The All You Can Dream Buffet (36 page)

“This farm called to me at a time in my life when most people would have been thinking about retiring, and although it was a tragedy that brought me back here, I’m forever grateful to”—she choked up momentarily and bent her head; one of the nephews wiped his eyes—“Glen, my dear, dear nephew, who also had big dreams for the place and made it prosperous for the first time in thirty years.

“Turns out my true work was right here. I brought everything with me, the secretary and the accountant and the stewardess who knew how to talk, all right back here to this farm. I made something beautiful, and I am very proud, and I do not want to see it pass into the hands of a mega-farm corporation that will not run it the right way.” She looked at her nephews without blinking. “I’m hoping to see it carried on when I leave, by people who love it.”

The nephews exchanged mild glances. Ginny noticed Ruby, however, glaring at them. Were they going to sell the land?

“And that’s that. I’ve got little presents for everybody, in a basket by the porch, to help you remember to do your own work and find a good life, so don’t forget to take one on the way home. Now, let’s get down to some dancing!”

Lavender sat. The band began to play. The nephews excused themselves, their wives with them.

Ruby ran after them, her skirt swishing bright in the gathering twilight.

“Do you want to dance?” Jack asked.

“I’m not very good,” Ginny replied, “but I’ll try.”

“Nothing to it. C’mon.”

Ruby ran awkwardly, off balance thanks to the baby. “Gentlemen!” she cried. “Wait a minute, will you?”

They turned, the little army of four. Ruby stuck out her hand. “We met, you might remember, in McMinnville earlier this week?” She was out of breath and panted, touching her chest. The men looked, which had not been Ruby’s intention, but she straightened, unashamed, and met the eyes of one of them. “I have no doubt that Lavender is going to outlive all of us, but she is very worried about the farm.”

“That was uncalled for, making us look like fools. We’re here at her party, and she acts like that?”

“You don’t want the farm, though, do you?”

“We’re city people,” the other one said, shaking his head apologetically. “We don’t know anything about this place. We’d lose it in no time.”

“I get that. Why sell to that guy, though, the one she really really doesn’t want to have it? Why not find a better buyer, somebody who’ll respect what Lavender has built here?”

“Like you?” one of the wives said, dismissing Ruby with a head-to-toe glance. “What are you? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-six,” Ruby corrected. “But, yes, me. I don’t know if I can get the loan I’d need, but I’d like to try. I want to tell Lavender that I’m trying. She invited us here, the Foodie Four,
because she wants an heir, and this has felt like my true place since I got here.”

“You’re bamboozling my aunt, aren’t you?” said the first nephew.

“I don’t need to bamboozle anybody. That’s not who I am.” She shook her head, stepping back. “Just think about what she said, okay? Like exactly what would you need? Think about that.”

The first nephew’s wife took his arm and turned him away. They walked up the hill without speaking—stopping by the basket, though, to get their presents. Ruby grinned.

The second nephew said, “He’s offering a lot, Wade Markum is.”

Ruby’s heart plummeted. “Well, think about it, anyway. I’m going to stay here and work with Lavender, learn the business. There’s time.”

To Ruby’s surprise, the nephew stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Ruby. I can tell you love her.”

“I do.”

She watched them leave, then stood where she was, looking back over the scene, at the sparkling lights, the people dancing, including Ginny and the guy, who looked at Ginny in a way that made Ruby’s throat hurt. Also dancing was Lavender, with a man from town. As Ruby watched, Lavender waved a hand in front of her face and excused herself, going to the table to have a long drink of water. She sat down, hands on her knees, and smiled at the scene.

“Hi, Ruby.”

She spun around at the familiar voice, and for a long moment she simply gaped at the also-familiar face. He looked gaunt, too thin, but maybe that was because she’d been looking at the robust Noah. “Liam!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said, about the baby.” He moved closer. Ruby took a step back. “I told Minna I had to talk to you in person. I flew out this morning. Jesus, that’s a long flight!”

“How did you know where I was? Oh, the blog.”

He nodded. Hands in his pockets, he looked over her shoulder to the dancing and the tables so prettily scattered over the grass. “It’s your friend’s birthday, huh?”

“Yeah.” Ruby spied Noah standing off to one side, Hannah swaying beside him, and she suddenly didn’t want to talk to Liam. “You know, this is not a good time for me. We’ll have to talk tomorrow.”

“I only have tonight. And I’ve come a long way to talk to you, Ruby.”

How had she never noticed how peevish he could sound, how small? “You can’t just fall into my life and fall back out. It doesn’t work that way.” She made a smoothing gesture over the baby, over her skirts, and started to turn away.

“Don’t do it, Ruby!” He grabbed her arm. “I’ve been flying for ten hours today, two stops, since I couldn’t get on any damned direct flight.”

“Take your hand off me right now.”

He froze and dropped her arm, backing up two steps with his hands in the air. “Come on. It’s my baby, too. You owe me that much.”

“No. I don’t think I
owe
you anything.” She turned away, then said over her shoulder, “If you want to come back tomorrow morning, we can talk then.”

She walked away, feeling the pull of him on the back of her neck, but she kept going, away and away and away, giddier with every step.

By the time she reached the table where Lavender sat, however,
she was shaking all over. “Liam,” she managed to say, “is here.”

“Where?”

Ruby looked back up the hill, and there he stood, brooding, with his hands in his pockets, those baggy big chinos she always thought looked affected. From this distance, he was very ordinary and small. “There,” she said.

“Huh,” Lavender said. “What does he want?”

“To talk to me. But I don’t want to talk to him.”

Lavender gave her a long look. “You might as well get it over with.”

“No,” Ruby said, quite sure. “He doesn’t set this schedule. I do.” She jumped up and went through the milling people to find someone to dance with. When she looked later, he was gone.

They had their photo taken, the Foodie Four and Hannah, all in a row in their dresses, with their feet bare and the lights strung behind them. Noah took a bunch of shots, making sure there would be a lot for each of them to choose from, and Ginny kept breaking out of the lineup to see how they looked. From the sidelines, her man gobbled her up with his eyes, and Ginny was a floating star, the peach dress with its tiny crystal beads catching the light in winks and blinks, very subtle beneath the netting. Her dark hair had been piled up to start the night, but as it went on, tendrils fell down on her freckled shoulders. She looked sexy and at ease, and Ruby thought with wonder,
How did that happen in a week?

But look at her own self! Instead of throwing up and crying, she was happy and getting more pregnant by the day, and she
was
going to stay on the farm and learn everything she could. At
least that way she could be ready to help buy it if that came to pass. If not, maybe she could find other farmwork.

After Noah took the pictures, he came over to her. “It’s my turn to dance with you.”

“Okay. I’ve been dying for you to ask. You look like Antonio Banderas, only taller and younger.”

“And better looking.”

“Well, that goes without saying.”

They danced easily together, a two-step he led with expertise. Ruby yawned and let herself lean into him. She found herself falling into the music, into the starry night, into the dance. “I think my baby likes you,” she said dreamily. “She kicks me when she hears your voice.”

“I’m glad.” He swayed with her for a while, humming along with the music, his voice in her hair. “Ruby, can I ask you what you saw? When we kissed?”

“It’s not seeing, exactly.” She put her head on his shoulder, feeling very tired. “I just feel things about people sometimes, like things around them, energy or memories or ghosts, maybe.”

“Hmm.” His voice rumbled up through his chest. After a long moment he asked, “So what did you see or sense about me? Something bad?”

“No,” she said, trying to hang on to the thought. “More like … sad … I guess.” She yawned again. “You have to get something off your chest.”

They had slowed, were barely moving, but Ruby didn’t notice. Like a baby, like a safe and drowsy child, she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. She was somewhat aware of him picking her up and carrying her off the platform, aware that she wanted to tell him something, but sleep was so overpowering that she fell with it to the other side. Far away, far away and safe.

When the partygoers began to drift off one by one, Jack said to Ginny, “I suppose I’d better be going.”

She knew what she should say.
Let me walk you to your truck. Thank you for coming.
She liked it that he didn’t presume any intimacy, despite the way they’d been dancing, heating up their skin, rolling against each other. They generated so much power that they could have lit the night by themselves.

“Okay,” she said. She picked up her sandals by the table, kissed Lavender good night, and, holding hands with Jack, walked up the hill to the parking lot.

“What a great night,” he said. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“You’re welcome. When do you head back?”

“Tomorrow, bright and early. I’ve got to pick up a load and be on the road by nine.”

A pinch of loss squeezed her chest. “So soon!”

“I know. It’s the way my life goes, unfortunately. But I need to see you again, Ginny. I can’t— This is … something.” He squeezed her hand. “Something.”

“It is,” she said. Smiling, she tugged him away from the path to his truck and toward her trailer, enjoying the slow build of heat that kindled between them, the anticipation of what they had been hoping for, thinking about, all evening. “Can you stay, at least for a while?”

“Until dawn.”

She led him up the steps to her home, the only home she’d made for herself alone, a space that belonged utterly to her. It was small inside, but not so small that they couldn’t figure out how to peel away the layers of clothing between them and make their way to the bed, where Jack laid her gently down on her back. When she wanted to reach for him, he said, “Wait,” and he kissed her everywhere, shoulders and thighs, belly and the lower curve of her breasts, her inner elbows, the springy triangle of hair between her legs. Then he touched her, and kissed her mouth, and she said, “Please, please, please, come inside!” and he did, filling her—oh, sweet heaven!—all the way up, living hot flesh, and she grabbed his behind, holding him still, holding him inside her, not moving, so that she could really feel it for a long, long moment. Him, filling her, holding her, sucking on her neck, suckling her lips, his belly sweating against hers, his legs slightly awkward in the small space.

“Now,” he whispered, and she said,
“Yes, now, yes, move, yes,”
and she exploded all around him, all over her body, in each place his lips had touched, in her lips and her tongue, which sucked at him, in her fingertips, which dug into him. He whispered, too,
“Yes,”
and
“Yes,”
and
“Ginny, Ginny, Ginny.”

And when they were done and sweating and breathing hard, she laughed, wrapping her legs tightly around him, and kissed his face, his shoulders, his arms. “Thank you.”

“We’re in trouble, sister,” he said, and bent toward her again. “I’m an old man and I’m already wanting you again.”

“Good,” she whispered. “Good.”

It was, Ginny thought, one of the best nights of her life. They dozed and drank bottles of cold water and raided the fridge at
three
A.M.
, taking out cheese and crackers, which made a mess in the bed.

The best hour was at four, when he said he would have to go in one hour. They opened the curtains to see the sky and curled up on a pile of pillows, with quilts flung over them, and talked.

And talked, and talked. Not about anything, really, but about everything. Ginny told him that she wasn’t going home but she would miss her roses. He told her that he’d been thinking of giving up the driving but wasn’t sure what was next, especially for a man over fifty. She asked if she could shoot photos of him, and he agreed, letting her take pictures of his bare feet and his chin and his eyes, staring at her through the lens.

Their bodies were tired, sated. “I’ll feel this tomorrow,” she said.

He chuckled, tracing her thumbnail with the pad of his index finger. His cheek was against her hair. “Yeah, me, too.”

“I’m worried that you haven’t slept and have to drive. That’s dangerous.”

“I’ll have a good hour or two before I pick up my load, then break every couple of hours for a half hour. I’m sometimes a bad sleeper, especially on the road. I’ve learned to deal with it.”

She nodded.

“If you’re not going home, what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea, Jack. None.” She tipped her head back to look at his face. “It’s exhilarating.”

“Sounds like heaven to me.” Soberly, he traced a line down her neck, over her breasts, connecting dots. “Will I see you again?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “We’ll figure something out.” She paused. “But I need to be sure you understand that I’m still looking for myself, that it would be bad for me to get too serious about you.”

“I get it.” He touched her lips. “I’m patient. I also believe things work out the way they should. We shouldn’t have met even one time, much less over and over.” He smiled. “I’ve got fate on my side.”

A prickle of tears touched the back of her throat, and she pressed her face into his softly furred chest, breathing in the smell of him. “I am going to miss you.”