The Baby Bump. Jennifer Greene

      “I do. I do.” She’d inherited the ability to lie from her father. “Gramps, do you know who did your taxes last year? I mean, do you have an accountant in town?”

      “Why, honey, you know your grandma does all that. I always oversaw the business, the farm. But it was your grandma who did all the work with figures. We never depended on outsiders for that kind of thing. Why are you asking all these questions? We can do something fun. Like play cards. Or put out the backgammon board. After dinner, we could take the golf cart around before the bugs hit.”

      He was right, Ginger realized. There was no point in asking any more questions. Every answer she’d heard so far was downright scary. There appeared to be no one running the place. Not the tea plantation. Not the house. Gramps seemed under the impression that Grandma was still alive, still there with him. The whole situation was more overwhelming than she’d ever expected.

      Ginger wondered if she could somehow will herself to faint again. It certainly helped her block out things earlier that day…. Except that fainting brought on Ike, as if he had some invisible radar when anything embarrassing or upsetting was happening to her.

      She still couldn’t figure out what possessed her to kiss him. He’d been a white knight, sort of. And she’d been starving and hadn’t realized it. And a simple gesture like a hug or a kiss just didn’t seem like that big a deal….

      But it was.

      It was a big deal because she already knew she was susceptible to doctors.

      She also knew that impulsiveness got her into trouble every time. A woman could make a mistake. Everyone did that. No one could avoid it. But the measure of a woman was partly how she handled those mistakes.

      Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. She’d been trying to drill that mantra into her head. A doctor might seem like great husband potential for lots of women—but not her. Doctors invariably put their jobs first, their own needs, and played by their own rule book.

      Ike for sure played by his own rule book.

      Keeping her heart a long, long way away from him was an easy for-sure.