“Not that I know of,” Luke said. “My dad ran offices full of salesmen and my grandfather was a doctor.”
“Like Sara’s father.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, obviously pleased that she knew that. “Uncle Henry worked with my grandfather for years before Gramps retired.”
“To take you fishing,” Joce said. “Just the two of you.”
“That was the other grandfather.”
“Oh,” she said.
Luke opened the door to the brick building and Joce knew they were in his workshop. It was nice in there. Above the workbench with its tools was a round window. She stood on tiptoe to look out it and saw how close they were to the house. In fact, when she turned her head, she could see the entire back of the house and both apartment doors. She saw the little white table where she’d sat with Sara and talked.
She got off her toes and looked at Luke as he studiously moved some tools around on top of an old cabinet on the opposite wall. “When you’re in here, you can see everything that goes on at the back of the house.”
“Can you?” he asked. “I guess I never noticed.”
She glared at him until he turned to look at her, giving her a one-sided grin. Yet something else she’d learned about him. Now that Luke was looking a bit guilty at what could possibly be interpreted as spying, she thought she’d do what she could to get information out of him. “So who was Tess talking to on the phone today?”
Luke walked to the door of the shop. “About three?”
Jocelyn nodded.
“Her brother. She talks to him every Sunday afternoon no matter what. You could take her to a rock concert or have her hypnotized and if it was Sunday she’d call her brother.”
“You sound almost jealous.”
“You’re an only child like I am, so aren’t you jealous of people who have siblings to share their lives with?”
“Only child,” Joce said. “What a lovely thought. I have—” She broke off. There was no way she was going to tell him who her stepsisters were. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of
fantasies about having sisters who were good and kind and who actually liked me.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Did my remark open a can of worms?”
“If you did, let’s have Ramsey make us a casserole,” she said quickly, making Luke laugh.
“Pies. He made pies with a mud crust,” he said. “When he was seven and Sara was barely a year old, he almost got her to eat one, but her mother caught him, and…” He looked around, as though to see if anyone was listening. “None of us ever knew what happened, but Aunt Ellie—that’s Sara’s mother—took Ramsey into her house, and when he came out, he looked downright green, and he never again made a worm pie.”
“I don’t know if I wish I’d grown up in this town or I’m glad I didn’t.”
“What was it like living with Miss Edi? Afternoon tea and concerts on weekends?”
“I didn’t—” Jocelyn began, but closed her mouth. Let him think that she lived with Miss Edi full-time if he wanted to. It was too complicated to explain that her elegant mother fell in love with a man who thought what was painted on the gas tank of a Harley was high art. Too much trouble to explain her mother’s death, her father’s remarriage, and how Jocelyn had grown up with people who were so unlike her that she often felt as though she were from a different planet. Until she met Miss Edi, Jocelyn knew no other world.
“You didn’t what?” he asked.
She started to make up something, but his cell phone rang.
He opened it and said “Yeah” four times, then handed it to her. “It’s for you.”
“Me? But who…” Luke’s eyes told her. Ramsey.
“Hello,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“So you’re going through the garden with Luke,” Ramsey said. “I wish I’d known you wanted to see it. I could have taken you.”
“Or I could have gone myself,” she said. “Luke works for me, remember?”