Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells Read online

  A Ph.D. in sex appeal?

  Grace Cavanaugh is hell-bent on proving her Women’s Studies dissertation thesis that beauty only leads to misery. And what better research subject than her great-aunt Sophia, a former B-movie star? Now eighty-five and facing surgery, Sophia has asked Grace for company… .

  Grace imagines a helpless, lonely old woman, forced to turn to a great-niece she barely knows. Instead she finds the aging diva holding court in a Pebble Beach mansion, oozing a bombshellitude—arthritis and wrinkles be damned—that captivates every male in sight. To Grace’s dismay, her great-aunt decides a perfect distraction would be transforming the frumpy feminist into a femme fatale who purrs for her suitors … or devours them. She ordains classes in everything from carb cutting to lingerie, culminating in a challenging final exam. The newly svelte Grace must test her wiles—on both devilishly handsome and morally corrupt Declan and sensitive but painfully awkward Dr. Andrew.

  Newly unleashed desires—and the discovery of a closely held family secret—threaten the bookworm-turned-babe’s entire feminist upbringing. Her thesis gone sadly awry, Grace wonders if her great-aunt is right: Will trusting her heart lead her to find beauty in the most unexpected places?

  LISA CACH is the author of more than two dozen best-selling novels noted for their “sharp, humorous writing” (Booklist) and their “must-stay-up-and-read-until-dawn” plots (RT Book Reviews). A two-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award, she lives in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her website at www.lisacach.com.

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  COVER DESIGN BY EILEEN CAREY • PHOTOGRAPH OF WOMAN BY LAURENCE DUTTON/GETTY IMAGES • WALLPAPER BY JUPITERIMAGES • AUTHOR PHOTO BY KARLA THOMAS

  Temptation… .

  A few dozen dresses, tops, skirts, and shoe boxes were scattered over the bed, the furniture, and hanging on a rolling clothes rack where gossamer hems and dangling sashes floated in the breeze from the open windows. Grace gaped at the feminine chaos, her gaze flitting from sea green chiffon to orange floral print to black satin. There was not a single item that looked like something she had ever worn, and they were all … beautiful! She’d never worn pretty things; she hadn’t had the money, or the places to wear them.

  Then a haunting sense of guilt crept over her at her own lusting reaction to the Vogue-worthy collection. Shopping for trendy, sexy, expensive dresses was not a politically correct activity in her home, landing somewhere between reading Cosmopolitan and learning to pole dance on the list of Things Serious Women Do Not Do.

  Grace went to the rack and ran her fingertips over the sea green chiffon, feeling the forbidden desire tremble through her.

  Lisa Cach’s Stories Are a Delight You Won’t Want to Miss!

  “Light-hearted, passionate, and well-written.”

  —Fresh Fiction on The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid

  “Cach’s grown-up fairy tale, complete with a moral and a touch of magic, is a fun diversion.”

  —Booklist on Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel

  “Charismatic characters … humor and suspense.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Dr. Yes

  Great-Aunt Sophia’s

  Lessons for Bombshells

  ALSO BY LISA CACH

  Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel

  A Babe in Ghostland

  The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid

  Available from Pocket Books and Gallery Books

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Cach

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books trade paperback edition June 2012.

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  Designed by Akasha Archer

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cach, Lisa.

  Great-Aunt Sophia’s lessons for bombshells / Lisa Cach.—1st Gallery Books trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Aunts—Fiction. 2. Nieces—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.A3125G74 2012

  813’.54—dc23

  2011051758

  978-1-4165-1331-5 (trade paper)

  978-1-4165-5382-3 (eBook)

  To Melanie,

  who got me out of frumpy dresses

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  ‘The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid’ Excerpt

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my editor, Micki Nuding, for both her patience and her genius with an editing pencil.

  And thank you, my darling C.H., for duties performed on the high seas.

  Great-Aunt Sophia’s

  Lessons for Bombshells

  CHAPTER

  1

  PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

  “Gracie, you’ve got the luck of the devil.”

  Grace Cavanaugh rolled down the passenger window of the old Volvo, taking in the fresh sea air and the view of rocky shoreline, the lush green golf course grass, and cypress trees bent by the wind. “I had no idea it was so gorgeous here! All I’ve ever seen of Pebble Beach on TV is the golf course.”

  Catherine’s elfin face was pinched with envy. “I can’t believe you’re getting paid to hang around in a beach house for the summer.”

  “Hey, not just hang around,” Grace said, cheerful from her good fortune. “I’ll be providing necessary companionship for a lonely old lady.”

  Catherine snorted.

  “Admittedly, in a house at the beach.” Grace laughed, feeling free and happy for the first time in what felt like years. The June sunlight was warm on her pale arm, a deeply welcome change from the cold gray c
louds of Seattle. Three months of California summer stretched before her, gloriously free of teaching undergrads, free of rent, free of grocery bills and roommates, free of everything but working undisturbed on her dissertation and sharing a few undemanding hours of companionship with her almost-ancient-enough-to-be-dead great-aunt. She felt like a kid again, on the last day of school. “It’s too good to be true, isn’t it?”

  Catherine arched a black brow. “Better not say that—it means you’ve overlooked something.”

  “Pshh.” Grace waved the thought away. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  The car glided through a gentle curve of 17-Mile Drive, the scenic loop road that residents of Pebble Beach drove free of charge, but which tourists paid nine bucks to do. At the gated entrance to the drive, the guard had handed them a preprinted pass with Grace’s name and the date for the dashboard.

  “What could go wrong, anyway?” Grace asked, the thought taking unwelcome hold. She pulled a lock of red hair to her mouth and started nibbling. When this cushy summer job had appeared so conveniently, she’d felt a surge of joy and relief so powerful that it had washed away her usual caution. Now and then there was a faint buzz of misgiving in the back of her mind, but she’d gleefully smothered it.

  “The only things I could possibly be worried about are whether she has freezer-burned food dating from the Reagan administration, and how well we’ll get along,” she said. “I only met Sophia once, when I was ten.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She scared the bejesus out of me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We were at my uncle’s house for Easter, back in Connecticut where I grew up. It was the snooty side of my family, so I was on edge to begin with. Sophia was visiting from California. She held court in the living room like Queen Elizabeth, sitting stiff and straight in a high-backed chair, with ropes of fake pearls around her neck and half a dozen enormous rings on her bony fingers. Her hair—pure white—was parted on the side in that 1940s style, like Lauren Bacall, with a swoop of waves down one side. I’d never seen hair like that on anyone, or so much costume jewelry, either.”

  “So what happened?”

  “My mom dragged me over to be introduced. Sophia looked me over as if she was evaluating a dog in the show ring. Then she turned to my mother and said, loud enough for the whole room to hear,” Grace said, sitting up straight and pitching her voice high and haughty, “‘Darling, that girl needs a training bra. Do you want old men ogling her tits?’”

  Catherine burst into laughter. “She didn’t!”

  Grace went on in the same haughty voice, “‘I hope to God you’re doing a better job teaching her about birth control than you are about lingerie. Boys are going to be getting into her pants sooner than you think.’”

  “No!”

  Grace crossed her arms over her chest. “I was ten. I was so embarrassed I ran outside and crawled under a hydrangea.”

  Catherine chortled.

  “I was afraid to come out because I thought everyone would be staring at my breasts. They were only anthills, but Sophia was right, they weren’t flat like a child’s anymore. So I stayed under my hydrangea until it was time to go. Ruined my dress. Missed the egg hunt. Cried my eyes out.”

  “I wonder what got into her?”

  “Too many Bloody Marys, I bet. I refused to go to school until Mom bought me a bra, which did not endear Sophia to my mother. She started referring to Sophia as ‘that crass old tart.’”

  “Your mom said that?”

  “I know, Earth Mother herself. Which tells you how mad she was. She thought Sophia had turned natural comfort with my body into shame.”

  “The serpent in the garden of your innocence.”

  “Pretty much. But I’m twenty-six now, a grown woman getting her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies.” Grace assumed a prim expression. “I am safe from corrupting influences.”

  “I’m the only one who’s even tried to corrupt you in the last five years,” Catherine muttered, then darted a look of hope and hurt at her.

  Grace felt a stab of pain and discomfort. “Don’t, Cat,” Grace pleaded. A year ago, Catherine had tried to seduce her. Catherine’s hurt at the rejection was a constant threat to their friendship, and Grace wished they could both forget that it had happened. “We agreed not to ever speak about that.”

  An awkward silence fell between them. Ahead, a group of equestrians appeared on a path leading out of the cypress trees. Catherine stopped the car to let them pass, the horses’ hooves clopping across the road. “So,” she said, her voice brittle, “didn’t you say Sophia used to be an actress?”

  “A B actress, for a couple of years in the forties,” Grace said, relieved to change the topic. “She wasn’t in anything important. I don’t remember what she looks like beyond that hair and jewelry, so I keep picturing her as an aging Bette Davis swilling a martini, cigarette between her fingers, insults dripping like acid off her lips.”

  The horses now gone, Catherine pressed on the gas. “She’s probably got dementia and sits watching Animal Planet all day.”

  “Or maybe not.” Hoping to lighten the mood, Grace narrowed her eyes and waggled her fingers at Catherine as if casting an evil spell. “Maybe she invited me here so she could mess with my mind. She wants to continue the evil work she started at that Easter party long ago.”

  Catherine rolled her eyes. “You said she was going to have hip surgery this summer and wanted to have family nearby.”

  “It’s a cover story. No, what she really wants is to break my spirit, then pimp me out for porn films. Maybe she’s starting a production company in her garage.”

  “You wish. I bet you’d enjoy it.” They came to a stop at an intersection, a sign beside the road offering half a dozen arrows pointing to different destinations. “What’s the address?”

  Grace clenched her jaw and looked down at the Google map in her lap. “I think we turn right.” Catherine was a loyal and generous friend but as sensitive as a hormonal house cat. It might be hours before she could be cajoled back into a good mood. Catherine had been cheerful and entertaining during the fifteen-hour drive from Seattle, and Grace didn’t know why she had to wait until right before their arrival to get in a snit.

  A few minutes later they turned down a driveway that twisted through a grove of cypress and pine, and Grace caught glimpses through the trees of a golden stone house and the brilliant blue sky beyond. A final turn brought them through a pair of stone pillars and out into a courtyard, an Italianate mansion rising like a fortress before them.

  “Stop!” Grace squealed.

  Catherine jammed on the brakes, jerking them both against their seat belts.

  Grace stared at the looming house. This couldn’t be it. No way this could be it. No one in the family had ever said that Sophia had money, and it was the type of thing they would know.

  Grace looked down at her map again. “We must have made a wrong turn. Or maybe she gave me the wrong house number.” She dug through her backpack looking for her phone. “Maybe I should call.”

  Catherine parked the Volvo next to a vintage Jaguar convertible, its maroon paint and polished chrome gleaming in the sun. The Volvo’s engine gurgled to a stop.

  “What are you doing?” Grace yelped. “Don’t stop! Turn around, get us out of here before someone calls security and we’re arrested for trespassing!”

  “Why are you so sure this isn’t her house?”

  “Because!” Grace riffled through the papers crammed in her pack until she found the letter from her aunt. “It says right here, ‘beach house.’ This is not a beach house. I see no driftwood garden ornaments, no old floats hanging from a deck, no wind chimes. Therefore, not a beach house.”

  “It’s a house. At the beach. And didn’t you just say that when you met Sophia she was dripping with jewelry?”

  “I thought it was fake! She was a two-bit actress, not Elizabeth Taylor!” Grace stared at the house in front of her, anxiety tightening her ne
rves. “I hate being around rich people.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They look down on me. They know I’m not one of them.” That had always been the story with her cousins, the sneering, dismissive branch of the family that saw Grace’s parents as depressingly meaningful hippies, with their academic careers, natural-fiber clothing, and fondness for organic co-op farming.

  Catherine snorted. “It’s all in your head. Rich people don’t care what you do. They’re too busy with their own screwed-up lives.”

  Grace shook her head. Everyone silently assessed whether someone was like or unlike oneself, better or worse, higher on the social ladder or lower. She herself did it, an unconscious evaluation that took in subtleties of dress and health, posture and speech, education and culture, or the lack thereof. She relaxed if she was roughly equal, or higher. So did everyone else.

  But no one liked being the lowest dog in the pack. Her rich cousins in Connecticut had laughed at her clothes, at her hair, at her going to public school, at her earnest activist parents with their green Subaru and National Public Radio bumper sticker.

  “Besides,” Catherine went on, “what have you got to be embarrassed about? You’re brilliant. Bet you no one here is half as smart.”

  “Thanks.” But being smart wasn’t the issue.

  “And you’re beautiful.”

  “I’m thirty pounds overweight. I look like a pig.” The Taco Bell burritos she’d had for lunch rolled heavily in her gut, and the waistband of her khaki capris dug into her flesh.

  Catherine heaved a sigh tinged with delight. “Gracie, if you of all people can still fall prey to the fake marketing-based ideal of beauty in this country, and base your sense of self-worth on it, then there’s no hope for any woman!”

  “It’s not my self-worth that’s in question, it’s my worth as judged by others, and how they’ll treat me as a result. Which can affect my sense of self-worth over time.”