She felt Noah’s gaze on her face, but she thought he would eventually say something. He didn’t, and she looked up.
He took her hand into his, palm to palm, fingers laced. “I hate that.”
“I’m over it.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers. “No, you aren’t.”
Instantly, all the sex sensors in her body stood at full alert. She could almost hear the bugle call. Using the same fingers of the hand he held, she touched his mouth, the fat bottom lip, and he captured the tip of her finger in his hot mouth. Meeting his eyes, she said, “I’m really not over my boyfriend.”
“I know.” He kissed her fingers again, eyes on her face, on her mouth. Abruptly, he stood. “Let’s take a walk.”
Confused, Ruby said, “Um … okay.”
“I’m loading lavender into the still and I thought you’d want to see it.”
“Ooh, yes! I’d love that.”
His smile was slow and bright. “Come on, then.”
On the way up the hill, he said, “Do you have names picked out yet for the baby?”
“I don’t! I keep thinking I need to look at lists of names and come up with some, but at first I was too superstitious, then I was too sick, and I’ve been here since then.” She had to hurry a little to keep up with his long-legged stride through the tall grass. He noticed and slowed down. “Maybe flower names for a girl. I like it that Lavender has a flower name. Maybe Rose or Daisy.”
“And if it’s a boy?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t think it is.”
“But what if?” He held the door to the shop open for her, waving her in ahead of him.
“You’re right. I should think of something. But I have almost four months.”
The shop was closed for the day, with everything neatly put away, the cash drawer open. The front room was very pretty, with lavender curtains and woven wreaths of lavender and bottles of various kinds of cosmetics. “Is everything made here?” Ruby asked, pausing.
“Not all of it. Lavender’s main thing is her oil production, and there are some bulk culinary and decorative lavenders. They make some pillows and eye masks, that kind of thing.” He waved. “But a lot of it is just pretty stuff, you know, for tourists. We sell a lot through the website, thanks to Lavender’s blog.”
“Profitable?”
“Surprisingly so.” He gestured for her to follow him up the stairs, and as they reached the second floor, the smell of lavender hung like a fabric in the air.
Ruby took a deep breath. “That’s wonderful. I want to drink it!”
“We do have tea.” He grinned. “In here.”
The room had once been a large bedroom, with lots of Victorian touches—long double-hung windows, now curtainless to show the expanse of green fields, the barns and outbuildings, trees, and, in the distance, the rolling hills bumping up against the cloudy sky. Cool light flooded the room, touching on a pair of copper kettles connected by a coil. “It’s so cute!” Ruby said. Two more stills were in the room, and one made a soft hissing noise.
Next to the still were baskets of lavender blossoms, cut very evenly with a stem of about four inches. “Is this done by hand?”
“We do this with a small machine, but a lot of the rest of it is done by hand. We hire crews of high school students.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “Not much work for kids out here.” He knelt by the baskets and hauled one up off the floor. The light lavishly brushed him, highlighting cheekbones and mouth, the cords of his arms, the shape of his thighs. She thought of his mouth on her fingers, and all the newly awakened bits of her stretched and poked—feathers over her throat, dancers on her breasts, soldiers of want marching up her thighs. He had a gorgeous butt, high and round, perfect for the loose old jeans he wore. She thought of what that back might look like, that rear end, all naked and—
He shook the blossoms and looked over his shoulder. “Are you paying attention?” he asked, and a sleepy expression told her he knew the truth.
Inside her, the baby moved, sliding a foot or a hand from one end of her belly to the other. A welcome distraction.
“I am.” She brushed hair off her forehead and stepped closer.
He took the lid off one side of the kettle. “This is the still pot,” he said. “We leave the stems about four inches long and load them into the pot pretty tightly.” He illustrated, grabbing fistfuls of stalks, then packing them into the pot, over and over. Each movement released the scent into the air, until Ruby was practically dizzy with it. “Steam will take the easiest path, so you want to be sure it’s touching as much lavender as possible. Look.”
He pushed a small step stool over, and Ruby stood on it to look inside the pot. “Can I add some?”
“Sure.” He offered the basket, and Ruby gathered fistfuls of blossoms, as he had, and pushed them down, searching for holes in the stacks, sealing up gaps with more flowers. The texture of the filled pot was springy and dense.
“This is so cool,” Ruby said.
“You think everything is cool.”
She laughed. “It’s true. I do. That’s why I’m having so much trouble figuring out what to do with my life.”
“I thought you were a chef.”
“Technically, yes.” She tucked stalks into the sides of the pot. “I love cooking, but restaurants are brutal. I don’t like working that many hours.”
“What about the food truck?”
She shrugged. “Where’s the baby going to be? Inside the hot truck while I work? I don’t really like that idea as much as I thought I would.”
“And the blog?”
“It’s fine. I’ve been doing it for eight years, though, and maybe I’m tired of it.” She peered into the pot, nudged some more blossoms into place. “I just feel like I’ll know the right place when I see it.”
“Or maybe you’ll know some other way. You’ll realize you really like something you’re doing. Things don’t always show up as ringing gongs.”
“That’s kinda what my dad says, too.” She stepped down. “There. Check it out.”
He pressed the springy mass, then stood on the stool and added another few handfuls of blossoms. “Good.” With an easy gesture, he set the basket aside, grabbed the lid, and fitted it to the top, connecting a tube to the other kettle. “This has to fit tightly so that no steam escapes,” he explained, and pointed out the path of the steam. “It will rise up to the top here, go through the tube, and come into the condenser; then the lavender oil is separated and comes out here.” He pointed to a small glass bottle.
“All those flowers into this?”
“Amazing, right? I love the chemistry of all this stuff.”
“Like wine, right? You liked the wineries, too.”
He looked at her. “You’re right, I did. I do.” He turned the machine on and pointed to one of the other stills. “This one,” he said, “has been going for a while, so it has produced this oil.” He stuck his nose in it, then offered it to her. “That’s the real deal.”
Ruby inhaled. “Can I feel it?”
He moved the bottle. “Catch the drops in your palm.”
She put her hand beneath the spigot, and a heavy globule of oil, then another, fell slowly into her palm. “That’s good,” she said, and raised it to her nose. “Oh, my God, that’s beautiful!” Again she inhaled, letting it fill the hollows of her nose and sinuses, letting it hang a little at the top of her throat. “There is no camphor in this one, is there?”
He had his palm beneath the spigot, too, and smiled. “Good job. This is Royal Velvet.” He held his cupped hand to his nose and closed his eyes, and Ruby nearly swooned. His lashes were black and long, falling on his cheekbones in unexpected and ridiculous adorability.
She shook her head. Too much. His beauty was like something she’d made up, practically surreal.
“What?” he said, giving her a perplexed twitch of the eyebrows.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
/>
He stepped over and tugged on her blouse. “Lift up. It would be a shame to waste this oil.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Are you shy, Ruby?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Not usually. But nobody has seen my tummy yet, except me.”
“I don’t have to look. I’ll just rub it on right quick.”
Ruby’s skin whispered, wiggled, got ready. “No, it’s fine.” She tugged up her top and there was her roundness, all fat and funny and beautiful. He poured the oil from his palm on her skin, and Ruby poured hers, too, but he did the rubbing, a firm, easy circle on her skin, round and round, hypnotic, even. His skin was dark against the moon-pale shine of hers, and it aroused her even more, and she wanted him to lift up her top even farther, to rub that oil on her breasts. She wanted to rub some on his skin.
He raised his head. “Okay?” he said softly, leaning closer.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he leaned down all the way to kiss her, his hands circling her bare waist, one on her back, one on her belly, as if in protection. Ruby slid her arms around his shoulders, touched his hair, pulled him close, opening her mouth to him.
And there it was, the sorrow, all the ghosts coming to life around them, rustling and murmuring. She heard them as he suckled her lips, gently, gently, as his hands moved over her tummy, her back, as she pressed closer into the heat and solidness of his body.
She wanted him. Now, today, this very minute. She needed to get laid; she needed his hands on her breasts and that cock moving inside her. It had been way too long.
And yet there were the ghosts, pressing closer, whispering. Children, men, animals.
With more firmness than she knew she had, she pushed away, her hands against his shoulders. The whispering darkness halted. “I don’t think I can help you.”
“What are you talking about?” He sounded half angry, half lusty, and she didn’t blame him. Her own limbs were hot and liquid. “I don’t need help. I’ve been half crazy with wanting my hands on you, Ruby.” He stroked her back. “You’re so juicy.”
He bent in and kissed her again, hauling her closer, their bodies in contact from mouth to toes, and the kiss burned, and she tasted love and loss and hunger. His hands swept up her back, under her shirt, and she found his skin, too, hot, sleek, smooth. Without halting his kiss, he urgently skimmed her shirt upward, slid his hands over her breasts, and she made a soft, hot cry. She grabbed his ass, pulling it into her, rubbing hard against him.
The whispering, the murmuring, swelled around them, not so much evil as tortured and despairing. She tried to block them out, focusing on the feel of his silky hot back, on the electric nip of his teeth. She put her hands on his face and sucked on his lips and—
Not this.
The voice was simple and calm and clear.
Not this.
Mustering all of her will, everything she had, she said, “Noah, stop. We can’t do this.”
“What?” He raised his head. “Why? I don’t care about your boyfriend.”
“No, that’s not it.” She swallowed, easing herself away from him slightly so that she could put her hands on his face. “I can’t explain. I just know that this needs to be different. Something is—” She peered upward at him, swaying toward his swollen mouth, his naked chest. “I think you know what it is you have to say, to tell me.” She narrowed her eyes. “Confess?”
For a long, miserable moment, he stared at her, hair falling down around that astonishing face, inky darkness covering his eyes. Light broke over his shoulders, and his hands rested on her sides.
He ran his hands over her arms, over her breasts. With a gesture of practiced nonchalance, he shook his head and stepped away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ruby listened inwardly, waiting for the voice again, but she felt only a simple sense of rightness. She pulled her shirt down over herself as she waited for him to turn. He stood at the window, spine rigid. “Sorry,” she said, and headed for the stairs.
He caught her arm. “Wait.”
She stopped.
“That was disrespectful, and I’m sorry to be an ass. Kinda hard to switch gears that fast.” He skimmed his hand over her arm. “Friends?”
She tipped her head sideways. “You’d rather be friends than talk to me?”
He shrugged. “Not really. It’s just—” He shook his head.
“Okay.” She touched his face. “You know where to find me.”
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Divorce
Dear Matthew,
I didn’t mean to send that email yesterday—that’s not the way I wanted to do things. But when you hung up on me this afternoon, I had no way to express what I am feeling.
You were not listening. You have not been listening for years and years. Even now, when I’m trying to tell you something really important, YOU HUNG UP ON ME!
I am very unhappy in our marriage. I have been for a decade or better, and, what’s more, you know it. You KNOW it! You just kept thinking that if you didn’t listen, I would give up, and you know what, Matthew, I almost did. I tried to make this marriage work, to find ways to occupy myself and find other things to make up for the lack of intimacy, but in the end I couldn’t.
All those other things gave me myself. The blog, my online friends, my dog, and my trailer. I am happier right now than I have been at any time in the past ten years.
So you can listen or not listen, but here is the absolute truth in two easy sentences:
1. I am divorcing you.
2. I am never coming back to Kansas.
I do not mean to cause you pain, but I am tired of swallowing my own pain to make other people happy. And, to tell the truth, I don’t think you’re happy, either. Let’s be nice to each other and get a divorce.
Ginny
Chapter 29
When the rain began to fall, Ginny napped, luxuriously curled up with Willow, the drops pattering lazily on the roof of the Airstream, a warm quilt pulled up over her ears. Thankfully, she did not dream. Not about Jack, or Matthew, or anything else.
It was still raining off and on when she got up. She changed clothes for dinner, putting on jeans and a warm sweater. She covered Ruby’s dress with a trash bag, tying the end to protect the hem from mud splatters as she walked up the hill. She opened her umbrella and whistled for Willow. “Let’s make a dash for it, baby!”
And dash they did, keeping to the grass to avoid the muddy road. The chickens were all tucked in their beds. A light shone in Valerie’s Airstream, parked beneath a copse of pine trees, and Ginny had to stop for a moment to admire it. Willow trotted on, head down miserably, and Ginny had to run to catch up.
They entered the cottage through the screened-in porch. Ginny wiped Willow down, cleaned her feet, and took off her own shoes. She left the umbrella to dry. “Smells good in here!” she called.
“I’m baking a sweet potato pie,” Valerie said as Ginny came into the kitchen. The windows were fogged over from the cooking.
“Mmm.”
Ruby shelled peas at the table, holding the bowl in her lap. She had an efficient rhythm of cracking a pod, skimming out the peas with a thumbnail, tossing aside the empty pod, grabbing a new one. “Want to help?” she asked. “There are a lot!”
“Sure, but, first, do you want to see your dress?” She shook out the bag and pulled it backward over itself, revealing the two-layered gown beneath.
“Ginny!” Valerie exclaimed. “Did you do that today?”
Ruby leapt up, nearly spilling the peas. She grabbed the bowl at the last second and set it on the table. “Ooooh! It’s beautiful! Can I try it on?”
“Of course. I want to be sure it fits.”
Ruby carried it into the other room.
“Where’s Lavender?” Ginny asked.
“Still napping. I popped in to talk to her a little while ago and she wasn’t feeling well. Maybe a stomach bug.”
“
Or food poisoning!” Ginny touched her belly in memory. “That was awful.”
“I never did hear the whole story.”
“It’s pretty bizarre, actually.” She washed her hands. “What’s next?”
“You can peel the potatoes.”
It was a tiny room, but there was just enough space for the two women to stand side by side. Valerie chopped onions for what appeared to be a stew. The smell of sweet potato pie, squash and cinnamon together, twined through the air. Cozy.
The two of them had become close when Valerie had a crisis in her marriage. She suspected her husband of an affair—which turned out not to be true that time—and confided in Ginny, who confided her own unhappiness, though not all the details. That month-long exchange cemented their friendship from then on. When Val’s husband was killed, she wrote endless, long, wailing emails to Ginny, who read every word, commented as needed to keep the healing flow going, and let it trail away when Valerie found her widow legs.
“So,” Valerie said, smiling.
“So,” Ginny answered.
Val washed green onions. “You’re never going back to Kansas, huh?”
“Never.” Ginny picked up a big russet and started to peel. “When I got food poisoning, I ended up at this lake where there were almost no people. I was too sick to keep driving, but it was a little dicey, you know? And I didn’t have my phone and all that, but I was so sick I had to stop.”
“Scary.”
“Yeah.” In her mind’s eye, she was back in the trailer, with the drunk hunters—or whatever they were—banging on the door. “These guys tried to get in, but Willow scared them off, and the next thing I knew, it was morning.”
“Oh, my God. You passed out?”
“I think I was running a very high fever. It had the feel of that kind of delirium.” Ginny finished the first potato and dropped it in a bowl. “The weird part is that I’d made friends with this trucker on the road, and—this is the weird part—somehow I texted him from my dead phone. He backtracked a long way to find me, and he took care of me in the night.”
Valerie stopped chopping and rested her wrists on the counter. “How did that happen?”
The All You Can Dream Buffet Page 22