WELCOME TO TEMPTATION by Jennifer Crusie

Author:Jennifer Crusie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-08-30T03:35:00+00:00

~ 9 ~

Sophie met Phin at the door that evening, still not sure how she felt about that afternoon. "Hello, Dad."

"It never came up," Phin said. "Or I'd have told you."

"She's a pretty big deal to never have come up," Sophie said.

Phin looked past her into the living room. Amy and Davy were on the couch, listening with a great deal of interest.

"How you doin', Harvard?" Davy called. "Or is this a bad time to ask?"

"Can I talk to you alone?" Phin said to Sophie, and she said, "Anyplace but a bedroom," so they went down to the dock.

"It's all right," Sophie said when they were sitting, watching the river muddy by. "It was just a shock. Especially when she said I looked like her mother. I mean, it explains a lot about why you—"

"You don't look like her mother," Phin said. "Diane had dark hair, but she was shorter than you are, and younger than you are, and her face was different. Most of the pictures Dillie has are from far away. She just sees a woman with dark hair."

Sophie turned away. "I didn't even know you had a wife. I know you Tuckers are detached, I know you're going to forget my name before I'm back on the highway—"

"I married Diane because she was pregnant," Phin said, his voice flat. "She got pregnant because she thought I had money."

Sophie drew back a little. "Women don't get pregnant all by themselves. Men help. And of all the men I've slept with, you are the most Johnny-on-the-spot with a condom—"

"She told me she was on the pill and I believed her." Phin drew back, too, until they were sitting apart like strangers. "I don't make the same mistake twice."

Sophie's temper flared. "You think I'm trying—"

"Of course not." Phin bit off the words. "Christ, Sophie." He took a deep breath. "I don't think about her much. We were only together a couple of months, and she died in an accident three months after Dillie was born."

"An accident," Sophie said. "The Old Bridge?"

"No." Phin stared out across the river. "She died over there. She came home in the middle of the night and fell down the porch steps and hit her head and bled out before her mother woke up and found her."

"It must have been awful for Dillie."

"Dillie never knew her," Phin said. "Diane had complications after Dillie was born, so I took the baby home to my mother. Diane never came after her when she got out of the hospital."

"You weren't living with her?"

Phin closed his eyes. "My marriage lasted about two months, and they were the worst two months of my life. When my dad died, I moved back to the Hill to stay with my mother because she collapsed. I thought I was going to lose them both."

Sophie thought of Liz's frozen face. "That could explain a few things."

"And I never went back. Mom was rocky, and Diane was happier without me as long as she could keep the river house.

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