Tess just looked about the kitchen.
“Ah,” Sara said.
“What does that mean?” Joce asked. “Did I miss something?”
“You inherited this house. You inherited…What is it, Tess? Millions?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
Both women looked at her, not blinking, and waited.
Tess shrugged as she bit into a chicken leg. “You tell Rams I told you and I’ll burn the house down with you in it.”
“Sounds fair to me,” Joce said.
“The money stays with the house. If you stay here, you control it all, but if you leave, both the house and the money go to some foundation.”
“The Great Sin,” Jocelyn said. “If I leave, strangers will come into Edilean. How will the townspeople stand it?”
“They have to have strangers to breed with,” Tess said. “To give variety to the gene pool.”
“Cut it out,” Sara said. “I’ll have you know that Edilean is a very nice place to live.”
“It is since they put in the outlet mall in Williamsburg,” Tess said.
“Outlet mall?” Joce said. “Why did no one tell me that oh-so-vital piece of information?”
“Because you’ve spent all your time with the best-looking men in this one-horse town,” Tess said.
“Meow,” Sara said.
“You’re just jealous because we can have the men here and you can’t. They’re all your relatives.”
“So what’s with you and Ramsey?” Joce asked Tess. “I saw the photo of you in the red dress.”
Tess gave a little smile. “That was a day! I was in the best shape of my life, and here was this jerk telling me I was to dress more conservatively. Did he think I didn’t know that all those men were watching every step I took? If I started wearing dresses, they’d do the John Candy.”
Joce looked at her in question.
“Drop something on the floor, then look up as they pick it up?”
“I hope you’re exaggerating,” Joce said. “Surely they wouldn’t…”
“Maybe not, but they’d think about it. That was more than I wanted.”
“Okay, so men are men. You certainly showed them, though.”
Tess shrugged. “Maybe. I paid the price by having photos of me posted all over the Internet. Ken wanted to put the picture on a brochure about the law office, but his wife wouldn’t let him.”
“Where did he get his wife?” Joce asked.
“Massachusetts,” Tess said quickly. “Mail order.”
“You two are bad,” Sara said. “You’d think you didn’t like this town.”
“What do I know?” Joce said. “I just got here. So far I’ve had a lawyer make me a very romantic picnic on the floor, but he left after only an hour and a half. And I have a surly gardener who likes to show up and make me feed him.”
“Luke,” Sara and Tess said in unison.
“What’s his problem?”
Tess and Joce looked at Sara.
“Don’t look at me, I don’t know. Yes, I grew up with him, sort of, but he’s years older than I am, so I never really knew him. Big high school athletic superstars don’t pay much attention to little cousins in elementary school. After high school he left town, and…” She trailed off with a shrug.
“And started a career mowing lawns. He seems intelligent, so why doesn’t he have a proper job?” Joce asked.
Sara kept her head down and didn’t answer.
“Why are you just a teaching assistant and now don’t even have that job?” Tess asked. “If Miss Edi hadn’t left you a fortune, where would you be now?”
“Is it really a fortune?” Joce asked, avoiding the question.
“I think that’s a good question,” Sara said, looking at Joce. “What would you be doing if Miss Edi hadn’t been in your life?”
“I really and truly have no idea,” Joce said. “And I can tell you that I’ve given it plenty of thought.”
“What about you, Tess?” Sara asked. “You work for MAW, but you can’t stand any of them, so what would you like to do?”
“Have an old lady leave me millions.”
“That’s not fair,” Sara said. “You should—”
“No, let her talk,” Jocelyn said. “Okay, so if you were left a big old house and a fortune, what would you do all day? Would you become a lady who lunches?”
“Lord no! That would make me insane. I’d…”
“You’d what?” Jocelyn asked. “I’d like to hear your ideas.”
“I don’t know. Start a business of my own?” Tess said.
“What kind of business?” Sara asked.
Jocelyn looked at Sara in speculation. “You have something you’d like to do, don’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”
Tess picked up an olive and sucked out the red pimento center. “Have you seen the clothes she designs?”
“You didn’t tell me you design clothes,” Joce said, and there was hurt in her voice.
“I’ve had one conversation with you. I couldn’t tell you everything.”
“A dress shop would be a business,” Joce said thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea. What about you, Tess?”
“Don’t look at me. I haven’t a creative bone in my body. I’m good with numbers and organizing.”
“You must be good with men,” Joce said. “That’s why so many of them visit you.”
“Do they?” Tess asked, as though she’d never before thought of that.
“Tess,” Sara said, “be fair. Both Ramsey and Luke were in your apartment yesterday.”
“And how would you know that? They told you, didn’t they? So what did Ramsey say about me?” Tess asked.
“Nothing. It was Luke who told me,” Sara said.
“And when did you see him?”
“This morning. He was out there digging. He wants to put in an herb garden, but now he has to get the owner’s permission before he can do anything.”
“He told me that too,” Tess said.
Both women looked at Jocelyn as though expecting an answer.
“He can put in any kind of garden he wants,” Joce said. “What does it matter to me?”
“This house is now your responsibility,” Tess said. “You owe it to the townspeople, the state, and most of all to your country to honor its long history and to cherish what it means to the American people. You should—”
Joce threw a piece of bread at her, and they all laughed.
7
HI,” JOCELYN SAID to Luke as he lifted the shovel and threw the dirt onto the pile. He glanced at her but said nothing. “So what is this? You’re not speaking to me?”
“I talk when I have something to say.” He picked up a big bag of mulch and threw it on the back of his pickup.
She thought maybe he wanted her to leave him alone, but she didn’t go. It was late Sunday afternoon, and she was exhausted from all that had happened in the last two days. “Did you see the food in my kitchen?”
“I haven’t been in your house since you threw me out last night. And I haven’t checked any door locks or windows.”
“Thanks for not telling Sara that you and I were alone in the house late last night. I know you told her that you went to see Tess, but you didn’t tell about me.”
“So it’s all right for Tess to get a bad reputation but not you?”
“I think that Tess could stand still and do nothing and she’d get a bad reputation. To look at her is to have carnal thoughts.”
Luke turned away quickly, but she saw his smile. “I saw that! If you can smile at my jokes, you’re not totally angry at me.”
“See Rams at church?”
“He sat by me, asked me to marry him, and I accepted.”
“I congratulate you. You two will make a fine couple. This time next year all you’ll want to talk about are curtains.”
“If you can see the future, would you ask it what I’m supposed to do?”
Luke began shoveling again. “What do you mean ‘d
o’?”
Joce looked around for a place to sit, didn’t see one, so she sat on the grass. “Miss Edi—” she began.
“What about her?”
“She was a very important person in my life.”
“We all have important people in our lives.”
“Yeah? So who’s important to you?”
Luke held a shovelful of dirt for a moment. “The usual: parents, friends, relatives. My grandfather was very important to me until he passed away.”
“He’s not important now?” Joce asked softly.
Luke gave a bit of a smile. “Sometimes I think he’s more important to me now than he was when I was growing up. I was a bit of a…Let’s just say that as a kid I was a little bit obstinate.”
“Bullheaded stubborn, had to do everything your own way or you wouldn’t do it?”
“Were you my first grade teacher? The one who stood me in the corner half the day?”
“No, but I’m on her side,” Joce said. “So what about your grandfather?”
“He was a solitary man, liked to do things by himself, and so do I.”
“If that’s a hint for me to go away and leave you alone, I’m not going to do it. That house is too big, too empty, and too…Anyway, it’s nice out here. Tell me your story.”
“There’s nothing to tell. My grandfather and I were alike, that’s all. He liked to be alone and so do I, so we were often alone together.”
“‘Alone together.’ That’s the perfect description of Miss Edi and me. The kids at school thought I was crazy to want to spend time with an old woman with scarred legs. They used to make up stories about how her legs got that way. They—”
“What happened to her legs?” Luke asked.
“World War II,” Joce said. “She was in London in a car that was one of several hit by a bomb. Her side of the car exploded and she was…” Joce hesitated. “She was set on fire. There wasn’t much of her legs left from about the knees down.” Joce shrugged. “No one thought she’d live. She was moved from one hospital to another while they waited for her to die, but she didn’t. By sheer force of will she not only lived, but she walked again, and after the war, she went to work for a doctor. They traveled the world together. After they returned, he used to visit her often, and he was a great storyteller. I used to listen to him for hours.”
She paused for a moment as she thought. “Miss Edi had told me about Dr. Brenner and I’d seen him in countless photos, and I’d always had romantic thoughts about the two of them. I knew he was married and had two daughters, but still, I thought there was some great, unrequited love between them. But five minutes after I met him I knew there was nothing between them like what I thought. They were like a well-oiled machine in that he knew when her legs ached and he never even paused in his talking as he ushered her to the couch, covered her legs, and got her a cup of tea. And she did the same kinds of things for him. At the end, his heart had given out and she made sure he took his medication and didn’t do too much.”
Jocelyn paused as she tried to control her emotions. “But the kids didn’t care about any of that. All they thought about was that her legs ‘looked funny.’ She used to wear thick black hose even in the summer, but you could still see the scars. And as she got older, she walked with two canes.”
Luke paused in his digging to look hard at her.
“What’s that look for?”
“You went to that little college and took a job as a teaching assistant to be near her, didn’t you?”
“No, I liked the school and I liked my job. I did it—” She broke off when he kept looking at her. “Yes, I did, but I didn’t tell her that.”
“And I guess she didn’t know. Too dumb to figure it out, huh?”
Jocelyn gave a little laugh. “She probably knew, but we didn’t talk about it. I guess when you’re Miss Edi’s age you know that there’s time after…After the people you love are gone, you have time to do things, like go to school and even to get a proper job.” She looked at the house in the distance and thought about Miss Edi’s ancestors living there. She could almost see Miss Edi as a child, running out the back door.
“So you got what you wanted from her, didn’t you? She left you this house and lots of money.”
“I did not stay with her because I wanted anything from her!” Jocelyn said as she came to her feet. “I stayed because I loved her. Maybe you don’t understand that but I—” She glared at him. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”
“Got you away from the tears.”
It took Jocelyn a few moments to calm herself, but then she saw what he’d done. “Sneaky.”
“My middle name.”
She sat back down and for a while watched him work. He seemed to have removed all the grass off a big rectangle of an area, piled it into a heap, and was now digging into the bare dirt. “Whatever are you doing?”
“This is called ‘double digging’ but, overall, I’m putting in an herb garden. I asked you about it, but you didn’t say anything, so I went ahead with it. If you don’t speak up, you don’t get a say in its design.”
“You didn’t say a word to me about an herb garden. Last night you talked to me about Ramsey and…And, let’s see, about Ramsey, but I never heard the word herb from you. For all I know, you don’t even know the word.”
“Are you telling me that you spent the whole day with Sara and Tess and not once did they give you my message?”
“Message?” Joce asked. “They said you’d told them you wanted to put in an herb garden. I didn’t get the idea it was a message sent to me.”
“Who else would I be asking? You own the place.”
“Do I?” Joce asked. “You dig up my backyard and I don’t even get a say in what you’re digging, so who owns this place?”
“All right,” Luke said as he jammed the shovel in the earth, then leaned on it. “Do you like the idea of a reproduction eighteenth-century herb garden like I planned or not? Maybe you’d like something Victorian? Or maybe you’d like something with a chrome and glass fountain in the middle. That would go well with the house. Just let me know and I’ll be sure to put it in. I’m just the gardener and I do what the mistress of the house tells me to.”
Jocelyn opened her mouth to make a scathing reply but couldn’t think of one. “Tell your mom thanks for all she did in my bedroom.”
“I will,” Luke said and again had to turn away to hide his smile.
“And thank you for putting the bed in.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
For a moment they were silent, with Jocelyn watching him. His muscles played under his T-shirt, and his jeans clung to his strong thighs. He had the body of a man used to working outdoors, and it showed.
She made herself take her eyes off of him. “You know what Sara and Tess and I did this afternoon?”
“From the sound of the laughter of you girls, I think you smoked some weed and ate chocolate.”
“Think Sara’s mom sells grass at her grocery store?”
“If she does, you can bet it’s organic.”
Joce smiled. “After we’d eaten until we could hardly walk, we packed all that food up and took it to a couple of churches in…I don’t know where we were, but Tess drove us there at about sixty miles an hour and we loaded tables with food. It was quite nice. Tell me about Tess.”
Luke gave a little snort. “I can tell you all I know about Tess in one word: nothing.”
“But Sara said you visited her yesterday.”
“I ‘visited’ you too, but that doesn’t mean I know you. I keep beer in her fridge and I stop in when I want to talk to her about something.”
“About gardens?”
“She knows less about gardens than you do. Usually, I talk to her about Ramsey.”
“Right,” Joce said. “Ramsey.”
He gave her a sharp look. “You need to know that whatever you do with my cousin in the future, you’ll have to share him with Tess.”
“At the o
ffice,” Joce said.
“No, everywhere. Rams…” Luke lifted his hand in dismissal. “I’m not going to talk about Ramsey and Tess. Ask them. Did you come out here to get the local gossip from me?”
“I wanted to see what you were doing in my garden.”
Luke held his arms out. “What you see is right here.”
“So why an herb garden?”
“Why not?”
Jocelyn groaned. “Did your lack of conversational skills come about because you were a loner as a child, or did your inability to answer a question make people stay away from you?”
“Some of both, I guess. What did Sara say about me?”
“What makes you think I asked her about you?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her.
“So maybe I did. She said you were much, much older than she is, that you played high school sports, and that she knows nothing much about you.”
“I genuinely love that girl,” Luke said.
“So she lied?”
“Evaded. So what plants do you want to put in this thing?”
“Herbs,” Jocelyn said quickly.
“I asked for that one. What kind of herbs?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “For pizza and spaghetti, I guess.”
“They’re the same ones. What else?”
“For…” Her head came up. “I know. I want lavender.”
“What kind of lavender?”
“Would it make sense to say that I want the kind of lavender you can eat?”
“Perfect sense,” Luke said, looking as though he was pleased with her. “Intermedia is usually considered the best for eating. It’s better known as Provence lavender.”
“Sounds wonderful. Can you put some in this garden?”
“It depends on how much of it you want to eat.”
“I don’t know…,” she said hesitantly.
“Do you want to graze lambs on it to make the meat taste good, or do you want to make a few dozen cookies?” he asked without patience.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I want to make a voodoo doll of you and stick lavender pins in it.”
He laughed. “Come on, I’ll show you where we can plant some lavender.” He put the shovel down, took a towel off the bed of his truck, and wiped his sweaty face with it.