Chapter 4 Matt
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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.