“Why would she go home to Edilean? What was waiting for her? An old house that costs a lot to keep in repair and a brother who set standards for laziness?”
“And your very happy grandfather,” Joce said.
“Yes, my happy grandfather, who had broken up with Edi the day after Pearl Harbor was hit.”
“Did your grandfather ever tell you why they broke off their engagement?”
“Yes. When we went to Richmond he told me that it was because they realized that there was nothing to find out about each other,” Luke said. “Gramps said that when he and Edi saw that they were excited to go off to war, they knew that their perfect lives weren’t so perfect after all. Miss Edi told Gramps that they should have been devastated that the future they’d always looked forward to was going to be changed, but they weren’t. Gramps said she gave back his ring, they shook hands, and laughed together, both of them quite happy for the engagement to be over.”
“But they never told anyone.”
“The whole town would have been sad. War was enough, but it was far away. Edi and David had been together all their lives.”
Joce turned to look at him, stretched out on the blanket they’d brought, his head on his hands. “I’m glad I haven’t known you all my life.”
He moved as though he were going to take her hand in his, but he didn’t. “Jocelyn, I think…,” he began, but cut himself off, then lay back on the blanket. “You still think I’m like your father?”
“Why has that statement bothered you so much?”
“Who wants to be like his girl’s father?”
The old-fashioned term “his girl” made a little shiver run through her body. “The more I hear of Miss Edi’s story, the more I think she and I are alike. And like my mother. We seem to like only men who…” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Who aren’t lawyers?” Luke said. “Your mother fell for a handyman and Miss Edi loved a car mechanic, and now you like the gardener.”
She could feel the anger under his voice. “Luke, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You ready to leave?” he said as he got up.
She st
ood up. “Are you angry at me?”
“For telling me that you…what? That you like me in spite of who and what I am? What if I’d become a doctor like my grandfather? Would you like me better then?”
“No, but I could afford some furniture for that big house,” she said, smiling.
Luke didn’t smile. “So this is about money? As soon as Rams gets back in town are you planning to run to him because he’s rich?”
“I was just making a joke,” Joce said. “I would never marry a man just for money.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you want my cousin for the life you think he can give you. Vacations to the Orient, nannies for the kids, silver for the table. Is that what’s important to you?”
When he started to move away, she put her hand on his arm. “None of that is important to me,” she said. “If it were up to me I’d live in a two-bedroom ranch and write while the kids take naps. But Miss Edi left me that house, so I—”
“Miss Edi!” Luke said. “Is she all you think about? Her life, not yours?”
“Of course not! I think about my own life, but Miss Edi said Ramsey was perfect for me.” As soon as she said it, Jocelyn put her hand over her mouth.
“She said what?”
Joce picked up her pack and began to put things inside it.
Luke caught her arm and turned her to face him. “I want to know what you’re talking about. When did she tell you about Ramsey?”
“In the letter she left me with her will. You didn’t know her, but she was great at judging couples who’d stay together or not, and she said that there was a man in Edilean who was perfect for me.”
Luke dropped her arm and stepped back. “And that was my cousin Ramsey?”