Moonlight Masquerade (Edilean 8)

It had taken all his persuasion to get his wife to show Sophie the little house that had the craft studio in the back. After Sophie had signed the contract, his wife came to the diner and slapped the papers on the counter. “If that girl is hurt by this, so help me, Al, I’ll leave this one-horse town for good—and you with it. Enough is enough!” She’d stormed out, anger making her heels click loudly on the floor.

So now it looked like pretty little Sophie had found out the truth—and Al didn’t know when he’d ever felt so bad. She looked like her whole world had come crashing down on her head. Had she been a different type of woman she might have been angry, but Sophie looked like there wasn’t much fight left in her.

Al’s three children were all boys and his wife never stopped telling him that he knew nothing about females, but he could almost imagine what it must feel like to be the butt of a joke made by the entire town. For the first time in his life he was glad he wasn’t an “oldie,” a descendant of the seven founding families.

There weren’t too many customers in the diner, so he motioned to one of the boys to take over the grill. Al knew no one could make a burger as good as his, but now and then he’d let them try.

“What do you need?” he asked Sophie as she stopped in front of the counter.

“A new life,” she said under her breath, then looked up at Al. “I wonder if I could talk to your wife for a moment. I’m not sure I have her card, and I need . . . ” She trailed off, unable to speak. She kept remembering things she’d thought, things she’d done and seen. When she was at Sara and Mike’s house, they’d all been staring at her so hard that Sophie hid out in the bedroom. What was it Reede said? They were all wondering when she was going to murder him. It made sense now. They’d all known that Sophie was being ridiculed by Reede, played for a fool. Used.

Last night he got what he wanted. Would he collect bets now? Had he, rich boy doctor, taken odds that he could get the little country girl into his bed without her even seeing his face?

Al reached for the coffeepot and filled the cup in front of Sophie and she sat down at the counter, but she didn’t take a drink. “You can tear up that lease agreement if you want,” he said softly so no one else could hear.

Sophie kept her head down and nodded.

Al leaned toward her. “Does it make any difference that the doc was in here earlier telling me he was crazy about you?”

“Started to fall in love with me, did he?” she asked with so much sarcasm—and hurt—in her voice that Al winced.

She rummaged in her bag and withdrew her key ring. She had a key to Reede’s apartment and she wanted to take it off, but her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t do it.

Al took the ring from her and started to remove the key. But when he looked at Sophie he changed his mind. He put his hand on her arm and pulled her up. “Come with me,” he said.

“I—” she began.

“Unless you want the whole town gossiping about your every look, come with me.”

Sophie didn’t have the strength to disagree, so she followed Al through the door at the back of the counter and into a little office. The big desk had chairs on either side, and masses of papers and catalogs were everywhere. As she took a seat, he shut the door, pulled down the shade, then took a bottle of whiskey out of a cabinet and poured a shot. “Drink it.”

Sophie hesitated. Her alcoholic stepfather had made her quite adverse to any form of alcohol, but after what she’d just found out, she needed any courage she could get. She tossed the shot back in one gulp, put the empty glass on the desk, then leaned back in the chair. “You want to hear the whole story about how I was duped by the local doctor? He certainly got me back for pouring beer on him, didn’t he? Were you in one of the betting pools?”

Al sat down on the other side of the desk, his hands on his big belly, his apron spotted with grease. His first inclination was to tell her it wasn’t like that, that Dr. Reede was really worried and yes, maybe he was in love with her. But Al didn’t say that. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Get out of this town.”

“Good idea,” Al said. “Go home to your family and let them take care of you.”

Sophie sat there for a moment, blinking at him. She didn’t really have a family. Since her sister Lisa was in college, that left only their alcoholic, lecherous step-father. Her hometown was where Carter lived, home of Treeborne Foods. If she went back there she could possibly be facing a prison sentence.

“Not so good, huh?” Al asked kindly.

“No,” Sophie managed to say.

“You have any friends here?”

“Kim . . . ” she whispered. “Jecca.”

“Ah, right, and they’re not here.”

Sophie looked down at her hands and shook her head. “I’ll be all right,” she said.

“What would you like to do? Other than run a truck over our bad-tempered doctor, that is? And I can tell you that if you go that road half the people in town will lend you their trucks.”

“Bad . . . ?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide. “But I thought everyone loved Reede.”

“That is the biggest lie you’ve been told.”