Lavender Morning (30 page)

“Yes, I miss her very much. I just wish people could have seen her as I did.”

“Not her.
Him.
”

“Oh, you mean Ramsey. He’s in Boston. I heard it was because he lost a big case here. I think the name

was Berner, something like that, so he needed to drum up some business. But no, I can’t say that I do miss him.

We really didn’t spend that much time together. Maybe when he gets back…” Jocelyn shrugged.

“If you want to lie to yourself, go ahead, but you can’t lie to
me.
And stop leaving the door open in the

hope he’ll show up,” she said as she shut it.

Joce put her head in her hands. Yes, she missed Luke. She missed him every single minute of every day.

She did her best to pretend that she was working too hard to miss anyone, but she wasn’t.

She missed his laugh, the way he listened, the way he understood whatever she was trying to tell him. The

first thing she did in the morning and the last at night was to look out the window. She wanted to see his truck, his

tools. She wanted to see
him.

“He is
not
the man for you,” she whispered. She was not going to be like her mother and run off with some

man she’d end up waiting on hand and foot. She wanted a man like Ramsey who’d take care of
her.

But reason didn’t make her miss Luke any less. Even all that Sara told her about Luke and his…his…She

could hardly think the word, much less say it. WIFE. Luke was with his
wife.
Ingrid had been in Edilean for

nearly six weeks now, and Jocelyn assumed they were a happy couple. They were probably having a second

honeymoon.

But no matter her good intentions, every time Joce got into her car, her thoughts went to Luke and Ingrid.

She tried to direct herself to think about her book, but her mind went down its own path.

Obviously, Luke and his wife had been separated because of her job. Through some discreet questioning,

Joce found out that, as far as anyone knew, Luke hadn’t seen his wife in over a year until she showed up with

Bell at that hideous party.

Whatever or however long it had been, it was none of Joce’s business. Luke Connor was just a man she’d

known for a few days and had had a few conversations with. That’s all. He was back with his wife now and was

probably sublimely happy. She doubted if he even remembered her.

A noise to her right made her look to the door. Someone had slipped a cream-colored envelope under it.

Getting up, she picked up the envelope and saw her name on it. When she opened it, she saw it was an invitation

to lunch from Dr. David Aldredge.

“David Aldredge,” she said out loud. Miss Edi’s first love.

He was probably the man she most wanted to meet in the world. He’d been pointed out to her at Viv’s

party, but she hadn’t had a chance to speak to him. Since the party, she hadn’t had the courage to contact him.

The truth was that she’d made an effort to stay away from the people of Edilean. They asked too many

questions. They wanted to know what had happened between her and Ramsey, and they even asked about Joce

and Luke. “All of you seemed like such good friends,” they’d say, then wait for Jocelyn to tell them every detail

of her private life. She’d just smile and walk away.

But now David Aldredge wanted to meet with her. His e-mail address was on the note, and five minutes

later she’d told him yes.

In Williamsburg the next day, when she got to Dr. Aldredge’s house, she was at first surprised to see that his

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home was rather small and very close to the one next to it. Maybe because she’d spent so much time in Edilean

and Colonial Williamsburg, she’d expected something older, more historical.

She rang the doorbell, then tried to calm herself while she waited for him to answer. Would he be angry at

her for throwing his grandson out of her house? Or was he more interested in the distant past? Would she have

to hear some dreadful story about what Miss Edi did to him that made him jump into bed with another woman?

He must be near ninety now, so would he be in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube in his nose?

When the door was opened by a handsome, gray-haired man, Jocelyn almost said she was there to see his

father. “
You’re
Miss Edi’s David?” she blurted out, wonder in her voice.

He gave her a dazzling smile and said, “You have made my entire week. No, my whole year. I can hardly

wait to tell Jim about you.”

Jocelyn laughed. “I’ve heard all about the grandfather jealousy, Dr. Aldredge, but I didn’t know it extended

to the generation in between.”

“Oh, yes. It goes all the way down—and back. I can’t imagine what would happen if Luke had a child.” At

that he gave her a glance up and down.

“Shall I take that look as a fertility check?” she shot at him.

David blinked a moment, then smiled. “Jim said you had a saucy sense of humor, but it’s better than he

said. Won’t you come in? My wife has made herself scarce for the afternoon, so we have the privacy to talk.

And, by the way, call me Dave, or as the town does, Dr. Dave.”

As soon as Joce stepped inside, she saw why he’d bought the house. The entire front of it was glass and it

looked onto a small, storybook beautiful harbor. Sailboats and small motorboats and little docks led into the

lovely James River.

“Wow!” was all she could say.

“We like it,” Dr. Dave said, obviously pleased that she thought it was pretty.

The downstairs of the house was mostly one open room, with living, breakfast, and kitchen all in one area.

To the side was a dining room that had been turned into a TV-library. Across the front of the house was a

glassed-in porch with wicker furniture, and it looked like the place that got the most use.

She knew her guess was correct when she saw there was a little table set for two on the long porch. The

dishes matched the napkins and the place mats, so she knew someone had gone to a lot of trouble.

“I guess I should have asked what you like to eat but—”

“Luke told you everything about me,” she said.

“No.” Dr. Dave looked surprised. “My grandson would probably hit me over the head with one of my own

golf clubs if he knew I’d invited you here. He has a true belief that he can solve all his own problems all by

himself.”

“And you don’t think he can?”

“I don’t believe anyone can solve their problems all by themselves. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she said cautiously. “I don’t think I ever thought about it before, but I guess not. I know

that I grew up being very attached to Miss Edi, and she helped me with whatever problems I had.”

“Ah, yes, now we get down to it,” Dr. Dave said as he removed the cover off the big soup tureen in the

center of the table. “Do you like cold vichyssoise?”

“Love it. But only if it’s from organic potatoes.”

Dr. Dave chuckled. “You’ve spent some time around Ellie.”

“No, just her daughter and all the other relatives.” At the thought of Sara, Jocelyn couldn’t keep her face

from turning red.

“So Sara has a new boyfriend, does she? Bit noisy, are they?”

Jocelyn took a sip of the soup. Delicious. “Jim stopped that.”

“So I was told, and my wife made me leave the room when I started to laugh. Jim always was a bit of a

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prude. I can’t imagine why my daughter married him.”

Joce knew he was teasing, but she didn’t like it. Jim Connor had been very good to her. “Maybe because

he’s the kind of man who looks after people and cares about them and helps whenever he’s needed.”

“I see,” Dr. Dave said, sitting down and taking a sip of his soup. “Like father, like son.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just that Luke and his father are very much alike. That’s why Luke got along with the other grandfather so

well. I’d offer Luke a trip to Disney World and Joe would offer him two days on a smelly boat. I always lost

out.”

“Were you disappointed that Luke didn’t become a doctor?” she asked.

“Why, no,” Dr. Dave said, as though he’d never thought of the idea before. He got up to get some rolls out

of the oven. “Mary Alice would skin me if I forgot these. Only Henry, Sara’s father, wanted to be a doctor. The

rest of them did what they wanted to.”

Jocelyn broke a roll, buttered it, and took a bite. She’d had enough of chitchat. “So what happened

between you and Miss Edi?”

“People don’t know this, but we broke up before we left for war.”

Jocelyn could only blink at him. “But I thought…”

“Everyone, including us, thought we were going to get married. I asked her, she said yes, and I slipped the

ring on her finger. But a few weeks after that, Pearl Harbor was bombed and everything changed.”

“Or did things change because of what happened earlier in that year?”

It was Dr. Dave’s turn to look surprised. “You do your research, don’t you.”

“I know that Alexander McDowell supported Miss Edi after her retirement, and I assume it was probably

his money that sent me to college. Now why would he do something like that?”

“Would you like some more soup?”

“Love some.”

“And I have sandwiches. Cucumber, tuna, chicken salad, and egg salad. Help yourself,” he said as he put

the big plate on the table.

“Okay,” Jocelyn said as she took a tuna salad sandwich and bit into it. “Something happened in Edilean

about the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the seventh of December 1941, and because of it, a whole lot of

things changed.”

“Please tell me you aren’t going to dig and snoop until you find out what happened.”

“I’m afraid I am.”

Dr. Dave gave a sigh. “Young people always want to know family secrets.”

“From people who already know them,” Jocelyn said.

Dr. Dave chuckled. “I knew I was right in asking Mary Alice to get us a chocolate cake from The Trellis.”

“You mean one of those nine-layer Death by Chocolate things? They aren’t an urban legend?”

“They’re real, and I have one. Now what is it you most want to know?”

“Right now, I’m interested in 1944.”

“Edi’s story,” Dr. Dave said as he took the empty bowls off the table. He waved to Jocelyn to stay where

she was. “So you read the story I gave Luke.”

“Sort of. Actually, he read it to me.”

Dr. Dave put the dishes down on the kitchen island, then turned to her slowly. “What do you mean? He

read it to you?”

Joce stood up and wandered around a bit, looking at the pictures on the walls. Unless she missed her

guess, they were original works gathered from around the United States. “Just that. I was baking cupcakes for

that…that
party
and he read to me.” She said the word with so much anger that she had to take a couple of

breaths. Where had Bell flown in from? Milan? London? Paris? All just to ruin Jocelyn’s first venture into society

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breaths.

3/16/2010 Where had Bell flown in from? Milan? London? Paris? All just to

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html ruin Jocelyn’s first venture into society

where she now lived. Between working that day and Bell’s hateful little stunt, Joce hadn’t talked to even one

person about Miss Edi—which had been her main objective of the day. That and earning money.

“Who else was in the house?” Dr. Dave asked.

“Just us,” Joce said, then gave him a sharp look. “Have people been saying that Luke and I—”

“No, I’ve heard nothing, and thanks to e-mail, texting, and the telephone, my wife and I hear pretty much

everything that goes on in that town. So you and my grandson were alone in your house, you were baking

cupcakes, and he was reading to you?”

“Yes,” she said, giving him a puzzled look. “Am I missing something here? Did I commit some Southern

taboo? Sara keeps telling me I’m a Yankee, and Tess…Well, who knows what Tess thinks?”

“No,” Dr. Dave said softly, “you did nothing wrong. It’s just not a way I’ve seen my grandson before. He’s

pretty much of a loner.”

“Loner?” Joce said. “He’s married. Did you forget that?”

Dr. Dave took his time as he removed the cover off a big cake holder, and under it was the wonderful

chocolate cake. “You wouldn’t like to hear the truth about Luke’s marriage, would you?”

“It’s not any of my business,” Joce said tightly. “I know that I overreacted when I found out, and by the

state of my garden now I should have kept my mouth shut, but in the last few months of my life I’ve had more

betrayal than I can handle. Even if they aren’t interested in you as other than a friend, married men don’t usually

sit in your kitchen night after night and—” She took a breath. “Whatever. You don’t by chance need a job

mowing lawns, do you? We pay in cupcakes.”

“No,” Dr. Dave said, smiling. “Night after night, huh?” He handed her a plate with a three-inch-thick piece

of cake on it. “Maybe this will last you while I tell you about my grandson’s marriage.”

“Does he know you tell people this?”

“Luke doesn’t even know some of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Ah, well, then,” she said as she took her first bite of the divine cake. “I’m all ears.”

“Luke was living and working in…” Dr. Dave waved his hand. “Up north. It doesn’t matter. What does

matter is that he met a tall, skinny, pretty waitress and one thing led to another. Six weeks later, she told him she