“Your modern hybrids don’t keep the smell. They’re for looks alone, and you can eat few of them.”
“Not roses. You can smell them and eat them.” She was proud of herself for knowing that.
“That reminds me. We need to get some species roses.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but she was learning that if it was a plant that Luke liked, it was sure to have more leaves than flowers. “Species roses.”
“Yeah. They have great hips in the fall, and you can make jelly from them.”
“Oh, goody,” Joce muttered as she followed him. “I get to make jelly. I can hardly wait.”
Today, they were in the preserve, walking along trails that Luke seemed to know well. She’d wanted to get a map of the hiking trails, but he’d told her that he’d been on the trails so often that he could draw a map for her. He was taking her to a place he loved, and there they were going to picnic and read part three of Miss Edi’s story.
All during the last days, Luke had been on his cell phone often, and he rarely told her who he was talking to. After their evening at his grandparents’ house, Luke seemed to have made some resolve that he wasn’t going to tell Joce anything more, no matter what she did to get information out of him.
But she could see that something was bothering him and she wanted to know what it was.
“I don’t know what I want to know, exactly, except that all of this has my radar up,” he said. “Something about it doesn’t ring true, that’s all.”
“I don’t get what you mean. Miss Edi fell in love with a man who was killed in World War II. What’s so strange about that?”
“That’s not the strange part,” Luke said. “It’s what happened so many years later. Alex McDowell said he owed Miss Edi for something and wanted to pay her back.”
“Owed her for what?” Joce asked.
“It’s no use trying to get that secret out of me because I don’t know it, and no one will tell it to me. Last night I again tried to get Gramps to tell me but he wouldn’t. He said that all I needed to know was that Alex felt that he owed Miss Edi.”
“So when she retired and had nothing but a small pension to live on, he gave her a house in a warm climate and a job that she was good at. It sounds like he was an honorable man. He repaid the debt.”
“But why Boca?” Luke asked. “Why not Miami? Or Sarasota? Or somewhere in Arizona?”
“Why not Weeki Wachee and she could go see the mermaids every day? Why not Boca Raton? It’s a wonderful place. And Alex had friends there.”
“Yes, your grandparents. I called Ramsey and he said he’d never heard his grandfather mention anyone named Scovill, but then he never heard him mention Miss Edi, so he was no help.”
“Did he ask about me?”
Luke gave a little half grin. “I believe he did. And he mentioned my grandfather too, then he said he was coming after both of us with weapons if we—Well, I can’t repeat what he said in front of a lady.”
“Yet again, I am considered property. From the way people act you’d think that I was to marry Ramsey to fulfill some kind of prophecy.”
“Maybe just righting what some people see as wrongs. Everyone has always thought that the richest family should marry the one with the oldest name.”
“But I’m not related to Miss Edi,” Joce said. “I got the house because she had no one else to leave it to.”
When Luke said nothing, Joce looked at him. “You have something on your mind, don’t you?”
“I want to see those letters from General Austin to his wife.”
“Bill Austin’s on his honeymoon, or maybe he’s not even married yet, I don’t know. I do know that he won’t let the letters off the premises.”
Luke turned around and started walking backward on the trail. “But then the grandson doesn’t own them, does he?”
“Sure he does. He—” Joce looked up at him. “No, he doesn’t. General Austin’s wife is still alive so she owns them. Do you think you could talk her into sending them?”
“No, not me, but my grandfather could. He could turn on that bedside manner of his and charm her into anything he wants.”
“It would certainly be interesting to see what’s in them,” Joce said. “Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe he mentions when Miss Edi came back from her time with David Clare. Hey! Is that water I hear?”