The All You Can Dream Buffet (33 page)

Tonight is the blue moon. Enjoy the rare and magical energy. Send out a wish and see what happens!

(And who is writing this blog? Is it Ruby?
Friends, you would love her.)

17 COMMENTS

In her trailer, Ginny bent over the finished cake with her camera. The light on her table here was not quite the genius swath of light that came in on her kitchen counter, but it was pretty good. A lot would depend on how she parked, she supposed, straightening to decide which direction she faced just now. The light was coming from the east, edging over the horizon to glitter through pines. She’d draped a thin dish towel over the window to diffuse the bars of light, and the result was a bowl of goldenness.

Which was not what she was going for. The cake was white and silver and soft purple; the yellow was bringing out the wrong tones. She held the camera in one hand, looking around at the other surfaces, chewing on her inner cheek. Photoshop would make it possible to change that, of course, but she had a certain pride in her natural-light skills, and even if the conscious mind didn’t notice the difference, she always felt that the subconscious would know.

The light was much better coming in through the windows by the bed. What if she used a cookie sheet and a drape of some kind in that corner?

Outside the open door of the trailer, Willow made a squeaky noise, a yipping bark that meant play. Who was here? Ginny peeked out, and there was the kitten Ruby was so enamored with, tiptoeing through the grass to slide by the dog, who stood
at full attention, ears up, pointed nose pointier, tail wagging high. “Willow,” she said firmly. “Leave it.”

But Willow’s black tail kept wagging, and her face was a wide, cheerful smile. The kitten moved a quarter inch at a time, as if in slow motion, eyes focused full ahead, as if to make Willow invisible. Ginny covered her mouth when giggles threatened to come out, and impulsively she shot a series of the dog and the cat. Then, when the cat came in to the trailer, she settled the cake on the counter and put the kitten beside it. Black and white, so perfect.

Her phone rang as she was finishing, and the cat dived under the table. Glancing at the screen, she saw that it was her daughter. “Christie!” she cried. “I’m so glad to talk to you!”

“How are you? You sound like you’re having a blast.”

Ginny paused, feeling suddenly as if it couldn’t possibly have been only a week since she’d left home. “I’m great. So great. Did you worry when I dropped out of sight?”

“Honestly? No. I worked about thirty-six hours straight, then crashed for twenty. By the time I woke up, you were back in touch.”

“That’s handy.” Ginny laughed. “We’re having the birthday party today and I was just shooting the cake. It’s lavender and—”

“Mom.”

Hearing the seriousness in Christie’s voice, Ginny took a breath. “You talked to your dad.”

“Grandma, actually. She is pretty upset. She’s sure you’re ruining your life.”

“I know. I should talk to her, but it’s going to be …” She sighed. “Depressing.”

“She thinks you’re running away.” Christie paused. “Are you?”

“Of course I am. Have you been to Dead Gulch, Kansas?”

“It’s not so bad.”

“As a place to be from.” Ginny shook hair out of her eyes. “You ran as fast as you could.”

“That’s true. But I didn’t have a husband and a life and a garden I was crazy about.”

Ginny watched the kitten slip out from under the table and walk along the seat, then to the counter. A thud of anxiety punched her rib cage. “Are you angry?”

“No, please don’t think that. I just don’t want you to make a rash decision, one that you might regret.”

“Ah.” Disappointment splashed her face, shocking and cold. She had expected Christie to have a different reaction. “I don’t think I am.”

“Maybe you only need a break, not a whole new life.”

“Maybe.” Ginny heard the stiffness in her voice, but there was a chant in the back of her mind:
Never, never, never, never going back.
“Enough about me. How’s life with you? Doing anything besides work?”

“Not really. I wish I could offer something a little more interesting, but the truth is, it’s just work.”

The kitten had eased back to the cake. Ginny said, “Well, thanks for calling.”

“Keep in touch, Mom, okay? Keep me in the loop.”

“I will. I promise.” She took a breath. “But I need you to believe that I know what’s best for me, okay?”

Christie gulped. “Yes. Okay. I’ll try.”

“Love you.”

“Love you back.”

She was already reaching for the camera as she hung up and waited for the inevitable. The kitten wiggled her nose around the cake, white whiskers illuminated in fine threads against her
shiny black fur. In the light, it showed brown layers. Ginny clicked the shutter,
again again again again again,
and so she caught the instant when the kitten put a paw on the cake and pulled away a hunk of frosting, and when she licked the frosting off her paw. Ginny laughed. The kitten dashed away, and Ginny straightened to look at the sickeningly adorable pictures.

Leaning on the open door, she looked out at a view of the sun rising over a meadow blurred by a low mist. In the distance were mountains and trees and, closer in, the cabin and the big tree and the platform where they would dance tonight. She thought,
I am never going back.

She repaired the damage done by the kitten, then carried the cake over to the cottage. Willow walked up with her, but when Lavender’s bunch of cheerful mutts came running over, tags jangling, Willow leapt into the tumbling pack. They dashed off toward the field. It had made her nervous the first time they’d done this, but it mainly seemed that they ran and wrestled and practiced herding skills on one another.

Valerie was in the kitchen, trying to be quiet as she scrounged around in the cabinets for pans and bowls. “Lavender is still sleeping.”

“She must not feel well,” Ginny whispered back. “Doesn’t she do a walk around the farm every morning?”

“It is her birthday. Maybe she decided to sleep in.” Valerie came over to look at the cake. “This is brilliant, Gin. I love the tiny moons.”

“Thanks,” Ginny replied softly. “We got lucky—the sun is shining!”

“I was thinking we should set the table outside for breakfast. Wouldn’t that be fun? And maybe have some mimosas?”

“That would be very nice. Do we have champagne?”

Valerie flashed a smile over her shoulder. “I do. What I don’t have”—she extracted a big ceramic bowl from beneath the counter—“is orange juice. How would you feel about going to get some?”

“Of course! It’s just a few miles down the road, right?”

“I have no idea. I saw Noah outside a minute ago. Ask him.”

“All right. Anything else we need?”

“A pint of strawberries and some raw sugar.”

“Done.” Ginny headed out and saw Noah working on the tent. “Good morning,” she called. “Can I bother you for directions?”

“Sure.” He jumped down from the platform, eyeing his handiwork. “What do you need?”

“Grocery store, for orange juice.”

“You’re going?”

“Yes, do you need something?”

He gave her a rueful grin. “I do—but feel free to turn me down.”

“Why, what is it?”

“The ice machine is broken again, and I need about a hundred pounds of ice, if you can manage it.”

“I can do that. Blocks or cubes?”

“Cubes.” He reached into his back pocket and took bills from his wallet. “You’ll need to go to McMinnville—about twenty minutes, a half hour. That okay?”

McMinnville. “Um, yeah, sure.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.” She’d scope it out, see where the Blue Moon Tavern was, where she’d meet Jack later.
If
she met him.

When Ginny whistled, Willow came running and leapt into the backseat of the Jeep, panting hard. Ginny took a moment to
bring her some water, then they drove out on the narrow highway in the quiet Sunday morning light. As the sun rose higher, it cast a buttery sheen over the world, the grassy fields and grazing sheep. She spied a winery high on a hill and passed innumerable small farms, often with signs in front offering produce or eggs.

If Dead Gulch had been this pretty, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave it at all.

In McMinnville, she followed her phone’s directions to Safeway and parked, rolling the window down halfway for Willow. It was a cute little town and, judging by the cars in the lot, prosperous. Ruby had told her there were a half dozen great restaurants along the main drag.

She picked up the orange juice, strawberries, and sugar, then wandered around the store a bit, trying to think of things she might need in her trailer or they might want for the party. Recalling Ruby’s cherry blog, she filled a plastic bag with ripe red cherries and added some bananas and salad greens to the cart. For Willow, she picked up a bag of jerky treats.

At the ice machine, she filled up her cart. One hundred pounds sounded like a lot, but it was only ten bags, and they were compact. She paid and headed back out.

And halted.

A man stood by her Jeep, petting Willow through the open window. He had his back to her, but she recognized the long, lean limbs, the slim hips. She froze on the sidewalk, feeling everything heat up and shiver all at once—Fate, standing there in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved blue Henley.

What if she just went back inside and waited for him to leave? Then this whole conundrum could be avoided.

But wasn’t she supposed to be
choosing
her life and what she wanted in it? Her shoulder blades itched. With a firm step,
she pushed the cart off the sidewalk and crossed the parking lot.

Jack turned as she approached, and at the sight of his weathered face, his kind gray eyes, she felt dizzy with relief, with the sense of almost missing something very important. “Hi,” she said, and her voice was barely there.

“Hi. We have to quit meeting like this.”

“I’m starting to think if I flew to Moscow and walked in to a movie theater, you’d be in the next seat.”

His eyes twinkled. “When I saw Willow in your car, I couldn’t believe it. Where are you staying?”

“About twenty minutes north of here.” She gestured at the full cart. “They sent me for ice.”

“Let me help you load it up.”

Ginny pulled out her keys with a hand that shook, and she unlocked the back. Jack came around beside her, and they loaded the ice into the back without speaking. She was acutely aware of his arm next to hers, of her thigh close by his. The scent of his skin filled her head, and she couldn’t think of anything except touching him.

Before she could do anything rash, she tossed the last bag on top and stepped away, reaching for the door over their heads.

“Ginny,” he said—just her name.

She closed her eyes, feeling him along the back of her neck, a ghost touch. When he raised his hand to brush his fingers over her cheek, ever so gently, she raised her own hand and pressed his fingers closer. His scent, powerful, astringent, and sweet, made her head spin, and she had to hold on to something, and it was him.

When he bent down to kiss her, she met him with everything in her, with all the wishing and dreaming and hungry years that had dogged her. He tasted like peppermint, and his mouth
devoured her with the same ferocity that she gave. His hand caught her face, and he tilted it up, hauling her body closer, and Ginny nearly swooned, literally, when their legs scissored together, his thigh pushing between her legs, her hip pressed against him.

She reached up to touch his hair, thick and wavy against her fingers, and he stroked her side, swept the edge of her breast, kissed her deeper yet. Everything in her burned, and she wanted to take him right there in the parking lot, and it was that need that made her raise her head, pull away slightly so she could look up at his face. “I have thought of you every other minute since we kissed. It’s crazy.”

“It is.” He shook his head, touched her neck and her jaw. Her mouth. “I’m not even on every other minute. It’s all of them. Every single one.” He looked at her mouth. “And I want a lot of things. I want to talk to you all night and drink a margarita while we eat Mexican food, and I want to know what your favorite food was when you were sixteen, but until I get you naked and me naked with you, I’m not gonna be able to do anything else.”

She melted, her body buzzing with the pictures that gave. She closed her eyes and he bent in, kissing her throat, pulling their lower bodies closer, and he moved himself against her, moved her against him, and Ginny was suddenly fearful that she would have an orgasm right there, in her clothes, without much stimulation at all. “I have to get back,” she said, breaking away. “I don’t know what to do about this.”

He grabbed her hand. “Don’t run, Ginny. There’s something here. You know it.”

“I have to think. And I can’t think when you’re right in front of me.”

“That’s a good sign, right?”

She ached to fling herself back at him, for once in her life to do what she wanted instead of what the rules said she should do or what she thought she should do. No shoulds. She wanted crazy hot sex with a man who made her feel alive. She took a breath and made a choice.