The All You Can Dream Buffet Read Online Free

hills across the acreage. The tops of the mounds were covered in straw. A man in a plaid shirt and a brimmed hat bent over one of them, gently plucking carrots and shaking off the soil. Nearby, a woman collected beets and placed them in baskets. Ruby shaded her eyes. “That’s a lot of vegetables!”
    “Couple acres,” he said.
    Ruby had often risen with the dawn to find the freshest, most beautiful produce. “Do you sell them at the farmers’ market?”
    “Some.” His posture eased a little. “Some go to our CSA subscribers. A lot more are going to restaurants these days.”
    She nodded. CSA stood for “community-supported agriculture.” “Multiple revenue streams are always good.” The restaurant world taught you that.
    “Yep.” He turned onto a path running between the fields and barns. A band of trees marked the boundary of the vegetable gardens, blocking her view of the rest of the farm.
    “Where is the lavender?” Ruby finally asked.
    “You’ll see.”
    They passed the barn and a corral, then Noah led the way through a line of shrubs with dark-green heart-shaped leaves—maybe lilac bushes, but she wasn’t always that clear on what was what in the plant world. Ruby stepped through behind him, as if she were entering a magic kingdom.
    He stepped sideways, out of the way, and gestured. “Here it is.”
    “Oh!” she breathed. “Oh, my.”
    The lavender stretched out in long, long lines that followedthe contours of the fields, soft purple and dark purple and white and pale pink, in perfect rounded tufts that grew as high as her waist. A breeze swept over them, and the flowers swayed languidly, revealing the pale undersides of their leaves and making the field look like waves, like water. Ruby actually put her hands to her face. “Oh, my gosh.”
    “Take your time,” he said. “The meadery is right there on your left. I’ve got some work to do.”
    Ruby did not move. She barely breathed. Maybe, she thought, maybe
at last
she could discover her purpose. Maybe it would be here in these amazing fields, amid the lavender.
    Had she ever seen anything so beautiful?
Ever?
    A tall, rangy woman with cropped, no-nonsense white hair emerged from the utilitarian outbuilding. “Told you it was a sight to see,” she said, hands on her hips. The voice was not at all old but sturdy and sure.
    “Lavender!” Ruby flung open her arms exuberantly, and Lavender met her with a fierce hug.
    “Oh, girl, I’m so glad to see you.”
    Against Ruby’s lush frame—not fat, never that—Lavender was as lean as a teenage boy, all shoulders and wiry strength. “Me, too,” Ruby said, and, to her surprise, tears welled up in her eyes.
    And she was suddenly, overwhelmingly, nauseous. Pulling away urgently, she rushed for the edge of the field and tossed her cookies right in a little ditch. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she turned, unconsciously putting a hand over her lower belly, which was swelling sweetly with the baby. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought morning sickness was supposed to be mornings, but I have it all the time.”
    Lavender cocked her head. Her face was shaped into angles by high cheekbones and a hard jaw. “Pregnant?”
    Ruby nodded. “Five and a half months.”
    “I thought you couldn’t have children.”
    “Me, too,” she said, and the whole impossible business of it struck her again. She opened her eyes wide. “But here I am. Really, it’s kind of a miracle, they said.”
    “So you’re happy?”
    Ruby put both palms open on her belly and laughed. “Yes. Very.
Very.
”
    “Well, then, congratulations, my friend.” Lavender flung an arm around Ruby’s shoulders and bracingly moved her away from the meadery. “I was going to give you a taste of mead, but first let’s get some food in you. Maybe a cup of tea, how about that?”
    “Perfect. As long as we can come back to the meadery later.”
    “Promise. You aren’t going to get away that easily!”
    Lavender helped Ruby