She again blinked at me.

Ethan burst out laughing.

“Now,” I spoke through his laughter, “after dinner, are we taking your photo for Jean-Michel or are we not?”

“Totally,” she whispered, not in wonder this time. I didn’t know what made her whisper and it mattered not to me.

“Excellent. You’ll need to wash your face,” I instructed. “He’ll need a clean palette.”

“I can do that,” she agreed.

“Fine,” I returned and then looked to the table and asked, “Is anyone wishing seconds?”

“Meatloaf!” Ethan said, doing this for some reason over-loudly.

And I found that coming from Ethan, who was a very amusing and sweet boy, it was not annoying in the slightest.

“Give me your plate,” I ordered.

He handed me his plate.

I gave him meatloaf.

Then I returned my attention to my plate but after partaking of some carrots, I felt something unusual so I lifted my eyes.

And my stomach dipped in that way again when I saw Jake watching me. His face was soft and his eyes, now gray in the lights of the kitchen, held something in them I couldn’t decipher.

Before I could put my finger on it, his mouth slowly, lazily lifted in a devastating smile that did devastating things to my breathing pattern before he turned to his daughter and said, “Pass the rolls, babe.”

I found that I really wished to know what was behind that look. What he was thinking and maybe more, what he was feeling.

And I found that it caused an inexplicable pain that I would never know because I would never ask and it was likely he’d never tell me.

In order to get past the pain, I decided to finish eating so I could serve dessert because the meatloaf (a recipe I looked up on the Internet seeing as I’d never made a meal for a family that included young children so I’d branched out) was quite good.

But my pavlovas were divine.

* * * * *

It was after meatloaf and after pavlova.

The children were at the kitchen table doing homework and I was doing the dishes with Jake.

I found it intriguing that Jake did dishes. I also found it felt nice doing dishes with Jake. Then again, when I’d cook for Henry, he also helped me do the dishes and I liked that too.

“Meal was superb, babe. That thing at the end, fuckin’ hell,” Jake murmured while drying a plate.

“I’m pleased you enjoyed it,” I replied, feeling exactly as I told him, pleased (very) and I handed him another wet plate when he set the one he’d finished on the stack he was making.

“Told Lydie, will tell you, need a dishwasher,” he declared.

“Gran always said she had two. Her hands.”

“Yeah, that’s what she always said,” he replied quietly, his deep voice amused but I could hear the melancholy.

I decided not to reply because his tone made me feel the same, sans the amused part.

“You have an okay day?” he asked.

I had not.

“No,” I answered.

“No?” he asked on a prompt and I handed him another plate as I looked at him.

“I visited Eliza Weaver this morning.”

“Who?”

“Eliza Weaver, Arnold Weaver’s wife.”

“The attorney?”

I nodded and his brows drew together.

“Somethin’ wrong with the will?”

I shook my head and turned my attention to the silverware at the bottom of the sink. “The Weavers are family friends. Eliza’s ill.” I paused, thinking of her in the hospital bed Mr. Weaver had set up in their dining room, and finished. “Gravely ill.”

“Jesus, babe, sorry,” he whispered.

“I…” I looked at him and handed him some rinsed forks. “It was unpleasant seeing her that way. She used to be quite vivacious.” I looked back down to the sink and searched for more cutlery. “And Mr. Weaver adores her. He always has. He’s quite obvious about it, which I always thought was charming. He’s suffering.”

“Sucks, Josie,” Jake murmured.

“Yes,” I agreed and handed him more clean silverware without looking at him. “I spoke with Mr. Weaver. He’s taken a leave of absence from work but he’s a partner and this is difficult too. I talked him into allowing me to come over in the mornings for a few hours while I’m in Magdalene. He says Mrs. Weaver is tired of most of her company being nurses and her friends have to work during the day, and while I’m here, I don’t. So I’m going to go sit with her while he spends a few hours in the office.”

Jake said nothing.

Jake also didn’t take the dripping silverware I was offering him so I looked up to my side to find him staring down at me, unmoving.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

He gave his head a slight shake and took the silverware, saying, “Nice thing for you to do, honey.”

I shrugged and turned my attention back to the sudsy water. “They liked Gran.”

“They also obviously like you.”

They did and I liked that. I just didn’t like it that they were suffering this way.

I didn’t reply.

“So, how long you gonna be in Magdalene?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

And I didn’t.

I had not called one auction house. I had not called a real estate agent. I had not started sorting through Gran’s things.

What I’d done that day, after deciding the menu, going into town, getting the food and visiting the Weavers was tug on my least nice top and Gran’s wellies and go work in her garden to prepare it to be at rest for the winter. I didn’t know who planted it, as Gran couldn’t actually work out there anymore, and there was far less in it than when she tended it in earnest, but it had been worked that summer.

I’d also made a note that I needed to go to the mall in order to acquire clothing that would be more suitable to tasks such as these.

And then I’d been troubled that I made that mental note because making it made no sense.

I wasn’t going to be gardening in my future.

So why would I buy clothes to do such a thing?

“How are you leaning?” Jake asked as I unplugged the sink in order to set the pans to soaking.

“I need to be in Rome,” I told him.

“When?”

When indeed?

Henry had flown there today so tomorrow would be the best-case scenario.

However, that was impossible.

And strangely, the idea of packing and boarding yet another plane, spending hours imprisoned on it, getting out and heading to yet another hotel, even if that hotel was in the fabulousness of all that was Rome, wasn’t all that appealing.

“I need to be in Paris,” I went on, speaking to myself and not realizing I wasn’t making any sense.

“What?” Jake asked.

“Or, I’m thinking, I should join Henry in Sydney.”

The job in Sydney wasn’t for a month.

But I wasn’t thinking about Sydney, even though I adored Sydney.

No, I was thinking more that I should join him when he was back in LA for a break.

And that break was three months away.

“Josie…what?”

I turned fully to him and looked up into his eyes.

“Boston Stone came here yesterday,” I announced.

His presence did that swelling and heating thing again even as his eyes narrowed and he whispered in a peculiar (but somewhat alarming) sinister tone, “He did what?”

“He wishes to purchase Lavender House,” I shared.

“Yeah.” I heard Ethan call from the table. “He wishes it but Lydie told him to go jump in the Atlantic.”

“She didn’t say that,” Amber contradicted with big sister superiority. “She told him over her dead body.”

I felt my stomach twist as the air again went heavy and Ethan’s eyes sliced to his sister.

“Jeez, Amber, be more stupid, why don’t you?” he snapped, but his voice held a small tremble.

He didn’t need to tell her she was stupid. She was looking at me and her face was pale.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” she said softly.

Wonderful.

Now the children were calling me Josie.

“It’s quite all right,” I said stiffly and turned back to the pots and pans.