Best Kept Secrets (4 page)

Marguerite-Josefina had accused Jose Luis of clinging to the old ways, and she was right because he’d believed she would agree to an arranged marriage. He gritted his teeth in frustration. How could he have been so wrong, so blind as to what she wanted? He knew she was attracted to black men, but feared she would select one so unworthy of the Diaz name and legacy.

He forced a smile. “No,
Chica
. I just came to see whether you were all right.”

M.J. patted his cheek. “Of course I’m all right. Senor Cole was going to tell me about his country.”

Jose Luis shook his head. “Let me warn you in advance, Senor Cole, that my daughter can be quite opinionated if she feels strongly about something.”

“If that’s the case, then whatever we talk about should be quite interesting.”

“No doubt,” Jose Luis countered. Leaning over, he pressed
a kiss to his daughter’s raven-black hair. “Do not shame me,” he whispered close to her ear. “I’ll come back to get you later,” he said loud enough for Samuel’s ears. “Senor Cole, I trust you to protect my daughter’s good name.”

Samuel straightened as if coming to attention. “You have my word as an honorable man that she will come to no harm.”

He wanted to tell the elder Diaz that there was no need to warn him about M.J., as she’d asked him to call her. She was as safe with him as she would be cloistered in a convent.

“
Gracias
, Senor Cole.” Jose Luis turned and walked back the way he’d come, his thoughts tumbling over themselves as he recalled what Arturo had told him about Samuel Cole. He would be the perfect son-in-law if only he weren’t American.

M.J. sat down on the stone bench, crossing her legs at the ankles, and waited for Samuel to sit opposite her. She watched his every move as he folded his tall frame down and looped one leg over the opposite knee in one continuous motion, M.J. finding the action masculine, graceful and as fluid as a dancer’s for a man his height.
Very nice
, she thought. Everything about him pleased her.

She unfurled her fan, moving it slowly over her face to offset the heat that rose without warning from between her breasts. “What is it exactly that you do in your country, Senor Cole?”

Samuel angled his head and smiled. M.J. was brutally direct. “I’ll answer your question. But first you must answer one for me.”

She lifted an eyebrow and stopped fanning. “What do you want to know?”

“What does M.J. stand for?”

“Marguerite-Josefina.”

“It’s a beautiful name.”

“It’s too many syllables.”

“What if I call you Marguerite?”

She shook her head. “No. You can’t call me Marguerite
without adding the Josefina because that is my given name. What is your name?”

“Samuel.”

“Samuel,” she repeated softly. “Do you know what it means?”

He nodded. “It’s Hebrew for ‘God has heard.’”

The corners of her mouth tilted. “Has God heard you, Samuel?”

“I don’t know, because I’ve never asked him for anything.”

Her eyes widened. “You do not pray?”

“I pray.”

“For what?”

Samuel stared at M.J. until she dropped her gaze. “Now, that’s between God and me,” he chastised in a dangerously soft tone.

Her fanning started up again. “I’m sorry, Samuel. Please forgive my impertinence.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. What do you do, M.J.?”

“I asked you first.”

“I’m a farmer.”

She went completely still, the hand holding the fan poised in midair. Then she laughed, the husky sound bubbling up from her throat and floating into the warmth of the night.

“You look nothing like a farmer. You do not dress like a farmer, and you do not have the hands of a farmer.” His hands were beautiful, fingers long and slender.

“Would you’ve said the same thing if I told you that I was a murderer?” There wasn’t enough light for Samuel to see the flush darken M.J.’s face. “I am a farmer, as was my father, and enslaved grandfather. The only difference is the crop. They planted and picked cotton, while I grew soybeans.”

M.J., her cheeks still burning in remembrance of Samuel’s cutting remark, said, “You no longer grow them?”

Samuel’s mouth curved into an unconscious smile. M.J.’s sharp mind matched her exquisite beauty. “No, I no longer grow soybeans. I sold my share of the company to my brothers.”

“And now you’re looking to invest in Cuban sugar?”

Samuel wondered how much he should tell M.J. about his failed attempt to purchase Arturo Moreno’s plantation. There was no doubt she would hear the news before he departed Havana the following morning.

He told her everything—the conversation he’d had with Arturo when they’d discussed race and politics, concluding with why he would leave Cuba without securing the sugarcane plantation.

M.J. listened intently to Samuel Cole’s soft drawling voice, expecting to hear a hint of censure or condemnation. Either he was used to rejection or pride would not permit him to accept it.

She leaned forward. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m sailing to Costa Rica tomorrow.”

A soft gasp escaped her at the same time her heart lurched. She’d hoped he would remain in Cuba a little while longer. Other than her aunt’s acquaintances, Samuel was the first man she’d met who did not relate to her as if her only place was in the home caring for a husband or children.

She fanned herself furiously, as if she could eradicate her disappointment. “Do you plan to come back to Cuba?”

“If I come back it will be as a tourist. There is so much more I’d like to see.” Samuel regarded M.J. with an intense curiosity that shocked him. He planned to leave Cuba, but did not want to leave M.J.

“If and when you come back I’d like to appoint myself your guide and show you places most Americans don’t see.”

He blinked once. “I wouldn’t want you to trouble yourself. I can always hire Hernan to take me around.”

“I’m a student, so whenever I’m not attending classes I can take you around.”

“What are you studying?”

“Philosophy and Latin American history.”

“That’s serious.”

“They only sound serious.”

“Your father wouldn’t object to you being seen with me?”

M.J. closed her fan and tapped it against her open palm. “If my father had any objections he never would’ve permitted me to be alone with you.”

“But he knows nothing about me other than what Arturo Moreno may have told him.”

“Are you a murderer, Samuel?”

“No.”

“Are you wanted by your American police?”

“No,” he repeated, holding back a smile.

“Have you abandoned your wife and children in order to seek your fortune?”

It was Samuel’s turn to laugh, the sound deep, rumbling and infectious. “No and no,” he said, still laughing. “I have neither.”

M.J., also laughing, stood up, and Samuel rose with her. “Then that does it. All you have to do is let me know when you will return and I’ll ask my
tia
Gloria to accompany us.”

“Is she as outspoken as her niece?”

“She’s even more so.”

Samuel moved closer to M.J., and inhaled her perfume’s subtle sensual scent that was a hypnotic combination of flowers and citrus. He was close, close enough to feel her warmth.

“Then I look forward to meeting her. How can I contact you?”

“We have a telephone.”

“What’s the number?”

She told him and he repeated it. “Aren’t you going to write it down?”

Samuel shook his head. “No. I’ll remember it.” Reaching for her right hand, he held it within his larger grasp, lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her delicate knuckles. “It’s been a pleasure, Senorita Marguerite-Josefina Diaz.”

He was there, and then he was gone, leaving M.J. standing in the moonlight with the image of Samuel Cole’s long legs,
his broad shoulders, his soft drawling voice and his promise to return to Cuba lingering around the fringes of her mind.

Her earlier confrontation with her father was forgotten as she walked along the path leading away from the garden. Elba met her as she stepped into a room where the women were sitting around talking softly to one another.

“Where were you?”

M.J. fanned herself. “In the garden.”

“With the American?”

She stared at Elba until the other woman dropped her gaze. She was past seeking approval—from her father and her so-called friends. Talking to Samuel offered her a respite from her repressive lifestyle.

She did not want think about what else he
could
offer her.

S
amuel lay on a too-soft mattress, folded arms cradling his head, staring up at a slow-moving overhead fan, waiting for the sudden downpour to stop. He’d closed the shutters to the tall windows to keep out the rain, resulting in a buildup of suffocating heat inside the small room.

He had selected the hotel because of its English-speaking proprietor, onsite restaurant and proximity to the offices of the United Fruit Company. He could walk there from the hotel.

It had taken the slow-moving freighter four days to sail from Havana to Costa Rica, making ports of call in Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan before he was able to disembark at Puerto Limon, Costa Rica.

Samuel wasn’t scheduled to meet with a United Fruit Company representative for another two days, and planned to spend the time adjusting to a different time zone and researching the history of the Central American country. What had shocked him was the number of dark-skinned people who spoke Spanish as well as English with a distinctive West Indian accent.

The rhythmic sounds of rain beating against the shutters and the whir of the fan’s blades lulled him into a state of total relaxation; his eyelids grew heavy and fluttered closed. Heat and exhaustion overtook him as his chest rose and fell in a measured cadence, and minutes later he succumbed to the comforting arms of Morpheus.

Samuel woke up hours later, left the bed long enough to relieve himself in a communal bathroom, then returned to his room and opened the shutters. He hadn’t had a restful night since leaving Cuba. The cabin he’d secured on the freighter was located above the engine room, and the noises and vibrations had taken their toll on him. He was sleep deprived and paranoid. He lay down again and went back to sleep.

He slept on, barely conscious of the noises outside his door: the hotel’s laundress arguing with her husband, the lusty moans and groans and squeaking bedsprings coming from the room adjoining his. The few times he was aroused from his deep slumber were to turn over and smother the hardness between his thighs whenever the image of Marguerite-Josefina Diaz entered his dreams.

It had been months since he’d lain with a woman, because he had not wanted any distractions, not even one as lovely as Jose Luis Diaz’s daughter. He would only consider a relationship with a woman after he established his own company. Until then he would remain unattached and celibate.

Samuel woke up seventeen hours after he’d gone to bed, dehydrated, ravenous and in need of a shower. His underwear was pasted to his sweat-drenched body.

Sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he pulled on a pair of pants and reached for a towel from a supply he’d been given when he checked in, then gathered a small case with his grooming supplies and a change of clothes. He left the room, locking the door behind him, and walked down the narrow hallway to one of two bathrooms on the floor.

Fortified with a late-morning meal of white rice, black beans, steak and onions, and fried sweet bananas, Samuel set off on foot to tour the Caribbean coastal region of Costa Rica.

He could’ve passed for a native with his Panama hat, sandals, cotton slacks and
guayabera
if he hadn’t stopped to examine fruits and vegetables piled on tables at an open-air market. Barefoot children chased one another as their parents called out to them in various languages and dialects. Two women in neighboring stalls were engaged in a heated argument that had gotten everyone’s attention close enough to overhear the virulent words they hurled at each other.

Samuel felt a kinship with the black inhabitants of Puerto Limon that he hadn’t felt with those in Cuba. They appeared more relaxed, outwardly friendly, and were quick to engage him in conversation. Once they heard him speak, they were unable to conceal their shock that an American black man had come to their isolated region of Costa Rica.

“What’s that?” he asked an elderly woman sitting on a wooden crate and holding an umbrella over her head. He pointed to a large sphere with bumpy yellowish skin.

“Breadfruit.”

Samuel smiled. “The same breadfruit Captain Bligh brought from Tahiti to the West Indies?”

She smiled, displaying gold-capped teeth. “Yes, mister.”

He pointed to another strange-looking vegetable. “And this one?”

“Yucca, mister.” She adjusted her umbrella, peering closely at the tall stranger. “You from America?” Samuel nodded. “Do
you want to buy sum-ting from Miss Alva, mister? I have fresh coconuts and pretty bananas. You like bananas?”

Her lilting speech reminded him of music. “Yes, ma’am.”

She picked up two large, ripe, blemish-free bananas. “I give you real cheap.”

“How cheap?”

“One dollar.”

“One dollar?” Samuel repeated. “One dollar for two bananas?”

“Yes, mister.” She cradled them gently like one would a newborn baby. “Are they not beautiful?”

A frown appeared between his eyes. “Yes, they are. But not for a dollar.”

Alva’s broad face creased with a wide smile. “What is a dollar to a rich American?”

“He will be a very poor American if he pays your outrageous prices, Miss Alva,” said a deep, drawling voice from a neighboring stall. “Why is it you always have one price for Ticos and another for foreigners?”

“Mind your mouth, Lennox,” she hissed, waving at him. “You bad for my business.” She shifted her attention to her customer. “You want bananas?”

Never go to a country to negotiate a business deal without prior knowledge of that country or its people.
Arturo Moreno’s words were branded into his brain and in Samuel’s heart, and he knew he had to acquaint himself with the culture and some of the customs of the Central American country before his meeting.

He glared at Miss Alva, hoping to intimidate her. “I’ll buy your overpriced fruit, but not before you do something for me.”

“What you want, mister?”

“I need to speak to someone who knows about doing business in Puerto Limon.”

“You want him to speak English?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Go down the road to Donovan’s,” she said, pointing an arthritic finger. “You will find the American there.”

“Does the American have a name?”

“No. Just ask anyone for the American.”

Reaching into his pocket, Samuel took out a silver dollar and placed it on the tabletop. “I’ll be back for my bananas.” He winked at Alva, heading in the direction she indicated and wondering who or what Donovan’s was.

It turned out that Donovan’s was Puerto Limon’s local saloon. A lopsided, hand-painted sign hung precariously from a rusted chain in front of a tin structure erected on stilts. A quartet of elderly men, sitting on crates under a sagging wooden porch, were engaged in a vocal game of dominoes.

Samuel walked in and went completely still, struggling to breathe as a wave of heat sucked the air out of his lungs. Moisture beaded up on his forehead and upper lip. How, he wondered, could anyone remain inside for more than a few minutes without passing out from the heat?

Waiting until his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he made his way to a makeshift bar that had been constructed with a long board resting on two large metal drums. The bartender, a thin, light-skinned man with a scruffy reddish beard, watched his approach, gaze narrowing.

“Good afternoon.”

“Yeah, mon.”

“Are you Donovan?”

“Yeah, mon. What you drinking?”

“I didn’t come to drink.”

His gray-green eyes widened. “Why you here asking for Donovan then?”

Samuel reached into a pocket of his trousers and placed a silver dollar on the wooden plank covered with food stains,
making certain the man saw the coin before he covered it with his hand. “I need some information.”

The bartender smiled, displaying a mouth filled with yellowing teeth. “What you want?”

“Where can I find the American?”

“I’m over here,” came a disembodied masculine voice with a distinctive Southern drawl. “And who’s asking?”

Samuel squinted, unable to make out his features. “Samuel Cole.” His own drawling voice carried easily in the stagnant, stifling space.

The shape stirred. “Come closer.” The command was strong and uncompromising.

He bristled at the sharp tone because he was used to giving orders, not obeying them. “Who are you?”

“I’ll ask the questions, Mr. Cole. After all, you’re the one who came looking for me.”

Gritting his teeth, Samuel deliberately placed one foot in front of the other as he closed the distance between him and the
arrogant bastard
hiding in the shadows.

It wasn’t the dark, bearded face, the strong odor of stale liquor floating around him, the long, matted hair littered with lint particles, or the rumpled clothes that looked as if they’d been slept in that stopped Samuel in his tracks, but his eyes, a glittering gold brown, the eyes of a madman. What accurate information would he be able to glean from someone who looked as if he belonged in an asylum?

“Sit down. And try not to talk too loud. My head hurts like hell.”

“I’d rather talk somewhere else. I can’t breathe in here.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the air in here unless you think you’re too good for—”

He never completed his sentence. Samuel Cole had turned on his heel and was heading for the door. The bearded man panicked. “Wait!” Samuel stopped, but did not turn around. Rising to his feet on wobbly knees, the man managed to walk
the half-dozen steps that left him less than a foot from the stranger who’d sought him out. He stared at the broad shoulders under a white
guayabera
. “Mr. Cole?”

A knowing smile flitted across Samuel’s face, but vanished within seconds, replaced with an expression of annoyance. “I need information from you, information I’m willing to pay for. But not here.”

“How much are you willing to pay?”

“That depends on you.” A deep sigh and a rush of rum-soured breath wafted in the oppressive air behind him. “If you tell me what I need to know, then you can name your price.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Are you familiar with the United Fruit Company?”

There was a pulse beat of silence before the man said, “Quite familiar. I worked for them for two years before I was fired.”

Samuel turned and stared at the unkempt man. He was tall and thin. No, emaciated was a more appropriate description. “Why did they fire you?”

“I got sick.”

Dark eyes regarded a pair of gold ones, glittering with rage and something else. It took less than three seconds for Samuel to identify the something else: revenge.

“What did you come down with?”

“Consumption, also known as pulmonary tuberculosis.”

Samuel successfully curbed the urge to take a step backward. “Are you contagious?”

“No. Not now.”

“Are you certain?”

“I got a clean bill of health last week.”

Praying that he wasn’t being lied to, Samuel forced a smile. Tuberculosis had claimed the lives of his father and grandmother. The debilitating disease had laid waste to their bodies with fatigue, weight loss and a persistent cough with green, yellow, and finally bloody sputum.

“What did you do at United Fruit?”

“I worked in their accounting department.”

“Are you an accountant?”

“Yes.”

“Did you attend college?”

“Yes.”

“How much can you tell me about their financial stability?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“On how much you’re willing to pay me for the information.”

“What do you want?”

“Enough money for a ticket back to the United States.”

Samuel blinked once. “What are you going to do, or where are you going once you get back?”

“That is for me to decide.”

Samuel felt a strange, numbing comfort. There was something in the man’s tone that belied his outward appearance. His speech and choice of words revealed that he was educated, and there was a spark of defiance in his eyes that reminded Samuel of himself. The same look he’d given Charles Cole whenever he sought to break his spirit.

“Have you eaten?”

The gold eyes were steady. “Not today.”

“Do you have a change of clothes?” Samuel asked, continuing his questioning.

The man shook his head. “I don’t have the money right now to pay the woman who does my laundry.”

“I don’t want to insult you, Mr.—”

“Kirkland. It’s Everett Kirkland.”

“Mr. Kirkland,” Samuel said softly, “you need to wash and change your clothes. I’m going to give you some money so you can clean yourself up. Meet me at the Casa del Caribe in three hours.”

He handed him a ten-dollar gold note. It was enough money
to feed Everett Kirkland for at least a week, that is, if he didn’t squander it on rum, but definitely not enough for a ticket to get him back to the States. And if Everett was serious about wanting to return to the United States, then Samuel knew he would keep their appointment.

If it hadn’t been for his voice, Samuel never would’ve recognized Everett Kirkland. He’d bathed, shaved and wore a clean shirt and slacks; he’d also gotten a haircut. Without the beard, his thin, angular face was made up of sharp angles that did little to detract from what should’ve been quite a handsome countenance. And despite the large portions of food on the table in the hotel dining room, Everett ate sparingly.

Samuel listened intently, not interrupting as the accountant talked openly about growing up in Tennessee as an only child of elderly schoolteacher parents. A maiden schoolteacher aunt encouraged him to attend Tennessee State University in Nashville after his mother and father died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Three months after he’d graduated, he went to work for a colored insurance company in Richmond, Virginia.

“How did you wind up in Costa Rica?” Samuel asked as Everett paused to take a swallow of a blended drink of rum, mango, pineapple and guava juices.

Everett stared across the small table at the man who would provide him with the opportunity to return to the United States after a three-year absence, and despite his current financial status he knew instinctively that he and Samuel were more alike than not.