Wildly Inappropriate (9 page)

He hadn't thrown his mother's things out
, she thought sadly, recalling what he'd said about his father forgetting everything except getting her back. In spite of the stifling heat, Cynda settled onto her feet, prepared to sweat a bit in return for the chance to plunder through the feminine treasures to her heart's content.

A silvery locket turned up, with three little frames that folded open. The same man held three different babies, each wearing the same dress and cap. The inscription on the back was the same, too.
I love you, Rafe.
The inside of the locket was engraved with tiny names, and Cynda had to squint to read them. Eric Chapman. Colton Scott. Sarah Camille.

Eventually she replaced the trinkets and lifted the tray. Cynda gasped with delight as stiff net crinolines sprang up to meet her. Soft dresses made of fine cotton, trimmed with elegant lace, ribbons, and embroidery lay neatly folded in stacks.

Choosing was difficult, there were so many pretty things in the trunk, but she settled on a dress the color of the peachy flowers that smelled so good. She selected a second one because it matched his house. She took the prettiest net crinoline after deciding it would fit beneath the full circle skirt of the yellow dress. Eventually the stifling air drove her to fill her arms with every dress she thought might fit and she left the attic to get the assortment of clothing washed and dried while she started cleaning the downstairs.

* * * *

Dan was halfway to his goal of figuring out how much state tax the shop had collected in June when he heard the metal back door of the shop bang against the wall. He cocked his head toward the office door and listened, easing open the drawer holding one of his pistols. Colton was in Gatlinburg with his girlfriend Lila Walker. Eric had taken their nephew Jonah, who lived with Colton, to Myrtle Beach for the weekend. Eric swore he was taking Jonah deep sea fishing, but Dan figured unless there was a charter boat run by women wearing bikinis, Eric and his thirteen-year-old nephew were most likely lounging on the beach watching the girls go by.

"Dan!" He heard Colton's yell from the service area.

"In the office," he called back, relaxing in his seat and closing the drawer. He laced his hands on top of his head and waited for his brother to appear, glad to have a reason to stop working on the figures, but concerned because his baby brother and Lila hadn't been due back in town until the next day.

Colton burst in and flopped into the chair in front of the old metal desk. "I think I might need to replace my brake pads," his brother informed him, sounding disgusted. "I swear to God, I believe Lila stood on my damn brakes all the way down the mountain."

Dan chuffed out a laugh. Lila's driving was a bone of contention between the pair. She'd gotten two tickets last week. Two. On consecutive days, on the same road, in the same spot. Lila called it an illegal speed trap. Colton called it damn stupid. The resulting argument was what prompted the couple to take a long weekend in the mountains—for the make-up sex, away from Jonah's inquisitive presence. "Why the hell would you let Lila drive?"

Colton propped his elbows on his knees and shook his head. He fixed Dan with a hard look. "About midnight last night, she starts talking about the flea market. I figured she'd found a place up there, you know, and was priming me to get out of bed at dawn, but noooo. She wanted to come home and go to 'her' flea market. I told her if someone had to drive all night, it wasn't gonna be me, thinking that would discourage her. I mean, we had the place until tomorrow, you know?"

Dan tried not to smile but his brother looked so disgusted it was difficult to keep a straight face. Colton spied the full pot of coffee and jumped out of the chair, crossing the small office to grab a cup. "So, I took a Benadryl and put my seat back, because I knew if I stayed awake, I'd either kill her or end up taking the wheel. I mean, no one's actually died from her driving, right?" He picked up the glass carafe, waving it around. "When she woke me up in the driveway, I swear Dan, I thought the fucking truck was on fire from the stench of burning rubber."

Dan laughed until tears filled his eyes. Colton was meticulous about everything, and topping that list was his truck. "I'm gonna pull my wheels and check my brakes," Colton muttered, splashing the brew into a cup. "Then, I'm gonna wash off the brake dust and try not to think about how much I wanna strangle her. I'll never understand why a woman who takes a speed limit sign as a personal challenge would turn around and ride the brakes all the way down a fucking mountain. You'd think she'd have let 'er rip, huh? Turns out, Ms. Speed Demon Walker's terrified of heights. So why didn't she ask to go to the fucking beach?"

"Better yet, why didn't y'all just stay home?"

"Hell if I know," Colton replied gloomily. "All we did was argue." He flashed Dan an unexpected grin. "And in between, well, you know." He chugged down some coffee. "My damn guns are in my truck, too. She's worried about them not being locked up with Jonah around. Like I haven't talked to him about not messin' with them except when I'm around to supervise?" Sighing deeply, he grudgingly added, "She's probably right. God knows, this family's had enough tragedies. You mind storin' 'em for me till I can get a gun safe like yours?"

Four hours later, Dan thought he heard the back door bang open again but the driving beat of the hard rock station Colton had playing made it hard to be sure. Moments later, Lila poked her head into the office. "Shish kabobs, French fries, and slaw. Brought you a plate."

"You just want me to stop Colton from choking you for getting brake dust on his rims," Dan teased her.

Lila rolled her blue eyes and smiled, looking unrepentant. "You'd think that stuff didn't wash off."

They ate in the break room while Lila rattled off a list of the things she'd bought. He'd never seen a woman's face glow from excitement over poking through piles of old junk, but Dan thought Lila looked radiant. The thought of junk made him wonder whether Cynda had ventured to the attic to look for more clothes.

"You did
what
?"

Colton's outraged tone brought Dan back from thoughts of the woman he'd left in his house. Cynda was the reason he hadn't gotten very far with his tax paperwork. Every time he got started, he found himself wondering why he'd let her stay. Colton's wide eyes as he stared at Lila made him regret tuning out their conversation.

"I said I bought six cast iron bathtubs. They have to be moved out of the old Daniel Morgan Hotel by Saturday, because they're blowing it up on Sunday to make way for some new law offices."

Colton was shaking his head, but Dan's lower back twinged in anticipation of the moment his baby brother would give in.

"Why?" Colton demanded. "Why in hell would you trade good cash money for some old bathtubs? That's not furniture, Lila."

"Oh"—Lila waved a hand dismissively—"retro is in. I'm thinking of doing an antique show in Greenville next month, and they'll sell like hotcakes there." She sighed rapturously. "They have tall ends and the most gorgeous ball and claw feet. The fixtures are intact, too." She looked anxious for a moment. "You can cut the bolts, right? They're bolted to the floor."

Colton's jaw began to work and Dan chewed his final bite of the delicious meat, thinking that as bribes went, Lila's had come up a bit short. Prime rib and shrimp cocktails might have been a better choice, but she had all week to cook. Eric would be delighted. Their middle brother loved when Lila bribed the brothers into helping with one of her many projects with home-cooked meals. He was good at rigging stuff, too. Eric would find a way to move those tubs without too much effort, he figured. He hoped, because it seemed to Dan his baby brother had yet to actually win an argument with Lila.

To Dan's surprise, Colton sounded calmer than he appeared. "How much, Lila? How much money do you think you'll make on those bathtubs?"

"About twelve hundred," she said, smiling confidently.

"Fine." Colton dropped his plastic fork. "I'll write you a check right now and those tubs can go down with the hotel when they blow it up."

Dan tried not to snicker and failed.

"Is there some genetic defect that makes all men into cocksucking liars?" Lila demanded, pushing away from the table and jumping up. Her fists were clenched. She stared at Colton as if he'd slapped her.

Dan looked at her back in amazement as she ran out of the room.

"Maybe you should've offered fourteen hundred." He tried to joke to hide his concern. "You know how Lila likes to bargain." He expected Colton to go after her, or respond to his jibe, but his brother picked up his fork again, driving it into a piece of the tender meat. "Is she okay?" he asked after a moment.

"At least she didn't cry," Colton muttered.

* * * *

After reading the labels inside the dresses, Cynda loaded them into the washing machine on the gentle cycle. She found a dust rag and polish, deciding to start cleaning in the front room. The Electrolux with the faded metal canister she found in a closet beneath the stairs was like everything else around the place, solid and old. The vacuum was unwieldy but she finally got the hang of it. When the surfaces of the fancy old parlor furniture sparkled, she swapped the dresses to the dryer and decided she might as well vacuum his office.

The wall-to-wall carpeting was thicker than the Oriental rug covering the wood floors in the front room and she had to push the wand with more force. Cynda gasped in dismay when she gave it a vicious shove and it banged into the corner of his fancy roll top desk, causing the large panel of dark wood on the side of the desk to pop off. Heart hammering, she gaped at the light-colored sides of the large drawers. She cut the power to the appliance with a press of her toes on the switch atop the canister and fell to her knees beside his desk. The beveled wood panel hadn't been scratched, thank the Lord, but when she tried to figure out how to replace it, a small space next to the wall behind the drawers caught her eye. A slender leather-bound book rested on a narrow strip of wood in a concealed space behind the drawers.

Cynda bit her lip as she wondered if he'd hit her, or kick her out, for damaging the fine piece of furniture, even as she reached in to grasp the slender volume. Maybe she could fix the desk before he got back. Lifting the cover she squinted at the ornate handwriting.

Iris Camille Chapman De Marco

Diary 1984

Cynda rifled through thin pages filled with hard-to-read handwriting. The diary had weekly entries, ending in early September of that year. Laying the journal aside, she peered into the narrow space, and spied more. Her arm was slim enough to fit into the narrow space. She tugged out another volume. 1983. She found two more, for the years of 1982 and 1981. Each of the other diaries was filled with entries that began on January first and went through December thirty-first.

Cynda replaced the diaries, but not before she turned to the last entry in the first one she'd found.

September 1st, 1984

My body's worn out and my beauty a thing of the past, and though I adore my three beautiful boys and my baby girl, I wish Sarah had been born sooner so I could've tried to persuade Rafe to let me stop having babies before my body was all stretched out.

No one understands why I put up with His demands, except perhaps Georgia. It feels as though I was born out of time. While all my friends are busy proving to their husbands they can run their own lives, I've been left behind and made to feel I was somehow stupid for deferring to my husband's judgment in all things.

Yet, I see them one-by-one announcing their divorces and fighting for child support while trying to deny weekly visitation to the man they vowed to love until death and I cannot doubt I made the better choice.

He still takes me whenever He sees fit, with the look in his eye I saw the very first time, and tells me I'm beautiful and that I'll always be His.

Though Sarah still suckles, I worry I'm pregnant again. Going to talk to Georgia about that.

The page was stained, as if Iris's tears had marred the ink. Feeling like she'd spied on something too personal, Cynda replaced the diary in the spot where she'd found it, relieved when the side panel slid onto small pegs and stayed put.

* * * *

Dan brought the wrecker to a standstill on a narrow two-lane blacktop a scant half-mile from the farm. His heart thumped when he spied Lila's small blue and silver truck upside down in John Carpenter's field.

"Goddammit, she could've been killed," Colton yelled. Dan tried to think of something to say but Colton was already jumping from the wrecker.

He slid out of the cab, his boots connecting with the cracked pavement, watching Colton run toward the spot where Lila was seated in the grass at the edge of the road. The sound of crumpling metal made him flinch and look back at the truck. The rear tires began to spin when the roof collapsed. The vehicle settled into the dirt as the weight of the truck's frame flattened the cab. From the opposite end of the road past John's small white frame house, Dan heard sirens. A white-and-orange-painted rescue vehicle came into view with lights flashing. He walked hesitantly toward his brother, reading the fear on Colton's face.

Dan knew what his little brother was thinking. He felt a familiar burst of anger toward their mother. When Cammie left them without a word of explanation or goodbye, she set up an expectation in each of them that it was just a matter of time before the next woman they loved followed her out the door. Wherever she was, Dan hoped his mother was miserable.

Yes, he was going to burn that goddamn farmhouse to the ground. Soon as he got Lila's truck out of John's field and saw to it that she and Colton were on their way to the hospital, he was going home, pouring diesel fuel onto the wooden floors Cammie had cleaned on her hands and knees, and striking a fucking match. He'd drive Cynda to wherever the hell she lived, kick her out, then find a bar to drink in while it burned.