Change of Heart Read online

  “You never told me any of this in your letters to me,” Eli said, sounding hurt.

  “I know. I didn’t want to get your hopes up. The letters I wrote to your mother told her what I was doing.”

  “But she didn’t read them.” Eli nodded to the unopened letters piled on the table.

  “No, she didn’t,” he said sadly. “I don’t think she wants me, and there’s nothing else I can do. By now, she’s probably forgotten me.”

  Eli lifted his head to stare at Frank. “I don’t think she has. Sometimes I hear her crying at night. What if that’s because she misses you?”

  Frank raised one eyebrow. “I don’t think so. A woman scorned, that sort of thing. I found out a long time ago that if you leave women, they never forgive you. They might say they have, but they get you back in other ways.”

  “But what if she’s not like that? What if she loves you too and she would understand if you explained to her that you were frightened and a coward?”

  Frank made a sound that was half chuckle, half a scoff. “You’re making me feel worse. Okay, so maybe I was a coward. I’d fall on my knees to her and declare my undying love, but based on these letters, I’m sure she’d turn me down. You have any suggestions?”

  “Let me think about it. We need something Mom can’t refuse.”

  “All right,” Frank said, “let’s change the subject. What do you want for Christmas? Computer equipment?”

  “No,” Eli answered. “I haven’t done much work lately.” Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Can you ride a horse?”

  “Rather well, actually.”

  “Do you own a black one? A big black stallion?”

  Frank smiled. “I think I can find such an animal. I didn’t know you liked horses.”

  “It’s not for me. My mother was paying the bills last week, and she said that we had to face the facts. No handsome man was going to ride up to the front door on a big black stallion and rescue us, so we’d have to make ends meet another way.”

  “And you want me to ride up on a black horse and beg your mother to forgive me?”

  “Yes,” Eli said with such conviction that a light came into Frank’s eyes.

  “A black stallion, eh? And I guess I should do it tomorrow, on Christmas Day?”

  “Yes, definitely. But maybe you’re busy with your family on that day.”

  “Somehow I doubt they’ll miss me. Besides, the idea of me humiliating myself would greatly amuse them.” He paused to think about the idea. “Shall I wear a black silk shirt, black trousers, that sort of thing?”

  “I think my mother would like that.”

  “Okay, tomorrow at ten a.m. Now that that’s settled, what do you want for your birthday?”

  “The password to tap into the Montgomery-

  Taggert data banks.”

  At that Frank laughed harder than he had in months. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. And I’d have to adopt you before I let you tap into that.”

  “Would you?” Eli asked as they left the office. “Adopt me, I mean?”

  “It would be my greatest honor.” Before them was the raucous office party and they stood there staring at it. Frank looked at Eli. “I know a great hamburger joint. Want to go?”

  “Yeah . . . Dad,” Eli said, and Frank put his arm around Eli’s shoulders and they got on the elevator.

  “My brothers will want to put some muscle on you. Think you can stand that?”

  “Yes,” Eli whispered as the doors slid shut, and he slipped his hand into Frank’s.

  6

  Eli,” Miranda said, exasperated, “why are you so nervous?” Since early that morning, while Miranda was up to her elbows in cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, every few minutes Eli had been going back and forth to look out the window. “If you’re searching for Santa Claus, I don’t think he remembers where this house is.”

  She’d meant to make a joke, but it fell flat. This year she hadn’t been able to afford much in the way of gifts, and she was constantly worried about how she was going to support them in the coming months.

  She stopped herself from thinking of the bad things, such as money and where and how. She also wouldn’t allow herself to think of Frank Taggert, the rotten—

  Calm down, she reminded herself.

  “Is Chelsea coming over?” she asked. She felt some guilt over having separated them for so long, but after she’d returned from the cabin, she’d been so angry she hadn’t been coherent. It hadn’t taken a lot of work to find out what her son and Chelsea had been up to. Eli kept files on everything—and she’d read them in horror.

  Yes, he’d done good things, but the danger of his illegal acts was frightening. She’d separated the two kids, not allowing them to continue. She’d also shredded all the stationery they’d collected and had forbidden anything like it to be done again.

  And in one harrowing, terrifying episode, she’d at last confronted her terrorist of an ex-husband—and won. No more giving him money to pacify him. And no more fear that he was going to take Eli away from her.

  For all that she had accomplished some things, the last months had been hell. But on the other hand, they’d also been good for her. Sometimes she thought she was at last growing up. The things she’d talked about to . . . him—she couldn’t even bear saying his name—made her see how vague her life had been. Because of him, she’d decided to take charge of her own life.

  She was sorry for the unhappiness she saw in Eli, but she knew the changes she was making were for the better.

  As for “him,” she’d returned his letters unopened. She wasn’t even curious as to what was in them. An offer of money to assuage his guilt? Apologies for taking advantage of her?

  Whatever he had to say, she didn’t want to hear it.

  The fact that she now bore the consequences of their “meeting” was beside the point. That she dreamed of him at night and remembered him during the day meant nothing.

  “Not now,” Eli said, and Miranda almost didn’t remember what she’d asked. “Later—” He broke off as his face suddenly lit up in a grin. In fact, his whole body seemed to light up. He gained control of himself, and doing his best to appear calm, he went to sit on the sofa and picked up a magazine. Since it was a copy of Good Housekeeping, Miranda knew something was up.

  “Eli, would you mind telling me what is going on? All morning you’ve been looking out that window and—” Halting, she listened. “Are those hoofbeats? Eli, what are you up to? What have you and Chelsea done now?”

  He gave her his best look of innocence.

  “Eli!” Miranda said. “I think that horse is coming onto the porch!”

  When her son just sat where he was, his head down but looking as though he were about to burst into giggles, Miranda smiled too. She had an idea that she was going to open the door to find pretty little Chelsea on her pony, her hair streaming down her back, a Christmas basket in her hand. Miranda decided to play along with the game.

  Wiping her hands and putting on her best stern face, she went to the door, planning to look surprised and delighted.

  She didn’t have to fake the look of surprise. Shock would be more like it. She didn’t see Chelsea’s pony but an enormous black horse trying to fit itself onto her little front porch. A man, dressed all in black, his face turned away from her, was on its back, trying to get the animal under control without tearing his head off on the low porch roof.

  “You have any mares around here?” the rider shouted above the clamor of the horse’s iron-shod hooves on the wooden porch.

  “Next door,” she shouted back, thinking that she knew that voice. “Could I help you find your way?” She stepped back from the prancing hooves.

  After a few powerful tugs on the reins and some healthy curses muttered under his breath, the man got the horse under control, then turned to look at her. �