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  “I don’t think so.” Dillie’s voice was thoughtful. “I think I need one. I think I’d like it. But I don’t think I want my mom to be Rachel.”

  “Rachel?” Phin’s temper flared. “Who—”

  “Grandma Liz says Rachel is just like a mom when she baby-sits me,” Dillie said. “And Rachel’s mom keeps saying maybe someday she’ll be my grandma and won’t that be nice. But I don’t think Rachel’s practical enough to be my mom. And I really don’t want her mom to be my grandma because her mom is mean to Grandma Junie all the time.” She fell into her maternal grandmother’s southern Ohio drawl as she added, “She’s just naasty.”

  “Rachel’s not going to be your mom,” Phin said. “You can stop worrying.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Dillie sighed and straightened. “That’s what Grandma Liz wants, and if we stay here, that’s what'll happen because we always end up with what she wants.”

  “Trust me, Dill,” Phin said. “There’s not a chance in hell that Rachel will be your mom.” He heard his mother call, “Dillie?” and he raised his voice and called back, “We’re out front.”

  Liz came around the house from her garden, her gloved fist clenching blue-violet roses, her pale hair refusing to move in the summer breeze. The Tuckers did not let nature push them around. “Why are you sitting out here?”

  “Because it’s nice,” Phin said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Liz stopped at the foot of the steps. “I want you to spend more time with Stephen Garvey instead of turning your back on him and rushing off like that. You’ll never build a consensus giving him the cold shoulder.”

  “I don’t want to build a consensus, I want to run a bookstore,” Phin said. Dillie poked him and he added, “And eat hot dogs with my kid. Dillie and I are going to have a sleepover at the store tomorrow night.”

  “What?” Liz frowned at them both, two ridiculous children. “She can’t. Her piano lesson is at six and then there’s dinner, and she has to be in bed at eight-thirty. There’s no point in her sleeping there.”

  “Friday, then,” Phin said.

  “Ballet,” Liz said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

  “What night don’t you have a lesson?” Phin said to Dillie.

  “Mondays,” Dillie said glumly.

  “That’s the only night?” Phin turned back to Liz. “When did that happen?”

  “You stay at the bookstore past six most nights,” Liz pointed out. “She’s not missing quality time with you. And we want her to be well-rounded.”

  Phin looked down at his angular little girl. “She’s rounded enough. We’re staying at the bookstore on Monday.”

  “That’s the first day of school so it would be impractical—”

  Dillie looked at him anxiously and he broke in. “We like impractical. Dillie and I live on the edge.”

  Dillie beamed at him, joy radiating from every cell in her body, and he thought, I have to spend more time with this kid. She’s the best.

  Behind Dillie, Liz opened her mouth again and Phin met her eyes. “Monday we stay there.”

  “Very well,” Liz said, clearly thinking it wasn’t. “Just for this Monday, though. We have to be practical about school nights. Come on, Dillie, let’s go get changed for dinner.”

  Dillie took one yearning look back at him, which would have wrenched his heart if he hadn’t known what an actress she was. “All right,” she said plaintively, and took her grandmother’s hand, dragging her feet as she went up the stone steps.

  “For heaven’s sake, Dillie,” Liz said, and Phin laughed.

  Dillie jerked her head up and grinned at him, pure kid again, and then she went inside with her grandmother to go without dessert because it was a weeknight.

  Diane would have given her dessert for breakfast, he thought, and then stopped, surprised that he’d thought of Diane at all. They’d been together for so short a time, he wasn’t sure he could remember what she’d looked like. Round, he remembered, because that was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. That, and she’d been so warm. Warmth had been in short supply at the Tuckers‘, especially when he’d come home to help his mother cope with his father’s second heart attack and his father cope with his own mortality.

  Then one night he’d gone to the Tavern to get away from all the manufactured optimism at home, and Diane had sat down beside him. “So you’re Phin Tucker,” she’d said. “Heard about you.” He closed his eyes and tried to call up her face, guilty that he’d cared so little for her that he couldn’t even get that back. Warm brown eyes, he remembered, and dark tumbling hair, and that cupid’s-bow smile that Dillie could use to twist him around her little finger. He tried hard to put the features together, but instead of Diane, he saw Sophie Dempsey, who didn’t look like Diane at all, her brown eyes wary and her dark hair twisted in that tense curly knot on top of her head. And her mouth was full and lush, not bowed like Diane’s—

  He felt a flush of heat thinking about her mouth and stood up, wondering what the hell was wrong with him that he could forget the woman who’d given him a daughter and get hot for a woman he didn’t know and didn’t like.

  “Dad, dinner,” Dillie said from the doorway behind him, and he went inside, dropping another kiss on the top of her head when he reached her.

  “You are my favorite woman in the whole world,” he told her, and she said, “I know,” and led him into his mother’s immaculate, air-conditioned, dessert-free dining room.

  Chapter Three

  On Thursday morning, Rachel Garvey went out to the Whipple farm, a woman on a mission: She had to get out of Temptation before she went crazy and became her mother.

  Her plan was simple; she was going to offer Clea Whipple her services on the movie, and then she’d make herself indispensable, so that when Clea left, she’d take Rachel with her. Her mother was always telling her what a treasure she was, so now she’d be Clea’s treasure. Rachel felt no guilt at all about deserting her mother. Her two older sisters were still in town and they could be treasures after she was gone. It was way past time for their turns anyway.

  When she pulled up to the porch, Clea was sitting on the top step, beautiful in the sunlight. More than beautiful. Drop-dead, sky-eyed, magnolia-skinned beautiful. So when Clea said, “Hello?” in a voice that sounded like music, Rachel said, “God, I’ve never seen anybody as gorgeous as you.”

  Clea smiled and became more gorgeous.

  Good start, Rachel thought, and went toward her. “I’m Rachel Garvey,” she began, holding out her hand. “And I was thinking maybe you could use—”

  “Garvey?” Clea lost her smile. “Any relation to Stephen Garvey?”

  “I’m his daughter,” Rachel said. “Um, I came out to see if you could use some help.”

  Clea shook her head, but before she could say anything, the screen door slammed, and Rachel looked up to see a redhead in tight jeans and a pink T-shirt knotted above her belly button.

  “Hi.” The redhead looked at Rachel with naked curiosity. “I’m Amy.”

  “I’m Rachel. I came out to help.” Rachel held out her hand and then noticed that the redhead’s hands were full of paint scrapers. “You’re painting?” she said, hope rising.

  Amy jerked her head to the right side of the porch. “Just the porch wall white for a background.” She handed one of the scrapers to Clea, who looked at it as if she’d never seen one before.

  “No,” Rachel said. “First of all, the paint’s almost off that wood, so it’s going to suck up the first six coats of white paint you put on. You need a coat of primer.”

  “Oh.” Amy squinted at her. “Listen, we don’t want this to be a good paint job, we just want a nice background.”

  “Then you don’t want white, either. White isn’t very flattering.” Rachel smiled sweetly at Clea. “You want something warm that will bounce color back at you.”

  “She’s right.” Clea reexamined Rachel, head to toe, and Rachel stood with her
smile fixed, thinking, I don’t like you, but if you take me to Hollywood, I’ll learn to deal with you.

  “So what do you suggest?” Amy sounded wary, and Rachel turned back to her, figuring she’d be easier to charm, anyway.

  “I can get you a great deal on some peach paint,” she told Amy. “We ordered a lot for a project that got changed in the middle. I’ll get it for you at cost, and I’ll help you for free. I just want to learn to do what you’re doing.” Rachel smiled up at Amy again, grateful Amy was on the top step so it was easier for Rachel to look small and innocent and appealing.

  “You’re hired,” Amy said, and handed her the other scraper.

  Rachel handed it back, sure of herself now. “You scrape, I’ll go get the paint.” She turned to go before Amy could argue, and Amy called, “Wait, do you need money?”

  “Oh, no,” Rachel said. “I’ll set up an account for you at the store.”

  “Fantastic,” Amy said.

  “That would be Garvey’s Hardware, right?” Clea said deliberately.

  “What?” Amy said, and Rachel waved and left, determined to be such a treasure that Amy wouldn’t dream of letting her go.

  The peach paint turned out to be too dark for the porch, but mixed half-and-half with the white Rachel had brought, it was perfect, so pale it was more blush than peach. Rachel primed the wall, and while Amy and Clea talked out in the yard about reflectors and camera angles, she listened and learned and began to paint the porch rail. Peach for the posts and rails, blush for the spindles, white for the detailing.

  “Wow,” Amy said when she came up to the porch at noon. “That looks good. It’s even pretty.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel said, but she watched Clea closer because Clea was frowning.

  “We should do the whole house,” Clea said finally, and Amy said, “No, we should not. Are you nuts?”

  “This film is a business expense,” Clea told her. “Tax-deductible. This paint therefore becomes part of that business expense. And I want to sell this house.” She nodded to Rachel. “Do the whole house.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “We can do the whole front porch if you want to film on both sides, that won’t take long. But I do not paint whole houses. I can call the Coreys for you, though. They’ll paint anything.”

  “Are they expensive?” Clea said.

  “It’s a tax deduction,” Rachel said.

  “Let me think about it.” Clea walked out to the edge of the yard to see the porch from a distance.

  Rachel turned back to find Amy grinning at her. “I like you, kid,” Amy said. “You remind me of me.”

  The screen door banged again and a brunette came out, saying, “If you want lunch—” She stopped when she saw Rachel, and Amy rushed to fill in the silence, saying, “This is my sister, Sophie,” to Rachel, explaining Rachel’s ideas and the paint to Sophie, all without ever mentioning the name Garvey.

  Sophie smiled politely at Rachel. “Well, it’s nice of you to offer to help, Rachel, but—”

  Rachel went tense, but Amy said, “Wait a minute. Come here.”

  Amy towed her sister out into the yard, and Rachel thought she’d never seen two more different women in her life, Amy in tight pink and Sophie in loose khaki. Then Amy turned Sophie around and said, “Look at the porch.”

  Sophie folded her arms and studied the porch, and Amy did the same beside her, just like her big sister, and that’s when Rachel saw how alike they were. Same big brown eyes, same curly hair, same full mouth, same incredible concentration, even the same white Keds, although Amy’s had pink shoelaces and were painted with gold spirals. They stood close, leaning into each other a little, and Rachel was struck by how together they were. She’d never stood that close to her sisters, ever, but Sophie and Amy were a team.

  “You think?” Sophie said.

  “I think,” Amy said.

  “Your call,” Sophie said. “The color is wonderful.”

  “Just one thing,” Amy said. “Her last name is Garvey.”

  Sophie started and Rachel thought, That’s it.

  “Give her a chance,” Amy said. “Why should she pay for her father’s crimes?”

  “Hey.” Sophie stepped back. “Don’t pull that on me.”

  “I’ll work really hard,” Rachel said from the porch.

  Sophie came toward her. “I know you will, honey.” She looked at the painted porch rail, gleaming warm in the sunlight, then nodded. “Come have lunch with us. Then you can paint the porch wall this afternoon and help Amy with whatever she needs. But if your father shows up, you’re fired.”

  Rachel relaxed as relief flooded through her. “He won’t ever know. And I’ll be a huge help, you wait and see. I’ll make things so much easier for you.”

  But after lunch, in spite of Rachel’s best intentions, things got difficult because Rob Lutz showed up with his parents. Clea almost had a heart attack when she saw Rob, and Rachel could understand why, since it was hard to see he was a moron when you looked at that face. That was how Rob had talked Rachel out of her virginity, by not talking, just by smiling at her with that face. There was a lesson learned, for sure.

  Clea had said, “This is your son?” to Rob’s dad, Frank, and Frank had grinned down at her like a dork, standing really, really close to her. That made Rob’s mom, Georgia, mad, which Rachel could also understand except that if she’d been married to Frank, she’d have been looking for somebody to take him away. Then Clea put her arm around Georgia and called, “Sophie, meet Georgia.”

  Georgia squinted at the porch where Rachel and Sophie and Amy were standing, and she looked about twenty years older than Clea, probably because she’d been baking her skin into shoe leather all her life so she could be a Coppertone Blonde. That was what she’d said to Rachel every summer since Rachel had started dating Rob: “Come on and lay out with me, honey, and we’ll be Coppertone Blondes. People will think we’re sisters ”Right.

  Then Clea said, “Georgia and I graduated together, Sophie! Isn’t that something?” and Sophie said, “And neither one of you has aged a day,” and glared at Clea to make her behave, and Rachel liked her more.

  Clea just laughed and called back to Rob, “Why don’t you come up on the porch?” and that must have been the first time Sophie saw him because she said, “Oh, Lord.”

  “What?” Amy said.

  “Look at the way he’s looking at Clea,” Sophie said.

  Amy nodded. “Like she’s whipped cream and he has a spoon.”

  Well, that was Rob for you. Always looking for sex. Rachel didn’t know if sex in general was bad or it was just bad with Rob, but as far as she was concerned, Clea could have him.

  Sophie moved to the top of the steps and called, “Come on up to the porch, we have lemonade,” and when she had Clea, Frank, and Georgia settled on the right side of the porch with a warning to stay away from the blush-painted wall, Amy began to shoot.

  Rachel handed Rob a scraper and said, “We need to scrape the other side of the porch,” and Rob said, “Cool.” As he worked, he kept his eyes on Clea, who sat perched on the porch rail looking adorable. Clea watched Rob from the corner of her eye while Frank sat opposite her, laughing and flirting, and Georgia sat between them on the porch swing, looking like a Coppertone Toad.

  Sophie had gone out into the yard to talk to Amy, and she looked concerned. Even after a few short hours, Rachel knew Sophie liked things calm and organized. So when Phin Tucker walked up behind her and said something, and she jumped a mile, Rachel could have told him that was a bad move. He and Wes had parked behind the Lutz’s van, and Wes had said something to Amy and gone in the house, but Phin went to Sophie and stayed. So he wanted something —three guesses what— but he was doing it all wrong. Well, he’d figure it out. Phin got everything he wanted sooner or later.

  “Hey,” Rob said behind her. “Get busy.”

  “Right,” Rachel said, and crossed her fingers that Phin would do his usual good work. Her future depended on it.

&nb
sp; “I’m a little worried about Clea,” the mayor had said to Sophie out in the yard. “I had nine stitches because of her. She could put Frank in the hospital.”

  Sophie watched Frank making a fool of himself on the porch in front of his wife, who looked homicidal. “Clea’s not the only one who could hurt him.” She turned back to the mayor. “How did she give you nine stitches?”

  “I looked down her blouse and fell off my bike.”

  Sophie looked at him with contempt and he said, “Hey, I was twelve. She leaned over. Not my fault.”

  He was as immaculately handsome as ever in the sunlight, and it was even more annoying now that she knew he’d been a pervert at twelve. She started to tell him so and decided she didn’t want to get personal, she just wanted to get rid of him. “Did you say you wanted to look at the electricity?”