She took a step back from him. Her first attraction to him was fading. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve never met him. Sara told me he was her cousin, and if you’re also her cousin, then I assumed you were related to Ramsey.”
“I am. But then, we’re all cousins. Sara, Rams, Charlie, Ken, and me. We have the same great-grandparents.”
There was something about his attitude that she didn’t like. He was laughing at her, but she had no idea what she was doing to amuse him. As far as she could tell, the entire town seemed to be related to one another. “What about Ramsey’s sister? Is she a cousin too?”
He looked puzzled. “Of course she is. She’s…” He stopped because he realized she was teasing him. He’d left some people off the list of cousins. He often found that people not from the South laughed when relatives were mentioned. “Are you a—”
“So help me, if you ask me if I’m a Yankee, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he asked, his eyebrows raised in interest.
“I’ll cut the heads off the roses. I don’t know. How do you punish a gardener?”
He gave her a look that almost made her blush. “That’s the most interesting question I’ve been asked all day.”
She was quickly developing a dislike of the man. Jocelyn looked at her watch. “I have to go. I’m meeting someone.”
“Yeah, Rams. He’s over there working up a sweat to make a fairyland for you two.”
“That was nasty of you to ruin the surprise.”
“Waste of time, if you ask me.”
She gave him a look up and down that she hoped was full of contempt. “But then I suppose your idea of a date is a six-pack and a bag of potato chips.”
“Corn chips,” he said. “I like corn chips. I especially like those blue ones. She shows up with blue corn chips and a six of Samuel Adams and she just might get lucky.”
“I guess that’s supposed to be funny.”
“Just being honest.”
“You’re like so many men I’ve met—and never want to meet again.” She went to the back door to open it and leave, but he blocked her way.
“You can’t leave yet. Rams said he’d ring the bell when he’s ready.”
“He sent you over here to detain me?”
“He’s not that dumb. He sent me to tell Sara to keep you busy, but he forgot to ask me if Sara was here. Why don’t you sit down and be still so you don’t wrinkle your pretty new dress? I’m going to make myself a sandwich. I’d offer you one, but Rams has enough food for half the town over there, so you better not eat now.”
She was standing at the end of Sara’s Formica-clad counter and considering what to do next. Stay here and have this vain man laugh at her for things she didn’t understand, or leave and spoil Ramsey’s surprise? All in all, she thought that she’d rather see Ramsey than stay here with this man.
Jocelyn turned just as Luke went to put his sandwich ingredients on the counter. Her arm hit his hand, and the plastic mustard dispenser squirted on her. Bright yellow mustard went down the front of her white dress.
“You did that on purpose,” she said. “You meant to do that.”
“No I didn’t,” he said, and sounded truly contrite. “Honest, I didn’t.” Gone was the attitude and the half smirk he’d worn since he’d pushed his way into the apartment. “I am sorry. Really.”
Turning, he grabbed a clean dishcloth off the rack over the sink and wet it. “Here,” he said, “let me help you.”
She held her blouse out from her chest as she thought about how she could slip back into the house and change without seeing Ramsey. But he said he was going to set up the picnic on the floor. If that meant the hall, there was no way she could get past him—which meant she was going to meet him with her front covered in mustard.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Jocelyn and Luke turned toward the back door and there stood a man she was sure was Ramsey. He was an inch or two shorter than Luke and a bit heavier, but he had the same dark hair and green eyes, and almost the same nose and chin. They were two truly gorgeous men.
Jocelyn looked from Ramsey to Luke and saw that he was hovering over the front of her with a wet cloth. Instantly, she stepped out of his reach. “He threw mustard on me,” she said, her eyes on Ramsey.
Ramsey looked at Luke with a threat in his eyes.
Luke threw up his hands. “Accident. I swear. She’s yours.” With his hands still up, he backed out of the room, and she heard the front door open and close.
“Are you all right?” Ramsey asked.
“Fine. Really, I am, but I look awful. I wanted to at least be presentable when we met.”
“You look great!” Ramsey said with such enthusiasm that she smiled back.
“You’re very kind.”
“No I’m not. I’m a lawyer, remember? How about if we go to your house, the main part of it, that is, and have something to eat? Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
He went down the hall to the front door and opened it for her, and when she was beside him, he said, “I apologize for my cousin. Luke is…” He gave a shrug, as though there were no words to describe the man.
“That’s all right,” Jocelyn said. “We all have relatives.”
“Unfortunately, I have more than most.”
As they stepped outside, she saw Luke speed away in a beat-up old truck that reminded her of the vehicles she’d seen around her father’s house when she was growing up. As far as she could tell, Luke Connor was the kind of man Miss Edi had warned her against. Worse, he was the kind of man Jocelyn’s sweet, elegant, educated mother had fallen so hard for. After they were married, Gary Minton had done what he could to be what his refined little wife’s family wanted him to be, but a month after she died, he was back in leathers, whiskers on his face, and straddling a Harley.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ramsey asked. “Did Luke upset you that bad?”
“Of course not,” Jocelyn said, smiling as she came back to the present. “Let me change my clothes and I’ll be fine.”
“Tonight your smallest wish is my command,” Ramsey said and gave her a half bow.
“Then, kind sir, lead me to yon castle that I might prepare myself for thee.”
Ramsey grinned, held out his arm to her, and they walked together to the front door of Edilean Manor.
4
THIS IS TRULY beautiful,” Jocelyn said and meant it. Ramsey had gone to a lot of trouble with the dinner, and she appreciated it. There was an old, white, trapuntoed quilt on the floor of the hallway and two huge pillows on each side. The meal was angel hair pasta in a light sauce of sautéed tomatoes and basil, with bread and salad.
“Did you get the vegetables from Sara’s mother?” she asked.
“Of course. If I bought tomatoes that didn’t come from her I think she might picket my office.”
The dishes were Limoges in one of her favorite patterns, and the wineglasses had to have come from Colonial Williamsburg. They were handblown in an eighteenth-century design.
Ramsey was stretched out on the pillow opposite her, and in the candlelight he looked even more handsome than he did when she first met him. The truth was that he made her a bit nervous. There was something about the absolute perfection of him that made her wish she were more perfect.
“Why is there so little furniture in the house?” Joce asked. She was sitting upright on the opposite side of the quilt. “I don’t mean to sound greedy, but it seems strange that a house that’s been lived in for so many generations would have so little in it. If I’d guessed, I would have said it was packed to the gills with at least a lot of Victorian ornaments.”
“In a word, Bertrand,” Ramsey said. He’d finished his pasta and was sipping the white wine. “I don’t really know too much about it, as my father personally handled Miss Edi, but Dad always muttered things under his breath whenever ol’ Bertrand’s name was mentioned. I think he had a problem with the horses.”
“Your father gambled?” Joce asked.
Ramsey looked at her to see if she was kidding.
“Sorry. My sense of humor,” she said. “So Bertrand had a gambling problem.”
Ramsey looked at her over the wineglass. “He had some kind of problem. At least I think he did. I never really knew Miss Edi, but from what I heard of her, it always struck me as odd that she let him sell off most everything that was in this house. I remember when I was a kid and a huge truck pulled up in front of the house.”
“It got through those narrow gates?”
“Good eye!” he said. “No, no truck can get through those pillars. Luke’s pickup has been scraped on them more than once.”
Ramsey took a drink of wine, then got up to begin clearing away the remnants of the pasta and salad. When Joce started to help him, he told her to sit still. She waited while he carried the plates into the kitchen, and when he returned, he had a little machine that looked like a fondue pot. “My sister assures me that this thing is perfect for melting chocolate. She says her second child was conceived the night they bought it.” He looked at her. “Sorry. Bad story for a first date.”
“You’re forgiven, but only if you tell me about the moving van.”
“Oh, yes. They had to park it in the road, and a smaller truck carried furniture out to it. It was a Saturday and all of us kids nearly drove the movers crazy. We were in the truck, in the house, even hiding inside cabinets that they had to carry. They were ready to throw us all into the pond.”
“What did your parents say? Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“They were right there, watching everything, and the adults who couldn’t be there to watch paid us to run to their house every hour and tell them what was going on. Sara was the fastest on her bike, so she delivered the messages. You know, I still think she didn’t split the money fairly. I think she kept most of it for herself.”
“The cousins,” Joce said, smiling. “All for one; one for all.”
He broke pieces of chocolate into the little pot that he’d plugged in, and was now stirring them around. “I guess. I think it was fun when we were kids, but now I find it more than a little confining. Like today. I really apologize about what—”
Joce didn’t want to hear another word about Luke and the mustard. “What did they take away in the van?”
“The good stuff.”
“The yellow couch, the end tables, the big armoire, the four chairs in the dining room,” Joce said. “It was all in Miss Edi’s house in Florida. I believe she sold what she didn’t send back here at auction.”
“I know she did.”
“And the money…?”
“Nope,” Ramsey said. “I’m not saying a word about business tonight. Which means that you have to come to my office first thing Monday morning so I can tell you everything.”
“I bet there are contingencies concerning the house, aren’t there?”
Ramsey shook his head at her. “Don’t try to get ’round me. I’m not saying a word.”
“All right,” she said, sipping her wine. “So Miss Edi took the good furniture and left the bad stuff for her brother to sell to pay his gambling debts.”
“My mother said she thought Miss Edi used her brother to run a big yard sale. It saved her money and gave him something to do.”
“That sounds like her.”
“There!” Ramsey said. “The pot is ready. Take one of these.” He held out a little box full of long forks. “And spear one of these.” He opened a container of fat, perfectly ripe strawberries. “Then dip.”
She did so. “Delicious. Really wonderful. I feel pregnant already.” When he didn’t say anything, she looked at him. “Yet again, my dumb sense of humor.”
“No, I like it. It’s just that I’m not used to beautiful girls who can make jokes.”
“They don’t have to. They just sit there, and that’s enough.”
“I meant…,” he began, then smiled. “I’m coming off as a moron. It’s just that I want this night to succeed.”
Jocelyn wiped chocolate off her chin. “It’s succeeding with me. Hey! Thanks for fixing the bedroom for me.”
“The bedroom?”
“You know, linens, soap, that sort of thing. I would have had to spend the night elsewhere if you hadn’t done that. You did do it, didn’t you?”
“’Fraid not. Probably some of the ladies from the church.”
“Speaking of which, I saw a church when I drove in. Miss Edi and I went every Sunday, and I miss it.”
“Church,” Ramsey said, as though he’d never heard of the place before. “If you show up in church on Sunday my mother is going to think you’re so perfect that she’s going to go out and buy us wedding rings.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Are you kidding? I’m thirty-two and haven’t produced a kid.”
“What about your sister and your other siblings?”
“It’s just the two of us,” Ramsey said, “and my mother isn’t content with the brood that Viv produces. She wants kids from me too.”
From the way he was looking at her, Jocelyn didn’t know whether to fall into his arms or push him out the door and bolt it. “I wear a size five ring, and I want a four-carat, emerald-cut, pink diamond.”
This time Ramsey groaned. “You tell her that and I’m a goner.”
“Does Sara make wedding dresses? If she does, I have some ideas about mine.”
Ramsey laughed.
“No, really. You think Sara’s mom could get enough white roses together for me that I could fill the church?”
“Stop it!” he said, laughing. “Really, we can’t talk about this or my mother will somehow hear it and show up at the door. If you had any idea what I go through—” He cut himself off. “What I want to hear about is you and Miss Edi.”
“We were kindred souls,” Jocelyn said. She opened her mouth to start telling him her life story, but she stopped herself. If she told everything tonight, what would they talk about on the second date? And she truly hoped there would be a second date because she liked him.
“Okay,” Ramsey said, “keep your secrets. But I’ll get them out of you.”
As she watched, he got up off the pillows, and standing up, he stretched. His shirt clung to the muscles in his chest and arms, and Joce couldn’t pry her eyes away. When he caught her looking, she quickly turned away, but it wasn’t fast enough to keep her from being embarrassed.
“Do you play golf?” he asked.
“What?”
“Golf? Do you play?”
“No.”
“Tennis?” he asked.
“Sorry. No tennis. And before you ask, I don’t swim very well, and I don’t play bridge, and I’m not good at clubs.”
“So what do you like to do?” he asked. “No, wait, don’t tell me. Let me find out. You must do something besides dream about your wedding.”
“Not much.”
Smiling, he began to clear up the dishes, but this time Joce helped. “So what do you imagine the groom looking like?”
“Blond, blue eyed,” she said instantly, and Ramsey laughed.
“I deserved that.” He put the dishes on the big kitchen table and looked around him. “You must want to redo this kitchen.”
There were three naked lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, and the light glared off everything, making it almost eerie in the room. “How could you even think of changing this room?” she said in mock horror.
“How about a marble-topped island instead of this table?” he asked, looking at her. “And a new sink, of course.”
She looked at the sink and felt a pang at the thought of its going. It was huge and on legs, with two enormous bowls with a tall porcelain back, and drain boards on both sides. She looked away from it. “Are you asking me if I can cook?” Before he could answer, she said, “I can’t. Miss Edi had a woman who’d worked for her for over twenty years, and she cooked wonderful meals. Meanwhile, at my parents’ house…Well, the
less said about there the better. But I can make cupcakes.”
“Cupcakes?”
“It was a project I did in school, and Miss Edi let me use her kitchen. I can even use a pastry tube.”
“That’s good,” he said, but his voice sounded dubious, and for a while there was a silence between them, and Jocelyn suppressed a yawn. It had been a very long day.
“Look, I think I better go,” he said. “It’s getting late. Shall I pick you up for church tomorrow?”
“If you and I walked into church together, we would be mated for life.” She was making a joke, but he didn’t smile.
“I’ve heard of worse things.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “How about if I meet you there? Ten A.M., right?”
“If you miss Sunday School, it is, and I usually do.”
“Late sleeper?”
“Late worker,” he said. “I have about three hours of paperwork to do tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Could I help?”
For a moment he looked puzzled, as though he were trying to figure out if she was again joking. “Thanks, but no. We’re handling a big divorce case and I’m trying to find some missing money. How could a man afford to pay cash for a three-million-dollar house if he only makes sixty grand a year? At least that’s the question his wife wants to know.”
“I’m not good on money,” she said, “but I could…I’ve done a lot of research, so if you ever need help on that, let me know.”
“And cupcakes,” he said, smiling. “We can’t forget the cupcakes.”
“I never forget the cupcakes,” she said, but her smile was forced. When he reached for a plate, she said, “Just leave everything and I’ll clean up tomorrow. You need to go to work and get as much done as possible so you can go to church in the morning.”
“Thanks,” he said, then seemed not to know what else to say. “So I’ll see you in church then?”
“If you can pull yourself out of bed,” she said.
He started toward the front door, and she followed him. He opened it, then paused, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but then he stepped onto the little porch.
Lavender Morning Page 7