Lavender Morning p.17 Read online

  David took his time answering. “The Edi I knew had a reason for everything she did, and I think she meant for your Jocelyn to find out what that reason was.”

  “Don’t start on me again. She’s not ‘my’ Jocelyn.”

  David ignored his grandson’s angry tone. “Did you read Edi’s letters to Alex?”

  “Letters?” Luke asked, sounding as though he’d never heard of such a thing.

  “Yes, letters. Alex and Edi corresponded all during the war and afterward. Ramsey must have them.”

  Luke thought about that for a moment. If there were letters between Edi and Alex, then Luke had no doubt that Ramsey had read them—and kept them a secret. No wonder Rams was pursuing Jocelyn with so much gusto. Picnic baskets, chocolate-covered strawberries, hassling Tess for advice…Suddenly, some things were making sense. Luke’s mother used to visit Alex McDowell often. Had she read the letters? Had she colluded with him in some plan to hook up Rams and Jocelyn?

  Luke looked at his grandfather. “What about you?”

  David looked up at the waitress to signal for the check. “What about me what?”

  “Letters,” Luke said. “Did you and Miss Edi write each other?”

  “For a while,” David said, his voice barely audible.

  Luke stared at his grandfather as he signed the check, and when he stood up to go, Luke stayed seated and kept staring.

  Reluctantly, David sat back down. “Okay, yes, we exchanged a few letters, but…”

  Luke studied his grandfather’s face. “Nana Mary Alice doesn’t know about them, does she?”

  “Oh, she knew all right, but she made me swear to burn them, and I did.”

  Luke’s face fell. “You didn’t by chance burn some other letters, did you?”

  “No. Your grandmother was forgiving of some things, but she got sick of being compared to Edi. She stood right beside me as I threw every one of those letters into the flames.”

  Luke looked at his plate, and for a moment David was silent.

  “However…,” David said.

  “However, what?”

  “The truth is that those letters from Edi weren’t very interesting. She just recounted where she was and what she was doing during the war. They were more perfunctory than enlightening. But the stories she sent to Alex…Well, they were a whole different kettle of fish.”

  “You mean the letters Ramsey has?”

  “No, not those. I’m talking about the stories she wrote while she was recovering from her burns. She told Alex the truth about what she did during the war and she wrote down the story about the man named David who she fell in love with.”

  “Do you have those stories?” Luke asked, his eyes alight.

  “Yes and no.” David paused. “You know what Alex was like at the end. It was only by accident that I saw the stories, and I think some of them may have been destroyed. I kept all that I could find.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In a safe-deposit box that my wife doesn’t know I have.”

  “When can we get them?”

  David looked at his grandson. “Meet me here tomorrow at ten A.M. and we’ll drive to Richmond.”

  “You have to keep the safe-deposit box all the way in Richmond?”

  “Be grateful I didn’t open it in Nevada. Meet me here, and we’ll drive there together.”

  “I look forward to it,” Luke said.

  “We won’t go fishing, but maybe we can ride in a vehicle together,” David said, and Luke knew he was making an allusion to Granpa Joe. It had never occurred to Luke that Granpa Dave could be jealous.

  “So maybe you can give me some advice on how to get a feisty girl to think of me as something besides her best buddy,” Luke said.

  Just then two pretty girls walked by and when they saw Luke they started to giggle and batt their lashes at him.

  “Now why do I think you’ll have no problem with that on your own? Come on, I’ll walk you to your truck.”

  “I brought the car.”

  “If I’d known you wanted information from me that much I would have made you pay the check. So, tell me, what’s your father up to these days?”

  Luke gave a low laugh. “He’s solving a cupcake crisis.”

  When Luke started to say more, David put up his hand. “Save it for tomorrow and tell me on the drive. I may not sleep tonight from eager anticipation.”

  “And you can tell me about your broken engagement from Miss Edi.”

  They were in the parking lot now, and suddenly Luke looked at his grandfather with love. He knew from experience how quickly people could leave this life.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Go!” David ordered. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Luke said as he got into his car, but he put his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  11

  IF I NEVER see another cupcake in my life, it will be too soon,” Sara muttered as she turned the little cake around in her hand and tried to make an icing rose on top of it.

  “I would have thought you’d like this job,” Tess said. She was making a big daisy on her cupcake.

  “You just like it because it’s better than working with lawyers,” Sara said. “I don’t like the mess. I don’t like the smell, and I don’t even like the sugar.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” Jocelyn said. She was at the huge, beautiful range that Jim, Luke’s father, had put in for her four days ago. Already, it had been put through enough that it was a veteran.

  “Go!” Jim said to Sara as he came in from the hallway, his arms full of grocery bags. “Go sew your fancy clothes for ladies who eat too much.”

  Sara handed her cupcake to Tess and practically ran out of the room.

  Jim surveyed the many cupcakes on the table and countertops as though he were a government inspector.

  “Do we pass?” Joce asked.

  “They look good to me, but I think Luke should yea or nay them. He knows more about flowers than I do.”

  Tess put down her big pastry tube and shook her arms. Few people knew how much muscle it took to squeeze the thick, heavy icing out of the big bags through tiny tubes to make the designs. “I’m going to write a murder mystery and the killer is a woman who is a professional cake decorator. No one suspects her because the murder took great strength to commit. Who would think that a lady who decorates cakes has the strength of ten men in her forearms?”

  Jim picked up a cupcake that looked like a ladybug. The body of it was red with black spots, with a black face. Tess had added white eyes, a red nose, and a bright white smile. She’d also made a green turtle with Tootsie Roll legs and head. But her pièce de résistance was a bright yellow, smiling chick with closed eyes and happy little wings that made him look as though he was about to take off flying.

  “You ought to go into business,” Jim said as he picked up a cupcake covered in pink and yellow flowers with tiny white centers.

  “No,” Tess said slowly, “I’m just good at bossing lazy men around.” She picked up an uniced cupcake and looked at it. “What do you think? Shall I try a bumblebee?”

  “I think that whatever you attempt, it’ll come out good,” Jim said as he glanced at Jocelyn, who was straining a batch of spinach purée. They’d been working on the cupcakes for days now, and the biggest surprise to them all was how good Tess was at decorating them.

  The first day, Jim had taken over. When he and Joce couldn’t find Luke in the garden, Jim drove them to Luke’s house to borrow his pickup. Jocelyn was curious to see where Luke lived, but all she saw was the outside. It wasn’t a large house, but it had a deep porch across the front, and it was beautiful. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it didn’t take an expert to see that the house had cost a lot. The windows were double paned and deeply trimmed with hardwood. The roof looked to be slate. When she peeked around the side, she could see what looked to be a fabulous garden in the back.

  When she glanced at Jim, he was wa