Lavender Morning Read online

“Thanks,” she said as she turned toward the path, then looked back at him. “Three twenty-five.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what they charge in New York for super cupcakes. Three dollars and twenty-five cents each.”

  “Of course they do,” he said, his face showing his shock at the price. “All right. I’ll get my brother-in-law to agree to the price. I’ll champion you, but if those cupcakes are awful, you’ll make me look like a fool. And you won’t get another job around town.”

  “I’ll make you proud,” she said as the horn blew again. “My car keys are in the basket.” He nodded, and she took off running.

  9

  JOCELYN RAN THROUGH the meadow to Luke’s truck, which was parked by her car under the oak tree. He didn’t get out and open the door for her, just waited with the motor running. She opened the door of the big green truck, put her foot on the running board, and vaulted in. Luke was pulling away before she got the door closed.

  “Are you angry because you were wrong?” she asked.

  “I’m not angry and I’m not wrong, so what would I be angry about if I were?”

  “About Ramsey not taking me into Williamsburg as you said he would.”

  Luke shrugged. “I guess Tess sent him somewhere else.”

  Jocelyn didn’t say anything because that was too close to the truth. But Ramsey had wanted to tell her some important things, and she was glad they were alone when he told her. All in all, she thought she’d done well at hiding her shock at his words. The lack of money to care for the old house was bad, but not something she couldn’t, somehow, deal with. Surely there were government programs to help with a house that old.

  What bothered her was all the information about Miss Edi. It seemed that every hour she found out something else that wasn’t true. Since she was a child, she’d spent as much time as possible with a woman who taught her everything that was important in life. Jocelyn had seen Miss Edi as the wisest person in the world. But now she was finding out Miss Edi hadn’t been honest with her. She told herself that the woman had every right to keep huge parts of her life private, but it still hurt.

  “Hey!” Luke said softly. “What’s made you frown like that? You and Rams have a fight?”

  “No,” she said as she put her head against the side window and looked out at the road. “Have you ever believed in someone completely, then found out that that person wasn’t at all what you thought?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You find out something about Ramsey?”

  “No, I mean yes. He really cares about people, doesn’t he?”

  Luke gave her a glance as he turned a curve. “I guess so. What does he care about?”

  “Everything. Everyone.” She sat up straighter. “Where are we going?”

  “Plants, remember?”

  “I can’t afford them,” she said before she thought.

  One minute Luke was driving straight ahead, and the next he’d done a U-turn and was heading back the way they came.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you home, then we’re going to sit down, and you’re going to explain what you just said.”

  Ramsey hadn’t said to keep what he’d told her a secret, but Jocelyn felt that it was just an oversight on his part. Whatever had gone on between Miss Edi and his grandfather had been kept quiet for so many years that she didn’t think she should blab it now. “It’s just some legal stuff,” she said. “It’s, uh, probate. It takes a long time to get the money Miss Edi left me to take care of the house, so I have to wait. Meanwhile, I have nothing but what I have in savings, which isn’t much. But Ramsey got me a job at his sister’s tomorrow. I’m going to bake some cupcakes even though I don’t have so much as a baking pan, but if I can make the cupcakes, everything will be fine. I think. I hope.”

  Luke pulled into the driveway of Edilean Manor, turned off the engine, then went around to the other side and opened her door. “Out,” he said when she just sat there. “Unless you want me to carry you, get out of the truck.”

  She got out, went to the front door, then fumbled in her pocket for the key. “The house key’s with my car key, and Ramsey has it.”

  Luke reached across her and opened the door. “Who locks their front door in this town?”

  “But you said—” She didn’t bother to finish as he walked into the kitchen and she followed. He pulled out a chair at the big table and waited until she sat down, then he put a teakettle on the stove to boil.

  “Where’d that come from?” she asked.

  “My mother. I told her you liked tea, so she gave me a box of stuff for you. Okay, start talking.”

  “Probate,” she said. “Ramsey said—”

  “Ramsey said no such thing, and if you don’t stop lying to me, I’m going to start shouting. I can be very loud when I want to be. All those years of sports.”

  “Don’t shout,” she said as she put her head on her hand. “Why are you doing this? I thought we were going to a nursery and…” She trailed off.

  “You look like you got hit by a freight train,” he said as he took the kettle off the burner and poured tea into a pretty teapot that Joce had never seen before. “I want to know what my cousin said to make you react like this.”

  “Nothing that you need to use your right hook on.”

  “Left.”

  “What?”

  “Left hook. I’m not going to punch out Ramsey, but I will give him a piece of my mind. What was he thinking to let you leave looking as though you’d been drained by a vampire?”

  “You’re exaggerating. He just told me some legal stuff and—” His glare cut her off. “Okay, so I didn’t let him see how much his words affected me. In fact, I let him think I was happy. Full of life. Nothing gets ol’ Jocelyn down.”

  “But then you climbed into my truck and you looked like you’d—”

  “I know,” Joce said. “Hit by a freight train. Drained of blood. You sure know how to make a girl feel good.”

  He set the pot in front of her with a matching cup and saucer, then went to the refrigerator to get milk. “So now that we have that settled, tell me what happened.”

  “I can’t. It’s…it’s private.”

  “Everyone knows you’re to get about three million dollars. Is that what’s upset you? Overwhelmed by the money?”

  “Not quite,” she said as she sipped her tea. “This is good. You should have some.”

  “No thanks.” He got a beer out of the refrigerator, then sat down in the chair beside her. “If you weren’t overwhelmed, were you underwhelmed? It wasn’t as much money as you thought it was going to be?”

  “It wasn’t the money!” she nearly shouted. “There is no money to worry about!” She put her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that.

  “Well,” Luke said as he leaned back in the chair. “No money.”

  “Look, I can’t say any more about this. I just need some time to think about everything, and I ask you to please tell no one what I said.”

  “You think I’m going to run out of here and tell the town?” His brows were drawn together almost into a straight line.

  Suddenly, she could take no more. She put her hands over her face and began to cry.

  “Hush,” Luke said as he drew her gently into his arms so her head was on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t. It was what Ramsey told me.”

  “That there is no money? Is that what he told you?”

  “Yes, no,” she said, still crying. “Everything was a lie. I’m finding out that everything I knew about a woman I loved so much was a lie. Who she was, where she came from, even who she loved, it was all a lie. Every word of it. Why did she lie so much? Did she not trust me? I don’t understand.”

  Luke pulled a paper napkin from a holder on the table and handed it to her. Sitting up, she blew her nose as Luke got up. “Mind if I make myself a sandwich? I didn’t have time for lunch.”

  “I’m sorry. I’