Eli shrugged in dismissal. “I’m going to get a beer. You want one?”
“No thanks,” Jeff said. “I’m watching my figure.”
His joke cleared the air and they were back on good terms. Actually, Chelsea was their only real bone of contention.
That had been days ago and with every minute since then, Eli had become more apprehensive. He spent hours in the local gym, doing some sparring with the owner, Mike Newcomb, and being spotted on the weight bench by Colin Frazier. With Mike being a retired police detective and Colin the town sheriff, Eli had felt very comfortable in the gym. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Eli had used his contacts to help on a case Mike had taken on. “Retirement is a relative term,” Mike had said.
As for Colin, when Jeff and Eli first arrived, he’d asked them questions about why they were here, who they knew, where they worked. Eli had answered all that he could. He couldn’t tell much about his job, and he knew little about his father’s family, the Harcourts.
“My wife, Gemma, and I will have to have you over for dinner and introduce you to some people,” Colin said.
Eli said that sounded nice. Maybe he and Chelsea . . . He had to force himself not to think like that.
Now, he moved on to a row of bushes and began to trim them. He really should find out what kind of plants they were and when they should be pruned. But his mind was so full of Chelsea that he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
Chelsea didn’t pull into the driveway. She was afraid that Eli would hear the gravel crunching and suddenly open the car door and say, “Why did you stop writing me?!”
She had no idea what her answer would be because she had no legitimate excuse. On the long drive to Edilean, she’d thought of lots of answers to give him. There was the therapist way—something she’d had experience with—of explaining how she’d been young and frivolous and didn’t understand the value of friendship. Or she could get angry and yell at him. Or she could laugh and say, “And hello to you too, Eli.” She came up with dozens of ways to confront him, ways to answer him, but every scenario ended with her getting back into her car and leaving.
But then she’d seen Eli in the grocery store. She knew she was being shallow, but it was a lot harder to say no to a drop-dead gorgeous man than it was to a man-boy whose ears stuck out.
Since seeing him, her answer to his question of why she hadn’t written had changed. One of them was to shoot back at him, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d grown a foot and put on forty pounds of muscle?” The thought of throwing her arms around him and French-kissing him hello was another answer she rather liked.
But all in all, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do.
She closed the car door quietly. She’d seen the assistant, Jeff, drive away, so it was her guess that Eli was in the house alone. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
As she quietly walked across the lawn, she wished she hadn’t worn heels. If Eli got too bad, she’d need flats for running away. Maybe she should give a quick knock on the door, then leave before he answered. She could tell her parents that—
She didn’t complete her thought because Eli was outside. He had his back to her and his shirt was off. From his thick dark hair to his feet, he was beautiful. His shoulders were broad and his waist was small. He was using big cutters to trim some bushes and the action made the muscles on his back move like waves in an ocean.
For a moment, Chelsea closed her eyes. I am in trouble, she thought.
If only this weren’t Eli, a guy she had so much history with—and knew so very well. She had no doubt that he was going to make her feel disloyal and superficial, and he was probably going to point out that she had no clear direction in life. Yes, she was the one who hadn’t written. No, she hadn’t given her life over to helping her country, as he had done. But she had . . . What? Well, actually, she’d had a damn good time in her life. Could Eli say that?!
She took another step forward, ready to take her punishment for past offenses, but then an idea came to her. Why not turn some of that Robin and Marian Les Jeunes onto themselves? Save the two of them, so to speak. His muscles were still moving under his skin, and Chelsea thought how much she loved surfing.
She took a breath. Courage! she thought. I need all of it that I can muster.
“Is he gone?” she asked.
Eli turned toward her, and for all that his face and body were different, those were the same eyes—and she could read the accusation in them. She knew she’d better talk fast or he was going to start with the questions about why she’d broken contac
t with him so many years ago.
“That was Eli driving away, wasn’t it? Someone told me he’s your boss and I don’t mean to disparage the poor guy, but I really can’t take his doom and gloom right now. I only came because my parents threatened me into it. Maybe I can just leave a note saying I’m sorry I missed him. That will get my parents off my back without having Eli’s guilt dumped on me. Oh! I’m Chelsea, and you’re Jeff, is that right?”
She watched him use his prodigious brain to try to understand what she was saying.
As Chelsea spoke, Eli watched her—and it was as if time fell away. She might be an adult now, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw what he’d seen when he’d met her in elementary school: fear. When her family moved to town that summer, her father had caused a local sensation. He’d bought a big, historic mansion, tore down the newer houses surrounding it, and moved into what was an ordinary, middle-class neighborhood. People with his kind of money didn’t usually live in that area.
When his youngest daughter entered the local elementary school that fall, everyone had gathered around her. She was pretty and rich and they all wanted to be her best friend.
Eli, always a loner, hadn’t paid any attention to her. But one day in the cafeteria she’d asked him what he was reading. He’d told her—it was a book on artificial intelligence—then he’d looked up at her, expecting to see the usual bored expression the other kids wore. But that’s not what he saw. Chelsea’s eyes had the look of a wild animal—scared and desperate—plus a look of, well, not belonging. But best of all, she’d understood what he’d told her and she didn’t look bored. After that, they were friends.
She’d been an extraordinarily pretty girl and now she was beautiful in that way that tended to make men weak. She was tall and thin, with long, thick hair, the same golden color it had been when they were children. It was easy to understand why people stopped and stared at her.
But none of that mattered to Eli, for right now, that look of fear he’d seen so long ago was again in her eyes. He didn’t understand why, but he knew she needed him to be someone he wasn’t. And if Jeff was who she needed, that’s what he was going to give her.