Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  “No,” Phin said. “I’m not going to have you going through the bookstore and throwing out Lady Chatterley.”

  “I move that Temptation adopt an antipornographic movie ordinance,” Virginia said, and Stephen said, “I second it.”

  Phin looked at his council and thought, Why do I put up with this? It was a stupid ordinance, and probably unconstitutional, and definitely a waste of time. On the other hand, talking the council out of it would take another hour which would cut into the semiregular late-afternoon pool game he played with Temptation’s police chief. And, since it was highly unlikely that anybody but Clea Whipple would ever want to make a movie in Temptation, and, in fact, highly unlikely that Clea Whipple did want to make a movie in Temptation, he’d be fighting for a principle that was never going to be tested. “Call the roll, Rachel.”

  The vote went four in favor of establishing the ordinance, to two against, with Frank voting no to defend the infant Temptation film industry and Ed dissenting without comment. Hildy should have voted against it as an anticensorship English teacher, but the look she shot Phin as she voted made it clear that this was payback time.

  Stephen said, “I’ll draft the ordinance tonight and we’ll call a special meeting to pass it.”

  “No, we won’t,” Phin said. “We’ll vote on it next Wednesday, same time, same place. And now, if there are no objections, I move we close this meeting.”

  “Second.” Frank stood up to go. “And by the way, Stephen, we voted to buy the fancy streetlights while you were gone.”

  “You what?” Stephen’s roar was outraged.

  “You’re late for your appointment, Frank.” Phin stood up. “This meeting is dismissed.” When Stephen drew breath to protest, he added, “Everybody leave.”

  Rachel snickered and closed her notebook.

  “We shouldn’t wait on the ordinance,” Stephen said, as the others left, and Phin said, “Sure we should. Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. Next week is fine.”

  “Well, then, we’re going to reconsider those streetlights next week, too.” Stephen shook his head, clearly disgusted with the state of politics in Temptation.

  Phin smiled at Rachel as he headed for the door. “Thank you, Rachel, for taking the blame for the paint. That was very noble.”

  Rachel grinned at him, and Phin saw his mother waiting for him by the door, relaxing into a half-smile as she watched the future daughter-in-law of her choice. Fat chance, he wanted to tell her, but that was another argument he didn’t want to have. He’d already told his mother that it was out of the question—Rachel said “like” a lot, she didn’t read, and she played lousy pool—but Liz Tucker hadn’t gotten to be First Lady of Temptation by taking “no” for an answer.

  “Wait a moment,” she said to her son now as he went past her, and he shook his head.

  “Can’t stay. I’ll talk to you at dinner.” He escaped into the marble hall only to find himself waylaid by Ed Yarnell, who looked at him with naked contempt.

  “Interesting council meeting you missed just now, Phineas,” Ed said. “You just sit there staring into space with your thumb up your butt while Stephen rams through a censorship law.”

  “Thanks, Ed,” Phin said, trying to move away. “Can’t stay—”

  “You’re getting to be too much like your old man, rolling over for Stephen.”

  Phin felt his temper rise and repressed it from long practice. “Dad never rolled over, he was just careful. This is politics, Ed.”

  “This is crap,” Ed said. “I thought it was a good thing you’d cooled your jets some over the years, considering what a reckless dumbass you used to be, but now I don’t know. It’s been a good long time since I’ve seen you break a sweat over anything.”

  Phin clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, thanks for the advice, Ed. Have a nice evening.”

  Ed shook his head as Phin escaped again, this time through the wide-arched door of the little courthouse. An architectural gem, a tourist had once told him. “Well, we like it,” Phin had said, but it was hard to be impartial since he’d grown up in the place. Generations of Tucker mayors had run the courthouse and Temptation, except for those two dark Garvey years when Stephen’s father had wrested the office from Phin’s father over the New Bridge controversy.

  That was what Stephen was looking for now, Phin knew as he went down the marble steps to the old-fashioned storefronts of Temptation’s Main Street. Some controversy that he could exploit the same way his father had exploited the New Bridge. The water tower had been small potatoes, and Stephen wasn’t getting anywhere on his anti–new streetlight campaign, but the way he’d jumped on the porn thing, he might be thinking that was his ticket. Which only went to show how desperate Stephen was.

  Of course, having your Cadillac hit by loose, low-class women could rattle a man.

  Phin reached the pale green Victorian that housed Tucker Books, climbed the wide wooden steps to the porch, and flipped over the sign that said Back at 4:30 in childishly skewed, crayoned printing. Then he sat down in one of the cushioned porch chairs and thought of the upcoming election with fatalistic distaste. He didn’t care if he won; it was losing that would make him crazy. Tuckers didn’t lose. Especially since losing would carry with it the extra burden of watching Stephen Garvey run Temptation into the ground with his nutso family values. God forbid there should be another Garvey Reign of Error. Phin was still sitting there half an hour later, lost in thoughts of streetlights, water towers, and porn permits, when Temptation’s police chief pulled up in front.

  “Stephen stopped by the station,” Wes Mazur said as he got out of the patrol car.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Phin said. “He wants me arrested for un-mayorlike conduct. Dereliction of civic duty.”

  “Close.” Wes came up the steps looking as unconcerned as ever behind his heavy black glasses. “He wants me to go out to the Whipple farm and investigate some women that ran into him.”

  Phin nodded. “He mentioned them. They’re loose women. And possible pornographers.”

  “Really?” Wes looked encouraged as he sat down. “And we know this how? No, wait, I’ve got it. The Whipple farm. Clea Whipple. Coming Clean.”

  “There you go.” Phin put his feet on the porch rail and leaned back in his chair. “The keen mind of the law at work.”

  “So Clea’s coming here to make a movie.” Wes looked almost enthusiastic. Then reality set in. “Why?”

  “Excellent question. If only Stephen would ask it occasionally.”

  “He can’t. It would slow down the leaps he makes to get to his conclusions.” Wes frowned out at the street. “You know, I was considering just letting the insurance agents handle the accident, but now I think I better go out there, make sure everything’s okay.”

  “Check out Clea in the flesh.”

  “My civic duty.”

  “Not to mention the loose women.”

  “That, too.” Wes stood up, checking his watch. “It’s five. You want to close up and come with me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Phin said. “My civic duty, too. We can play pool later.”

  “We live to serve,” Wes said.

  “I just want another look at Clea,” Phin said.

  Sophie unpacked their supplies and organized the dingy kitchen while ignoring the truly ugly cherry wallpaper on one wall, and Clea talked to her the entire time, not helping at all. “Frank’s going to be here any minute,” she kept saying, sounding almost excited, which was unlike her; she’d been beautifully bored for the five years Sophie had known her.

  After half an hour, Sophie had heard enough about Frank the football star; Frank the high-school-theater leading man; Frank the wealthy developer; Frank, the generally magnificent. “Interesting wallpaper,” she said, trying to change the conversation.

  Clea looked at the wall and shrugged. “My mom put it up. She got that one wall done and my father saw it and made her take the rest of the wallpaper back. He was a tight old bastard.”r />
  Sophie looked at the huge ugly bluish cherries. “Maybe he just had good taste.”

  “No.” Clea turned her back on the cherries. “He was just a bastard. He was lousy at taking care of us, but he was a real pro at saying no.” She seemed bored by the change of subject and drifted out the door, leaving Sophie to scrub the sink.

  When Sophie finished the kitchen, she put her suitcase in a sweltering bedroom that included a hideous blue china dolphin lamp, and then she cleaned the bathroom, although she couldn’t manage to unclog the showerhead or find a replacement for the pink-and-blue-fish-covered, mildew-encrusted shower curtain. Finally she went back to the kitchen, put Dusty in Memphis on their CD player, and made ham-and-cheese sandwiches to “Just a Little Lovin’.”

  “The plumbing works, sort of,” Sophie told Amy when she came in. She rinsed out a glass in the kitchen sink and then watched the water seep down the drain. “Although showers will be a problem. I haven’t checked the electricity—the basement looks like the pit of hell—but the refrigerator is on again and we’re leaving Sunday. We can stand anything for five days.”

  “You haven’t met our leading man.” Amy picked up a ham sandwich and bit into it. “A charter member in Buttheads Anonymous.”

  “This would be Frank?”

  “This would be Frank. He got here half an hour ago, and already I want him dead.” Amy dropped into one of the dingy white wooden kitchen chairs in front of the mutant-berry wallpaper. “He looks like Kurt Russell did in Used Cars, I mean, he’s wearing a green suit, for heaven’s sake, and he’s drooling into Clea’s cleavage.”

  “The police and the mayor are here,” Clea said from the archway, making Amy choke on her sandwich. “Frank says he’ll handle it.”

  “Oh, no he won’t,” Sophie said.

  When she went out on the porch, tensed for battle, a guy in a green suit was talking with a cop in uniform, but they looked manageable. It was the third man, leaning bored against the passenger side of the squad car, who sent every instinct she had into overdrive.

  He had broad shoulders, mirrored sunglasses, and no smile, and Sophie could hear ominous music on the soundtrack in her head as her heart started to pound. His fair hair shone in the late-afternoon sun, his profile was classic and beautiful, the sleeves of his tailored white shirt were rolled precisely to his elbows, and his khaki slacks were immaculate and pressed. He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.

  My mama warned me about guys like you.

  He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.

  His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.

  “Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.”

  Chapter Two

  Sophie’s nightmare had a good six inches on her, and it was hard to smile looking that far up into cool eyes while her heart tried to pound its way out of her rib cage. “Oh. Thank you.”

  He nodded down at her, his eyes never leaving her face as he favored her with a politician’s practiced smile. “I’m Phin Tucker, the mayor, and this is Wes Mazur, our police chief.”

  The cop had come to stand next to them, shorter than the mayor and pale in his white shirt and black pants. Under his brown crewcut, he peered out of serious, heavy black-rimmed glasses.

  “We came about the accident. . . .” the cop began, and then his voice trailed off and Sophie turned to see Clea floating down the steps, looking as blonde and lush as ever.

  “Did I hear you say you’re Phin Tucker?” Clea drifted past Sophie to take the mayor’s arm. “I can’t believe it. The last time I saw you, you fell off your bike.” She let her eyes slide up to his.

  “I’m having the same feeling now. Hello, Clea. Welcome home.” The mayor looked down into Clea’s blue eyes, but he didn’t sound off-balance in the slightest. He was probably never off-balance. Sophie felt annoyed with him for that.

  “And who’s this?” Clea gazed past his shoulder at the police chief.

  “Police chief,” a deep voice said from behind Wes. “They want to know about some accident.”

  Sophie turned. Medium, dark, and smug, the green suit had too much hair mousse and a slight paunch, and he’d slung his suit jacket over one shoulder in a misbegotten attempt to look cool. His shirt had green and white stripes, and his tie was bright yellow.

  “You must be Frank,” Sophie said.

  “That’s me. Now don’t you worry about a thing.” Frank winked at Sophie. “I can handle this for you. I’m on the council.”

  “Nothing to handle,” the cop said mildly, and Sophie shot Clea a look that said, Do something with this guy.

  Clea took Frank’s arm. “Why don’t we go up on the porch and discuss your scenes for tomorrow?”

  Frank looked stunned, as if he couldn’t believe she was touching him, and let her tow him off.

  One confirmed jackass out of the way. Two possible wolves to go.

  “Well, that’s the car,” she told the cop, and the mayor looked at her one last time and then left them to walk over to it, evidently having seen all he needed. “It’s registered to my sister and me.” She turned back to the dilapidated porch where Amy was now leaning against the post, chewing her ham-and-cheese sandwich and looking exotic in her orange tube top and purple capris, her red hair flaming in the sun. “That’s my sister.”

  “Oh,” the cop said, looking at Amy.

  The mayor called the cop over, and he went as Amy put her sandwich on the porch rail and came down the steps.

  “I told you so,” Sophie said to Amy under her breath. “The Pillars reported us to ‘some outback nazi law-enforcement agency and now they’ve run us down like dogs—’ ”

  “Fear and Loathing again. You’re getting boring.” She studied the two men. “So that’s Phineas T. Tucker. We were wrong. He’s having sex. And he can have more with me.”

  “Concentrate,” Sophie said. “The cop’s name is Wes Mazur. Get over there and give him anything he wants so he’ll go away and we can get to work.”

  “I’d rather give it to the mayor.” Amy sighed. “Unfortunately, he appears to want it from you.”

  “What?” Sophie said. “Amy, concentrate.”

  “I was standing in the doorway when he said hi,” Amy said. “And from the look on his face, what he has for you is not the key to the city.”

  “There was no look on his face,” Sophie said. The mayor was now gazing at the car with the same lack of expression he’d been sporting since he’d arrived. Clearly a product of too much inbreeding. “I don’t think he has anything for anybody. Go get rid of them.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after the cop had gone back to the patrol car, gotten a crowbar, and pried the fender off the tire, Amy came back to the porch with the two men behind her. “Wes has a few questions.”

  Wes? “Questions?” Sophie clasped her hands together to keep from fidgeting and then began to twist her rings instead.

  The cop gestured to the swing, and she sat down. When he started to sit on the porch rail, Sophie said, “No!” and lunged for the rail, grabbing Amy’s sandwich before he sat on it. “Sorry,” she told him, handing the sandwich to Amy.

  “Thank you.” He sat on the rail while the mayor leaned on the post behind him, looking amused, which did nothing to endear him to Sophie. He was starring in The Philadelphia Story; she looked like an extra from The Grapes of Wrath. Life was so unfair.

  “Just tell me what happened,” the cop said.

  Sophie turned her back on the mayor and told the nice policeman everything, and whe
n she was finished, she said, “I just wasn’t looking and missed the sign. We didn’t break the law on purpose.”

  The mayor stirred a little. “Actually, you did.” He sounded as if he didn’t care. “You left the scene of an accident.”

  “Understandable under the circumstances,” the cop said before Sophie could speak. “Amy says we can have the tape of the accident if we bring it back tomorrow, so we’ll bring the accident report for you to sign then.”

  “Amy asked you to come back.” Sophie bit her lip, wondering why her mother had insisted on having three children.

  “She also mentioned something about the electricity and plumbing,” the cop said, smiling at Amy.

  “A good reason to call an electrician and a plumber,” Sophie said brightly. Not the police and the government, Amy. “Really, there’s no need—”

  “Not a problem,” the cop said. “My pleasure.”

  “—certainly not for both of you—” Sophie began again, hoping at least to avoid the mayor. But when she looked at him, he was staring at her mouth, and she blushed and then felt her temper rise.

  “Did you get hurt in the accident?” he said, and Sophie blinked. “Your lip. It’s bleeding.”

  “Oh.” Sophie licked her bottom lip and tasted salt. “I bit it when he hit us. It’ll be all right.”

  His eyes lingered on her mouth for another moment, and then he nodded.

  It was time to get rid of the mayor.

  One. “But thank you for asking,” Sophie said, smiling the Dempsey smile.

  The mayor looked startled for an instant, and then his lips quirked a little.

  Two. “But I think my mouth will recover, don’t you?” Sophie said, flirting up at him.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, meeting her eyes.

  Three. “I’d forgotten all about it,” Sophie said, truthfully. “You must be very observant.”

  “I try,” the mayor said, openly appraising her now.

  Four. Sophie stood up, including the cop in her smile. “You’ve been wonderfully kind, and we really can’t ask you for anything else; certainly not another trip out here. So I’ll come in tomorrow and sign the accident report and—”