“Me too,” Luke said. “Listen, I have to go. She’s coming.”
“So whatever you want to talk to me about tonight is to be kept secret from her?”
“Add it to the secrets you told her about me and you should have a full load.”
Dr. Dave was laughing as Luke hung up the phone.
“You’re frowning,” Joce said, “so whoever you were talking to wasn’t a friend?”
“Just my grandfather. He and I argue all the time.”
“Your grandfather who no one got along with was your best buddy, but Dr. Dave, who is beloved by everyone, drives you crazy.”
“You got it.”
“So,” she said, “do you think that’s you or them?”
“Them.”
“Now why did I know that answer before I asked?” she said as she sat down on the ground and opened her laptop.
“So how fast do you type?”
“Very fast, then I spend two hours with the speller as I correct every word because they all have typos. What about you? Can you type?”
He gave her one of his looks that said he found her amusing, then looked back at the dirt.
“So what did you talk to your grandfather about?”
“Nothing important. He wants me to go to their house for dinner tonight.”
“That sounds nice,” Joce said, then stared at him hard, but he bent his head over the shovel and didn’t look at her. “I haven’t met your grandmother.”
“Haven’t you?” He went to the truck and got out a digging fork.
“Is she nice?”
“Very nice.”
“I guess she’s a lot different from Miss Edi, isn’t she?”
“From what I saw, she is, but then I only met Miss Edi once.”
“Really?” Jocelyn said. “I would have thought that you’d have met her more often than that. Since your grandfather chose another woman over her, I would have thought you would have been very curious about Miss Edi. If it had been me I would have wanted to see—”
Luke stopped digging. “I can’t ask you to go with me,” he said in exasperation. “I have some…business to talk to my grandfather about and I can’t take you.”
“I understand,” Jocelyn said, “and I certainly wasn’t hinting that you should take me. I would never in my life think of inviting myself to someone else’s house. I was merely asking about your grandparents. It’s just that I know your father so well and have spent time with your mother, and she’s been so very nice to me, and your grandfather has been wonderful. Did I tell you that he went to The Trellis and got a chocolate cake for our lunch? He—”
“Seven!” Luke half yelled. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Now will you type and quit nagging me?”
“Gladly,” Jocelyn said as she put her head down so he wouldn’t see her smile. She had really and truly missed him!
“What do you think the men are up to?” Mary Alice asked Jocelyn when, after dessert, Luke and his grandfather disappeared into Dr. Dave’s study and were still in there.
Since she and Luke had arrived, she’d been fascinated with this woman who had married the man Miss Edi had once been engaged to. To Jocelyn’s mind, no one was as great as Miss Edi, but Joce could see the attraction between Dr. Dave and Mary Alice. She was sweet and loving, and it seemed that all she wanted to do in the world was please her husband and grandson. All during dinner, she’d jumped up and down, going to the kitchen often to make sure that everyone had the best she had to offer.
Physically, she was as different as she could be from Miss Edi. Mary Alice was short, plump, and homey. Miss Edi had been tall, thin, and elegant. Miss Edi looked at home in pearls; Mary Alice would look comfortable in a reindeer sweater.