An Irresistible Temptation by Sydney Jane Baily

over it.
    Riley looked shaken but was the first to
recover.
    “We, that is, I . . . Sophie and I—shoot,
Sarah, please don’t say anything to anyone. You hear?”
    “Well, of course,” Sarah said, one hand
fluttering to her throat, perhaps already choking on the words that
threatened to spill out. Sophie knew that she would, at the very
least, tell Doc, and he would think badly of her. She couldn’t bear
it.
    “Sophie.” Riley shot her a glance that was as
intense and bewildered as she felt. “I’ll talk to you later,” he
said. “It’ll be all right.”
    She had no idea how it could be all right,
but watched him nod to Sarah, grab up his hat, and flee through the
back door.
    Wishing she could run away as well, Sophie
stood stock still, blinking for another moment, unable to think of
anything to say to this woman to make her predicament seem less
damning.
    “I didn’t mean to . . .,” Sophie began. “That
is, Riley . . . uh . . .,” she trailed off.
    Sarah put the basket down on the table.
“Riley is about the most handsome young man this side of the
Mississippi River, I warrant. Something about that dimple.”
    Sophie nodded miserably. Sarah had her hands
on her hips, looking Sophie up and down. “You got dirt all over
you, girl.”
    “Oh.” She put her hands up to her face and
then brushed them down her dress.
    “He’s going to marry Eliza Prentice; you know
that?”
    “Yes, he told me.”
    “She might get her pride pricked if she finds
out Riley’s sweet on you, but you’re the one who’s going to get
really hurt here. And I wouldn’t want to see that.”
    Sophie lowered her head.
    “Maybe it’s time you moved on to where you’re
going next,” Sarah said, her voice had gentled, but that only
increased Sophie’s anguish. Beforehand, Sarah had been urging her
to stay. Sophie knew she was going to cry and desperately wanted to
be alone.
    “I’d better get upstairs and wash up.”
    “Some things can’t be washed away,” Sarah
said, turning for the door. Sophie noticed she left the basket of
food, which made her feel even worse.
     
     

Chapter Eight

    San Francisco, California
     
     
    Sophie hurried along the street toward the
clang of the cable car’s bell. Charlotte’s friend, the editor, had
opened a number of doors for her. She’d had one audition already at
the opera house and was headed to another at the San Francisco
Symphony that afternoon.
    So far, Sophie didn’t like two things about
San Francisco—that she hadn’t come sooner and that she wasn’t there
with Riley. Most days, she longed to see him, just leaning in a
doorway, as he did at Doc’s practice, a smile on his devastatingly
attractive face. He haunted her thoughts, an apparition of the man
whom she would probably always wonder about, the man who had
somehow crept into her heart and soul in a very short time.
    “Watch your step, ma’am,” said the car’s
conductor, and Sophie handed him a nickel.
    The city was everything she’d hoped; Boston
was larger, but maybe because she was so unfamiliar with it, San
Francisco seemed infinitely more exciting. And she’d never seen so
many foreigners within her country’s borders.
    She hadn’t ventured out at night as yet, and
had seen nothing of the Barbary Coast that Riley had mentioned. She
knew she’d have to have a companion to do that.
    At her stop, she jumped off and got her
bearings. Up ahead was the concert hall. She stretched her fingers
out and curled them a few times and went inside.
     
    *****
     
    “What’ll it be, Miss?” Sophie sat in The
Ladies Grill at The Palace Hotel and ordered herself a meal. It
hadn’t gone well. She’d performed at her best, but she could see by
the bored look on his face that the conductor, Herr Becker, was
only doing it as a favor to Charlotte’s friend. He seemed to be
barely listening and was writing on a piece of paper through her
whole audition.
    The symphony had no open positions, in any
case. Becker had said