Change of Heart (14 page)

Part Two

7

Edilean, Virginia

Twenty years later

2014

A
nd get some bottles of champagne,” Eli said as he put his hands on the bar and bench-pressed six reps with over two hundred pounds.

His assistant, Jeff, tapped the note into his phone. “What kind of champagne?”

As Eli sat up and wiped the sweat off his face, he gave him a look.

“Right,” Jeff said. “You have no idea. How about the kind that has pretty flowers painted on the bottle?”

“Keep it up and I’ll make you hold the pads.”

Jeff groaned. The gym they were in was big and smelly and full of people who were so physically different from him they might as well have been another species. In the boxing ring was a woman with a fantastic body wearing red boxing gloves and hitting the hand pads held by a kid who made grizzlies look small.

Those were the pads Eli was threatening him with. All 130 pounds of him would have to stand there with those things on his hands while Eli hit them very hard. Once was enough!

He watched Eli do more reps while lying under a bar that could come down and crush his neck—something Jeff was sure would happen to him so he never touched it. But Eli said that a man didn’t join the Taggert family and not get into iron. “Iron” as in picking it up and putting it down.

“Okay,” Jeff said, “what else should I get for the beauteous Chelsea? Flowers? Candy? Condoms?”

Again, Eli gave him a look to stop it.

“Got it,” Jeff said. “Chelsea the Pure. Chelsea the Innocent.” He lowered his voice. “Even if you haven’t seen her since she was a kid, and you know she’s had a lot of boyfriends, you still think she is an angel come to earth.”

Eli took a couple of forty-five-pound dumbbells from the rack and went to an incline bench to do three set of flys. When he’d finished, he sat up and looked at Jeff. “I know I’m being ridiculous, but I want this visit to be a good one. Get whatever you think will make her feel comfortable. I’m doing abs, then hitting the shower. I’ll meet you at the car.”

Gratefully, Jeff started for the front door, while mumbling, “And the objective in all of this is to persuade her to stay for the entire summer. Or maybe a lifetime.” He didn’t mean to be so negative, but he thought Eli was putting too much hope into the coming meeting. And he feared that Eli was going to be seriously hurt when it failed. He’d worked for Eli for seven years, and while his boss had had a few girlfriends, none of them had stayed around for long. But then, when there was a choice between work and a girl, Eli always chose work.

For all that Jeff was only five foot eight, skeletal skinny, and had a face like a mischievous boy’s, women liked him. He said his secret was that he made them laugh.

But Eli was shy around women. If Jeff got him to go to a bar, Eli would sit there drinking his beer until he’d eventually take out his ever-present notepad and start creating something. There were times when Eli had excused himself and later Jeff had found him outside in the car doing calculations while his pretty date waited inside. Only women who were very determined made it past Eli’s work barrier. But eventually they all left because, although he’d often grow fond of them, he never came close to giving them the love they wanted.

But about a year ago things had changed. One morning Jeff had shown up at his boss’s small apartment as usual, and Eli said, “I’m going to take next summer off.” Jeff had nearly choked on the bagel he was eating.

“Take
of
f
? As in, not work?” Jeff was shocked.

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it. When my biological father died, his will said he wanted to be buried near his father’s family in Edilean, Virginia. When I went to the funeral, I saw that it’s a pretty little town, and it’s just outside Williamsburg. I think I’ll go there.”

“Ah. Right,” Jeff said. “It’s near Langley.” He went back to eating. Eli might be planning to do the unthinkable of taking time
off
, but he wouldn’t be far away from government offices if he was needed. If the president called him—which had happened several times—and asked him to, you know, save the world—something else that Eli had done a few times—he’d be nearby.

“Then what?” Jeff asked.

“I’m going to get a house there and invite Chelsea to visit.”

“The excitement is making my heart flutter.” He couldn’t remember which one was Chelsea.

But it turned out that she wasn’t someone Jeff had met, and as the weeks passed, he decided to discover who she was. It took a lot of beers before Eli told him, but when he started talking, he wouldn’t stop.

According to Eli, Chelsea was smart, clever, a daredevil, afraid of nothing, the best companion a person could have, etc. It took Jeff a while to realize that Eli hadn’t seen her since they were sixteen years old. He told Jeff how even though his mother had married a fabulously wealthy man, they’d stayed in the same neighborhood so Eli could still go to school with his beloved friend, Chelsea. He postponed college, but he didn’t mind. He said it was part of the “Great Compromise” his parents had settled on before they got married.

Eli said it had been traumatic for both kids when, a few years later, her father said they were moving. The kids had promised to write each other every day.

Eli told Jeff that that’s what he’d done, but a year later, his letters were returned with
no forwarding address
stamped on them. After that, he and Chelsea lost contact.

By that time Eli was going to college and turning the computer world on its ear. Many companies had approached him about a job and had offered him money and luxuries. But then somebody from the US government showed up and said, “Would you like to work for us? We’ll pay you practically nothing and keep you so busy you won’t have time for a life. But then most of what you’ll be doing is Top Secret so you can’t share with anyone and that’s hard on every relationship. So how about it?”

Jeff still couldn’t understand why Eli had said, “Yes! Love to do it. Where do I sign?”

After the first five years of working for the government, Eli wrote a few software programs and some games for the real world—and that’s when he’d hired Jeff to help with everything outside of work and programming. Not that Jeff wasn’t handy with writing code himself, but he couldn’t compete with Eli. But then, when it came to brains, nobody could. However, even though the programs were 90 percent Eli, he still cut his assistant in for a share of what came to be huge profits.

One time Jeff asked Eli why he’d hired him over the many other applicants. Jeff had hoped to hear that it was his magnetic personality or his speed on a database. But no. Eli said, “Because you look like me. Makes me feel comfortable.”

That statement made Jeff laugh, for Eli was one good-looking man. Six feet two, dark hair, a body the Navy SEALs would envy, and rich. He was the whole package.

Smiling, Eli had pulled a photo album from a bookcase and showed a picture of himself at fourteen. Yes, Eli had once been as thin as Jeff. But after years with the family his mother had married into, he had physically changed.

Maybe it was because of a past physical resemblance, but they became friends as well as coworkers, and it was a shock to Jeff to hear about a girl who was so important to Eli. Maybe she was why Eli wasn’t interested in the beautiful girls who leaned over him and slipped their phone numbers into his pocket.

The day after hearing Eli’s story, Jeff went online and found photos of Miss Chelsea Hamilton and was stunned. She was beautiful. Like have-a-fantasy beautiful. “Is this her? She’s a stunner.”

“Yeah,” Eli said. “She’s always been pretty.”

Jeff laughed at the understatement. A few days later, he began to search for houses for sale in Edilean, Virginia. By the time spring began to arrive, Eli owned a modest house on the outskirts of the little town, and they’d contacted Chelsea. She’d replied, saying she accepted.

On the drive from the Edilean gym, Jeff kept glancing at Eli. He’d never seen him like this: nervous, excited, unable to concentrate on his work. Several times in the week they’d been here, Jeff had looked at the phone ID and said the caller was “General Weber” or “Agent Blackburn.” Or it was Eli’s secretary: “Pilar says it’s urgent.” Each time, Eli had waved his hand. “I’m busy. Call them and see what they want.”

What they wanted was for Eli to return and do the work of five people—like he usually did. But all he seemed able to think about was the coming visit.

“Did you get—” Eli asked.

“Yes!” Jeff said before he could finish. “Whatever a person can eat or drink I’ve put it in the house.” But with another glance at his boss, pity took over. “Why don’t we stop at the grocery and have lunch? I’ll order while you sit and work on”—he glanced at Eli’s ever-present notebook—“whatever.” And after lunch, Jeff thought, he was going to leave his nervous boss at home and go into town to look around. He needed some time away from Eli’s skittishness. I hope she’s worth it! Jeff thought as he pulled into the parking lot.

Chelsea stopped at the big grocery store just outside Edilean to get lunch—and to think. What she wanted to figure out was how to get out of seeing Eli.

That she’d even accepted his invitation was all her mother’s fault. When it arrived, Chelsea had been at her parents’ home and using her mother’s big desk computer to check her email. If she’d just used her phone like normal, she wouldn’t have been caught.

“You got an email from Eli?” her mother said as she looked over Chelsea’s shoulder. Her voice was nearly breathless with excitement. “Have you two been corresponding long? Have you seen him? Are you two dating? Is it serious?”

Chelsea was sure her mother asked more questions but she didn’t listen. All she could think was, So
now
you find me? All these years of being apart and at last you find me? What happened to make you seek me out now? Some girl drop you? Or did the world run out of secrets for you to untangle?

“Yeah, it’s him,” Chelsea said as she got up from the desk. “I guess. Who knows?”

“May I?” her mother asked, but she was already in the chair and reading. “He has a home in Edilean, Virginia, and he’d like for you to visit him. How
delightful!”

Chelsea wanted to leave the room. She wanted to put her nose in the air, flip her long hair, and leave. But she didn’t. She plopped down on the sofa and picked up a magazine she’d already read and opened it. No matter how she tried to soothe herself about it, it still maddened her that her parents dismissed all she’d done in her life. Years of modeling, magazine covers, the people she’d met. What seemed to matter to them most was her childhood with Eli. “I can’t imagine why he’d ask me to visit him. If he wanted to see me, he could have shown up at my door.”

“And which door would that be?” her mother said. “You move every six months.” She took a breath. “Eli was always shy and you’re the one who stopped writing him, remember?”

“Yes, Mom, I do remember. But then, you’ve reminded me every day since I was what? Seventeen?”

“Yes. But then, you stopped writing your best friend when you discovered big, strapping boys who could barely talk.” Her mother turned around to look at her daughter. Chelsea was home because she was hiding from her latest boyfriend—and she was in a bad mood because he hadn’t found her. “Are you going to go see Eli?”

“Of course not.” Chelsea got up to go to the kitchen.

Her mother was close on her heels. “I think you should go. Eli was always the nicest, most considerate boy I ever met. And you two had so much fun together.”

“Mother, the things Eli and I did were illegal. Don’t look so shocked! It wasn’t like that. It was—” Chelsea put up her hand. “It doesn’t matter now. If Eli wanted to keep in touch, he would have.”

Her mother, usually so sweet tempered, glared at her. “Yes, Eli failed your test. You dropped him and he didn’t pursue you. You played a little-girl game and lost the best friend you ever had. And now you’re losing him again. And for what? So you can sit around here and wait for another one of your brainless boyfriends to find you? Is this one the Brazilian polo player?” She took a breath. “You’re my daughter but I’m beginning to think you don’t deserve a young man like Eli.” With that, she turned on her heel and left the room.