Change of Heart

by Jude Deveraux

  Chelsea put her hand over his. Eli had always had the softest heart in the world, but then he’d had to watch his mother being misused. “Déjà vu?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She reminds me of my mom and how my dad used to con her out of money. He did it just to see if he could. One time he told me that the only thing that really mattered in life was winning.”

  “You think that’s what this guy Orin is doing?”

  He looked at her. “Why doesn’t he sell the watch and briefcase to pay his bills?”

  “I wonder if they belong to him,” Chelsea said. She lowered her voice. “Or maybe he’s saving them to sell to pay his wife’s funeral expenses. What do you think the husband, Gil, did?”

  “Sounds like he embezzled company funds.”

  They looked up as the waitress returned. With a wink at Eli, she put two big slices of lemon meringue pie on the table, then left.

  “Why did she bring these?” Chelsea asked, frowning.

  “I asked for one. Guess she misheard and delivered two slices. She said they were homemade by a local widow who has two kids in college.”

  Chelsea knew that story would get Eli’s attention. She took a bite. “Not bad.” She took another one. “Is that guy back at the table yet?”

  Eli leaned around the end of the booth, and when he turned back, his face showed disbelief. “He stole the tip. When I left I saw three dollars and change by the tab, but it’s gone now. I’ll be back.” He left the table.

  It was about ten minutes before he returned and by that time Chelsea had finished her pie and started on Eli’s. “He’s in there shaving—and smiling. He looks like he won the lottery. He told me I was with a really hot chick and asked if we were having a good time in bed.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

  “All you have to do with men like him is smirk.” He looked at her. When they were kids, they often understood each other’s mind without words.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  That’s all Eli needed. He put money on the table—leaving a twenty-dollar tip—and they hurried out to the car. They were just inside when they saw the man Orin leave the diner and go to the ratty old clunker. For a moment he stood there looking around the parking lot.

  Eli and Chelsea slid down in their seats so he couldn’t see them. Their heads were close together.

  “This is like when we were kids, always hiding from the adults,” she said.

  Eli was looking at her. “Except that I never used to have an almost overwhelming urge to kiss you.” He lifted up to look out the window. “He’s looking at the trunk as though he’s trying to decide whether or not to open it.”

  Chelsea was still down on the seat. “What did you say?”

  Eli slid back down. “He didn’t open it.” He looked back up. “He’s driving away. Mind if I follow him?”

  Chelsea sat back up. “Of course not. What did you mean that you want to kiss me?”

  Eli was looking in his mirror and backing the car out. “Just that. Primal instinct. Once I find out where he’s going, I’ll take you to back to Edilean.”

  “I want to know more about the kissing.”

  “No one taught you how?”

  “Stop it! You know exactly what I mean.”

  Eli gave a little one-sided grin. “You’re beautiful, but you know that. Truthfully, beauty in a woman has never been a serious turn-on to me. My cousins make fools of themselves over—”

  “Eli!” she said.

  “Right. You want to know about you and me. What’s to say? Your interest in whatever is going on with ol’ smiling Orin and generous Grace and her daughter, Abby, has sparked something in me. Made me want to kiss you.”

  “Oh,” she said. They were back on the highway and Eli was easily moving from one lane to another as he followed the ratty old car. Sometimes Eli let it pass them, then he slowed and moved back behind him.

  “Learn this technique from another spy?”

  “No, from a cousin. My stepfather is part of the most extraordinary family. When a child is found to have a talent, they all work to cultivate that ability.”

  “They worked on you and numbers?”

  “Not personally, but they got me into any schools I wanted. What I was good at was absorbing what the others could do. Uncle Adam taught me to row a boat, and Uncle Kit showed me how to appear invisible. Aunt Cale gave me lessons on plotting novels. A new branch of the family has been found on Nantucket and I look forward to learning from them—but Aunt Cale said they mostly seem to know about ghosts, which I don’t believe in.”

  “And someone taught you how to follow cars?”

  “Ranleigh. He’s had some experience in evading the authorities and he taught me his technique. However, in retrospect, his first lesson was a bit harrowing. At the time, I didn’t understand that it was real and that we were in an actual car chase trying to escape some drug dealers.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened. “I assume you two got away.”

  “We did. Look. He’s turning off the highway.” Eli slowed and allowed two other cars to get in front of him, then he followed the old car down the off-ramp.

  They ended up in a neighborhood that was very run-down. Small houses with falling gutters, peeling paint, and yards full of weeds surrounding them. As Eli slowly drove down the street, some young men wearing black leather jackets and looking under the hood of a car stopped to frown at the silver-blue BMW.

  “I think we’re in the wrong car,” Chelsea said and instinctively leaned away from the window. “Did you, by chance, learn self-defense moves from any of your cousins?”

  “I took years of classes with them. And Todd taught me about firearms.”

  When she looked at him in alarm, Eli shrugged. As he drove down the streets, she stared at him. He had on a T-shirt that clung to his muscular body. His dark hair curled about the back of his neck. This is not what she’d thought Eli would grow up to look like—or that he’d know the things he did. Dancing, car chases, firearms. When they were kids and they’d talked of their futures, she’d imagined him emaciatedly thin, living alone on delivered pizza, and sitting in front of eight computer screens.

  “There,” Eli said and slowed the car. They saw Orin pull into a driveway of one of the worst weed-infested houses. The windows were dirty and two of them were cracked. The old car fit perfectly with the shoddy house.

  Eli parked across the road under a big tree that looked to have been struck by lightning. A heavy branch hung dangerously low over the crumbling sidewalk, but it hid Eli’s car.

  They saw Orin get out of the car and go into the house.

  “Wow!” Chelsea said. “If that’s where he lives, he was telling the truth about being broke. Think his invalid wife is in there?”

  “Only one way to find out. Stay here while I—”

  “Like hell I will!” She had her hand on the door handle when he stopped her.

  “If you so much as step out of this car, you’ll create a crowd. Look at you! Hair, clothes, all that makeup. You look ready to be on the cover of Vogue.”

  “Thanks. Maybe. You have a baseball cap?”

  “In the bag in the back.”

  Chelsea got onto her knees and bent over to reach through the bucket seats to the back. She knew that doing so put her derriere close to Eli and she couldn’t resist checking to see if he was looking. He was.

  Smiling, she unzipped his duffel bag, rummaged inside, and pulled out a dirty T-shirt, an old baseball cap, and a package of wet wipes. She’d had a lot of experience in quickly making up for photo shoots so she could just as quickly unmake herself.

  She sat back in the seat and quickly removed all her carefully applied cosmetics.

  Eli was watching her. “Why did you go to all that trouble when it’s just you and me?”

&nbs
p; “To make you see that I’ve grown up. To impress you. To show you that I’m no longer a girl with skinned knees.” As she spoke she pulled her designer shirt over her head, exposing her breasts in a lacy bra, and slipped on the big T-shirt. She wrapped her long hair in her hands and stowed it under the cap. “So?” she asked, turning to him. “How do I look?”

  “Like an actual woman. I am impressed, and by the way, I liked your skinned knees.” Bending, he kissed her cheek. “Right now I can see a bit of my Chelsea in you. Didn’t think that was possible.” He stepped outside.

  Smiling, she got out of the other side and hurried after Eli as he crossed the street. “You know, if you had a tattoo or two, you could fit right in with these guys around here.”

  Without pausing, Eli lifted his shirtsleeve and twisted his arm about. On the underside of his upper arm was a tattoo of a symbol for infinity with some words in another language under it.

  “What does it say?”

  “ ‘Time has no meaning,’ ” he said. “I think. That was on a case and . . .” He shrugged, then began to run.

  Chelsea was nearly as tall as he was so she could keep up with him. They went to an adjoining house and stopped behind a fence with missing boards. She started to pull off a board so they could get through.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t you want to go to the other house?”

  “Yes, but not at the destruction of other people’s property. We need to go over the fence.” He put his hands together and cupped them. “Put your foot here.”

  “I like this better than sliding through splintered wood.” She put her foot in his hand and he hoisted her up.

  “Thought you would,” he said, then gave such a thrust upward that she almost went flying over the top. She caught on to the board ridge and tried to throw her leg over. Eli put one hand firmly on her round behind and pushed her up and over. “Too bad your polo-player boyfriend isn’t here to give you a boost up.”

  She started to protest what he was saying but changed her mind. “Yeah, it is a shame, isn’t it? A sleek, black pony to—oh!” She lost her grip and fell over the side.

  Eli caught her.

  In his arms, she looked at him. “How did you get over here so fast? I didn’t see you climb.”

  “I walked around the front of the fence,” he said as he put her down. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Silently laughing, Chelsea ran behind him. It felt good to know that he had done all that just to get his hands on her backside. They went to the back of the house and looked inside. It was as barren and threadbare as the outside. They were squinting through the dirty window into the kitchen, with its old appliances, a few cheap cooking pans on the counter.

  Beyond the kitchen was a small room with an old couch and chair.

  Chelsea moved away from the window. “Maybe she’s in the bedroom.”

  “I doubt it. He’s leaving,” Eli said and they ran around to the front of the house. He crouched down behind a bush that hadn’t been pruned in years and motioned for Chelsea to join him. She got between his legs and it seemed natural when his arms went around her shoulders.

  They heard Orin open and close the front door, then lock it.

  “He’s leaving her in there alone?” Chelsea asked.

  Eli put his hand out to part branches of the bush so they could see.

  The man they saw didn’t look like the same one who’d entered the house. He had on a suit of perfect fit, the dark fabric having no gloss to it. There was nothing synthetic in that material!

  “London. Savile Row,” Chelsea said. “Custom-made.”

  “Exactly,” Eli replied.

  They watched him open the car door.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Chelsea said. “We have to follow him.”

  But Eli’s arms held her in place. “Wait. I think I know what he’s going to do.”

  They stayed hidden and watched as Orin reached inside the car, pushed a button, and the garage door went up. He drove the car inside, then there was silence.

  “Think he’s getting the briefcase and watch out?”

  “Yes,” Eli said. “What’s that smell on your neck?”

  “Charred wood, fried-chicken grease, and probably lemon from the pie you made me eat. I really need to take a shower.”

  “I think you should start a perfume line.”

  She turned her head toward him, his face close to hers.

  But then they heard a car engine start and Eli stood up so fast Chelsea sat down hard in the dirt. By the time she got up, dusting off her behind, the car was gone. “What was it?” she asked.

  “Mercedes E63.”

  “That’s about a hundred grand,” Chelsea said.

  “Do you know the price of everything?” he asked over his shoulder as they ran across the potholed road to his car. Her silence made him suspicious. He stopped at the car door. “You didn’t have to buy your boyfriends gifts, did you?”

  “Of course not,” she said and hurriedly got into the car.

  As Eli got behind the wheel, he gave her a glance as he started the engine.

  “Don’t look at me that way. There were extenuating circumstances. Besides, what’s the difference? I’m sure you handed out a few sparkly stones to your girlfriends.”

  “No,” he said. “Never.”

  “And that’s why they’re past girlfriends.”

  “And your boyfriends are present?”

  “Okay!” Chelsea said. “So we’re even.”

  “I always thought we were,” he said in a way that made her smile.

  As Eli drove along the highway, the black Mercedes not far ahead of them, Chelsea leaned back in the seat. They were heading west and as far as they could see, Orin wasn’t planning to get off the expressway anytime soon.

  “How’s your mom?” Chelsea asked. “And all your sibs?”

  “Mom is great.” Eli’s voice softened. “She and Frank are an excellent match. They agree about everything. Frank is so happy he turned a lot of his business over to Julian. Remember him?”

  “Sure. I thought he was half in love with your mother.”

  “Probably, but he married a cousin of Frank’s and they have three kids. And all my half siblings are fine. The oldest is nineteen now.”

  “Any of them as smart as you?”

  Eli couldn’t fully suppress a smile. “No. I’m the odd man out. But they never made fun of me. All of them are quite physical and they insisted that I participate with them. I had a hard time adjusting to that.”

  “It looks good on you,” she said.

  For a few seconds he took his eyes off the road to give her a glance up and down. “And your parents?”

  “Very well. But not long after we left Colorado Dad had a mild heart attack. It changed him. He gave up trying to have the biggest and the best. Mom and I were glad as we got to see him more.”

  “Did I hear that you didn’t finish college?”

  “So you did snoop about me?” When he didn’t reply, she shrugged. “I was ‘discovered.’ You know, playing volleyball on the beach and some guy was taking photos and the next thing I knew, a New York modeling agency was calling me. I was so young and it was all so dazzling that I said yes without saying the actual words. It all just sort of happened.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “I don’t remember.” She looked out the window. She wasn’t about to tell him of the haze of drugs and booze and men. Sometimes it seemed that one day she’d been playing volleyball on a beach, wearing her new red bikini and trying to get the attention of some basketball player, and the next she was being sent down a runway in Milan. And all of it seemed like just a week ago.

  Eli reached across the console and took her hand in his. “It’s okay now. You’re with me.”

  “What does that mean? Y
ou’re going to give up your government job and stay home with me? We’ll have a couple of kids? I’ll become a housewife?”

  Eli pulled his hand away.

  “I’m sorry,” Chelsea said. “That didn’t come out the way I meant. It’s just that . . . Well, I . . .”

  “You have a low boredom threshold,” he said. “You always did. You loved the excitement when we were kids. The football players used to threaten me about you. Why would a hot babe like you run around with a skinny nerd like me?”

  “Did they? I never knew that. They didn’t bully you, did they?”

  “Oh, yeah. But after Frank married Mom they only did it one more time. After I came home one day with a couple of black eyes and a cracked collarbone, a gang of my big Taggert cousins went to school and talked to a whole lot of people.”

  Chelsea didn’t laugh. “Why didn’t you tell me about being bullied?”

  “You were what kept me sane. Look! He’s getting off the highway.”

  They left the expressway and drove for another thirty minutes and began to see signs for a lake.

  “Interesting,” Eli said, looking at the GPS. “This place seems to be equidistant between Richmond and Charlottesville.”

  “The cities where the two Longacre Furniture stores are,” Chelsea said. While Eli drove, she’d looked them up on her phone. From what she could see, the stores were big, carried high-end merchandise, and were thriving. “Too bad Orin sold the stores,” she told Eli.

  As the road narrowed and the traffic thinned out, Eli had to stay far behind the black Mercedes. “I wish I could have rented a more anonymous car. This one is too recognizable.”

  “We can do that tomorrow.”

  He looked at her sharply. “I thought you’d want to go back to Edilean or at least to the nearest airport. Rural Virginia isn’t exactly exciting, certainly not like a polo field.”

  “Cut it out!” she said. “He’s turning down that road.”

  Eli held back as the black car went down a narrow road.

  “He’ll see us,” Chelsea said. “He’ll recognize—” She broke off when Eli backed up and returned to the main road. When she glanced at the GPS screen, she knew what he was doing. The map showed a big lake that had fingers of water. There were several carefully planned lanes following the lake, with wider roads leading to them. They were heading into a planned community, all of it laid out for easy access.