Fortune's Twins

by Kara Lennox

  “Well, here’s something else he probably didn’t tell you. He wasn’t born with the name Eli Garrett. He changed it at some point. Filed for a new birth certificate and everything.”

  Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat. That little piece of news was a bit more ominous. “How did you find this out?”

  “Oh, I have my sources,” Bobby said. “I’ve always thought of you as a daughter, Gwen, especially since you don’t have any family of your own now. I consider it my duty to look after your interests. And I’m not sure your interests are being served by marrying this character.”

  “Thank you for your concern,” she said, though she didn’t for one minute think Bobby’s motives were altruistic. He was hoping to get her to give Eli his walking papers so Eli would leave town, clearing the way for Bobby to buy the house next door and Mac’s Auto Repair. He would probably build his hotel in an L-shape around her house, just to spite her.

  Daughter, my foot.

  “I’ll think about what you’ve told me,” Gwen said, just to get rid of him.

  It occurred to Gwen, after Bobby left, that he might be lying. But Bobby didn’t usually lie outright unless he was pretty sure he could get away with it. If he’d made up this stuff about Eli, he would get caught.

  She did intend to find out the truth of the matter. She would find out from Eli. When next she saw him, she would just ask him point-blank about his finances. If she was marrying him, she needed to know.

  GWEN’S RESOLVE weakened when she saw Eli at lunch. The midday meal was the only one the boardinghouse didn’t routinely provide, but her boarders were welcome to use the kitchen and prepare their own food. This day, Irene and Stella had gone to The Brimming Cup for lunch. Gwen, her stomach roiling over what Bobby Larson had told her, was determined for the babies’ sake to eat something, so she’d settled on heating up some leftover chicken soup.

  Eli entered the kitchen just as she’d turned on the burner. He wore a pair of overalls over a snug black T-shirt. She’d never thought of overalls as sexy before; but then, she’d never seen a pair filled out quite like Eli filled his. He had plaster dust in his hair and a smudge on his chin. She felt a ridiculous urge to wipe off the smudge herself—maybe with her tongue.

  He smiled as he caught sight of her. “Hi, gorgeous.” He set a paper sack on the counter and went to the sink to wash up. “I brought an extra sandwich from the coffee shop. It’s yours if you want it.”

  “I’m having soup, thanks.” She watched, fascinated, as he soaped up his strong hands and well-muscled forearms at her sink, then stuck his whole head under the faucet. Wordlessly she handed him a clean dishcloth.

  “I guess I should have asked before I practically took a shower in your kitchen,” he said sheepishly. “I just saw you looking all cool and composed, and suddenly I felt grimy.”

  “Listen, I don’t complain when Irene gives Benny a bath in here, so I could hardly complain about you. Do you want something to drink?”

  “Don’t suppose you have a cold beer lurking in the fridge, do you?”

  “I don’t allow alcohol in the house.” That had been her grandmother’s policy. Her grandmother had felt so strongly about alcohol that Gwen had always wondered if her husband had been a drinker. Gwen was pretty sure her father had been. Drinking and gambling seemed to go together.

  Gwen had continued the policy because no one had ever objected to it, and it seemed prudent, though she was not opposed to moderate social drinking.

  Did Eli drink? It was pretty early in the day to be asking for beer.

  “I’ll settle for a soft drink, then.”

  She got him a Coke and a glass of ice, and a ginger ale for herself, while he unwrapped one of his sandwiches and put it on a plate. Then he got out a bowl and spoon for her, and a couple of paper towels for their napkins.

  They worked pretty well together, she mused.

  As they sat down to their meal, she tried to figure out how to broach the subject of finances. But she just couldn’t make herself come out and ask him. So she went in the back door.

  “You know, Eli, it occurs to me we don’t know each other very well to be getting married.”

  “No, we don’t,” he agreed. “But how much can we learn in a couple of weeks?”

  “I was just wondering if there was anything about your past that I ought to know.”

  “You mean, do I have any other children? Or perhaps a crazy wife locked up in an attic somewhere?”

  He was teasing, wasn’t he? But he didn’t smile.

  “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I know this marriage probably wouldn’t have been your choice were it not for the babies.”

  “Nor yours.”

  “But we are going to try to make it work, right? I mean, we’re not getting married strictly to give the babies legitimacy, right? We’re planning to stay married?”

  “If at all possible, yes.”

  “Then I want to start this marriage on sound footing. No secrets between us.”

  “Gwen, what are you getting at? I don’t have any other wives, present or former. No children. No prison record. I’ve never been committed to a mental institution. I’ve never filed for unemployment, and I’m up to date on my taxes. I’m in perfect health. Anything else?”

  “Please, Eli, don’t be insulted,” Gwen said. “I’d just like to know you better, and I’d think you’d want to do the same with me. Are there any questions you’d like to ask me?”

  He took a sip of his drink, seeming to ponder the question. Finally he asked, “Do you trust me?”

  She hesitated just a fraction of a second before answering. “Yes.”

  But Eli didn’t miss that flicker of uncertainty. She could tell by the way his jaw tensed and his hand clamped around his sandwich, squeezing so hard that mustard oozed out from the side.

  “My instincts tell me you are an honorable and trustworthy person,” she elaborated. “But my rational side wants reassurance, that’s all. I’d like to know more about the man I’m going to be sleeping beside for the next fifty or sixty years.”

  He held out both hands in a gesture of surrender. “What you see is what you get. I’m a simple man with simple tastes.”

  “Who drives a 1960 Jaguar.”

  “Okay, simple tastes when it comes to everything but cars. I like working with my hands, I keep to myself—a little too much, maybe—and I’m kind to old ladies and small dogs. I will be a faithful husband and I’ll try to set a good example for our children.”

  He obviously wasn’t going to volunteer the information she wanted. But if she came out and asked him, he would think she’d been snooping, and whatever trust he had in her would be shattered.

  Eli’s mouth firmed into a thin, tense line. “You’re not satisfied, are you. You want to know all the ugly details.”

  “If you want to keep the details of your painful romantic relationships a secret, that’s your choice. But I want to know about anything that might affect our marriage or our children. I think that’s a fair request.”

  “My past is a painful subject, and something I don’t want to talk about. I can promise you nothing in my youth will rear its ugly head to threaten either you or our children. I’ve shut the door on those years—permanently.”

  And that was all he was going to say on the subject, apparently.

  “All right, then,” she said gently. “We won’t speak of it again. But I’m a pretty open-minded and forgiving person. So if you ever want to talk about something—anything at all—you don’t have to worry that I’ll walk out on you. I’m marrying you for better or worse, and that includes mistakes from the past. It’s the future that really matters to me.”

  “Thank you, Gwen,” he said, and she felt he really meant it. “I do have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Have you given any thought to names?”

  “For the babies? I thought we’d settled on Thing One and Thing Two.”

  “Seriously. I want n
ames picked out before they’re born.”

  He sounded pretty intense about this, so she applied some brain cells to the question. “My grandmother’s name was Abigail. I’ve always liked that name, and I would love to honor her by naming a child after her….”

  “But?”

  “If there was only one baby, I wouldn’t hesitate. But I couldn’t honor one twin with that name and not the other.”

  “Do you have another grandmother?”

  Gwen wrinkled her nose. “I’m not that close to her. Anyway, her name is Irma.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you have any relatives you’d like to honor with a namesake?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “No one? No sisters, grannies, a special aunt?”

  “No.”

  Gwen took a deep breath. He hadn’t even had to think about it. It saddened her to realize he’d grown up without a single female influence he considered worthy of honor. “I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate?” she asked.

  He smiled stiffly. “It’s the future that matters, remember?” He took a sip of his drink. “Why don’t we name the twins after you? One can have your first name, the other your middle name.”

  Gwen frowned. “No way. I’ve never liked my first name. It’s too old-fashioned. And my middle name is Rhymann.”

  “You mean, like the mustard?”

  “Exactly like the mustard. Rhymann was my mother’s maiden name. Her grandfather started the mustard company.”

  “Really. I love that stuff. ‘The Mellow Mustard with a Kick.’ So you’re a mustard heiress?”

  “Not anymore.” She didn’t elaborate. “Anyway, I think I want my daughters to have original names, so they don’t have to live up to the memory of some ancestor. Names that go together, but are still distinct from each other.”

  “Like Mindy and Cindy?”

  “Oh, Eli. Please.”

  “Too cutesy, huh?”

  They tossed out dozens of names, then rejected them all. By the time they went to bed, they were no closer to naming the twins than when they’d started. She wondered if they were up to handling the real challenges of marriage if they couldn’t work together to accomplish this simplest of tasks.

  Chapter Eight

  The morning of Gwen and Eli’s wedding dawned cold and overcast, with a few snow flurries. “It’s too early for snow,” Gwen grumbled as she dragged herself out of bed. But a small thrill of anticipation wiggled up her spine. Today was her wedding day. By ten-thirty, Eli would be her husband.

  She could do a lot worse, she acknowledged. But she wished he weren’t such a mystery to her. She’d always dreamed of having a husband who would be a partner in life with her, someone with whom she could share her most intimate secrets, a man who would stick with her through thick and thin.

  Eli might eventually become that man. He hadn’t run the other direction when she’d been ill, didn’t seem to be repulsed by her ever-thickening middle. He seemed open to her sharing with him. But so far, it hadn’t been a two-way street.

  He’d been a little distant since their discussion in the kitchen a couple of days earlier, but she supposed that was to be expected. She’d hurt his feelings by questioning his honesty. Sylvia had been right—she knew all the important things about Eli. He was doing the honorable thing by marrying her. He’d been eager to sign the prenup, so her fortune was secure. If he had a few skeletons in his closet—well, who didn’t? He was entitled to keep them private.

  After all, though she’d been far more forthcoming about her life than he had, she hadn’t told him every little thing. He knew she’d been a shy little girl with only a couple of close friends, and that she hadn’t dated many boys, or later, men. But she hadn’t told him how painfully shy she’d really been, or that she escaped reality through books and movies. And she hadn’t admitted to the secret, lurid affair she’d had with that drifter when she was nineteen. Not even Sylvia knew about that.

  He knew she’d been raised by her grandmother, and that both her parents had died when she was young. But she’d never admitted the terrible thing Willie Tanner—she refused to refer to him as her father—had done to her mother, using and abusing her and then discarding her like a used paper cup. She hadn’t admitted to the shame and humiliation she’d felt when she’d learned that her birth father had virtually killed her mother.

  But those were tender emotions that she would reveal to him in time, as their intimacy grew. And she believed he eventually would open up to her, too, once his trust in her had grown. For now, they knew the basics about each other, and that would have to be good enough.

  Gwen pulled on a pair of wool maternity pants and a huge sweater. She had a date with Sylvia to do her hair.

  Only Stella, Irene and Oggie were at the table when Gwen came downstairs. Oggie was eating his customary poached egg on toast, but Stella and Irene were waiting for her. Gwen was dismayed at how quickly she’d grown accustomed to sleeping late.

  “Where’s Eli?” she asked, trying to hide her anxiety.

  “He scooted out of here early,” Stella said. “He claimed he had a few errands to run this morning.”

  She immediately started worrying that he wouldn’t show up for the wedding.

  “Now, Gwen, dear, don’t fret. I don’t think he has cold feet. Although he did seem a little nervous.”

  “What man wouldn’t be nervous on his wedding day?” Oggie said. “Don’t you ladies go putting worries into Gwen’s head.”

  “Besides,” Stella said, “he’s not supposed to see you today until the wedding. It’s bad luck. Sit down, dear. Breakfast is ready. Scrambled eggs and toast are warming in the oven.”

  “Is it your day to cook, Stella?” Gwen asked innocently as she took her chair at the head of the table. Irene and Stella had been alternating days, though not in a consistent pattern.

  Stella nodded, and Gwen’s heart sank. That meant runny eggs and burned toast. Her fears were confirmed when Stella set the plate in front of her. She took a few polite bites, then claimed she was too nervous to eat more. She would grab a muffin from The Brimming Cup on her way to The Crowning Glory.

  “Bundle up before you go outside,” Irene cautioned. “It’s not terribly cold, but there’s a fierce north wind blowing.”

  Bundling up was something of a problem. Gwen couldn’t button her coat over her stomach. Well, she only had to walk a block, she reasoned as she grabbed her purse and slipped out.

  Sylvia was ready when Gwen arrived munching on a poppyseed muffin. “You baked muffins and you didn’t bring me one?” she asked.

  “I didn’t bake anything. This is from The Brimming Cup. But as a matter of fact, I did bring you one.” She pulled a rather flattened muffin from her purse.

  “You do still love me!” Sylvia took the plastic-wrapped muffin and set it at her station. The two of them were alone in the salon, which had Sylvia’s outrageous personal style stamped all over it. She’d used some of her lottery winnings to redecorate in shades of purple. She’d put in the most modern sinks, the fanciest chairs, the most high-tech lights. Everything matched, down to the purple hair dryers. The salon was so chic, in fact, that Sylvia had several customers who drove all the way from Pine Run to get their locks shorn at The Crowning Glory.

  “I really love this place,” Gwen said as she leaned back in the chair and fitted her neck into the sink’s notch. “There’s nothing more relaxing than having someone shampoo your hair. I want the works—conditioning, hot oil treatment, whatever you’ve got.”

  “Your hair has gotten kind of strange since the pregnancy,” Sylvia said as she adjusted the water temperature. “The texture is different. It’s not unhealthy, just…different.”

  “It’s not as wavy as it used to be,” Gwen agreed. “Kind of flat, especially the new part that’s just grown out.”

  “I could give you a perm.”

  “No, no, no, not on my wedding day. That’s inviting disaster. I’m sure you can style it so it l
ooks good.”

  “Of course I can. Your hair is beautiful, no matter what you do to it.”

  Gwen relaxed and let Sylvia work her magic. When she was done, the image in the mirror shocked her. She looked elegant…no, better than that.

  “I never said I wanted flowers woven into my hair,” Gwen said, though she couldn’t help smiling. “That was your fantasy, remember?”

  “What would you have preferred, a snood?”

  Gwen laughed. “That was my fantasy freshman year, after watching The Lion in Winter.”

  “I can get rid of the flowers.”

  “No, that’s all right. I like them. But I have to run an errand at The Mercantile, and I’m going to feel silly.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I’m picking up Eli’s wedding present.”

  “Which is…”

  “A key chain.”

  Sylvia grimaced and spun Gwen’s chair around to face her. “You are pathetic. That is the most lame excuse for a wedding gift I can think of.”

  “No, hear me out. This is a great idea. See, earlier in the week I kind of pressed Eli about his past, and he felt that meant I didn’t trust him. So I got him this gorgeous eighteen-karat key chain in the shape of a jaguar.”

  “You mean like his car?”

  “No, the cat. It’s symbolic. Anyway, I’m planning to put a copy of all my keys onto the chain. It’s to show him I trust him. Get it?”

  Sylvia looked uncertain. “It still sounds lame. I mean, you’re rich. You could buy him a real Jaguar if you wanted.”

  “The cat?”

  “No, the car. A man can’t have too many classic cars.”

  “But I don’t think Eli is planning to buy me a gift,” she said. “We haven’t talked about it, and I don’t want him to feel like he has to reciprocate. He already bought the ridiculous ring.”

  Sylvia sighed. “It’s a romantic ring. And I guess the key chain thing isn’t too bad. Maybe a little sappy. Hey, why don’t you put an antique key on the ring? And when he asks what it goes to, you say, ‘It’s the key to my heart.’”

  “Talk about sappy!” But the idea wasn’t half-bad. Still, Gwen felt their relationship was far too new and fragile to bring sticky emotions into the brew just yet. Eli had said they might grow to love each other…someday. She didn’t want to rush him.