“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.”