“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.”