Best Kept Secrets

by Rochelle Alers

  Belinda opened the door to Samuel’s knock. Reaching up, she hugged her son. “You made good time, especially with the weather.”

  Samuel kissed his mother’s cheek. “We’re just glad we made it safely.”

  Smiling at her daughter-in-law, Belinda offered her hands. “Please come in and rest yourself. You must be exhausted after spending so many hours on the water.”

  M.J. grasped Belinda’s hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “Thank you, Mother. It’s good seeing you again.”

  Belinda stared at the tall, slender woman with a wealth of black hair tucked into a tight twist on the nape of her long neck, sporting a stylish navy cloche that was the exact match of a lightweight traveling suit. She and Samuel were the perfect couple—tall, slender and stylishly attractive.

  “I’m so glad Samuel decided to bring you.” She tightened her grip on the delicate fingers. “Come, let me show you to your room. Would you like something to eat?”

  M.J. shook her head. “No, thank you. All I want is a warm bath and a comfortable bed.”

  Samuel watched as his mother led M.J. to the room they would share for their stay. He left to pay the driver and assist him with the luggage, instructing him to leave the bags by the door. He lingered long enough to remove the case containing thousands of dollars. Tucking it under his arm, he made his way into the kitchen, putting it on a pantry shelf. He would let Belinda know what the case contained, and together they would determine where to hide it in the event of a bank failure.

  Samuel had hired Everett based on a sixth sense, the same sixth sense that made him get into black marketeering toward the end of the war, and the same sixth sense that made him forgo growing cotton in lieu of soybeans.

  He knew he was paying the accountant more than what most men with families earned each week, but felt it crucial he ensure Everett’s trust and loyalty. Before leaving Puerto Limon to return to the States, he’d given Everett a three-month advance in salary with an edict that he relocate to West Palm Beach, and purchase a wardrobe befitting his position as finance officer for Cole International, Ltd. He also allowed Everett a month to finalize his move and to make preparations to begin working in an office.

  He planned to spend two weeks in Tallahassee with his mother, brothers and in-laws, and another two in Cuba so that M.J. could see her relatives. Once he returned to West Palm Beach, Florida, he would begin to fulfill his own role as president of his company.

  Samuel sat at the kitchen table with Belinda, talking softly. M.J., who’d readied herself for bed, promised not to fall asleep until he joined her.

  “I want you to put the money where it will remain dry and animals can’t get after it.”

  Vertical lines appeared between his mother’s eyes. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing taking your money out of the bank?”

  “Very sure,” Samuel said confidently, even though he still had to convince himself what he’d done would protect his future business endeavors.

  “I have a place,” Belinda said in a quiet voice. “I’ll hide it down in the root cellar behind my preserves. There’s a loose board in the wall. It will be safe there.”

  “Does anyone know about it?” Belinda shook her head. Pushing to his feet, Samuel leaned across the table and kissed his mother. “Thanks, Mama. I’m going to bed now.”

  Belinda caught his wrist. “How’s married life?”

  Samuel smiled. “It’s wonderful. M.J. is the perfect wife.”

  “When can I expect grandchildren from the two of you?”

  He lowered his gaze. “We’re working on it.”

  Her smile was dazzling. “That’s good, son.”

  He kissed her again, staring into a pair of dark eyes so much like his own. “Good night, Mama.”

  Belinda held his gaze. “Good night, Samuel.”

  Samuel slipped quietly into bed next to M.J. Her soft snores indicated she’d fallen asleep. He smiled. She’d promised to wait up for him.

  M.J. is the perfect wife. He’d told his mother the truth while he was living a lie. He hadn’t been the perfect husband; he’d been unfaithful when his wife had given him no reason to seek out another woman.

  He lay motionless, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling, while listening to the steady beating of his heart. But had he really been unfaithful to his wife?

  Could he be deemed an adulterer because he paid a woman for sex?

  Sighing, he closed his eyes, turned over on his side and went to sleep, feeling as if he’d done nothing wrong.

  “When do I stop stirring, Mother?”

  Belinda peered into the pot of hominy grits on the stove. “Give it another minute, then lower the flame and cover the pot.” M.J. had asked whether she could teach her to cook the Southern dishes Samuel had grown up eating.

  M.J. covered the pot, making certain the flame was low enough to finish cooking the ground corn kernels. “I’ll fry the fish.” Belinda had coated filleted whiting with flour and coarse cornmeal seasoned with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.

  Belinda smiled at the eager young woman. She found M.J. different from her two other daughters-in-law. Eugenia and Annie-Mae Cole had never offered to help her, so when she visited their homes she did not reciprocate. She watched as M.J. scooped up a serving spoon portion of lard from a tin and dropped it into a large cast-iron skillet.

  “Make certain it’s hot, but not so hot that it will burn.”

  M.J.’s dimples deepened in a knowing smile. “We do use lard when we fry in Cuba.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice.

  Nodding, Belinda removed a container of chicken liver from the refrigerator. She was the only woman in her neighborhood to have a refrigerator rather than an icebox. And with the onset of the sweltering summer heat a block of ice usually didn’t last more than a couple of days, but the electric refrigerator had changed that dramatically, preserving meat and dairy products for longer periods of time.

  “Maybe before you and Samuel leave you can teach me to cook some of your foods,” Belinda suggested.

  M.J. hugged her mother-in-law. “I find many of our foods are similar. It’s the seasonings that give them a different taste.”

  She fried the fish to a crispy, golden brown, placing them on a plate covered with brown paper to drain while the tantalizing aroma of sautéed, flour-dredged chicken liver with onion, green bell pepper and chopped garlic filled the kitchen.

  “Now, isn’t this a sight to behold? The two women I love most cooking together,” drawled a deep voice some distance away.

  Belinda and M.J. turned to find Samuel standing under the entrance to the kitchen, smiling.

  He walked into the kitchen. “I thought you’d be in church by now, Mama.” He kissed Belinda’s cheek, then M.J.’s mouth.

  Belinda’s gaze swept over his face, seeing things she hadn’t noticed the night before. There were streaks of gray in his hair. Samuel would turn twenty-seven in August, yet there was something about her youngest that made him appear years older, even older than Mark. She couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that his insatiable craving for money, fame and power had replaced the humility that she’d always admired in him.

  She forced a smile. “Church will always be here when you and M.J. leave. By the way, how long do you plan to be here?”

  Samuel stared at M.J. and smiled. “Two weeks. We’re going on to Cuba from here.”

  Belinda glanced at her daughter-in-law. “Will it be your first visit since marrying Samuel?”

  M.J. nodded, smiling. “Yes. I’m looking forward to seeing Papa and my aunt Gloria.”

  “Do you miss Cuba, M.J.?” Belinda asked the young woman.

  There was a moment of silence. M.J. nodded again. “Yes, I do.”

  She wanted to tell Belinda that she was homesick, that there were nights when Samuel was in Costa Rica that she’d cried herself to sleep, and the days when Bessie did not come to clean the house she only got out of bed when nature forced her. In a moment of weakness she’d
regretted marrying Samuel Cole and leaving her home, believing it would’ve been better to marry one of the men her father had selected for her if only to offset the isolation and loneliness.

  Samuel wound an arm around M.J.’s waist, pulling her to his side. “After I open the office and get everything running smoothly, M.J. and I will take frequent trips to Cuba.”

  Surprise siphoned the blood from M.J.’s face. Office. Samuel hadn’t mentioned that he was going to open an office. She thought he was more than content conducting business out of their home. Resentment swelled in her until she felt light-headed.

  She’d married a man who continued to confound her. He wouldn’t discuss business at their table, and didn’t discuss his business with her away from the table. Did he believe she was so unintelligent or disinterested in what he did that he felt it necessary to keep secrets from her?

  She remembered what her father had told her: Your novio is young and very ambitious. Which means you must be patient and support him in all his endeavors.

  She did support her husband and she was patient—very, very patient. But she was almost out of patience. Some of the stiffness left her; she had enough patience to wait until they were on their way to Cuba. That way her husband wouldn’t be able to evade her questions.

  M.J. stood next to Samuel in the parlor, smiling when she was introduced to her brothers-in-law and their wives. Her smile faltered slightly when she saw Thomas’s wife’s rounded belly, wishing it were she carrying Samuel’s child.

  Annie-Mae, Mark’s wife, leaned forward and kissed M.J.’s cheek. “You have no idea how shocked we were when Samuel told us he was getting married.”

  M.J. liked Annie-Mae. “I was just as shocked when Samuel proposed.”

  Thomas Cole rubbed Eugenia’s belly, his hazel gaze roving over M.J. as if she were a delectable sweet. If nothing, his youngest brother had chosen well. Not only was Marguerite-Josefina beautiful, but there was no doubt she’d come from a good family. He knew men who’d married foreign women to rescue them from a life of poverty or servitude.

  “How long did you know my brother before he asked you to—” Thomas’s query stopped abruptly when Eugenia elbowed him in the ribs.

  Samuel and M.J. shared a smile. “Not long,” they chorused.

  Eugenia placed a hand over Thomas’s as the child in her womb moved vigorously. “Why did you marry so quickly? You don’t look as if you’re with child.”

  An attractive blush covered M.J.’s face. “I only wish I were. I married Samuel because I fell in love with him the first time I saw him.”

  “That’s really romantic,” Annie-Mae crooned.

  Eugenia sighed. “I agree.” She had been prepared not to like Samuel’s wife because she’d sung his praises to her best friend, but could find no fault in the woman who’d become her sister-in-law. M.J., as she’d asked to be called, was pretty, articulate—although she spoke English with a hint of an accent—and fashionably dressed. And seeing her and Samuel together was evidence enough that he was in love with her.

  Belinda entered the parlor, drying her hands on a towel. She touched Mark’s arm. “Why are you here so early?”

  He kissed his mother’s forehead. “Thomas suggested we leave church early. We thought something had happened to you when you didn’t show up.” Belinda Cole never missed Sunday morning services—rain or shine, hot or cold, well or unwell.

  Belinda looped her arm through Mark’s. “Thanks for worrying about your mama. M.J. asked me to teach her to cook some down-home dishes, so I guess I lost track of time.”

  “What did you cook, M.J.?” Annie-Mae asked.

  “I learned how to make grits and biscuits. I also found out that Sammy loves grits with chicken liver for breakfast.” Everyone exchanged knowing glances when she referred to Samuel as Sammy.

  “Speaking of food, I’m ready to eat,” Eugenia said loudly.

  Thomas massaged her belly over a pale blue linen tunic. “When aren’t you hungry, Genie?” he teased.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Keep running off at the mouth, Thomas Isaac Cole, and you’ll find yourself sleeping at Miss Sally’s Boardinghouse.”

  “Damn,” Samuel whispered under his breath. “I know you’re not going to let your woman put you out of your own home.”

  “Samuel,” Belinda admonished, glaring at her youngest, “you know I don’t abide swearing on the Sabbath.”

  “Sorry, Mama,” he mumbled as he averted his head so she wouldn’t see his smile.

  “You’re forgiven,” she said softly. “Annie-Mae, you and Genie can help me and M.J. put the finishing touches on dinner.”

  Eugenia and Annie-Mae exchanged puzzling glances, then followed Belinda and M.J. into the kitchen.

  Waiting until the women left the parlor, Samuel went over to a side table and selected two cigars from a wooden box, clipped the ends and handed them to his brothers. “I want you to try these and tell me what you think.”

  Mark put the cigar to his nose, inhaling deeply. His teeth shone whitely under his mustache. “Damn, Sam. It’s sweet,” he said, low enough not to be overheard by the women in the kitchen. “Where did you get this?”

  “From Jose Luis Diaz.”

  “Who the hell is that?” Thomas asked.

  “My wife’s father,” Samuel said proudly.

  Mark’s eyes widened. “Her father is a tobacco farmer?”

  Samuel nodded. “He also has a cigar factory.”

  “Shit,” Thomas drawled, drawing out the expletive into four syllables. “It looks as if you hit the mother lode, little brother. I can see why you married your little senorita.”

  Suddenly Samuel’s expression went grim. “Her father’s money has nothing to do with why I married her.”

  Thomas’s handsome face twisted into a scowl. “Do I look that stupid to you, Samuel? Now I know why you wanted out of our business, because you had your own little enterprises going on behind our backs.”

  Samuel’s temper flared. “I wanted out because of your bullshit! I got tired of arguing with you. What I should’ve done was leave you picking cotton for the rest of your life. You call yourself a businessman when you’re still nothing more than a cotton-shopping sharecropper wearing a fancy suit.”

  Thomas swung at Samuel, but he wasn’t quick enough when he found his throat caught in a savage grip. “This is the last time you’ll raise your hand to me, brother,” Samuel snarled close to his face. “If Genie wasn’t carrying my niece or nephew I’d kill you where you stand. So, think twice about coming at me again, or I’ll forget and make your wife a widow.” Shaking him as if he were an annoying puppy, he released Thomas’s throat.

  Mark stared at Samuel as if he were a stranger. There was something in his brother’s eyes that frightened him. And at that moment he believed Samuel could kill Thomas with his bare hands.

  Dropping an arm over Samuel’s shoulders, he pulled him close. “Let’s go for a walk. I need to sample my cigar.”

  Samuel glared at Thomas rubbing his throat, then turned and picked up his cigar and followed Mark to the door. Once outside he closed his eyes, aware of how close he had come to murdering his brother.

  And he hadn’t lied about why he’d severed his business relationship with his brothers. Thomas’s vacillating moods kept him off balance, and there were times if he had been carrying a gun he would’ve shot him. Thomas was too much like Charles in appearance and in temperament.

  At first Samuel felt guilty about abandoning Mark, but knew his personality was better suited to dealing with Thomas than his. It wasn’t until he lit the cigar and drew in a mouthful of flavorful tobacco that some of the rage left him.

  He’d given Mark and Thomas the cigars because he’d contemplated making them partners in the United Fruit-Diaz cigar proposal; however, that all changed with Thomas’s outburst.

  Ten percent of the profits would go to Everett Kirkland, and the remaining ninety percent would be targeted for future investments.

  Ch
apter 15

  Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact.

  —Emma Goldman

  M.J. closed her eyes, shutting out the flickering candles throwing long and short shadows on the cabin walls and ceiling. A violent thunderstorm had swept over the Gulf, downing wires carrying electricity into Panama City and as far north as Tallahassee. The sound of the rain beating against the porthole, and the motion of the ship, made her sleepy. The warm body in the bed beside her moved closer.

  “Did you enjoy visiting with my family, baby?”

  She shifted on her side and pressed a kiss to Samuel’s bare shoulder. “Si, mi amor.”

  She’d been truthful with him. Belinda had become the mother she’d lost, and Eugenia and Annie-Mae the sisters she never had. She’d spent the two weeks cooking with her mother-in-law and shopping with her sisters-in-law.

  Samuel pulled her closer and eased her leg over his. “My mother is very fond of you.”

  “I feel the same about her,” M.J. said, rubbing her nose against the crisp, curling hair on his chest. “Samuel?”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you planned to open an office?”

  There was a long pause before he said, “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  Pulling out of his loose embrace, she sat up. “Interested? I’m your wife, Samuel. Everything you do, every decision you make is of interest to me. I would hope that you would confide in me.”

  “There’s nothing to confide, darling. I decided it was best not to continue to work out of our home. If I have to hold meetings I don’t want strangers knowing where I live. I want my private life kept separate from my business affairs.” He tugged on the single braid resting between her breasts. “Does that answer your question?”

  She smiled. “Yes, it does.”