Replacing Gentry (6 page)

“No, Marlie,” Daniel cut me off, “you don’t know a thing about it.”

“And why is that, Daniel?” I jabbed my fists to my waist. “Why won’t you tell me? You’re acting as if you have her locked away in the attic, stark raving mad, or something.”

Daniel’s brows pinched together over eyes that looked tired from work, from entertaining, from trying unsuccessfully to handle his new bride. “Look, has anyone ever told you a secret you wished they wouldn’t have, not just because it was disturbin’ but because it was somethin’ you could have lived your entire life without knowin’ and gotten on just fine?”

If this secret had anything to do with the death of his first wife then, yes, I wanted to know. But then my thoughts raced back to only moments ago when my past had unexpectedly intruded to further complicate our current misunderstanding. I’d kept the depth of my relationship with Finn a secret because it could never change my love for Daniel. Was his reluctance to discuss Gentry all that different from my hesitance to talk about Finn?

My confidence waivered.

Daniel seemed to read my dueling thoughts. “You have enough to worry about with being a new wife and step-momma. You’ve walked into a whole new life almost overnight. You need to trust me to have your best interests in mind and rest assured that I’ll never keep anythin’ from you that you have a right to know. So, trust me when I say that there’s no need for you to concern yourself with anythin’ regardin’ my late wife. And that Johnny Hutchinson is not what he appears. Don’t be fooled by his charm.”

He closed the space between us again, this time taking my hands in his. “Please, just concentrate on our family, our marriage, and let me handle the rest.” With one finger, he gently lifted my chin until my eyes met his. “Can you do that?”

What could be so injurious to him—to me—that would have him pleading for me to drop it, to put my full trust in his word?

“Marlie?” he questioned with a penitent look that was wearing me down.

I knew one thing for sure—I loved Daniel and I wanted our marriage to work. So for him, and for us, I would do as he asked and drop the subject of Gentry for now. And besides, just because he wasn’t willing to discuss it didn’t mean I couldn’t do a little bit of snooping on my own. Once I pieced together whatever it was he thought needed hiding and found that the truth wasn’t as horrific as Daniel seemed to think, then the matter would be settled.

I heaved an inward sigh. “I suppose I can try,” I conceded, but had one more thing to say. “And just so you know, Johnny wasn’t coming on to me; he wasn’t even being very nice. If anything, he was telling me to go home, back to California where I belong.”

Daniel gave me the smile of a loving parent dealing with an insufferable child. “And so you’ll stay away from him?”

“Yes,” I agreed, and since I didn’t like being patronized, I added, “but not because you told me to.”

His smile spread warmth back into his eyes. “Promise?” he whispered against my lips.

“Promise.”

Chapter Seven

R
esting my bare foot on the arm of what I assumed was an obscenely expensive French-style sofa, I sawed my fingernails vigorously over the red welts dotting my ankle.

“Herbert!”

From the back of the house, I could hear Cooper calling out for Daniel’s groundskeeper. It’d been exactly a week since Daniel and I had married, which meant that all the trappings from the wedding had been cleaned up, put away, or returned. And yet, somehow Cooper still found a reason to show up at the house daily. Consequently, an integral part of
my
day involved evading her. But I wasn’t the only one whose days were consumed with evasion. While I steered clear of Cooper, the boys eluded me, and Daniel avoided us all, intentionally or otherwise, by working incessantly. Even on Saturday. And during these times of mutual aversion, I continued to find myself drawn to the privacy of the formal living room.

Hugging the far front corner of the house, it appeared that few had dared to enter. Gold sofas faced each other on a tastefully worn oriental rug. A grand piano scattered with an array of framed pictures looked out a bank of windows covered in crisscrossing silk drapes, swept back at each side. Ornate tables and wing-backed chairs flanked the sofas. Impressive hutches and art clung to the outer walls. I sank down onto the arm of the sofa and gazed up at the largest stone fireplace I’d ever seen. In fact, I could have stood inside of it had the notion compelled me to do so. Only it wasn’t the room’s solitude or my awe over the enormity of the fireplace that brought me here day after day, but the portrait hanging above the mantel.

In an empire-waist wedding gown, the train reaching far beyond the confines of the frame, Gentry smirked down at me with a touch of folly in her amber eyes. Her heart-shaped face was luminous with milky skin and pink cheeks. Her lips, the shape of a tight little bow, were parted in a tenuous smile. She had a small beauty mark just to the left of an upturned nose. Daniel’s first wife had been breathtaking in that classic, elegant sort of way, but her eyes held the nefarious look of a woman who carried secrets.

“Herbert!” Cooper called out.

I turned to the sound of her voice just as she came into view. In slim-fitting crop pants, a lightweight cable-knit sweater and patent-leather sandals, she was the image of refined simplicity.

“Marlie?” she questioned, and I released a groan before I could stop myself. “There you are. Where have you been all week? Have you seen Herbert? Is he in here?”

Feeling awkward for being caught gazing up at my husband’s dead wife, I felt my cheeks color. “No, I haven’t seen him,” I said, crossing and uncrossing my arms, trying to appear unassuming.

Cooper jabbed her fists to her hips and looked around as if checking to make sure Herbert wasn’t hunkered down in a corner somewhere. “No matter. After that uncomfortable moment you caused at the wedding, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about somethin’. Well,
several
somethin’s, actually, you need to understand ’bout living in the South.”

Draping one leg over the other, I laced my fingers around my knee. “Okay, shoot.”

Cooper eyed my Urban Outfitter jeans and the loosely knitted sweater slouching off my right shoulder.

“First, the manner in which you will need to start dressing: a lady never shows her shoulders, or chews gum, in public.” Subtly, I tugged my sweater up to cover my bare skin. “Designer insignias are for people who are either unaccustomed to having money or who want others to think they have it. As a Cannon you fit into neither category. Do you understand?”

“Um . . .”

“Good,” she cut in. “You’ll be expected to be where Daniel needs you to be, say only what’s necessary, and no matter what’s goin’ on with you, or in that head of yours, you need to appear as if everythin’ in your life, and relationship, is as it should be.”

She finished with a well-executed raise of one eyebrow.

“Wow, Cooper,” I said, tilting my head with a naive look. “I don’t know if I’m up for all that. Maybe we shoulda had this conversation sooner.” I held up my left hand, wiggling my ring finger. The two-carat princess-cut diamond sent glistening reflections of light to the far wall.
“
’Cause I kinda already got
the job
.”

Crossing her arms, she pursed her lips. “This is not a joke, Marlie.”

I gave her a sneaky smile. “I know, and I’ll be good,” I agreed, pressing one hand to my heart, the other absently reaching down to attack my ankle again.

Cooper moved in for a closer look. “Ew! Marlie, how in the world did you get chiggers?” she asked with a scrunch of her nose.

I shrugged. “I got lost in the woods,” I explained, leaving out the part about how I’d fled the premises for the sole purpose of escaping her tyranny. “In Tennessee there are no mountains or beaches like we have in California to discern north from south, just whole lot of hills and trees.”

The thought of all that green tightly knit together had me shrugging off a sudden feeling of claustrophobia. I hated close spaces and had for as long as I could remember. The fear of being trapped had always compelled me to take the stairs in lieu of an elevator, avoid caves of any sort, and forget about a visit to amusement parks. All those bodies pressed together like corralled cattle, baking under the California sun. I’d rather be caught a solitary flag burner at an NRA rally than endure even an hour visiting the happiest place on earth.

“Stop itchin’ ’em. It’ll only make it worse,” Cooper said as if I had any control over my urgent need to scratch. “Hold on, I’ll get the fingernail polish.” And she set off, click-clacking across the black and white tiled entry.

“If you insist.” I dropped my itching foot to the floor. Lifting the other, I was about to mount a similar assault on those bites when the sound of someone clucking their tongue had me
swiveling around.

Emerging from a door that disappeared into the wall when it was closed, Electra, Daniel’s housekeeper, was heading straight for me. Her perfectly starched uniform made a swishing sound as she came closer. Her black orthopedic shoes sucked against the wood floor. Threads of silver streaked through the black hair she had pulled into a tight bun. Her skin, the color of light brown sugar, was lined from age and hard work. And although she had a deep scar that ran from the outer corner of her left eye to the hollow of her cheekbone, one could tell she’d been attractive in her youth.

“Ley me see,” she said, the words rolling off her Columbian tongue like a ballerina turning a series of pirouettes. Her black eyes scanned the red welts dotting my ankle. “Ay,
tantita
,” she said along with something insulting directed at Cooper I didn’t quite catch but had me holding back a chuckle all the same.

Sliding a small brown bottle from her pocket, Electra shook a few drops of oil into her hand and then slathered it over my ankle. The pleasing aroma of lavender drifted up to my nostrils. The scent bestowed a reprieve to my nerves while the antiseptic effects of the oil soothed the itch.

“Thank you,” I said on the sigh of a relieved breath. “My family used oils for almost everything growing up. I forgot to pack some when I left.”

Electra pressed the bottle into my hand. “You keep then.” She turned on her heel and headed back the way she’d come. “You no ley Miss Cooper put polish. She es
una bruja loca
. Oil es all you need.”

After drenching the other ankle, I wondered what to do next. If I hurried, I could disappear before Cooper came back. On the other hand, maybe I should take the initiative with my new sister-in-law and ask her to lunch or something? But then the scent of lavender snuck its way back into my nostrils, reminding me of the family and friends I’d left behind, the husband I’d barely seen since our wedding. Acknowledging my new reality brought on a feeling of renewed loneliness and I doubted that a lunch with Cooper could give me what I needed to fill the void.

I’d never imagined that marriage could be this isolating.

Blowing out a doleful breath, I looked up at Gentry. “Did Daniel leave you alone with his pernicious sister day after day, wondering if you’d completely lost your mind in accepting to be his wife?” I asked the painting.

Her beautiful face continued to beam down at me.

My heart sunk to the depths of my stomach. “I bet not—”

“He always claimed it was love at first sight,” Cooper’s voice pierced my revelry like a shotgun blast, and I all but fell from my perch. She ignored the fact that she’d nearly caused my heart to arrest and continued. “Not the first time they met, of course. Back then she was a willowy, knock-kneed girl with braces and unruly hair.”

Cooper took a quick appraisal of mine. As usual, I had my disorderly mane tied up into a messy sort of bun.

“But Gentry spent a couple of years during college with her folks down in Columbia volunteerin’ at an orphanage—that’s where she met Electra and brought her back to the states. When she came home, she’d blossomed.”

I turned back to the portrait with a new perspective. The little information I had about Gentry I’d learned while either grilling Anna-Beth or from one of the various Internet searches I’d conducted over the last week. Born and raised right here in Nashville, Gentry had spent her life rubbing elbows with the who’s who in the music industry and Tennessee politics. She’d probably always known the right things to say, was sure of what to wear and where she belonged. And me? Rarely in my life had I been able to lay claim to such qualities.

I thought back to my encounter with Johnny. Had what I’d first felt with him truly been the result of a mutual attraction or had those stirrings been nothing more than the trappings of a master manipulator? And if so, had he drawn in Gentry much the way he had me? I wondered if she’d been the flawless wife, mother, and social advocate some believed her to be. Or, had she had a hidden side, a dark side?

Cooper continued. “She and Daniel were perfect for each other. She was passionate and spontaneous with just enough of a stubborn streak to keep Daniel on his toes.”

“Th-that’s . . . nice.”

Cooper hit the bottle of clear fingernail polish against her palm as she went on. “It’s ironic though that he chose last weekend to get married.”

“How so?”

“Last Saturday was the very day he proposed to Gentry, eighteen years ago.”

“You remember the day your brother proposed to his wife?” I asked, thinking that this conversation was getting a little strange.

Cooper raised her shoulder. “Only because it was exactly a week before her birthday. He’d planned to propose
on
her birthday, but she was going back to Columbia to visit her mother and daddy. Tragically, her folks died the day before she got there.”

Ironic wasn’t the word I’d use to describe our wedding day coinciding with his engagement to Gentry. Uncanny, disturbing, coincidence all
seemed more suiting. But then, I wondered if he even remembered that our wedding corresponded with the day he’d proposed to his first wife?
Do men remember such things?

“Herbert, don’t you need someone to help you with that?” Cooper said.

Her question woke me from my musing. I glanced up to see the estate’s caretaker halfway up a stepladder in front of the fireplace. When had he entered the room? And with a ladder no less? Dressed in dusty cargo pants, plaid shirt half unbuttoned to reveal a sweat-stained t-shirt, his ebony skin was lined. His eyes drooped as though he’d seen more heartache than joy. But underneath, his gaze had a sharpness that told me there was more to this handyman then I would ever know.

He gave a sad smile as he took hold of the gilded frame. “I think I can handle it, Miss Cooper, it’s not too heavy, just a little awkward, that’s all,” he said, drawing out each word like he was in no hurry to finish the sentence.

An unexpected shot of panic exploded out of me in a shriek. “What are you doing?” I looked between the two of them hoping they had not caught the desperation in my voice.

Herbert stopped, the frame suspended a few precarious inches from the wall, and turned to face me the best he could without falling. “I’m sorry, Miss Marlie. Mister Cannon and Miss Cooper said the portrait should come down.”

Cooper turned to me. “What
is
the matter, Marlie?”

“Oh, um . . .” I wasn’t quite sure how to explain that I wasn’t ready to give up my daily visits with Gentry just yet. Or that buried down deep where one’s inexplicable desires reside, I had a bizarre need to discover the truth about her.

“I just think it would be better for the boys . . . and me, you know, so they don’t think I’m trying to replace her, to wipe her away. She’s . . . was . . . their mother,” I said, swallowing a ping-pong-ball-sized helping of blarney.

Cooper eyed me like I was an opponent who’d just made a risky move.

“Fine by me,” she said after a few tense moments. Turning back to Herbert, she instructed, “Leave it up there but make sure my brother knows it was
Marlie’s
idea.”

Herbert sent me a fleeting look of admiration. “Yes ma’am.” He eased the frame back against the wall without another word.

As the portrait settled back into place, I thought I saw one of Gentry’s eyes move. Narrowing my gaze, I stared intently up at her. Of course it was my imagination, portraits couldn’t wink, but in the wake of what I’d thought I saw, I knew the answers were out there waiting for me to discover them.

And suddenly, I knew where to start.