Still Lake - Anne Stuart [47]
“I don’t remember anything,” Grace said sweetly. “But if he’s not your beau, why do you look like you’ve been necking?”
So much for Spacey Gracey, Sophie thought. She could feel the color rise in her face. Grace would see that as well, or at least Doc would. He was watching them both with benign fascination—she wouldn’t get any help from that quarter.
“I haven’t been necking with anyone,” she said calmly. It was technically true. Two thorough kisses didn’t quite constitute necking. “You’re imagining things.”
“It’s my memory that’s shot, not my powers of observation,” Grace said with one of those lightning shifts of rationality that always threw Sophie for a loop. “Is he nice?”
“Who?”
“Don’t try that with me, Sophie Marlborough Davis! I’m talking about your young man. Is he nice?”
Escape would be lovely, Sophie thought, eyeing the kitchen door longingly. In a few minutes Grace wouldn’t even remember that Sophie had been gone for a while, much less think to ask questions about her companion. “I really need to go inside and wash up…” she began, but Doc, the traitor, forestalled her.
“Oh, sit down and tell us about it,” he said with a mischievous look in his faded blue eyes. “It’s not often your mother shows an interest in her daughter’s romances.”
Caught, Sophie thought. Hooked and landed, and if she didn’t face the music she’d end up gutted. She plastered a phony smile on her face and dropped into one of the Maine rockers that overlooked the quiet lake.
“It’s not a romance, he’s not a young man, he’s not my beau,” she said patiently.
“Then why were you kissing him?” Grace asked.
“I wasn’t!”
“You shouldn’t lie to your mother, Sophie,” Doc said with gentle reproof.
Sophie glanced at him. The old codger was enjoying this, she thought, annoyed. Maybe her own discomfort was a small sacrifice for her mother’s temporary interest in the real world.
“I didn’t kiss him,” she said patiently. “He kissed me.”
Her mother’s hoot of triumph almost sounded like the old Grace. “I knew it! Was it love at first sight?”
“It’s not love, and it certainly wasn’t first sight. I have no idea why he kissed me, but I doubt he’ll want to do it again.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it at all, Sophie,” Doc said gallantly. “If the man has eyes in his head and half a brain he’d be smitten.”
Sophie repressed a sigh. Smitten, eh? She could just imagine Mr. Smith’s reaction when he heard the old folks were calling him a smitten beau, and her young man. It might almost be enough to drive him away.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Mama,” she said wryly. “Mr. Smith isn’t my type, and the last thing he’s looking for is true love. I have no idea why he kissed me, but it had nothing to do with being attracted to me.” Belatedly she remembered the unmistakable bulge of his erection, and she could feel the color rise in her face again. Well, maybe he was attracted to her, or maybe he just got hard every time he kissed a woman, whether he liked her or not. She’d managed to avoid that kind of information, and she’d just as soon never learn about such things.
No, that wasn’t strictly true. She simply hadn’t been sufficiently tempted before. And wasn’t now, she reminded herself sharply, the moment the thought drifted into her unruly consciousness.
“My Sophie’s still a virgin,” Grace said with the air of someone announcing a terminal illness. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about her.”
It could have been worse, Sophie thought bleakly. She could have announced it in front of someone other than Doc. She could have announced it in front of Mr. Smith.
“Good for you,” Doc said approvingly. “It’s refreshing to find a girl who’s saving herself for marriage.”
Sophie shuddered at the thought. It sounded old-fashioned and priggish, when she was afraid it was simply a matter of her being cold-blooded. “It’s not that,” she said frankly. “I just haven’t found anyone who interests me enough. God knows I don’t plan to die a virgin, and I doubt I’ll be waiting for my wedding night.