“All right!” she snapped. “Tomorrow afternoon I’ll go with you to buy plants. I don’t know what kind of plants, but whatever you tell me we need, we’ll get. Why do you want me to go with you? Just to annoy Ramsey?”
“You don’t have to go with me,” he said, his voice lowering. “You could tell Rams that you can stay at lunch all afternoon because you have nothing else to do. Or you can tell him you have to leave because you’re going with me to buy flowers.”
Jocelyn blinked at him a few times, then smiled. “You have a brain under those whiskers, don’t you?”
“My mom thinks so. My dad is less sure.”
“What time do you want to leave?”
“Two. On the dot. I’ll pick you up outside the restaurant.”
“How do you know where he’s taking me for lunch?”
Luke snorted. “The Trellis. That’s where he always takes his women out on the second date—if there is one, that is. It’s in Colonial Williamsburg. He’ll order the special, then tell you you must share a piece of chocolate cake with him. It’s great cake. The best. But it will take you until two-thirty to eat everything.”
They were back at the new herb garden site and Luke’s truck. “So I’m to tell him I have to leave at two?” she asked, thinking about what he was saying. All in all, she liked it. “If I were a less cynical person, I’d think you were trying to help me with Ramsey.”
“He is my cousin,” Luke said with a shrug, but he turned away so she couldn’t see his smile.
“That’s nice of you,” she said, but her voice was hesitant. She slapped at a mosquito on her arm and decided it was time to go inside. “I think I’m done for the day.” The light was fading. “Are you going to work much longer?”
“No, I’ll just clean up, then go home.”
She started to ask him where he lived but decided it was too personal a question.
“Tess let you keep enough food for tonight?” he asked as he scraped dirt off a shovel with a trowel, then put it in the back of the pickup.
“Yes, but I need to buy some cookware for the kitchen,” she said. “And I need to go to a grocery store.”
“Easy enough,” he said as he put a pitchfork into the truck. “Maybe tomorrow we can—”
“Just show me where things are and I’ll find them,” she said as she started for the house. “See you tomorrow at two.”
In the next minute she was back in the house, and the stillness of it seemed almost eerie. It was a house that needed people. When there was one other person in it or several, the house came alive. It almost seemed to smile. But when Jocelyn was in it alone, she wanted to run upstairs and shut the bedroom door.
She went to the kitchen and picked up a couple of oranges out of a bowl. The table was covered with clean dishes that had contained the welcome food people had sent. Sara said that during the week the women would
stop by to pick up their dishes and to have a chat. “People haven’t been in this house in years and they’re dying to see the inside of it,” she said.
Jocelyn had groaned, dreading the constant tour guiding she’d have to do.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sara said. “They’ll come in groups and save you from having to do too much.”
Joce had smiled weakly. Now, she turned off the light, went into the big hallway, and checked both doors to make sure they were locked. She left a low-wattage light on in the hall and started up the stairs. Just as it was downstairs, there was a wide hall with rooms leading off of it. One side was the big master bedroom with an enormous bathroom, while the other side had been made into two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.
She took a shower, moisturized her entire body, put on her nightgown, then walked toward the bed. On impulse, she looked out the window, parting the curtain just enough to see out. Luke’s truck was in the driveway and the engine was running. Was he waiting for Tess? she wondered. Reaching over, she turned out the bedside lamp, and when the room was dark, Luke slowly drove through the gates. He’d been waiting for her to turn out the light.
Jocelyn meant to get into bed and wait a bit, then she’d turn the light back on and read a while, but the next thing she knew a ray of sunlight was coming through the curtains. It was morning.
8
JOCELYN LAY IN bed for a while, her hands behind her head, and looked at the ceiling of the bedroom. The house was hers, but since she’d arrived, she’d had very little time to herself.
She glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it wasn’t even seven, and she didn’t have to be anywhere until eleven. She’d use the time to look at the house thoroughly, not in the cursory way she had done.
She washed and dressed quickly, not bothering to blow-dry her hair, but pulling it back off her face. She glanced at her shiny skin, thought about putting on makeup, but didn’t. Miss Edi was of the Estée Lauder school that believed a woman should wear full makeup at every moment. Even at the end, Miss Edi had dressed beautifully and always wore lightly applied cosmetics.
But this morning, Miss Edi’s voice seemed farther off than usual, and Jocelyn didn’t want to take the time to “put on war paint,” as her father used to say.