Change of Heart p.15 Read online

  What he saw was a woman whose eyes darted around nervously. She seemed to be searching for something, but wasn’t seeing it.

  She was too thin and her words about her beauty being her only asset haunted him. There were delicate, faint lines at her eyes, and he wondered how her polo-playing, race-car-driving boyfriends were reacting to those lines. He seemed to remember photos of those men with girls in their early twenties. At thirty-two, Chelsea just might be considered too old for them.

  When they went back to the booth, he watched her throw back another straight shot of tequila in a way that showed she’d done it many times before.

  His life had been missing her. But what was missing in Chelsea’s life?

  She put her empty shot glass down and looked at the dancers on the floor. Her eyes stopped at a man who was moving about with a pretty blonde clinging to him. He was holding her, but he was looking at Chelsea.

  “Am I going to have to fight him too?” Eli said.

  Chelsea turned back to him. “Not on my part. I never like men who are too easy to get, and he’s a one.”

  At Chelsea’s glance, the man moved him and his date closer to their booth.

  Eli stood up, putting himself between the man and the table. Eli was taller, younger, and had more muscle than the man. With a derisive little guffaw, he moved away.

  Eli sat down beside Chelsea on her side of the booth and reached across for his beer. “What’s this ‘one’ mean?”

  “It’s a girl thing. Would you really have hit him for me?”

  “Would you like it if I had?”

  Chelsea groaned. “You sound like my therapist. But to answer your question, a one is from the Challenge Test. A girlfriend and I made it up. We judge men as one to three.”

  “On their looks?”

  “Heavens, no! That’s old-school. It’s how hard they are to get. How much you have to work to get a man to notice you—without letting him know you’re interested, that is.”

  “And that guy is a one?”

  “More like a point one.” As she picked up Eli’s beer bottle and drank from it, she smiled at the guy who was dancing.

  “So you’re just playing with him now?”

  “Yes. And I can see that you don’t approve.”

  “Seems like a waste. But the concept is interesting.” Eli took his beer back and drank deeply of it. “Any threes in this room?”

  She didn’t take her eyes off his. “The man at the bar.”

  Eli was a bit shocked but also impressed that she’d been observing the people so closely. Turning, he saw that every stool at the bar was full.

  “The one on the far left,” she said. “The big guy with the smoldering good looks. He’s a three. Top-of-the-line. He’s well built, has a good face, no wedding ring, and he’s minding his own business. Since we’ve been here, two pretty women have tried with him but he’s not interested.”

  That she’d seen all that further impressed Eli. How had he forgotten how she had talents that he didn’t? “Maybe it’s women in general he doesn’t like.”

  “No, he’s checked out every woman who’s come through the door.” She turned to Eli. “I bet twenty bucks that I can get him to notice me.”

  “Of course you can. You’re the prettiest girl here. Unbutton your blouse and—”

  “No. Not that way. That’s for college girls. I will get his attention by ignoring him.”

  Eli didn’t like what she was saying but at the same time, he was intrigued. It had been years since any problem he’d encountered didn’t involve numbers and a computer—or a firearm. He took out his wallet and put a twenty on the table. “You’re on.”

  Chelsea waited for Eli to get out of the booth, then she got up, picked up the empty shot glasses, and took them to the bar. She stood close beside the man, who was sitting alone, quietly drinking his beer.

  “Two more of these,” she said to the bartender, then leaned forward and waited. She kept her head turned away from the man. Never once did she so much as glance at the man on the stool.

  Eli watched as the man slowly looked her up and down. He reminded Eli of someone. He caught the attention of the waitress and asked who he was.

  “Lanny Frazier, the sheriff’s brother.”

  When Chelsea’s drinks came, two full shots and two beer bottles with clean glasses over them, she picked them up, but nearly dropped one bottle. The man caught it.

  “Thanks,” Chelsea said in a brusque way, but she still didn’t look at him. She went back to the table. “Is he looking?” she asked Eli.

  “Actually, he is.”

  She sat down, took the twenty off the table, and slipped it into her cleavage.

  “Interesting talent,” Eli said, “but perhaps of dubious merit.” He paused. “In reference to your Challenge Test, may I ask what I am?”

  Chelsea downed another shot. She was indeed getting drunk. “You are a one. Beyond easy. You look at me like it’s one hundred and ten in the shade and I’m an ice cream sundae.”

  Before she finished the words, she glanced back at the man at the bar. He had turned away, but that didn’t keep her from admiring the way his muscles moved under his shirt.

  Eli pretended that her words meant nothing to him, and he changed the subject. “What happened to your interest in photography?” he asked. “You once said you were going to become a great news photographer.”

  “I think ambition for a career left me when Eli did.”

  “I was told that you left him.”

  Chelsea waved her hand. “Whatever. He certainly didn’t come after me riding on a black stallion, did he? You want to dance?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  8

  Eli pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and looked at Chelsea in the passenger seat. She was half-asleep, half-awake, and humming a little tune. He got out and went around to pull her from the car. When she had trouble standing, he put her over his shoulder and carried her inside. He would have put her on his bed but there were too many things in the room that belonged to him and he didn’t want her to see them—not if he meant to keep up his charade of who he was.

  He carried her up the stairs to the guest room and put her on the bed. He slipped off her shoes but didn’t touch her other garments. “Well, ice cream sundae,” he said as he looked down at her, “looks like you’re about to melt.”

  He stood there for a moment. She looked good in the barely lit room, but that’s not what interested him. Tonight he’d seen that the Chelsea he used to know—and love—was still in there. She still liked a challenge, still liked to prove herself. It was just that somewhere along the way, she’d lost her direction.

  Eli turned out the light and went downstairs. He was known for his ability to set goals and make step-by-step plans to reach them. Rarely did they fail. Right now a new plan was forming in his head and this one was not going to fail.

  Earlier, as Jeff lay on the floor of the house, the side of his face aching, he’d cursed the entire Taggert family. What normal person needed boxing lessons? Who needed to pick up pieces of iron and put them down again? It wasn’t natural!

  He got up with the help of a chair back. Now what happened? Was he supposed to keep up the lie of being Eli? Fat lot of good that did him. He’d only said what Eli had. Quoted him verbatim. And now his whole head was hurting because of it.

  His intention had been to make Eli fake getting angry, then leave with the girl he was trying to impress. He’d never thought that Eli would actually get angry. And certainly hadn’t considered that he might hit him.

  Jeff flexed his jaw. It didn’t seem to be broken, but it hurt!

  He went to the bathroom in Eli’s bedroom and looked in the medicine cabinet for some painkillers, but saw nothing. He’d negotiated for the house to be furnished, but he hadn’t thought of things like