Terrific.” Sophie watched him go, appreciating the fact that he was leaving while admiring how good he looked from behind.

  Amy came to enjoy the view with her. “Helluva day, huh?”

  “Explain to me again,” Sophie said, “what happened to ‘just the three of us’?”

  Amy shrugged. “You’re the one who invited the dog.”

  Sophie looked down at the dog who looked back up with its Cleopatra eyes, adoring her.

  “The dog stays for a while,” Sophie said. “The mayor goes.”

  When Sophie took her shower that night, blessing Wes the entire time for their new flexible showerhead, the dog put its feet on the edge of the tub and whined. It was covered with dried mud and looked so pathetic that Sophie said, “Oh, okay,” and hauled him in with her, hosing him down while he squirmed in ecstasy under the water, and then sudsing him up with eucalyptus-and-lavender shampoo. Half an hour later, they both sat blow-dried in the kitchen, enjoying the semicool night air that came in through the screen door, the dog keeping one eye on the Dove Bar Sophie was eating. Sophie licked the ice cream and worried again about the accident, the movie, and the mayor.

  She was still obsessing when Amy came down the stairs in her baby-doll pajamas, looking a lot like she had when she was ten. She sat in the chair across from Sophie and drew her knees up to her chin.

  “We need a love scene,” Amy said. “Clea wants one.”

  “A love scene.” She should have figured on that, it was so like Clea. Sophie gave the wallpaper a dirty look in place of Clea. “I can’t write a love scene. Especially not with those damn things staring at me.”

  “You cannot blame writer’s block on giant mutant cherries,” Amy began. Then she stopped, and said, “Oh. Cherries.”

  “What?” Sophie said, and Amy said, “You know. Cherries. And Chet.”

  “Chad,” Sophie said, but she sat back, a little jolted. “I’m sure that’s not it.” She should ask Brandon. He knew everything about her subconscious. She frowned at the wall phone. She should have called Brandon before now, but she kept forgetting him.

  Amy shifted uneasily. “Clea’s decided that Rob is the love interest. She says it’s better for what she has in mind.”

  “I bet it is.” Sophie thought about it and nodded. “So she comes back to meet her old boyfriend and falls for his son. Lot of conflict there.” She thought it through. “Oh, hell, a lot of conflict there. Frank’s going to have a fit.”

  “If we do this right, he’ll never know,” Amy said. “Just write a nice seduction scene, and we can finish this up.”

  Sophie sat up and tapped her PowerBook out of sleep mode. “Who seduces who?”

  “Are you kidding? Clea’s an old-fashioned girl. He seduces her.”

  “So we’re not doing a documentary.” Sophie began to type in the scene log line, and Amy jerked away and stood up. “Hello?” Sophie said. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Amy said.

  Sophie pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  Amy sat, her feet on the floor this time.

  “I’ve been very patient,” Sophie told her, “but there’s something you’re not telling me which is dumb because you know I’ll stand behind you no matter what you want. What are you doing?”

  “I’m making a documentary,” Amy said.

  Sophie sat back. “You’re making a documentary about Clea coming home to Temptation?”

  “No, I’m making a movie