Seven

Jenny’s words worked like a double jolt of caffeine. “What?” Eddi demanded. She tossed aside the covers and lowered her feet to the floor. “Did you say he’s on the internet?”

“In living color.” Jenny crossed her arms and shook her head as if she’d solved the case of the century.

Roddy’s offended woof underscored Jenny’s claim. Eddi reached for the pug and offered a reassuring pat. “It’s okay, baby,” she soothed and flexed her left hand as the tingles gradually decreased. “I’ll be back.”

Yawning, Eddi padded after Jenny to one of the guest rooms down the hallway. Her perspiration chilled as she reveled in the cool air-conditioning. The wild dream still nagged her mind, and Eddi recalled the urgency with which she wanted Dave to kiss her. A warm veil crept under the perspiration and heated her face.

As she entered the room, Eddi vowed to never tell a living soul about her secret desires—not even Jenny. Whatever attraction Eddi held for the guy, it was nothing more than the natural chemistry between two people of the opposite sex.

I would never fall in love with the likes of him, she claimed. Never!

Jenny rushed to the antique bed. Her laptop lay amid a tangle of covers.

Jenny plopped onto the four-poster bed and patted the spot next to her. Eddi hurried to comply. As the smell of clean sheets enveloped her, she scanned the computer screen.

“You’re looking at an article featured in People magazine three years ago,” Jenny said as she picked up the laptop and cradled it in the center of her crossed legs.

“People?” Eddi croaked. “Three years ago, and you remembered it?”

“I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him or why,” Jenny explained. “I just knew I had. It took me a couple of hours to track him down.”

“You mean, Dave Davidson was in People?” Eddi blurted.

“The one and only. Except his name isn’t Dave Davidson.”

“I knew it! It’s an alias, isn’t it?” She wadded the sheet and skimmed the multicolored web page. “Is he a wanted criminal or something? Believe it or not, I just had a dream about him!” Eddi continued. “He looked like the devil—red eyes, goatee, the whole nine yards!”

Balancing the computer on her lap, Jenny covered her mouth and fell back onto a pile of covers. Her face reddened. Her eyes bugged. Her shoulders shook.

“What?” Eddi demanded. “It’s not that funny, is it?”

“I am going to die!” Jenny wheezed past her fingers. “Your imagination has gone crazy.”

Eddi snatched the computer from Jenny. If the dream hadn’t also included Eddi’s attempt to press her lips against his, she would probably have joined Jenny in revelry. But as things stood, there were too many things about her dream that weren’t funny for her to laugh at the ridiculous parts.

“Are you on the right website?” she asked and settled the computer on her lap.

“Start reading here,” Jenny said through diminishing mirth. She pointed toward the bottom of the screen. “Scroll down a little bit.” Eddi scrolled as Dave’s face entered the top of the screen. He was standing beside a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, and Eddi wondered how much she’d wanted Dave’s kiss.

“You need to start reading here.” Jenny touched the screen near a long section of text. “His real name is William Fitzgerald Davidson. And he was featured among People’s ‘Top Twenty Most Eligible Bachelors’ three years ago.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason you remembered the article!” Eddi nodded.

“Ha ha ha,” Jenny drawled. “Actually, when you get a look at these guys, you won’t forget them, either. There’s a reason they’re the most eligible bachelors in the U.S.” She leaned away from the computer. “Put on your seat belt and read.”

Eager for every detail, Eddi gripped the sides of the computer and prepared to devour the words. But the photo continued to command her attention and stopped her from absorbing the information. Dave was dressed in a tuxedo and standing near a limo’s open door. The blonde clung to him as if he were her rightful property. On closer inspection, Eddi realized she’d frequently seen the woman on the big screen. Her pale pink evening gown, covered in sequins, sparkled beneath the theater’s glistening lights. The caption beneath the photo read, “William F. Davidson, founder of USA Online, with his latest heartthrob, Laura Schock.” The theater’s marquee read, “Now Playing, Laura Schock in For Your Heart Only.”

Eddi absorbed the implications. All she could do was stare at the photo. Dave looked like he belonged to a completely different world. His hair, neatly trimmed, was styled to perfection. His clean-shaven face offered a sculpted canvas for a million-dollar grin that flashed white teeth. The man looked like he had the world by the tail—and well, he did.

She scanned the words that provided all the pertinent facts about Dave’s life, including his mansion in Dallas, his ranch in Waco, his horse-breeding hobby, and the fact that he was listed among Forbes’ 500.

“Oh my word, he’s in the top five hundred richest men in America!” Eddi looked at Jenny, who nodded without so much as a blink.

“Yep. He founded USA Online,” Jenny answered. “That company virtually owns cyberspace.”

Eddi gaped. She felt as if the rafters from her dream were crashing into her thoughts. “We—we use that server—both of us,” she stammered.

“I know. Isn’t this all just too weird?” Jenny shook her head and laughed. “I can’t believe you’re crossing swords with one of the richest men in America. It’s too funny for words.” She covered her mouth and stifled another round of laughter.

“Now who has a sick sense of humor?” Eddi asked. Her challenge was dashed aside by the memory of her recent conversation with Dave. Before play practice, she hinted that he didn’t have the intellectual ability to read and comprehend Jane Austen. He’d wasted no time implying that she was a snob. Eddi groaned. She placed her elbow on her knee and covered her eyes with her fingers.

“What?” Jenny asked.

“I guess I stuck my foot in my mouth at play practice.” She lowered her hand and raised her gaze to Jenny.

“You? No way!” Jenny’s guileless expression punctuated her sarcasm.

Eddi glared at her.

“What did you say this time?” Jenny asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped, and decided it really didn’t.

“So . . .” Jenny leaned closer and fluttered her eyelashes, “I’m assuming Dave Davidson is getting more attractive by the moment?”

“No way. The guy’s a jerk,” Eddi said and lifted her chin. “A jerk is a jerk is a jerk! I don’t care how much money he has. I wouldn’t go out with him if he were the last man on the planet—let alone marry him. Even if he weren’t a jerk, we still have nothing in common. He doesn’t know good literature from a phone book.”

“Probably because he got kicked out of college toward the end of his freshman year,” Jenny continued as if she were a TV hostess spieling details for the latest documentary.

“What? He told me he quit. No, wait!” Eddi touched her temple. “He told me he stopped attending the end of his freshman year.”

“There’s an article on the Forbes website that says he got kicked out.” Jenny snuggled her feet under the covers.

“What for?”

“He was in the computer science program at Baylor University. He and the head of that department didn’t get along. As in, this guy was his main professor. Anyway, Dave tells in the article about how he reprogrammed all the computers and refused to give the professor the new operating codes.” Jenny tugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them.

“Sounds about right,” Eddi mumbled. She stared at the window trimmed in forest green blinds and relived the ease with which Dave stated his lines from memory. “The moron has a photographic memory and the disposition of a rabid mountain lion.”

“Einstein got kicked out of college, too,” Jenny mused. “So did some of the most famous poets. And Thomas Edison’s teacher finally told his mother he was incorrigible and that she refused to teach him.”

“So!” Eddi blurted. “None of his genius absolves rudeness and arrogance and . . . and . . . being a general jerk!”

“You’ve mentioned the jerk diagnosis several times now.”

A lock of hair fell across Eddi’s eyes, and she flopped it back. “Yeah, but did I mention that he’s a jerk!” she added.

“Sheesh!” Jenny said and stretched her legs. “I really thought when you found out all this info you’d change your attitude about him a little.”

Eddi didn’t comment. After finishing the details regarding just how eligible a bachelor William Fitzgerald Davidson was, Eddi scrolled up and glared at the photo of him with Laura Schock. During their first meeting about the play, Dave had erupted with a diatribe about women chasing him.

“No doubt he’s had women throwing themselves at him for years,” she mumbled, and decided to never again watch a Laura Schock movie or dream that she was about to kiss Dave.

“Yeah, everybody but you.” Jenny patted her sister on the back as if she were issuing an award.

Eddi passed the computer back to her. Jenny accepted the laptop and eyed the screen.

“If and when I ever get married,” Eddi claimed, “it will be because I’m madly in love with the man—not what the man owns.” She pulled the end of her French braid over her shoulder and tugged the hair band from its end. Her waist-length hair relaxed. The braid began to unravel, and the smell of her floral shampoo enveloped her.

“I know,” Jenny said with a resigned sigh. “I’m in the same boat.”

“So that’s why you’re hedging on a commitment to a real-estate tycoon and flirting with a small-town veterinarian.”

“Yes.” Jenny looked at her sister. “If the truth were known, though, Calvin’s probably better off than Hal. Hal doesn’t mind taking financial risks and losing money. He came within a hairsbreadth of filing bankruptcy a few months ago.” The smudges of mascara under Jenny’s eyes made her look like a raccoon. The undaunted honesty oozing from her soul lent her a wisdom beyond her thirty years. “That’s neither here nor there, though,” Jenny continued. “I can support myself, for that matter. The problem is, I’m really doubting whether I’m truly in love with Hal—or if I’ve ever been in love at all.”

She observed the computer, clicked a series of buttons, and set the instrument on the glass-topped nightstand.

“I don’t think I ever have been,” Eddi admitted. “Sometimes I wonder if I ever will be.” Her mutinous mind replayed those minutes after the tornado. She would never admit it, but Dave Davidson had stirred her in ways she had never experienced.

Eddi frowned. “I never have liked Laura Schock that much. Have you?”

Jenny punched her pillows. “I don’t care one way or the other,” she said, and plopped back on the pillows. “Why should you?”

“I have no idea,” Eddi admitted. A lazy yawn overtook her. She rubbed her eyes. They felt as if the stale mascara were matting them together. She further deduced that she probably had the raccoon look like Jenny. Eddi extended her legs and rested her hands on her thighs.

“I think if one of us doesn’t get married soon, Mom’s going to have a stroke,” Jenny observed. “All she talked about all the way up here was how their home goes back into the Boswick Oil estate when Father dies. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive him for bowing out of the Boswick millions.”

“I think he did the right thing,” Eddi said. “Horticulture suits him. High society and oil don’t . . . me either, for that matter.” She released a chuckle. “Imagine what Mom would think if she found out how rich Dave is. He could probably buy a dozen houses like Mom and Dad’s with his pocket change.”

“If she ever finds out he’s so rich, she’ll never speak to you again if you let him get away.”

“Humph! And Dad would never speak to me if I did marry him.” Eddi stretched.

“At least Dave doesn’t seem to be affected by all the money. He’s not putting on airs, that’s for sure,” Jenny said. “What you see is what you get.”

“Ha!” Eddi mocked. “Your memory is shot, if you believe that! Hello?” She snapped her fingers. “Remember? The man is using a pseudonym and has hornswaggled a whole community into believing he’s something he’s not!”

“Hornswaggled?” Jenny exclaimed. “Aren’t we using big words these days?”

“Oh good grief!” Eddi rolled her eyes. “Everybody around here says that. I guess they’re rubbing off on me.”

The sound of canine toenails clicking down the hallway signaled Roddy’s nearing. The pug’s face soon appeared in the doorway.

“There’s my main man,” Eddi crooned.

“Just your type, too.” Jenny eyed the pet. “Short, pudgy, and broke.”

“Yeah, but with a heart full of love that’s worth all the diamonds in Africa.” Eddi softly whistled, and Roddy grunted his way toward her. She leaned off the side of the bed and scooped the dog into her arms.

After settling against the pile of pillows, Eddi rubbed the bulldog’s velvet ears. She kissed his head, and his hair prickled her lips.

“I guess I’ll mosey on back to bed,” she drawled in an affected accent, “unless you have some other amazing discovery to unveil. Did you also find out Mrs. DeBloom is really from Saturn?”

“Very funny,” Jenny said and scratched Roddy’s neck. The dog offered a friendly lick.

Eddi slipped from the bed. “You know,” she mused and eyed the silk ficus tree in the corner, “that article didn’t say anything about Dave moving here.”

“No, it didn’t,” Jenny agreed. “It was probably written before he moved.”

“Does he still own USA Online?”

“I don’t think so,” Jenny said. “Remember when we got the server message that USA Online had been bought out by Verizon?”

“When was that?”

“A few years ago,” Jenny said.

“As in three?” Eddi dug her toes into the cotton-soft carpet.

Jenny shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Did I hear Calvin tell you Dave has lived here nearly three years?” Eddi asked. She stroked Roddy’s feet and ran her thumb along his tender paw pads.

“Yes.” Jenny tugged the band from her hair and it fell around her shoulders.

“So, I wonder what happened? I wonder why he moved here—to this isolated little town where nothing much happens.”

“Why did you move here?” Jenny asked and tossed the hair band on the nightstand.

“To get away from . . .” Eddi trailed off and mentally finished the thought, all the family stress Mom was putting me through.

“So maybe Dave was trying to get away, too,” Jenny offered.

“From what?” Eddi asked. “He brought his aunt with him, so it couldn’t have been the family thing, could it?”

“Who knows?” Jenny said.

“And if looks are anything to go by, he’s totally changed. After seeing him in jeans and boots all this time, it’s hard to imagine him ever wearing a tux.”

“And after seeing him in that tux, it’s hard to imagine him chasing longhorns, for that matter.” Jenny stood and rummaged through her overnight bag.

“Humph.” Eddi meandered toward the doorway and sidestepped a piece of Jenny’s luggage. “All this makes me wonder what he’s up to in that little building behind his house.”

“Maybe it takes a whole building for him to file the marriage offers that come down the tubes.” Jenny pulled an oversized nightshirt from her bag.

“That’s probably truer than we know.” Eddi stepped into the hallway. “Good night,” she softly called, and debated about ways to sneak into the brick building.

Linda Boswick opened the door to the guest bedroom. Her vision bleary, she observed Eddi slip into her bedroom. The light went out in Jenny’s room.

As usual, she thought and grimaced. Those two are connected at the hip, even at two in the morning. Linda couldn’t remember a time growing up when she ever felt as if she were part of their “party.” Living with them was as bad as having elder twin sisters.

The spaghetti strap on her gown slipped down her arm. She tugged it back up, stepped into the shadowed hallway, and headed toward the bathroom. She couldn’t sleep. That was nothing new. She flipped on the bathroom light and squinted against the glare. As usual, Eddi’s house was immaculate, right down to the freshly scrubbed basin and the new hand soaps, shaped like roses, no less.

Linda grabbed her toiletry bag from the sink side. The smell of baby powder emanated from the bag as she fumbled across shampoo, facial cream, and two hair brushes. At last, she wrapped her fingers around a cylindrical bottle. The label featured her name and said the contents were Seldane, a common prescription for allergies. The pills were not Seldane. They were valium. She’d filched them from her mother’s endless supply. Mary Boswick had been taking them for her nerves as long as Linda could remember. They proved to remedy the days Linda was too wired up to sleep . . . or too uptight to relax . . . or just because she liked the mellow feel the pills evoked.

Linda unscrewed the lid and popped one of the pills onto her tongue. She grabbed a disposable cup, filled it with water, and tossed the liquid into her mouth. The valium slipped down. After dropping the bottle back into the bag, she examined her appearance in the mirror. A rumpled bush of strawberry blond hair surrounded pale blue eyes. Unlike Jenny, Linda possessed no freckles—only a dark mole at the left corner of her mouth. “The perfect beauty mark,” her mother proclaimed when Linda was twelve. But Linda was no fool. Jenny was the beauty of the family. Eddi got all the brains. That leaves me with nothing, Linda thought.

She scowled and rubbed at the dark circles under her eyes. Eddi had threatened to take her mom and sisters to church in the morning. Linda had no desire to attend church these days, and she’d lain awake the last hour trying to figure how to get out of the dreaded event. The problem still stumped her . . . until she reconsidered the valium.

Linda’s lips turned upward, and she reopened her bag. The last time she took two valium, she’d been so knocked out she hadn’t been able to get up until one o’clock. All she had to do to get out of church was take a second valium. When everyone got up to go to church, she would awaken enough to explain to her mother that she didn’t feel well. Linda would then sleep through lunch. That would convince them all that she’d been telling the truth.

She reached for the prescription bottle, only to discover it lying atop another prescription—a flat container of pills that ensured Linda wouldn’t get pregnant. But that was only as long as she took them. Linda gasped. She’d placed the oral contraceptives in this toiletry bag three days ago. She hadn’t taken one since before stepping into Larry’s arms.

Or was his name Barry? she thought and pursed her lips.

“Oh, who cares?” Linda growled and snatched up the birth control pills. She slid out the tray and counted the missed pills.

“Exactly three,” she breathed. Shock started at her feet and rushed to her hairline.

“How could I have been so bone-headed?” The gynecologist had firmly warned her that the pills only worked if she took them every day at the same time. Even one missed pill could result in a pregnancy.

“Oh, God, don’t let me be pregnant,” she prayed and pushed out three tablets. Linda threw them into her mouth and downed another cup of water.

Her fingers shaking, she dropped the rest of the birth control pills back into the bag and retrieved the valium. She unscrewed the lid and poured out another tablet. Two fell out, and Linda nearly popped them both into her mouth. It might take three valium to get her to sleep, now that she was worried about a pregnancy. Linda hesitated. She’d never taken three before. But then she’d never skipped three birth control pills, either.

“Better not,” she mumbled, and tipped the extra valium back into the bottle. I don’t want to take so many that Mom starts missing them, she thought before swallowing the second valium.