The All You Can Dream Buffet (20 page)

We will be hosting more than a dozen workshops—some on culinary arts, some on decorative uses of lavender, some on photography and plein air painting, and even one on making perfume. Space is limited and these workshops fill up fast, so take a look at the full calendar and sign up today! A refundable five-dollar deposit will hold your place.

Lavender Honey Farms Schedule of Events

For the full description of the Lavender Festival, check out:
http://www.oregonlavenderdestinations.com/festival.php
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As she walked the perimeter of the farm at dawn on Friday, Lavender saw her old friend Ginger again. This time she sat on a wooden folding chair facing the blooming fields. A canvas was propped on an easel before her, and she had a palette in her right hand, a paintbrush in her left. Even at a distance, Lavender could see that the canvas was a blur of purple and blue.

Twice in life, Ginger had come to do this very thing, paint the lavender fields, so Lavender first thought it was a memory rising up out of the earth, as they so often did these days.

But then she noticed that Ginger’s hair was long, spilling down her back in red curls. Her dress was airy and pink, a dress from another time. Lavender whistled for the dogs, compelled by something to walk up the hill toward the specter of her friend.

As Lavender approached, Ginger dipped her brush into a small pool of color and dabbed it on the canvas. She wore a white apron over the front of her dress, but a little paint had stained the sleeve. It had always been that way with Ginger: She was one of the great natural beauties, but her dress was always a bit askew, her shoe had a grass stain, a hem was coming undone, and paint showed up everywhere—under her nails, in an eyebrow, in a smear on her elbow.

When Lavender saw her the first time, Ginger had behaved
like the other ghosts—she didn’t seem to know Lavender was there. This time, she looked up and smiled.

Her skin was translucent and unlined. Lavender had forgotten how startlingly clear her eyes were. How young they once had been!

“Are you coming for me?” Lavender said, without knowing she would.

“Are you ready?”

“Not today.”

Ginger nodded, dipped her paintbrush, and again stroked color on the canvas.

“When?” Lavender asked.

Ginger smiled, the expression ever so slightly sad. “Soon, my friend.”

A quick clutch of emotion seized Lavender’s throat, and she looked away, overcome by a wild sense of loss. She took in the view of the flowers, the hills in the distance, the diffuse light of the cloudy day.

At the top of the hill, not a ghost but a solid human being was wading through the fields: Ruby. Surprisingly, Noah stood at the opening of the bushes. He had the most curious expression on his face, somehow hushed, as he watched the girl in the flowers, her light-blond hair caught beneath a kerchief, her curvaceous figure clasped by a T-shirt and jeans.

Not yet, Lavender thought. Not now. She turned her head to say so, but Ginger was gone, dissolved like a breath of mist into the day.

Not yet.

But, just in case, there were things that had to be done. Whatever attachment she felt to this earth belonged to the lavender and the chickens and the farm. She had to find an heir.

Would it be Ruby? Or Ginny? Could it be the thing that would draw Hannah back from the moment she’d lost her father and sisters? Could Valerie stay here long enough to find her new place?

Lavender strode quickly toward the workshop and her office, filled with a sense of urgency the questions aroused. She had to get this settled.

Ginny awakened in her bed, at first thinking she was at home. A breeze blew over her face and the bed was enormously comfortable. It was the gently moving ribs of her dog, panting quietly, that drew her into reality. The food poisoning, the guys at the door—

She bolted up, eyes flying open, and a pain stabbed the base of her neck.

“Whoa, there, girl,” said a rumbling, rusty voice.

Ginny jumped practically out of her skin, a move that made tremors radiate through her limbs. A big hand landed on her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She peered at him, the face slowly coming into context. Gray eyes, that wavy salt-and-pepper hair. “Jack?” Her voice came out as cracked as an antique dish. “What—”

“How do you feel about a glass of water?”

She remembered then how sick she’d been, the vomiting and diarrhea and terror and fever. She put a hand to her forehead, feeling that the fever had broken. “Maybe. What time is it? What day is it?”

“It’s Friday, around seven-thirty, I guess.”

“Wow.” She felt dizzy, unable to fit the pieces together between last night and this morning. “Water is a good start. There are bottles in the fridge.”

He fetched one, twisting the top off before he handed it to her. “Go easy.”

Folding a hand over her tender belly, she sipped gingerly. The water was cold and poured down her parched throat in a welcome stream. “Whew.”

He perched at the edge of the bed. “How are you?”

“Better, I guess.” She realized that she was wearing a nightgown, and that had not been what she was wearing last night. A flush covered her neck. “Did you change my clothes?”

“Yeah, sorry. I thought it would help. You were soaked with sweat, completely delirious, when I got here. Was it food poisoning?”

“Pretty sure. What else comes on like that, right?” She sipped the water again and looked at him. “But how did you know to come help?”

“You texted me.”

She frowned. “No. My phone is dead.”

“Well, I got a text. Maybe it’s okay now.” He pulled his phone from his shirt pocket and punched a couple of icons to bring up a text:
From Ginny Smith: Urgent. Very sick at Grizzly Lake. Please come.

A ripple of something unholy washed down Ginny’s spine, completely out of proportion to the situation. She couldn’t actually remember much past curling around Willow on the floor—maybe she
had
texted him.

She pointed to the counter by the sink. “There’s a bowl of rice over there. My phone is inside. Will you get it for me?”

He followed her instructions, pulling the iPhone out of its nest. Ginny pressed the buttons to try to bring it up, first the home button, then the power button on top, just in case.

But some part of her knew it wouldn’t work. The camera was
blurry and dotted with water. The screen showed condensation beneath the glass. “No, this phone is absolutely dead.”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I got the text. I came. You were in bad shape, and I wasn’t too happy about some boys over there having a big party.”

A bolt of memory shot through her brain. “They tried to get in.” She clutched a fistful of Willow’s fur in her hand. “Willow barked like a crazy savage.” She bent over and kissed her dog’s nose. “Thank you, baby.”

“Maybe it was Willow who texted me.” He reached over and scrubbed the dog on the side of the face, and Willow gave a big smile, lifting up her chin so he would scratch her chest. “She wasn’t too happy about you being so sick.”

“How did you get in?”

“The locks aren’t all that tough on something like this, sweetheart, which we’re going to have a conversation about. Right now let’s get you something easy to eat.”

“Can you look up something for me on the Internet first? I need to call my friends and let them know what’s going on.”

“Sure.”

She gave him the website address for Lavender Honey Farms and asked him to connect to the phone number. It went through and a woman answered. “Hi, I’d like to talk to Lavender Wills if possible.”

“I’m sorry, she just headed out for supplies and won’t be back for a couple of hours. Can I give her a message?”

“Yes, please. Tell her that Ginny Smith has run into a couple of delays, but I should be there late tonight or early tomorrow. My phone is not working.”

“Hold on, let me write this down.” The woman repeated key words aloud. “Ginny Smith. Delays. Phone out. Anything else?”

“Yes. Will you ask her to post something to my blog so my readers won’t worry?”

“Oh, is this Ginny of ‘Cake of Dreams’?”

“Yes.”

“I read your blog every day! I love it. We have all been worrying about you since you didn’t post yesterday. Has that ever happened before?”

“No. It’s a long story, but if you wouldn’t mind telling them that I’m safe, I’d really appreciate it.”

“I’d be honored. I can’t wait to meet you.”

“Thank you.” Ginny punched the exit button and handed the phone back to Jack. “I need a shower desperately. And I know you must need to get on the road, so I’ll be fine now.”

“I’m good,” he said. “I called and let them know there was an emergency.”

A sweetness swirled around her heart, colored pale green. “Really?”

“It’s your freckles,” he said, and winked. “Let me give you some privacy and you can get dressed, then we’ll go get some easy-to-digest food in Butte. How’s that?”

“Good,” she said. “Really good.”

She was very shaky but functional as they caravanned into Butte. It was a small town on the edge of the Rockies, the peaks still showing dirty white snow in some places.
Would that be a glacier?
Ginny wondered, pulling the trailer into a long space at the back of the parking lot. Jack parked his rig beside hers.

“How are you holding up?” Jack asked as they headed inside.

“Okay.” Ginny scanned her body, feeling the weakness left
over from the violence of the attack on her system. “It will be good to get some food.”

The diner was clean and bustling, and they settled into a booth by the window. The seats were red leatherette, the view worth a million bucks—sharp, high mountains against a sky so blue it nearly hurt to look at.

Ginny shook her head. “I keep looking at the mountains and wondering what took me so long to get here. I feel like I was born in the wrong place.”

Jack held the menu loosely in his hands, gazing out the window. When the light hit his eyes, the pupils contracted so much that the irises looked as if they were made of silver disks. Beautiful and, considering the weird text situation, creepy. Maybe he was a being from the other side, an angel sent to accompany her on this wild journey, or some kind of a ghost.

But his hands were those of a man. A raw cut marred the middle knuckle of his index finger. The nails were mostly even, but one looked as if it had been torn off too short some time ago. The skin was weathered and brown.

He shifted his gaze away from the window and settled it on her face. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She looked over the menu carefully, asking her stomach what it could tolerate.
Nothing much,
it replied.
Tea and toast or Cream of Wheat to start.

Jack asked, “If I order eggs and bacon, will the smells bother you?”

“I don’t think so.” She smiled. “No promises.”

“Understood.”

When the waitress had taken their order and headed away, Ginny said, “I’m feeling guilty about all this. You had to have
been quite a ways down the road. Did you have to detour because of the fire?”

“I did. And don’t worry about any of it. I called and made everything all right, and I’ll follow you into Portland.”

“No,” she said with a scowl. “I’ll be fine.”

He measured her. “I don’t mind.”

“I do.” She met his gaze steadily. “I appreciate you coming back for me, appreciate everything you did, but I need to make this trip on my own.”

He leaned back as the coffee and tea were delivered. “I swear I won’t pressure you to do anything, if that’s the problem. You’re married, I get that.” Ducking his head, he reached for a packet of sugar. “Did you … uh … get anything from Veronica?”

“A note, you mean?”

“Kinda silly, I guess.”

“Not silly. Really touching and …” She found herself looking at his mouth, wondering what it would be like to taste it, how he would kiss. How he would touch her. How she might touch him. What it might be like to have a man inside her after all this time.

Her long-starved nerves rustled to attention. “I liked your note, Jack, and … I like to look at you, too. But I’m not the kind of person who has an affair.”

“What if it’s not an affair?”

She raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“What if we’re just friends, Ginny? What if we stay in touch because we like to talk? And maybe sometimes we can hang out.”

She had a sudden flash of memory, his gentle hands washing her face and neck with a cool cloth. She had reached for his face, touched his cheek, and felt the whiskers on his jaw. The memory brushed every nerve in her body into full alert. “I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to talk about it right now.” He gave her a sideways smile. “I just finished listening to
Stranger in a Strange Land,
the old Heinlein book. You want to borrow it for the rest of your day?”

“Maybe I do,” she said, accepting the shift in conversation. “I definitely do.”

After breakfast, they walked out to their vehicles, slowly. Ginny let Willow out of the backseat and leashed her so they could walk along the side of the grass. “I bet she’s going to be happy to get to the farm finally.”

“She probably just likes to be with you, wherever that is,” he answered, reaching down to scratch the scruff of Willow’s black neck and her gold ears. He moved both hands over her, rubbing, stroking. “Her fur is great, so thick.”

“She molts, though.
Giant
hunks of hair.”

He stood. Brushed his hands off. Looked at his rig, then back to Ginny. “You going to be okay now?”

“Yep. The food did the trick. I’m a little tired, but I’ll take it easy.”

“Guess I’d better get a move on, then. You still have my phone number?”

“I do.” Earnestly, she looked up. “Thank you so much for everything you did, Jack. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have met you, but it was good luck for me.” She hesitated. “Is it all right to give you a hug?”

“You bet.” He opened his arms and Ginny moved forward, wrapping her free arm around his waist. His arms fell around her, and their bodies touched.