Lavender Morning (14 page)

to grit her teeth. Was this yet another one of those competitions with his cousin, or was it more?

Tess put a bowl of blue corn chips in front of him.

Luke left after about a half hour, and Tess’s instinct told her that Ramsey would stop by her apartment after

he left Jocelyn—whatever time that was.

Now, Tess creamed the makeup off her face and checked her skin in the 4X mirror. Satisfied that she saw

nothing worse than yesterday, she moisturized, then went to bed. What an idiot Ramsey was! How could she

have men over at night without the town knowing? Or at least men other than the two who had been in her

apartment. But then, they were part of “the family,” as it was known in town. Sometimes Tess felt like she

worked for the Mafia.

Good! Tess thought. Let them concentrate on someone other than her. Let them put their attention on this

Jocelyn and not see what Tess was doing.

As she fell asleep, she wondered if this Jocelyn woman knew that her date had gone to Tess’s apartment

afterward. Did she know that Luke had been there that afternoon?

She punched at the pillow in anger. Jocelyn inherited the house while Tess got…What? She still hadn’t

figured that out yet.

Just before she went to sleep she thought, cupcakes! Did you ever hear anything so lame in your life?

Maybe she and Ramsey deserved each other.

6

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T
EN MINUTES AFTER she arrived at church, Jocelyn wanted to throw her clothes in her little car and

leave town. Everyone was so very nice to her, but she could hear the unspoken questions as loud as though they

were shouting them.

The big one seemed to be
What are you going to do?
They meant do to their precious house. It was as

though they feared a wrecking crew would show up on Monday morning.

The little church was packed, with every seat filled. When she heard the pastor make a comment about the

Lord using whatever He could to get people into church, Jocelyn tried to will her face not to blush, but she

couldn’t control it. She well knew that so many people had shown up today just to see
her.

She took a seat in the middle, on the left side of the aisle, and when Sara sat down by her, she nearly

hugged her. “Don’t worry, it will only get worse,” Sara said when the sixth couple walked down the aisle and

stared at Jocelyn.

“Don’t make me laugh.” Joce tried to see if she recognized anyone. The woman from the grocery waved to

Sara.

“Your mother, right?”

“Very good. I told her that if she sat down by you and asked you what you thought of organic produce I’d

buy some insecticide and spray something with it.”

“Your cruelty amazes me.” When Jocelyn saw another woman she recognized, she leaned closer to Sara.

“I saw her on the porch with the broom.”

“She’s Luke’s mother, and she fixed your bedroom for you.”

“I thought Ramsey did it,” Joce said. “I even thanked him for it.”

“He didn’t take credit, did he?” Sara asked sharply.

“No, he was honest. He said he thought the ladies from church did it. I’ll have to thank her.”

“And Luke. He carried the bed and mattresses upstairs, and he helped arrange everything.”

Jocelyn wasn’t sure how she felt knowing that Luke had been the one to prepare her bed for her. “I can’t

tell if Luke likes me or hates me—or if he’s just using me to play some game with Ramsey.”

“Probably all of them,” Sara said as she nodded toward people filing into the church. “I know he’s worried

that you’ll not care about the house. Your house means a lot to the town. People kind of think of it as their own,

and they’re worried what you’ll do with it.”

“Sell it for bricks, you mean.”

“You do know that you can’t really do that, don’t you? Even if you sell it, you have to offer it first to the

National Register of Historic Places.”

Jocelyn wanted to make a sarcastic remark to that, but she didn’t. None of these people knew her, but she

reassured herself that Miss Edi had known her well, and that’s why she’d left the house to Jocelyn. She decided

to change the subject. “Is Tess here?”

“Tess in church?” Sara gave a little laugh. “The roof would probably fly off the building.”

“I don’t know if I want to meet her or not.”

“She can be…acerbic, I think that might be the word.”

“A pure bitch?” Jocelyn said, then lowered her voice. “I think I may have just talked my way out of

heaven.”

“You were talking about hunting dogs, weren’t you?” Sara asked, her eyes wide in innocence, making Joce

smile. The music was starting and she picked up her hymnal.

Ramsey slid into the pew beside Jocelyn. “Sorry I was almost late. What page?”

Jocelyn showed him and expected him to get his own hymnal, but he took one side of hers and shared. His

voice was nice and from the way he sang, he knew the words well.

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“Get your work done?” she whispered when they sat back down.

“Most of it.”

“Tess help you?” she asked, as though it were an unimportant question.

“Not with the work. I talked to her about you.”

With that disarming statement, he turned his attention to the pastor.

After the service, Jocelyn was separated from Sara and Ramsey, and pulled into a sea of people who all

had something to say to her.

She received many invitations to dinners and barbecues, and to join clubs, and to just visit. She was caught

on the church steps by three women from Colonial Williamsburg who were talking to her about joining some

committees for historic preservation when Sara whispered, “Give me your purse.”

Joce kept her face on the women while slipping her small handbag to Sara. Minutes later, she looked up,

and Sara was in Joce’s car, the passenger door open, and waving to her. “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” Jocelyn

said. “It’s important or I’d stay longer.”

“Let us give you our cards and you can call us,” one woman said.

Joce took the three cards, then hurried across the sidewalk and the lawn to get to the car.

“Shut the door quick!” Sara said as she skidded out of the parking lot in a hail of gravel. “We’re going to

pave next month,” she said. “Peeling out won’t be nearly as satisfying.”

Joce took off her hat as she pulled bobby pins from her hair and let it hang down about her neck. “That

was an ordeal. Animals in zoos aren’t stared at as much as I was.”

“Mothers have sons, and people need jobs, and charities need volunteers and money. You are open

season.”

“No, no,” Joce said, her head back. “Tell me this isn’t so.”

“Yup, it is. You hungry?”

“Yes,” Joce said. “Can we go to a grocery and get something? I have nothing in my house to eat. I don’t

even have a skillet to cook it in.”

“I don’t think that food will be a problem, at least not for a few days.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” Sara said cryptically as she pulled into the drive in front of Edilean Manor. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“It’s Tess. They woke her up.”

Standing in the driveway was the gorgeous Tess, and the phone photo hadn’t done her justice. She was tall

and beautiful, and right now she looked angry.

Sara parked Joce’s car and got out. “How bad was it?” she asked Tess.

“What time did she leave for church?” Tess nodded toward Joce, who still sat in the car.

“Early,” Sara said without asking Jocelyn.

Joce got out of the car and went to stand beside Sara. Neither woman looked at her.

“They started coming at eight,” Tess said. “They knew the damned door was unlocked, but nothing would

do but for them to pound on
my
door and make me tell them the door was unlocked. After that I left the main

door wide open, but it wasn’t enough for them. They still banged on
my
door.” Tess turned to look at Jocelyn. “I

can’t imagine that you’re worth all this bother.” Her almond eyes were narrowed and her lips curved into a sneer.

“And you must be Tess,” Joce said, forcing a smile. “I’m—”

“Everyone knows who you are,” Tess snapped. “Here and in Williamsburg, they know who you are.

You’re rich and you own a big house. Yeah, I’d say you’re the hit of the county.”

“Tess, please,” Sara said, her voice pleading.

“Please, what?” Tess asked. “Just because she sucked up to some old woman and got her money, does

that mean I have to be pulled out of bed on a Sunday morning to get her food?”

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“Tess,” Sara said. “Please be nice. You haven’t even met Jocelyn.”

Tess looked Joce up and down and obviously found her wanting. “Now that you’re so rich, maybe you can

afford to do something with yourself.”

Sara’s eyes widened, but she was silent. Tess’s anger-filled remark seemed to be more than she could

handle.

Joce gave a little smile. “You’re beautiful, but I’m nice and I won the prize. Says something about what

people value, doesn’t it?”

For a moment, both Sara and Tess stared at her.

“Is that all you have?” Joce asked, her voice calm. “Come on, you can do better than that. An old woman

left me money and a house, so I must have done something bad to earn it. You could make a lot out of that. Or

can’t you?”

Sara looked like she might faint from what she was hearing. Would the women attack each other? Was she

going to have to deal with hair pulling and scratching?

Tess gave Jocelyn a look of interest. “Where’d you learn to give it back like that?”

“Her sisters are—” Sara began, but Joce put her hand up to stop her.

“I listen; I learn,” Joce said, then she looked at Sara, dismissing Tess. “What were you talking about when

you mentioned food?”

“Everyone in town wanted to welcome you, so they brought food,” Sara said, as though it were a custom

everywhere. “Aunt Martha—that’s Ramsey’s mother—told people to stay away yesterday, so they hit this

morning. But you weren’t here before church.”

“I went—” Jocelyn cut herself off. She wasn’t going to start the habit of telling people where she was every

minute of every day. “No, I wasn’t here. I left early.”

“So they knocked on my door to ask
my
permission to enter the ‘big house,’” Tess said as she looked

Jocelyn up and down, as though wondering who and what she was.

“Come on,” Sara said, “let’s see what they left you.” When Tess stayed in the driveway, Sara turned to

her. “You coming?”

Jocelyn looked at Tess in the sunlight, that fabulous auburn hair glistening, and she was tempted to tell her

to stay outside. Tess reminded Joce too much of the world of the Steps. “Come on,” she said. “Maybe Sara and

I can do your roots later.”

“It’s natural,” Tess said before she thought.

“So’s mine,” Joce shot back.

“Well, mine isn’t,” Sara said. “If you two are going to get in a catfight, I need to call some cousins to watch.

They’ll never forgive me if they miss it.”

Joce stepped back to let Tess know she was welcome in the house. This woman is going to take some

work to like, she thought, looking at Sara with longing. Why couldn’t there have been another Sara in the other

apartment? On second thought, maybe she could find Tess an apartment somewhere else. In a men’s locker

room, maybe. From the look of her, she’d probably love that!

Jocelyn wasn’t prepared for what she saw in the kitchen. The table and the countertops were covered with

what looked to be a hundred containers of food.

Sara opened the refrigerator. Inside were more dishes and foil-wrapped parcels.

There were casseroles, chicken prepared in many ways, a ham, baskets full of baked goods, cakes, pies,

and bags of early produce from home gardens.

“I can’t eat all this,” Jocelyn whispered, in awe at the sheer quantity of food.

Tess stood to one side and watched the two women circle around the table and countertops. They didn’t

seem to have even one thought of what to do about that much perishable food. The situation reminded her of

MAW. Half the time those men didn’t have a clue as to what should be done. But all her life Tess had had the

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MAW.

3/16/2010 Half the time those men didn’t have a clue as to what should be

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html done. But all her life Tess had had the

ability to “see” what should be done in a situation. The lawyers said she had a true gift, a rare talent.

Sara stopped walking and looked at Tess. “What should we do?”

Jocelyn didn’t look up but assumed that because it was her house the question was for her. “I’m to see

Ramsey tomorrow and maybe if I get some money, I’ll go get a freezer, and—” She broke off when she saw that

Sara was looking at Tess.

Jocelyn looked at her too. “You have any different ideas?” She couldn’t keep the hostility out of her voice.

Was it always going to be a fight with this woman?

“My suggestion is that we eat all we want, then we put as much as we can in a car and give it away. You’ll

have to keep the plates and containers, as the women will want them back, but we can give away the food, and I

know where to take it.” She looked at Joce. “If you can bear to part with any of it, that is.”