“He did,” Chelsea said as she picked up the other plate of cake and closed her eyes in ecstasy at the taste of it.
It was after she’d told some about living on the polo circuit—which sounded pointless—that he said, “You don’t want to see Eli?”
Chelsea took a moment before opening her eyes. This was it! This was when he’d start his sad diatribe about how she’d abandoned him, left him to face the world alone, how she had—
“I don’t blame you,” Eli said.
Chelsea looked at him.
“He’s a pain to be around. He does nothing but work. Day and night. He neglects his family and he has no friends. Girls come on to him but he ignores them.”
Chelsea was eating her cake and listening in wide-eyed a
stonishment. Maybe she’d mixed this up. The sheriff said Eli was “the pretty one” and Jeff was the “skinny one.” But compared to the bulk of the sheriff, this man was thin. “Was he looking forward to seeing me?”
“Are you kidding? You are his obsession. It was so bad I was tempted to call you and tell you not to come. Do you know that he’s thought of you incessantly since he was a kid?”
“I guessed that,” Chelsea said as she put her empty plate down and picked up her glass of milk. “Does he talk about me often?”
“I never heard of you for the first six and a half years I worked for him, but in the last few months you’re all he’s talked about. I told him that if you had any sense, you’d not show up. How did your parents threaten you?”
Chelsea felt a little guilty for that lie. “It was more implied than really said. My parents always liked Eli a lot.”
“He said he liked them too.”
“My dad used to talk to Eli about the stock market. Actually, he made a fortune from Eli’s advice. If he ever needs money my dad will gladly give him some.”
“He has his own income. How about some more cake?”
“I couldn’t possibly do that,” she said as Eli handed her another slice. She was beginning to relax. She hadn’t realized it, but she’d spent two days in the car with her body tense and tight from dread of what was coming.
“So what are your plans?” he asked. “You want to stay in Edilean or leave as soon as possible?”
“I hadn’t thought past saying hello and good-bye. I figured I’d show up, endure Eli’s lecture, snap a photo of the two of us together so I could show my parents that I tried, then drive away at about a hundred miles an hour. I’d be very sad when I told them we weren’t going to get together.” She shrugged.
“I won’t let him do anything you have to work to survive,” Eli said.
“He’s your boss. You can’t stop him from anything.”
“He knows he needs me. Before me, no assistant lasted longer than a few months. But then, he expects people to anticipate what he wants before he thinks of wanting it.”
Chelsea laughed. “He hasn’t changed at all! When we were kids he’d call me in the middle of the night. I don’t think he paid any attention to the time. And he couldn’t have cared less about a social life. I used to try to get him to go with me to parties and dances, but he always said no. He wasn’t like a regular teenager wanting to drink and make out. Eli wanted to save the world.”
He was doing his best not to let her words hurt him. He’d thought that back then they’d been in agreement about everything. “You must have been dying to get away from him.”
“Oh, no! Not at all. When I was with Eli, I felt that I was part of the whole world. It was all very exciting. Did he ever tell you of the things we did?”
“Dental care?” Eli’s voice was contemptuous. “That couldn’t beat a drive in the moonlight or skinny-dipping on a dark night.”
“But it did,” Chelsea said. “I remember looking down my nose at the other kids and feeling superior to them. Eli and I were working on saving the world, while all they thought about was how to get beer for Saturday night.”
Eli smiled. “Beer can be a lot of fun.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Beer and wine and fast cars and beautiful men—they’ve all been glorious.”
“And men who love polo ponies,” Eli said.
“Maybe not him,” Chelsea said. She put her plate down. “I better go.” But she didn’t move. She sat there, her long legs stretched out, and looked at the garden. “It’s very nice here, isn’t it?”