Fortune's Twins

Though it was only a couple of blocks between The Brimming Cup and the boardinghouse, Gwen drove her car. She didn’t walk anywhere these days, except for the mandatory thirty minutes she walked every morning when it was still cool, ordered by her doctor. Now it was pushing ninety degrees, and Gwen felt limp as the faded Montana flag that hung in front of the Jester town hall.

Why, of all times, did Eli have to show up now? Just when she’d gotten used to the idea she would never see him again, he waltzes back into her life, twice as sexy as she remembered.

And she was bucking for a prize for best imitation of a water buffalo.

She might have been prepared to believe his story about the smeared ink and his frantic, months-long search for her. Down deep she was a romantic, and he wouldn’t have had difficulty convincing her he was smitten. But then he’d revealed how he’d found her. He’d seen her picture in the paper, which meant he knew she was worth over a million dollars.

He’d capped it all off by telling her she looked good. If she’d been skeptical at first, that comment had sealed Eli Garrett’s fate. There was only one adjective to describe her—huge. Fantastic was way out of the ballpark.

She pulled her Mercedes into the carriage house. She still wasn’t up to facing Eli. She wished she could have told him to go away and come back next week, when she would be better prepared. But her grandmother hadn’t raised her to be rude. He’d come all this way, and she supposed she owed it to him to find out what he wanted.

You know what he wants, her grandmother’s voice rang inside her head. A million dollars can make any woman beautiful.

She climbed the front porch steps of her frilly Victorian house, glad she’d asked Eli to meet her here on her home turf. She was queen here at the Tanner Boardinghouse. She felt her strongest here, where her grandmother’s memory was a constant, comforting presence.

She started to open the front door, then hesitated. At least a breeze was blowing across the front porch. Inside it would be stuffy. She’d already hired a company from Pine Run to put central air into her house, but they were backed up and hadn’t yet started the job.

She decided she would meet Eli here on the porch. Relieved not to have to walk one step farther, she sank into a delicate white-wicker rocker and waited for Eli, rehearsing what she would say to him.

She would be firm, businesslike and unemotional, she coached herself. She would be appreciative of his interest in her, but insist that he need not trouble himself. She had gotten on with her life, she would say, and he probably should get on with his and not give her another thought.

No doubt he’d figured out that the offspring in her belly was his. She hadn’t denied it. But once she made it clear she wouldn’t be easy pickings—and neither would her bank account—he probably wouldn’t be thrilled by his impending fatherhood.

She intended to give him an easy out.

Less than five minutes after she’d sat down, she spotted Eli walking toward her down Main Street, and her mouth went dry. Even from a distance, he was just about the most handsome man Gwen had seen. He had a loose-limbed walk, not brisk but not ambling, either. Like he had somewhere to go but he was going to enjoy getting there.

He smiled at the guys in front of the barbershop, then stopped to pet Buck, the stray shepherd mix Jack Hartman and his wife, Melinda, had adopted. Buck had his head stuck out the window of Melinda’s green-and-white Dually, which was parked outside the hardware store.

Everyone stared at Eli without trying to look like they were staring. Before the lottery win, few strangers crossed Jester’s town limits. Now all kinds of people came to get a look at the so-called richest town in America, and not all of them were harmless. A few months ago, Amanda had been accosted by a drunk drifter outside The Heartbreaker Saloon.

Eli crossed the street and mounted the steps to Gwen’s house.

Gwen gave him a little wave. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up.”

“Please, don’t.” He sat gingerly on another wicker chair. His imposing height and muscular body challenged the delicate piece of furniture, but it held him. He took in Gwen’s view of the park.

“Nice town you have here.”

“It’s special,” she agreed. “I’ve lived here all my life. Even in hard times, when the boardinghouse was barely squeaking by, I never considered leaving.”

“I’ve never lived outside of Denver. I always thought I’d be bored in a small town.”

“Probably not this one,” she said. “Not lately, anyway.”

“I guess the lottery has brought some pretty big changes.”

“You could say that.” In fact, it was an understatement. “The whole town has gone crazy. First, we were inundated with nosy reporters. Then our mayor, Bobby Larson, tried to turn Jester into a tourist attraction. He wants to build a hotel on the park property. Can you imagine?”

“I heard something about that—just this morning. One of my customers knows someone who actually invested in the hotel.”

Gwen gasped. “How can Bobby solicit investors for a hotel that doesn’t exist?”

Eli shrugged. “Sounds like your mayor is involved in some shady dealings.”

Gwen sighed. “If Bobby manages to push this project through, it’ll ruin my view. Then there’s the noise, the traffic—shoot, maybe I should sell after all.”

Eli looked horrified. “Sell this beautiful old house?”

She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t really do that. But someone’s been trying to buy it from me. Over the past few months I’ve received several anonymous offers, each higher than the last.”

“This is a great house,” Eli said, looking around. “You’ve restored it beautifully.”

“You should have seen it last year. It looked more like that one next door.” She nodded toward her neighbor’s house. Another enormous Victorian, it was all but falling down. Her neighbor, an elderly widow, had moved out a couple of years ago to live with her children in Florida. The house had been on the market, but no one had bought it, and it continued to deteriorate. “But I guess you didn’t come all the way to Jester so we could talk about house restoration.”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “Gwen, the baby is mine, isn’t it?”

“Well…” She swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. “Okay, Eli, I’ll give it to you straight. I don’t know who the father is. I had a rather…wild winter. I guess I went crazy along with everybody else.”

“I see.” He didn’t look particularly relieved over her lie. “You could find out the father’s identity. DNA testing has become fairly routine for that sort of thing.”

“I’m not the messy-paternity-suit type. Anyway, what end would that serve? Make some guy feel guilty and resentful, give him a responsibility he doesn’t want? I don’t want any child of mine to have to deal with a less-than-committed father.”

“I see,” Eli said again. His words were soft, but his nostrils flared.

Gwen didn’t understand this at all. She was giving him an out, an escape hatch. Didn’t he realize that?

“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” Gwen said, “but now that I am, I’m very happy about it. I have plenty of money to raise a child alone, so that’s not an issue. I’m prepared to move on with my life, and I certainly don’t want to tie myself and my offspring to some guy I met in a bar. Or wherever,” she added quickly.

“I see.”

“Stop saying that. I get the feeling you don’t see at all. Why should a man have to pay the rest of his life for one passion-induced moment of insanity in a hotel room—or wherever?”

“Why should a woman?” he countered.

“But I want a baby,” she said.

“Maybe the guy wants a baby, too. You won’t know ’til you ask him.”

“How can I ask him if I don’t know who he is?”

“You can find out.”

“We’re talking in circles.”

Eli stood and walked over to the railing. “How many…candidates are we talking about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said breezily. “I wasn’t keeping count.”