The Wedding Tree (4 page)

Even in a print, you can tell that his paintings are uneven and
textured and layered with paint, and you just know that there are probably different colors under the colors you see, and maybe even a whole other picture under the picture you're looking at. The underneath picture is probably just as beautiful as this one, but he needed it as a base to build this one on, so it's okay that you don't get to see it. It's enough to know it's there.

I'm sure God can see it. I wonder if people in heaven can see it, and if maybe one day I'll get to see it, too. I wonder if cats can see it. They look at things with those funny slanted eyes, and I've always thought they must see things we don't.

But there I go, off on a mental tangent. My mother used to scold me for getting distracted, saying I needed to stay on task.

When I'd told Gran one summer that I sometimes got in trouble at home and school for daydreaming, she'd given me a big hug. “That's the sign of a creative mind.” She told me that when she was a girl, her mother had called her a flibbertigibbet. The word had made me laugh and had become something of a secret code between us.

I pulled my gaze away from the print and looked around the room. The furniture—a matching oak highboy with an attached mirror, a blanket chest, and two night tables with lamps on either side—was covered with a fine film of dust, but Gran's bed was as neatly made as ever, so neat you could bounce a quarter off the old white chenille bedspread. Her terrycloth slippers peeked out from under the bed, and I was certain I'd find her pajamas folded and tucked under her pillow.

I hadn't been in her closet since I was a child. I used to love to play in there, to try on her shoes, to put on her dresses. Her closet was large and cedar lined, and it smelled like an old forest. Remembering what Eddie had said about it, I walked across the room and opened the door.

“Holy Moses,” I muttered. The cedar scent was still there—but instead of space under the clothes where I used to play, every square inch was taken up with boxes—boxes stacked on the floor and on the shelves above the hanging clothes, boxes reaching up to the ceiling.

The hanging rods were jam-packed with clothes that would probably bring a fortune at a vintage store. I personally loved vintage clothing—I was a regular at several vintage stores in Chicago—so I rifled through the hangers. They were so crammed together that I could barely move them. A filmy swatch of fabric way at the back caught my eye. Curious, I wrangled the hanger free and pulled it out.

“Oh wow,” I murmured. It was a pale blue peignoir set—a sheer float of a robe that went over an equally sheer nightgown. The floor-length gown was embroidered with strategically placed clusters of rhinestone-encrusted white flowers. I held it up in front of me. I had never seen anything so lovely, so ethereal. What a shame that people didn't wear things like this anymore! I wondered what year it was from. My guess was the forties or early fifties.

Before I stopped to think about it, I pulled off my sweats and slipped the nightgown over my head, then, carrying the robe, headed for the cheval mirror in the bedroom.

Holy cow—I looked like Lana Turner, minus the styled hair and makeup. The gown fit as if it had been custom made for me, with embroidery strategically placed to cover my naughty bits. I twirled around, admiring the back. Embroidered flowers formed an optical thong, then gracefully trailed down my leg. I had to hand it to the designer—he was a master of peekaboo.

It was gorgeous. It was sexy as sin. It was the kind of thing a woman would wear on her honeymoon, back in the days when wedding preparations involved sultry French words like
trousseau, peignoir, negligee
. I let out a sigh. Such magical words from another era.

I wondered what occasion Gran had bought this for. Or had it been a gift? I'd seen pictures of Gran as a young woman, and she'd looked a lot like Katharine Hepburn. She'd had the same tousled, shoulder-length hair, the same air of confidence, the same dazzling smile. Maybe she—

“Are you the tooth fairy?”

A child's voice abruptly startled me out of my thoughts. I whipped around to see a little girl wearing shorts and a Disney princess T-shirt,
staring at me from the bedroom doorway. She had long blond hair with bangs and the kind of poreless skin you usually only see on dolls. I wasn't very good at estimating kids' ages, but I guessed she was about four. “Wh-who are you?” I stammered. “How'd you get in here?”

“I'm Sophie. I came in through the doggie door.” She looked up at me, her brown eyes solemn. “Are you the tooth fairy? 'Cause my sister has a loose tooth.”

“Umm, no. No, I'm not.” I grabbed the robe and hurriedly pulled it on. “What are you doing in here?”

“I came to see Snowball and Mizz McCauley. Sometimes she gives me cookies.”

That sounded like Gran. Grinning, I struggled to fasten the sheer robe, which was fitted on top and held together by a rhinestone clasp at the waist. “She's not here right now. Do you drop in through the doggie door very often?”

“Sometimes.” She tilted her head up and looked at me hopefully. “I know where the cookie jar is.”

I laughed. “Well, then, why don't you show me?” I followed her into the kitchen, the floaty circle skirt of the robe billowing around me. She dragged a chair from the breakfast table to the counter, the leg screeching on the wooden floor. She climbed up, stood on the seat, and reached for the cat-shaped jar on the counter. Lifting the lid, she pulled out an oatmeal cookie. “Would you like one?” she asked politely.

I smiled at her hostessing skills. “Yes, thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She handed it to me, then extracted another cookie. Replacing the lid with great care, she set the cookie on the counter, climbed down, moved the chair back to the breakfast table, then retraced her steps to retrieve her treat. She carried it to the red stool in the corner—the stool where I'd spent hours as a child watching Gran bake—climbed up, and regarded me. “Are you a princess?”

I looked down at the floaty negligee and smiled. “No. I'm Mrs. McCauley's granddaughter.”

“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head. “You're too old to be a granddaughter.”

An irrational sense of dismay swept through me. Ever since I'd turned thirty, I'd become sensitive about my age, and as the numbers crept higher—next fall I'd be thirty-two—so did my awareness of my biological clock.

“You look more like a mommy,” Sophie said, biting off an edge of cookie and considering me as she chewed. “But you're dressed like a princess or the tooth fairy.”

It took some effort, but I didn't laugh. “I promise I'm neither. But, Sophie—does your mom know where you are?”

She nodded solemnly. “My mommy knows everything.”

Her mother must have told her the old “mothers have eyes in the back of their heads” line that had made me search through my mother's hair while she was asleep.

“She's in heaven,” Sophie continued. “She lives there with God.”

“Oh.” The geoplates of my heart shifted. Losing my mother at the age of twenty-eight had been horrible. I couldn't imagine losing a mother as a preschooler. “Well, your dad must be worried about you.”

“Nah. He's busy.”

“So who's watching you?”

“Gramma was, but she left and Aunt Jillian took over.”

“So . . . what's Aunt Jillian doing?”

“She's busy with Daddy.” She took another bite and chewed. “My sister hopes she's gonna be our new mother.”

Ooo-kay. I wondered just how busy they were. “Where do you live, Sophie?”

“Next door.” She pointed to the left.

“Well, as soon as you finish your cookie, I think you should go ba—”

“Sophie!” A deep male voice drifted through the front screen door. “Sophie!”

“In here!” the girl yelled, so loudly I jumped.

Steps sounded on the porch. “Hello?” called a male voice.

“I'm in the kitchen with a lady who looks like the tooth fairy,” Sophie shouted. “Come meet her!”

The screen door squealed open, and a moment later, a tall man
filled the doorway. He had dark hair and blue eyes, and he was wearing a starched white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, with a loosened blue-and-gray-striped tie. He was good-looking, if you're shallow enough to notice such things—which, unfortunately, I am.

I'd like to think it was the element of surprise that turned me into a tree and made me just stand there, rooted to the floor, but the truth is, he looked like a cross between Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Bradley Cooper, and a young George Clooney, with a nose that looked like it might have once been broken, because it was just a little bit skewed to the left, and something about that slight imperfection made my stomach speed-bump. It took several beats of silence for me to realize he was staring back in a way that made me highly aware of my state of deshabille.

Deshabille—
another of those old-fashioned, peignoir-related French words. Once something enters my head, my thoughts keep circling back to it at the most inappropriate moments. A friend who majored in psychology said it sounded like OCD, but I never talked to a doctor about it, because having ADHD was bad enough and if I was more screwed up than that, I really didn't want to know about it.

Anyway. Here was this smoking-hot man in my kitchen, and I'm dressed like a 1940s screen siren, and it felt all kinds of weird. I shifted the cookie to my left hand.

“Want a cookie, Daddy?” Sophie asked.

“Uh, no thanks.” He pulled his eyes from me and knelt down by his daughter.

I couldn't help but notice the way his thigh muscles bulged under the summer-weight wool of his gray pants. The guy was ripped.

“Sophie,” he was saying to his daughter, “you know you're not supposed to wander off.”

“I came to see Mizz McCauley, but the tooth fairy princess lady was here instead.”

The man turned Gyllenhaal-blue eyes on me. “I apologize for my daughter barging in on you.”

“Oh, she didn't barge in . . .” I hesitated. I didn't want to get her
in trouble, but on the other hand, I didn't want him to think I'd been standing out in the yard dressed like Mata Hari, luring stray children inside. “. . . exactly. I mean, apparently she regularly visits my grandmother.”

“So you're Mrs. McCauley's granddaughter,” the man said, straightening.

Sophie scrunched up her brow. “You're really a granddaughter?”

I smiled down at her. “We come in all ages.”

“Really?” Sophie asked.

“Sophie!” called a woman's voice from outside. “Sophie!”

“In here!” Sophie bellowed. “Come on in.”

Great, just great. At this rate, the whole town would soon be in the kitchen, wondering why I was dressed like Lana Turner. The porch door squeaked again, and a moment later, an attractive blonde about my age walked in. Her eyes widened as she took me in. She glanced at the man, then back at me, then rushed to Sophie. “Honey, we were so worried! You know you're not supposed to leave the yard without an adult.”

“I didn't. I came over to see Mizz McCauley.”

The woman smoothed Sophie's hair.

“I'm Hope Stevens,” I explained, extending my cookie-free hand. “I'm Mrs. McCauley's granddaughter.”

“I'm Jillian Armand.” She gave my hand a tentative squeeze.

The man held out his hand. “And I'm Matt Lyons.” His palm was solid, his fingers strong. A rush of adrenaline zinged through my veins. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it. Touching him made it hard to remember much of anything.

“How's your grandmother?” asked Jillian.

“Better. She's regained consciousness.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Matt. “I was really worried when I found her in the shed.”

Pieces of information clicked together in my head. That's why I recognized his name—Mrs. Ivy had mentioned it on the phone.
Come to think of it, Gran had mentioned it last winter when she told me about new neighbors moving in next door. “I owe you a huge thanks.”

Matt lifted his shoulders. “It was unusual for her shed door to be open, so I thought I'd better check.”

“People in Wedding Tree try to look out for each other.” Jillian's gaze flicked over my gown, then darted away, as if she were embarrassed. “But we can talk about all that later; it looks like we caught you at an inconvenient time.” She nudged Sophie toward the foyer. “We need to get out of here and give you some privacy.”

“Oh, um, that's all right,” I stammered.

“Are you here with your husband?” Jillian asked.

“My husband? Oh, no. He's not—I mean, I'm, uh, divorced.” Oh, God—did she think I'd been in the middle of an afternoon delight? The attire certainly suggested it. Holy furburgers—did Matt think the same? My face burned. “I was just, uh, trying on some of my grandmother's clothes. I was looking in her closet . . . I'm a vintage clothing freak, and . . .” My voice trailed off weakly.

“Well.” Jillian glanced at Matt as she herded Sophie toward the door. “We should leave you in peace.”

“Oh, no, it's okay,” I babbled.
Way to go, Hope. Beg them to stay so you can humiliate yourself some more.

Jillian opened the screen door and ushered Sophie onto the porch. “Nice to meet you. I'm sure we'll see you later.”

“Bye!” called Sophie. “Thanks for the cookie.”

“You're welcome.”

“Sorry for the intrusion,” Matt said. I could tell he was trying to keep his gaze above my neck, but it slipped downward as he exited the house. A wave of heat flushed over me.

Terrific, I thought, closing the heavy door behind them and sinking against it. Nothing like making a good first impression on the neighbors.

matt

I
can't believe she was trying on her grandmother's clothes,” Jillian said as soon as we'd stepped through the front door of my house.

“I can't believe those clothes belong to anyone's grandmother,” I remarked. My head was still reeling with the image of the fresh-faced brunette in that sheer gown and robe, standing in the kitchen, eating cookies with my daughter. The juxtaposition of the domestic scene with the erotic attire was jarring, to say the least—not to mention sexy as hell. I have to admit, the sight had aroused me as nothing had in the two years since my wife's death. My reaction to the tousle-haired woman left me feeling edgy and oddly guilty.

“What's wrong with playin' dress-up?” Sophie asked.

“Nothing, honey.” Jillian smiled down at her, then gave me a pointed look. “If you're four.”

“I thought she looked bootiful,” Sophie said.

I didn't get a back view, but I imagined Sophie was right.

“I can't believe she opened the door wearing nothing but a nightie,” Jillian sniffed.

“She didn't,” Sophie said. “I crawled in through the doggie door.”

I laughed, then realized laughter was an inappropriate parental response to the situation. I forced my mouth into a more somber line. “It's wrong to sneak into people's homes that way, sweetie.”

Sophie gazed up earnestly. “Mizz McCauley doesn't mind.”

“You've crawled into her house before?” Jillian asked, her voice alarmed.

“Yeah. Mizz McCauley said I can come in for a cookie anytime I want.”

Jillian frowned. “Sophie, it's very rude to go into someone's home uninvited.”

I was a lot less concerned with manners than with the fact that my just-turned-four-year-old had been unsupervised—repeatedly, apparently—long enough to visit a neighbor. “What's Gramma doing while you're roaming the neighborhood?”

“I dunno. I only go over when
you're
home.”

My daughter was making these unauthorized visits on my watch? Oh, terrific. I knew I wasn't in the running for Father of the Year, but this was veering into intervention-from-the-authorities territory. “Sophie, you know you're not supposed to leave the backyard without someone with you.”

“I don't go through the gate or out the front door. I just go through a hole in the fence.”

“That's leaving all the same.”

My voice must have sounded firmer than I'd realized, because her bottom lip trembled. She looked up at me in a way that made me feel like a monster.

Oh hell. I was hopeless at disciplining the girls, because I hated to make them unhappy. Christine used to tease me about how they had me wrapped around their little fingers. As usual, she'd been right.

God, she'd been right about so many things. The thought made the Christine-shaped hole in my heart ache. Up until a few months ago, grief would strike like an unexpected karate chop, sudden and fierce. Now it was just a flat, dull emptiness that expanded and contracted. I sort of missed that ragged edge of grief, so sharp it was almost tangible. It had felt like a physical link to my late wife.

“Am I in trouble?” Sophie's voice wavered.

I crouched down beside her and pulled her into my arms. “No, sweetie. But now that you know it's wrong, don't do it again.”

“Okay.” She hugged me back, then pulled away and flashed me a smile, her sunny mood instantly restored. “Can I go play with Zoey?”

“Sure.” I blew out a sigh as she scampered off to the den.

Jillian put a hand on my arm. “I'll help you keep a closer eye on her.”

Her palm felt heavy and hot. I shoved my hands in my pockets as an excuse to move away. “I was home. It's my responsibility.” Although technically, Jillian was partially to blame for this lapse, because she'd cornered me to tell me how she'd taken the girls to the park, preventing me from actively watching them.

“I'm happy to help. I love Sophie and Zoey as if they were my own.”

Yeah, but they're not.
The uncharitable thought gave me another twinge of guilt.

Jillian gave me a smile that seemed a little too intense and lasted a little too long. “Well, all's well that ends well. I'd better get dinner started.”

“You don't need to do that.” The truth was, I was ready for her to leave.

But she was already moving toward the kitchen. “I promised the girls I'd make spaghetti and meat sauce. Mom bought all the ingredients this afternoon.”

I swallowed as I followed her. When I first moved to Wedding Tree, Jillian occasionally cooked dinner for the girls when I was held up at work, but lately, she was doing it even when I was home. I wanted to break the pattern, but tonight didn't seem like the time to do it, what with promises made and ingredients bought and all. “What can I do to help?” I asked.

“You can chop the onions.”

I'd hoped she'd say “nothing,” so I could leave the room. Working beside her in the kitchen seemed too couple-ish, too . . . intimate. Jillian was my sister-in-law, but lately, she was acting more and more like a wife.

I hadn't foreseen this complication when I'd moved from New
Orleans to Wedding Tree in January. Christine's mother and father had offered to help with the kids, and it had seemed like the ideal solution—especially after the third nanny quit.

The girls didn't do anything in particular to drive the nannies away, although heaven knows they can be a handful. The first nanny, Miranda, had been a gem. A grandmotherly woman with a gold front tooth and a nurturing nature, she stayed with us for a year and a half. The girls were at their worst then—it was right after their mother's death and all of us were raw. She'd been a lifesaver. But then Miranda's daughter had triplets, and she'd moved to Houston to help her—which was understandable, but it left us in the lurch, and the girls grieved Miranda almost as much as they'd grieved their mother.

I put the girls in daycare, but one or the other was always sick, and as the attorney heading up the Public Protection Division of the Louisiana Justice Department, I had court dates and other hard-to-miss job obligations, plus I had to frequently travel.

So I hired Ashleigh. I should have known better—she was a nineteen-year-old anorexic brunette who reported for nanny duty in high heels—but I was desperate. She was inattentive and constantly texting her friends, interested only in planning her nights out, sulking if I needed her to stay late. As soon as she found a job that left all her evenings free, she was gone.

The woman after her was Gretchen, and well . . . the girls just never warmed to her. She was fortyish and hyper-efficient, but her personality was as frosty as her streaked hair. The girls started throwing tantrums and clinging to me and acting out in ways that the pediatrician said were normal for kids who've experienced a loss, but I couldn't help but think it was partially due to Gretchen's aura of detachment. When she told me another family had offered her more money, I wished her luck and said good-bye.

My in-laws, Peggy and Griff Armand, had suggested that we move to Wedding Tree before, but I hadn't wanted to uproot the girls. Maybe I hadn't wanted to uproot myself, either; the thought
of leaving the home I'd shared with Christine had seemed like more than I could bear.

Two years after Christine's death, though, continuation of location seemed a lot less important than continuation of caretakers. Wedding Tree was halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and since I split most of my time between the two cities, it made sense logistically.

The move made sense emotionally, as well. “Why hire a stranger to help with the girls, when we would love to watch them?” Peggy had said. “Zoey starts kindergarten next year, so this is a good time to move and get settled. And there's a fabulous half-day preschool run by our church that both girls would just love.”

“And I can help,” Jillian had added. She was a middle school teacher and her late afternoons were free, although that wasn't really a consideration when I made the decision to move to Wedding Tree. If Jillian crossed my mind at all, it was only as a backup for Peggy.

I certainly hadn't anticipated the way Jillian would insinuate herself into our lives. Every evening when I went to Peggy's to pick up the girls, there she was. She trailed us home and made dinner. She stayed and washed clothes and cleaned the house. It was almost as if she lived here.

As if she
wanted
to live here. I was getting the uncomfortable feeling that she harbored romantic aspirations I didn't share.

Her hand brushed against my leg as she reached into the bottom cabinet for a pan. Was the touch deliberate? It seemed like her body was grazing mine with increasing frequency, but maybe I was just more aware of it. I shifted away.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Okay.”

“Any interesting cases?”

“I really can't talk about them.” More to the point, I didn't want to.

“You used to talk about them with Christine.”

“Christine was my wife.” The words came out a little too bluntly.

The pans rattled as she extracted one. “Well, I know how to keep a confidence, too, if that's what you're worried about.” She carried the pan—or was it a pot? I didn't really know the difference—to the sink and filled it with water. “Christine told me lots of things I never told anyone.”

What kind of things?
Things about my cases, or more personal things about the two of us together? What kind of mind game was Jillian playing here?

Irritation flashed through me, rapidly followed by a chaser of guilt. My thoughts drifted back to the woman next door. I wished I were standing in her kitchen right now. No history, no baggage, no awkward sense of subtle coercion—nothing but a slinky, Hollywood-style nightie standing between us.

“It's been a long day, and I'm kind of fried,” I said. “I don't much feel like talking.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I'm sure your work exhausts you.”

What exhausts me is dealing with you.
It was an unkind thought, but it was the truth.

Somewhere along the way, it had become awkward, always having her around. And there were other things, things that weren't her fault.

Sometimes, when I caught a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye, she looked so much like Christine that my heart would skip a beat. She was far from a dead ringer, but there were odd little physical similarities—the curve of her back when she knelt to talk to the girls, the shape of her calves, the way her toes perfectly slanted downward in her sandals. A year ago, these things were daggers to my heart. Now, they were just irrational annoyances.

And lately, it had gotten worse. She'd grown out her hair, and two weeks ago, she'd turned up blond. And she'd lost weight, as if she were trying for Christine's willowy frame. I wondered if she thought that by making herself look more like Christine, I'd find her more attractive.

But then, maybe I was just imagining it all—which means I'm a
total ass. It's possible I'm looking for reasons to resent her just because she's similar to Christine, but not Christine. Close, but no cigar.

I finished chopping the onion. I slid the cutting board toward her and put the knife in the sink, then washed my hands. “If you've got things covered here, I'll go hang out with the girls.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.” Was I looking for it because I felt kind of guilty, or did her voice carry an undertone of disappointment?

All I knew for sure was that the air seemed lighter in the foyer. I inhaled a deep lungful and headed toward the sound of my daughters' laughter, the tightness in my chest melting with every step.

There they were, the two halves of my heart—sprawled on the floral rug in the middle of the den, their blond heads close together, shoving stuffed animals into their Barbie Dreamhouse. I stood in the doorway and drank in the scene. Winnie the Pooh hung upside down out the third-floor window, a naked Barbie rode astride Eeyore through the dollhouse living room, and a teddy bear's pink fur overflowed the kitchen's door and windows.

Zoey looked up at me with her big brown eyes, too serious for a five-year-old. “Hi, Daddy! We're playin' zoo.”

“Looks more like
Animal House
,” I remarked.

If Christine were here, she would have said something like, “Let's make little teddy bear togas.” She'd always been willing to laugh at my lame attempts at humor, always been ready with a quick comeback, always been able to crack me up with a witty observation. Playful banter, I think it's called—that's another thing I miss about her. How long would I keep discovering new things I missed?

Or rediscovering old ones. My thoughts flicked to the woman next door.

“Let's go to the real zoo this weekend,” Zoey said, cramming a toy zebra onto the dollhouse potty.

I sat down cross-legged on the floor beside them. “Okay.” We had a family membership to the Audubon Zoo, the Aquarium of the Americas, and the Insectarium in New Orleans, and when we'd lived there, the girls and I were frequent visitors.