Jocelyn narrowed her eyes at Tess. “I can’t see that either you or I know what’s best for Sara and that we should let her live her own life.”
“That’s a thought,” Tess said, then she glanced up at the window by her door. “Rams is back.”
For a moment, Jocelyn just sat there, staring at Tess. It had only been a flash, maybe a sixty-fourth of a second, but there had been a light in Tess’s eyes when she saw Ramsey, that…Joce wasn’t sure what it meant, but she knew that Tess was glad to see him.
Turning in her seat, Joce watched Ramsey stride through the building and straight to Tess’s office. He didn’t slow down to set his briefcase down, or acknowledge the greetings of the many people who said hello to him. He ignored the pink telephone notices that the two secretaries tried to hand to him. Instead, he raced across the long room to get to Tess. He threw her door open so hard he nearly hit Joce with it—but he didn’t notice.
“What’s happened while I was away?” Ramsey asked her.
Joce sat in her chair, half hidden by the door, and looked from one to the other, and noted the way their eyes saw only each other—and Jocelyn wanted to do a dance of joy. It was almost as though she could hear bagpipe music in her head and she wanted to put her arms above her head and do a Highland reel.
Smiling so wide she was showing her back teeth, Joce said, “Hi, Ramsey. Have a nice time in Boston?”
When Ramsey turned to look at her, there was a second when his eyes didn’t register who she was. “Jocelyn!” he cried, sounding as though she were the person he most wanted to see in the whole world. In the next second he had his arms around her and was hugging her.
“Did you miss me? Did my horrible cousin try to run off with you?”
“Which one of your cousins would that be? You have so many.”
“Luke,” Ramsey said as he put his face in her neck, as though he meant to start kissing her.
Joce stole a look at Tess and saw that she had sat back down at her desk and was studiously looking at some papers. Joce pushed Ramsey away from her. “How can anyone run off with me when I’m anchored to that house? I was just about to tell Tess that Greg Anders offered to buy it from me. He knows I have no money to support the place, so he volunteered to take it off my hands.”
“Who the hell is Greg Anders?” Ramsey asked Tess.
“Sara’s new boyfriend,” Tess said. “Bought a house here, has lots of money, and they’re opening a designer dress shop in the old furniture store.”
Ramsey’s eyes widened. “This all happened in the short time I was away?”
“Mmmm,” Joce said. “Lots has happened since you were away.”
He turned a serious face to her. “Such as?”
“I think I’ll let Tess tell you,” Joce said. She was trying to get her smile under control, but she couldn’t. “I need to go.”
“You aren’t going to do more painting, are you?” Tess asked.
“You’re painting Edilean Manor?” Ramsey asked, his voice full of horror.
“Lavender,” Joce said. “My favorite color. Think about the morning sun hitting that lavender house. The image boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
“You can’t—” Ramsey began as Jocelyn closed the door, and she heard Tess say, “She was making a joke, so try to find your sense of humor and don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Laughing, Joce left the office, aware that the secretaries were staring at her in disbelief. Joce was probably the only person to ever leave Tess’s office and be laughing.
22
LUKE WAS GONE for nearly two weeks. During that time, he didn’t call her or contact her in any way. But Jocelyn was fine. She now knew where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. She thought it had a lot to do with the way Sara looked at Greg, and that flash of light in Tess’s eyes when she first saw Ramsey. Love didn’t have room for the word should in it. She should be interested in Ramsey because Miss Edi told her he was the perfect man for her, and with that great house to care for, she should share it with Ramsey. He’d know how to decorate it and care for it. Luke would probably put weeds in empty mayonnaise jars and think they looked great.
But none of that mattered. Jocelyn knew where her heart lay, and that made her at peace.
She spent most of the time he was away in Williamsburg researching. One day she idly looked up the name of Angus Harcourt and found that he’d been part of the founding of the country. He’d never been a politician, but he’d been there and he’d had a lot to say about breaking away from England.
Joce hadn?
??t thought much about the man, just smiling at the story that Miss Edi had included in her letter in her will. It was romantic to think of a young Scotsman kidnapping the laird’s daughter and running away with her and a wagon full of gold, but she hadn’t thought about what they did afterward.
Jocelyn had joked about writing a history of Edilean, but finding Angus Harcourt’s name mentioned along with that of Thomas Jefferson made her see the possibilities of such a book.