Fortune's Twins

by Kara Lennox

  But there was little chance of that, she realized. The gulf between them had grown too large and she had no idea how to breach it.

  Gwen put on her favorite maternity outfit, a sage-green sweater over matching leggings. The color reminded her of her wedding dress. If she was going to wallow in her misery, might as well go all the way.

  She and Sylvia stopped in at The Brimming Cup to have lunch—rich tomato soup with chili-mac, real comfort food. The meal was such an indulgence, Gwen didn’t feel she needed the chocolate pie. Which was a good thing, since the babies were sitting on her stomach.

  The next stop was The Crowning Glory, where Sylvia gave Gwen the works—manicure, pedicure, facial.

  “What would you think about me opening a spa?” Sylvia asked idly as she applied a final clear coat of polish to Gwen’s fingernails.

  “In Jester?”

  “Sure, in Jester, or close by. I’d have to build, but what else am I going to do with my money? I don’t have any kids’ college tuition to save for.”

  “But you might have them, some day. Do you want kids?”

  Sylvia shrugged. “I used to. But after watching you and Shelly go through your pregnancies, I’d have to think twice.” She laughed. “Besides, I’d like to get married first, and I’ve never met a guy that even tempted me in that direction. Men are just…they’re just turds. They’re fun as long as I can walk away from them and go home alone.”

  “But alone is so…lonely. I don’t know what I’d do without Stella and Irene and Oggie.”

  “I don’t mind my own company. And I like my freedom. When you’re single, you have this amazing world of possibilities open to you. You can move anywhere, date anybody, have sex, not have sex, dye your hair blue, behave like an idiot with no one to answer to. But the minute you say ‘I do,’ all the choices close up.”

  “It’s a trade off,” Gwen agreed. “But since I never wanted to live anywhere else—or dye my hair blue, for that matter—I didn’t notice I was giving anything up. I was gaining a life partner. The security of knowing I had someone to grow old with.” Gwen’s eyes teared up. “But I guess that was just an illusion.”

  “Now, Gwen, don’t cry. You’ll melt your facial mask. What do you think about the spa? Really?”

  Gwen sniffed back the tears. She sensed Sylvia wanted a serious answer, so she gave it some thought before answering. “If you made it really special, you could attract customers from all over the northwest.”

  “That’s what I was thinking! With all the improvements in town, and if Bobby Larson builds his hotel, Jester could become the Jackson Hole of Montana. And a luxury spa would fit right in.”

  “Are you in favor of Bobby’s hotel?” Gwen asked, surprised.

  “If he could find the right place to build it. Not the park, and not your property. I’d strangle him if he tried to tear down any of our Victorians. But tourism might not be such a bad thing for Jester. Let’s face it, the town was dying around us before the lottery saved it.”

  Gwen knew Sylvia was right. But Bobby Larson’s constant carping about tourism and progress, out with the old, in with the new, got on Gwen’s nerves. She didn’t want a shopping mall that would drive The Mercantile out of business, or a cineplex that would do the same for Pop’s Movie Theater. Jester might be old-fashioned, but it was comfortable and familiar, and the people here were good folks. She wanted her daughters to grow up the same way she had, enjoying simple pleasures.

  “Maybe a small hotel would be all right,” she conceded. “And a small, very exclusive spa.”

  Sylvia grinned. “Let’s wash off that masque. You’ll find you’re a new woman. Then let’s tackle the hair. I’m thinking a body wave will put the bounce back in your mane.”

  AFTER FOUR DAYS in his new house, Eli was still living out of boxes. He supposed part of him didn’t want to believe this move was permanent. But another part of him wondered how his split with Gwen could be anything but. She’d accused him of stealing from him. Granted, the evidence was compelling, but she hadn’t even looked for another explanation.

  But Eli was looking. A clever forger had deliberately set him up to take a fall, and he was going to figure out who that person was if it was the last thing he ever did. Then he was going to wave the proof in Gwen’s face.

  He sat at his dining room table with a pen and notebook, making a list of suspects. There weren’t many.

  Most obvious were the other tenants in Tanner’s Boardinghouse. None of them had particularly welcomed Eli’s arrival, especially at first. They all liked being Gwen’s surrogate parents, and they were protective of her. A certain amount of resentment toward the man who’d gotten her pregnant and supposedly abandoned her was only natural. And the changes that had taken place in their comfortable routines could have fomented a quiet rage in one of them. Getting rid of Eli meant things could return to normal.

  But he had a hard time believing any of the three—Stella, Irene or Oggie—could be responsible for framing him. Stella was so sweet. She just wanted everyone to be happy, and he couldn’t imagine her doing anything so blatantly hateful. Irene was a little quieter, hiding behind her books, and who knew what was going on behind those thoughtful, intelligent eyes? And Oggie had often been openly hostile toward Eli.

  Still, Oggie Lewis, school vice principal, a forger?

  Another suspect was Bobby Larson. Bobby had been riding Eli since the moment he’d set foot in Jester. He made it no secret he wanted the property Eli had bought, so he could build his hotel. So Bobby had plenty of motive for getting rid of Eli. But breaking up his and Gwen’s marriage made it much less likely Eli would sell the house he was renovating, now that he actually needed to live here. And he couldn’t figure out how Bobby would have had access to Gwen’s keys and Gwen’s office. Although he dropped by sometimes, he never stayed for long, and he wouldn’t normally be left alone in the house.

  Others had easier access. What about Sylvia Rutledge? She was Gwen’s best friend. Sylvia was known to always be in some sort of man trouble. She had a dim view of the whole male species. Maybe she resented Gwen’s marriage—maybe she was jealous.

  Reluctantly, Eli added Sylvia to the list.

  He tried to think of others he’d seen coming and going in the house. There was Stella’s friend, Wyla. Wyla wasn’t the most pleasant person in the world, but Eli didn’t see that she had any particular ax to grind with him. Oggie occasionally tutored students, and it was feasible one of them could dart into Gwen’s open office and steal checks. But the forgery seemed more sophisticated than what a student could do—calculated, rather than a crime of opportunity.

  Only one other person had held any resentment toward Eli, and that was Bud Farrell, the man with the wrecked Nash Coupe. He was certainly devious—he’d deliberately lied about the car insurance, and he’d stopped payment on his check though Eli had fulfilled his end of the bargain. He also had access to Eli’s signature, on their contract. It was possible Gwen had left him alone in the house long enough that he could steal checks from her office.

  He added Bud’s name to the list. He intended to take his suspicions to Luke McNeil. The sheriff, who’d lived in Jester all his life, might have further insight into the personalities of the various suspects. He also probably had access to fraud and forgery experts at the state crime lab. Eli had kept the copies of the forged checks. The originals could be dusted for fingerprints.

  The doorbell interrupted his prognostications. For the briefest of seconds his hopes rose as he imagined it was Gwen on his front porch, ready to apologize for doubting him, ready to help him find the real culprit. But of course it was just the FedEx man.

  Eli signed for several packages. One contained a new microwave, which he’d ordered from a catalogue. That would come in handy. His kitchen was severely lacking in appliances, and he was getting tired of taking all his meals at The Brimming Cup. Not that the food wasn’t great, but he was weary of the stares. Everyone in town knew he and Gwen had split up, thoug
h apparently no one knew why. At least Gwen hadn’t spread it all over town that he was a thief.

  Another of the packages contained a carburetor he’d been waiting for to repair a wonderful 1931 DeSoto SA6 Silver Dome. Jennifer McNeil, Luke’s wife, had found it in the garage on the farm she’d inherited from her grandfather, Henry Faulkner. She recalled that he used to tinker with it when she visited Jester as a little girl, and she wanted it restored as a remembrance of him.

  Glad for something to do other than take down old wallpaper, Eli took the part and headed for his garage to install it and see if he could get the car started.

  Forty minutes later, the engine sputtered to life. Coughing from the copious exhaust pouring from the tail pipe, Eli gave the car a pat. “See, old girl, I knew you could do it. Let’s go for a spin, see if we can’t blow some of that gunk out of your pipes.”

  The engine coughed and sputtered and backfired, but it did move the car forward. Eli guided it slowly out of the garage and onto Main Street. He wouldn’t go farther than he could walk, since the car could conk out on him at any time and the tires were so old they crunched. But he needed to get a feel for how the gears shifted.

  As he drove past the boardinghouse, he looked up at Gwen’s window and sighed. Hell, couldn’t he go five minutes without thinking about her, without regretting the relationship they would never have?

  They were bound inextricably because of the twins. He would probably know her the rest of his life, see her on a regular basis. How could he stop wanting her under those circumstances? How would he handle it if she fell in love with someone else and remarried?

  The thought made him sick to his stomach.

  GWEN DECIDED she did not like getting a permanent, and she didn’t feel pampered at all. Rolling her thick hair up on rods had taken forever. Now she had her head in the sink, and Sylvia was pouring some noxious, cold, gluey stuff over each rod.

  “Are you sure about this?” Gwen asked for the third time. “I don’t want to end up looking like Shirley Temple.”

  “I used the biggest rods,” Sylvia assured her, also for the third time. “You should end up with gentle waves, just like it was before you were pregnant.”

  “I’m going to be very upset if you’re wrong.”

  “Trust me. Now, we’ll just let that sit for a few minutes.” She set a digital timer, a purple one to match the rest of the shop, then settled in the chair at the station next to Gwen’s to go through a pile of mail.

  “My gosh, what’s all that?” Gwen asked, noting the huge stack the postman had delivered a few minutes ago.

  “I subscribe to every magazine on earth,” Sylvia admitted. “The phone solicitors started in the day I received the lottery check and haven’t stopped since. I just can’t tell them no.”

  “Always a problem for you,” Gwen quipped.

  Sylvia ignored the jab—probably because it was true. Sylvia adored men, she just didn’t like them very much.

  “Okay, we got Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Today’s Hairstyles, and Rolling Stone.”

  “Rolling Stone?”

  “It’s hip. I have to stay on top of the trends. Oh, here’s the Plain Talker. Shall we see what our friend Harvey Brinkman has dug up about us today?”

  “What’s this ‘we’? As I recall, your name has hardly been mentioned.”

  “That’s because I live such a boring and unremarkable life.” Sylvia opened the paper and thumbed through it. “Well, you’ll be happy to know nothing made the front page. Wait, here’s something on page three. Ah, very nice picture of Eli. Funny, he doesn’t look like a rat.”

  “Eli? What’s it say?” Gwen demanded. She started to sit up, but when the cold liquid tried to dribble down her neck, she relaxed.

  “This appears to be an exposé on your husband.” Sylvia scanned the article, frowning. “Did you know Eli is a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution?”

  “What? Oh, Lord, where does Harvey come up with this stuff?”

  “It says here Eli actually renovated some of the airplanes on display at the Air and Space Museum.”

  “He’s never mentioned that to me. But then, he’s never told me anything about himself. His past is just this big, black hole. What else?”

  “Oh. Oh, my.”

  “Would you just read it?”

  “He recently sold a two-million-dollar house in Denver. It was built into the side of a mountain, and it was powered with solar, thermal and wind energy. He built it himself.”

  “Did you say two million—”

  “Aw, Gwen, he was an orphan. Abandoned, left in a…oh, my God.”

  “What?”

  “He was left in a Dumpster. Had some health problems, never adopted, raised in foster care—”

  Gwen put her hands over her ears. “Stop! I can’t stand this!”

  “You mean he never told you any of this?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Well, no wonder he has money issues, if he had such a disadvantaged childhood.” Sylvia rattled the paper as she continued reading. “Um, Gwen, I think there’s a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your husband is worth over three million dollars.”

  “He’s—what?”

  “Rich. Richer than you. Richer than you and me put together.” Sylvia burst out laughing at the absurdity.

  “But how could that be?” Gwen cried in anguish. “He’s a mechanic!”

  “He is, and I quote, the world’s foremost expert on antique vehicle restoration.”

  “But why didn’t he tell me he was rich?”

  “The same reason he didn’t tell you a lot of stuff. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. Anyway, he probably figured you knew. But, Gwen, ask yourself this. Would a man worth three million dollars steal a few thousand dollars from you?”

  “But…but his signature was on those checks.”

  “Do you think he’d be that stupid? If he didn’t want to get caught, he would at least sign a fake name you wouldn’t immediately recognize.”

  Eli might be a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Earlier, Gwen had reasoned that Eli had wanted to get caught, that his check-stealing stunt had been some sort of cry for help. Now, with blazing clarity, Gwen realized he hadn’t signed those checks at all. Someone had framed him.

  She sat up. “Eli’s not stupid, but I am. How could I have possibly believed he would steal from me? I was so ready to believe the worst about him, and now I’ve driven him away with my accusations.”

  “It wasn’t all your fault,” Sylvia soothed. “He wasn’t very open with you.”

  “He probably has very good reasons for keeping his past private. I hadn’t earned his trust yet, that’s all it was. I’ve made a terrible mistake.” She stood and ripped off the purple plastic apron she’d been wearing to protect her clothes. “I’ve got to find him and apologize, before it’s too late.”

  “Wait, Gwen,” Sylvia called as Gwen headed for the door. “Let me rinse the solution out of your hair.”

  “No time!” Gwen yelled over her shoulder as she hit the door. She couldn’t bear to wait one second longer than was necessary. She might have to spend months or years convincing Eli to forgive her, and she wanted to get started right away.

  “You forgot your coat!”

  Gwen didn’t care. She ran down Main Street as fast as she could. Customers poured out of The Brimming Cup and the barbershop to watch the spectacle of a hugely pregnant woman trying to sprint, but she didn’t care about that, either.

  She had to find Eli.

  She tried his house first, but her repeated beating on the door—his doorbell didn’t work—produced no answer. Undaunted, she ran around the corner to the garage, thinking surely he would be there. He was always in one of those two places.

  But his two garage bays were empty, the office locked up.

  “Dammit!” she screamed. This was intolerable. Was she supposed to just sit and wait for him? Where could he be?

 
Now she wished she’d remembered her coat. Her wet head was freezing. She decided to get a blanket from inside the boardinghouse, then wait on Eli’s porch for his return.

  After stepping inside her home, she paused for a few moments to savor the warmth and catch her breath. She was pathetically out of shape! She had a stitch in her side from running, and no amount of gasping for breath would cure it.

  She should have done more walking, like her doctor had ordered. Well, no help for it now.

  The babies apparently weren’t very happy with her sudden exertion. It felt like they were having a prenatal martial arts tournament inside her belly.

  “Take it easy, girls,” she said as her breath finally normalized. “I won’t run anymore, promise.”

  The house was quiet. Oggie was at school, and Irene was probably at the mystery book club she’d started at Ex Libris. Stella was probably here, though, because the front door was unlocked.

  Unconcerned, Gwen walked through the entry hall into the living room, where one of Stella’s afghans was draped over the camelback sofa. Gwen grabbed it and wrapped it around herself. Perfect.

  She spun on her heel, intent on returning to Eli’s, when something struck her as not quite right. She paused, thinking what it could be.

  It was her office door. She’d carefully locked it after her argument with Eli, and she hadn’t been in there since. But the door had been open when she’d passed.

  She went to investigate. The door was in fact open, the lights off. She stepped inside and flipped on the light. Everything appeared undisturbed. Then she heard a rustling sound behind her. She whirled around and found Wyla Thorne standing behind the door, looking decidedly guilty.

  “Wyla! What on earth are you—” Then Gwen saw what was in Wyla’s hand. A wad of checks. “You! You’re the one who stole from me?”