“Chelsea, this is not any of our business. I told you that I have friends who are law enforcement agents. My cousin Todd—”
“They would have to get search warrants and to get them, they’d need more proof than an illegally heard conversation. By the time an arrest could be made, Orin will be living where he can’t be extradited. You know all this and it’s why you’re planning to return without me.”
Eli’s eyes nearly shot fire—a look she’d never seen before. “We aren’t kids anymore, and yeah, it looks like there’s a lot of money involved in this.” He turned the car toward Edilean.
Chelsea didn’t say a word.
He drove half a mile, then pulled over to the side. “You plan to return by yourself, don’t you?”
She took a moment before answering. “Eli, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I have to do this. I
need to do it! I . . .” She couldn’t go on, but she knew something was happening to her. With every minute she spent with Eli, she felt herself regressing, going back to who she once was, to someone she barely remembered. “I need this,” she repeated, this time in a whisper.
Eli made a U-turn and headed toward the nearby town. “No separate rooms. You’re not getting out of my sight.”
“Poor me,” Chelsea said.
In spite of his fear of where this could lead, Eli gave a bit of a smile even as he shook his head in frustration.
9
Chelsea stood in the doorway of the B-and-B room and looked around. The old house was cute and homey. There had been fresh muffins on the counter when Eli checked them in. The room had two big beds covered in spreads with blue and white flowers on them. Homemade quilts were at the foot of each bed.
Eli stepped past her to set their bags on the floor. They hadn’t spoken much since he’d turned the car around, and it was beginning to annoy her.
“How long are you going to be angry at me?” she asked.
“Until you swear that you’re going to go home and not think of this ever again.”
“I don’t have a home!” she blurted out, then was shocked that she’d said that. She turned away so he couldn’t see her face as she was close to tears.
But Eli put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to look at him. When she kept looking away, he pulled her into his arms and held her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, her face against his shoulder. “Ever since we went”—she swallowed—“camping, I don’t seem able to think clearly. It’s like I’m not myself.” She pulled back to look at him. “You’re doing something to me, but I don’t know what it is.”
The light in the room was quite dim. Atmospheric, really. Not quite candlelight, but almost. She was very aware that they were alone in a bedroom, and she remembered Pilar saying what a good kisser Eli was. And that he’d said he wanted to kiss her.
She lifted on her toes a bit and put her lips up for him to kiss.
But Eli didn’t take the opportunity. Instead, he stepped away, no longer touching her. “You’re right. Your hair is a mess. I think it has tree sap in it and some twigs. Shampoo won’t get that out. How about if you sit down and I brush it out before you shower?”
“Sure,” Chelsea said, frowning.
“First, I—” He nodded toward the bathroom and hurried inside and shut the door. He put his hands on the counter and his head down. Refusing Chelsea’s offer had been difficult. Actually, nearly impossible. But in an instant, he’d seen the consequences of such an action. He would never have been able to stop at one kiss. The two of them alone in the pretty room, the beds crying out to be used . . . No, he wouldn’t stop.
And then what? he thought. He would become one of Chelsea’s men? Just one of a list of them who she’d used, then left?
No. He wanted a great deal more than that from her.
Tomorrow, he thought, he’d step out of this thing they’d accidently become involved in and they’d return to Edilean— Then what? How did he win her?
When he left the bathroom, Chelsea was unpacking her bag.
“I swear everything in here smells of burnt wood.”
“My favorite. Come on, sit down and let me fix your hair.”
She sat on a little bench, her back to him, and he began to try to disentangle the rat’s nest her hair had become. He’d never done anything like that before and he found the softness of her hair erotic. It seemed to wrap around his arms. There were curls at the end and they held on to his wrists, as though they were pulling him to her.