Lavender Morning (Edilean 1)

“You’re in a bad mood this morning. So what did you and Luke fight about?”

“Ramsey, probably,” Sara said from the doorway. “Luke and Ramsey have bickered with each other since they were born. Now they have Joce to fight over.”

“I’m not a—” Jocelyn had said the words so many times that she couldn’t get them out again.

Sara went to the refrigerator and got a carton of eggs from her family’s farm. “I’m going to scramble some eggs. Anyone want some?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tess said. “You better make extra because Jim will be here any minute. You know how he eats.”

Jocelyn sat in the middle of her own kitchen, watching the two other women moving about, and she remembered what Luke had said about her house always being open. So what was wrong with that? she wondered. Just because his house was as closed as a prison didn’t mean hers had to be.

“Why are you looking so gloomy?” Sara asked. “And where is Luke?”

“Why is it that since the first moment I set foot in this town that I’ve been connected with either Ramsey or Luke? Why can’t I just be myself?”

Tess and Sara exchanged looks, as though some understanding had passed between them.

“Why don’t you go into town with me today and see my new shop?” Sara asked. “You’ve been so busy with your book that you haven’t even seen it.”

“You’ve been pretty busy yourself,” Jocelyn said. “What with a man you love, and a new business, and everything wonderful that’s happening to you, you must be very happy.”

“Come and spend some time with Greg and me today,” Sara urged. “You really haven’t got to know him, and he’s a great guy.”

“That’s not Joce’s fault,” Tess said. “You two spend all your time in bed or at the new store. Neither of you has time for anything or anyone else.”

“Your jealousy is showing,” Sara said, barely looking at Tess.

“Ha!” Tess said. “I’m not jealous of anyone. Just because you two—”

“Girls!” came a voice from the door

way as Jim walked in, his arms full of grocery bags.

It was too much for Jocelyn: too much company, too much of everything. She set her cup down and went upstairs to her bedroom. At least the top floor of the house seemed to be off limits to people who wandered in and out.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and picked up the double frame, Miss Edi’s David on one side, a young, beautiful Edilean Harcourt on the other. She envied her for knowing the man she wanted.

When a soft knock sounded on her open door, she looked up to see Sara. “Hi. Mind if I come in?”

“No,” Joce said. “I was just…” She couldn’t think of anything to explain what she was doing.

“Would you like someone to talk to?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Joce said. “It’s just…”

“Men,” Sara said. “That’s what it always is and always will be. Men.”

“You met a man, fell madly in love with him instantly, so what do you know about men problems?”

“More than I can tell, and in spite of what Tess says, there’s more between Greg and me than just sex and business.”

“I’d settle for that.”

Sara leaned back on her elbows on the bed. “So tell me what my rotten cousins have done to you and I’ll tell you the answers. If there’s one thing I know it’s my cousins.”

“Didn’t you tell me that Luke was so much older than you that you hardly knew him at all?”

“That’s what I tell strangers,” Sara said. “But I hope that by now we’re friends. That day at Viv’s house proved that.”