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  She took a step back from him. Her first attraction to him was fading. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve never met him. Sara told me he was her cousin, and if you’re also her cousin, then I assumed you were related to Ramsey.”

  “I am. But then, we’re all cousins. Sara, Rams, Charlie, Ken, and me. We have the same great-grandparents.”

  There was something about his attitude that she didn’t like. He was laughing at her, but she had no idea what she was doing to amuse him. As far as she could tell, the entire town seemed to be related to one another. “What about Ramsey’s sister? Is she a cousin too?”

  He looked puzzled. “Of course she is. She’s…” He stopped because he realized she was teasing him. He’d left some people off the list of cousins. He often found that people not from the South laughed when relatives were mentioned. “Are you a—”

  “So help me, if you ask me if I’m a Yankee, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” he asked, his eyebrows raised in interest.

  “I’ll cut the heads off the roses. I don’t know. How do you punish a gardener?”

  He gave her a look that almost made her blush. “That’s the most interesting question I’ve been asked all day.”

  She was quickly developing a dislike of the man. Jocelyn looked at her watch. “I have to go. I’m meeting someone.”

  “Yeah, Rams. He’s over there working up a sweat to make a fairyland for you two.”

  “That was nasty of you to ruin the surprise.”

  “Waste of time, if you ask me.”

  She gave him a look up and down that she hoped was full of contempt. “But then I suppose your idea of a date is a six-pack and a bag of potato chips.”

  “Corn chips,” he said. “I like corn chips. I especially like those blue ones. She shows up with blue corn chips and a six of Samuel Adams and she just might get lucky.”

  “I guess that’s supposed to be funny.”

  “Just being honest.”

  “You’re like so many men I’ve met—and never want to meet again.” She went to the back door to open it and leave, but he blocked her way.

  “You can’t leave yet. Rams said he’d ring the bell when he’s ready.”

  “He sent you over here to detain me?”

  “He’s not that dumb. He sent me to tell Sara to keep you busy, but he forgot to ask me if Sara was here. Why don’t you sit down and be still so you don’t wrinkle your pretty new dress? I’m going to make myself a sandwich. I’d offer you one, but Rams has enough food for half the town over there, so you better not eat now.”

  She was standing at the end of Sara’s Formica-clad counter and considering what to do next. Stay here and have this vain man laugh at her for things she didn’t understand, or leave and spoil Ramsey’s surprise? All in all, she thought that she’d rather see Ramsey than stay here with this man.

  Jocelyn turned just as Luke went to put his sandwich ingredients on the counter. Her arm hit his hand, and the plastic mustard dispenser squirted on her. Bright yellow mustard went down the front of her white dress.

  “You did that on purpose,” she said. “You meant to do that.”

  “No I didn’t,” he said, and sounded truly contrite. “Honest, I didn’t.” Gone was the attitude and the half smirk he’d worn since he’d pushed his way into the apartment. “I am sorry. Really.”

  Turning, he grabbed a clean dishcloth off the rack over the sink and wet it. “Here,” he said, “let me help you.”

  She held her blouse out from her chest as she thought about how she could slip back into the house and change without seeing Ramsey. But he said he was going to set up the picnic on the floor. If that meant the hall, there was no way she could get past him—which meant she was going to meet him with her front covered in mustard.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Jocelyn and Luke turned toward the back door and there stood a man she was sure was Ramsey. He was an inch or two shorter than Luke and a bit heavier, but he had the same dark hair and green eyes, and almost the same nose and chin. They were two truly gorgeous men.

  Jocelyn looked from Ramsey to Luke and saw that he was hovering over the front of her with a wet cloth. Instantly, she stepped out of his reach. “He threw mustard on me,” she said, her eyes on Ramsey.

  Ramsey looked at Luke with a threat in his eyes.

  Luke threw up his hands. “Accident. I swear. She’s yours.” With his hands still up, he backed out of the room, and she heard the front door open and close.

  “Are you all right?” Ramsey asked.

  “Fine. Really, I am, but I look awful. I wanted to at least be presentable when we met.”

  “You look great!” Ramsey said with such enthusiasm that she smiled back.

  “You’re very kind.”

  “No I’m not. I’m a lawyer, remember? How about if we go to your house, the main part of it, that is, and have something to eat? Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  He went down the hall to the front door and opened it for her, and when she was beside him, he said, “I apologize for my cousin. Luke is…” He gave a shrug, as though there were no words to describe the man.

  “That’s all right,” Jocelyn said. “We all have relatives.”

  “Unfortunately, I have more than most.”

  As they stepped outside, she saw Luke speed away in a beat-up old truck that reminded her of the vehicles she’d seen around her father’s house when she was growing up. As far as she could tell, Luke Connor was the kind of man Miss Edi had warned her against. Worse, he was the kind of man Jocelyn’s sweet, elegant, educated mother had fallen so hard for. After they were married, Gary Minton had done what he could to be what his refined little wife’s family wanted him to be, but a month after she died, he was back in leathers, whiskers on his face, and straddling a Harley.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Ramsey asked. “Did Luke upset you that bad?”

  “Of course not,” Jocelyn said, smiling as she came back to the present. “Let me change my clothes and I’ll be fine.”

  “Tonight your smallest wish is my command,” Ramsey said and gave her a half bow.

  “Then, kind sir, lead me to yon castle that I might prepare myself for thee.”

  Ramsey grinned, held out his arm to her, and they walked together to the front door of Edilean Manor.

  4

  THIS IS TRULY beautiful,” Jocelyn said and meant it. Ramsey had gone to a lot of trouble with the dinner, and she appreciated it. There was an old, white, trapuntoed quilt on the floor of the hallway and two huge pillows on each side. The meal was angel hair pasta in a light sauce of sautéed tomatoes and basil, with bread and salad.

  “Did you get the vegetables from Sara’s mother?” she asked.

  “Of course. If I bought tomatoes that didn’t come from her I think she might picket my office.”

  The dishes were Limoges in one of her favorite patterns, and the wineglasses had to have come from Colonial Williamsburg. They were handblown in an eighteenth-century design.

  Ramsey was stretched out on the pillow opposite her, and in the candlelight he looked even more handsome than he did when she first met him. The truth was that he made her a bit nervous. There was something about the absolute perfection of him that made her wish she were more perfect.

  “Why is there so little furniture in the house?” Joce asked. She was sitting upright on the opposite side of the quilt. “I don’t mean to sound greedy, but it seems strange that a house that’s been lived in for so many generations would have so little in it. If I’d guessed, I would have said it was packed to the gills with at least a lot of Victorian ornaments.”

  “In a word, Bertrand,” Ramsey said. He’d finished his pasta and was sipping the white wine. “I don’t really know too much about it, as my father personally handled Miss Edi, but Dad always muttered things under his breath whenever ol’ Bertrand’s name was mentioned. I think he had a problem with the horses.”