Change of Heart (19 page)

Eli was dreaming. He was remembering how he and Chelsea had been best friends, how they’d worked so well together. Then the dream changed and they were both adults and she held out her arms to him.

He pulled her close, feeling her warm body against his, and he kissed her. It wasn’t a kiss like any he’d ever felt before, but deeper, reaching down inside himself.

The dream continued and they were in bed together. His leg moved over her hips; his mouth was on hers. Searching, seeking. It was the first time that all of him, his body, his mind, his very soul, had merged with another person. He was holding nothing back. This was Chelsea, the women he’d loved all his life. If there were ever soul mates, they were it.

Suddenly, the bedroom door opened and light came in. “Do you have any pain pills? Aspirin? Ibuprofen?”

“Kitchen,” Eli said as his lips moved to Chelsea’s neck.

A switch was flipped and the two bedside lights came on.

“I don’t mean to bother you two, but where in the kitchen?”

It took Eli a moment to realize who was at his bedroom door. He turned sideways to look at her, his eyes trying to adjust to the light. “Chelsea?”

Pointedly, she looked at the woman in Eli’s arms. She had long dark hair and sultry eyes that were only half-open. Her lips were full and quite red from kissing.

He turned to her. “Pilar?”

“Mmmm,” she said as she snuggled against him. “And good morning to you, too.”

Eli started to move away but she twisted one of her long—and bare—legs around his and he couldn’t move without a wrestling match.

“Top right-hand drawer in the island,” Pilar said to Chelsea. “Maybe you could give us a bit of time together. Oh, by the way, I’m Pilar, and you must be Chelsea. I’m so very pleased to meet you.”

Chelsea watched as Pilar stepped out of bed. She had on a man’s white dress shirt, her long legs bare. She was almost as tall as Chelsea, almost as slim, and nearly as beautiful. “I’ll . . .” She couldn’t think what to say. “Kitchen,” she added, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eli said as soon as they were alone, and he sat up in the bed.

“Giving your race-car-loving girlfriend a bit of a competition. You know, Eli, if you kissed other women like you just did me, they’d be all over you. A woman would die for you.”

“That’s the last thing I want. Would you put on some clothes?”

“Sure.” She unbuttoned the shirt and slipped it off. Under it she wore a matching pair of lacy and very small underwear.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, but he didn’t look away as she walked across the room to get her clothes off the back of a chair. She had a truly beautiful body. “Did Jeff put you up to this?”

“Yes, and he told me to get some camera equipment. My ex-boyfriend is a professional photographer.”

“You have boyfriends but you did . . . did this?”

“Anything for my job.” She was pulling on a pair of jeans. “Anyway, he knows someone who owns a camera store so he got in while the store was closed. Everything’s in the dining room. And I went to a twenty-four-hour department store and bought us some camping gear. It’s in the trunk of your car. Sure that’s how you want to try to win her?”

“You can’t go with us,” he said.

“You’re Jeff and we’re lovers. There’s no way you can go camping alone with another woman.”

“I think it’s time to start telling Chelsea the truth and drop this idiocy about who I am.”

Pilar went to the bed and leaned close to him. “Sure you want to do that? Admit that you’ve lied to her? Or maybe you want to confess that all Jeff said about her was straight from
your
mouth. How long before she’ll leave? Ten minutes? Five?”

“But this . . . you and me, will compound the lie.”

“Tell her the truth when you’re kissing her like you did me this morning.” Standing up, she looked down at him. “I never would have guessed you had such passion in you. I thought all you cared about was the greater good. Nothing personal allowed.”

“Passion is passion,” he said as he got out of bed. He had on a T-shirt and boxers. “Great love transfers to anything. And good or bad, you are
not
going with us.”

“Interesting philosophy,” she said as she watched him walk to the bathroom. Smiling, she left the room and went into the kitchen.

Chelsea was standing at the dining table, which was covered with boxes full of high-end photography equipment. She’d opened most of them. “This card says all this is a gift from Eli. Did you bring it?”

“Yes,” Pilar said. “He said he wanted to apologize to you for something. Mind if I ask what he did?”

“He said what I knew he thought. I deserved it, but it was nice when Jeff decked him.”

Pilar’s eyes opened wide. “He
hit
him?!”

“Oh, yes,” Chelsea said. “It was rather nice. So you work for Eli but you’re sleeping with Jeff?”

“Looks that way,” Pilar said.

Chelsea held up a lens that was about eighteen inches long. “Do you know how to work any of this? It’s been a long time since I held a camera.”

“But Eli said you liked taking photos.”

“I did when I was a kid. What’s he like to work for?”

“Difficult,” Pilar said. “He expects people to read his mind and know what he needs done. ‘You handle it’ is one of his favorite sayings.”

“So he can think about larger things. What’s he working on now?”

“Can’t tell you,” Pilar said. “It’s all Top Secret. I don’t even know half of it.”

“Robots or computers that can think?”

Pilar laughed. “Looks like his interests haven’t changed since he was a kid. Here, let me show you how to attach that to the camera.”

After Eli showered and put on clean clothes, he hesitated before leaving the bedroom. What would Chelsea think of him after finding him in bed with another woman? Would she be angry? Jealous?

He took a breath before opening the door. Both women were sitting at the kitchen counter, plates of scrambled eggs and bacon before them, their hands full of cameras and lenses.

Pilar was speaking. “I’ve seen great photos taken from a hundred yards away with this lens. And this one does the opposite. It can magnify the eye of a butterfly.”

“When I think of all the pictures I could have taken in my life, I feel regret. But maybe—” Chelsea looked up to see Eli/Jeff in the doorway. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “Sleep well?” She glanced at Pilar. “Or did you get any sleep at all?” Her innuendo was clear.

“Some,” he said, looking from one women to the other.

“We made breakfast,” Chelsea said. “Come and join us. I like this woman. Maybe you should buy her a ring, something big and flashy.”

Eli stood there for a moment, not sure how to address that. “I’m going out to mow the lawn. When I get back, we’ll leave.” He seemed about to say something else but didn’t. He practically ran to the front door.

Pilar waited until they heard the lawn mower, then she turned to Chelsea. “You know, don’t you?”

Chelsea looked up from the camera. “That Jeff is Eli? Of course. Can I assume that you’re part of the effort he’s making to win me?”

“I am, but I was Jeff’s idea. I’m afraid I’ve shocked my boss.”

“Tell me the truth about what it’s like working for him.”

“I’m tired of it,” Pilar said. “There’s so much data, so many secrets, and Eli keeps everything in his brain. He’s such an introverted person. Only if Jeff is near him does he loosen up. Are you going to tell Eli that you know who he is?”

“Maybe.” She looked back at the camera. “So what’s it like to kiss him? And how is he in bed?”

“He’s an expert at kissing, but I wouldn’t know about the bed from personal experience.”

“Good,” Chelsea said with a smile. “And just so you know, you ever touch him again, I will hurt you.”

Pilar laughed. “I like that. He needs someone. Besides, I just met a guy. At three a.m. this morning I got a flat tire and some big, gorgeous man stopped and changed it for me. On my part it was instant attraction. I thought he was interested too, but when I thanked him, that was it. I figured he was probably married. But when I got here and took my suitcase out of the trunk, I saw that he’d stuck his business card on it. Lancaster Frazier. His family owns the local car dealership.”

“Good,” Chelsea said. “Stick with him and leave Eli to me.”

“A deal,” Pilar said, and they smiled at each other.

An hour later Chelsea and Eli were in the car together and driving out of Edilean.

“So where are we going?” she asked. “There are some beautiful resorts around here.”

“We’re going camping.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No. Pilar bought the gear and it’s in the trunk.”

“I think you should know that I hate camping,” she said.

“Do you? Eli never told me that. He told me everything else about you, but not that. Interesting. Well, it’s only for one night and you need a place to use all the new camera equipment he bought you, don’t you? Sunset over the mountains, that sort of thing. You can—”

“Cut it out, Eli! You very well know that I
hate
camping.”

He glanced away from the road for a second to hide his smile. He was glad the charade was over. “Just one night,” he said.

“I don’t want to go camping!”

They argued all the way to the campground.

Chelsea stood to one side, her arms folded across her chest, and glared at Eli as he quickly put up the tent. Even though he’d agreed to stop at a huge mall and she’d spent hours shopping, she was still angry. He’d driven through a forest and down an old road, and stopped at a locked gate that had signs reading
NO TRESPASSING, GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
, and
KEEP OUT
.

Chelsea wasn’t surprised when Eli had a key to the lock. As he drove down a gravel path, she was too angry to speak to him. He
knew
how much she hated camping, so why did he bring her here? From the way he’d been kissing Pilar this morning she wondered if he was planning a seduction. But that could have been accomplished at a hotel.

He seemed to know the area well and came to a stop by a pristine lake. It was so clean that it looked as though no human had been near it in centuries.

For a moment, all Chelsea could do was stare at it, but when she glanced at Eli, she saw his little smile of triumph. “We could have come here on a day trip.”

“And miss the sunset?” He was at the trunk and unpacking the gear.

She stood with her arms folded over her chest and glared at him while he set up the tent and spread two sleeping bags inside. When that was done, he got out two canvas chairs and a big blue cooler, then handed Chelsea a small backpack.

She stepped back, hands raised. “Oh, no you don’t. I don’t hike.”

“Open it.”

When she did, she saw that all the new camera equipment Pilar had bought was inside.

Eli sat down on a chair. “Think you remember how to use it?”

“The last camera I used—other than my phone, that is—had film.”

Smiling, Eli reached into the cooler. He knew that about her, which was why he’d requested a retro-looking camera that would remind her of ones she’d used as a child. He held up a beer. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.” Chelsea sat down on a dry place and removed the pretty Nikon Df camera and an 18–200 lens and attached it, then pointed it toward the lake. For all her protests, she instinctively turned the band on the lens to zoom in and out, snapping at every stop.

Eli drank his beer and watched her as she fiddled with the silver knobs and clicked away. When he glanced away for a moment, she quickly turned the camera toward him and he heard the rapid fire of the shutter.

He looked back at her. “So why did your parents want you to visit me?”

Chelsea put the short macro lens on the camera and began adjusting it to photograph arrangements of pebbles. “I’d rather hear why you brought me to this place.”

“To get you away from all the distractions. You hungry?”

“Starving—as I have been since I first saw you. Ow!” She swatted at a mosquito. “Are there large animals around here?”