“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.”