The All You Can Dream Buffet: A Novel by O'Neal Barbara

Author:O'Neal, Barbara [O'Neal, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345536877
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

After the phone call with Liam, Ruby paced the porch for fifteen minutes, trying to pull herself together, to calm her racing heart and shaking hands, to erase the lingering spill of his voice. In her belly, the baby swooped, but Ruby didn’t feel even slightly nauseous.

Huh. She’d thrown up only once today. Maybe it was getting better.

She needed to cook. Popping her head into the other room, she said, “I’m going to my trailer for a while.”

“Everything all right?” Lavender said, looking up.

“Not really. I just need to cook. I’ll be back later.”

“Take an umbrella from the foyer.”

Noah had settled on the floor on one side of the coffee table. Hannah sat on the other. A backgammon board was open between them. “Your move,” he rumbled to Hannah. She picked up the dice and rolled. Valerie watched the game over her reading glasses, needles clicking along.

“Don’t stay gone forever,” she said. “We have some planning to do.”

Ruby nodded and ducked into the rain. It pattered softly on the umbrella, enveloping her in a soft quiet that eased the back of her neck very slightly. Out in the rain, with no one watching, she could let the tears fall down her cheeks, embarrassing, stupid tears that showed her weakness.

What was this craziness with Liam, anyway? She sliced through the long grass of the meadow, getting the hems of her jeans soaking wet. It wasn’t as if she’d never had a boyfriend before him. She’d had plenty. She’d slept with some of them, too.

Why was she hanging on? It didn’t make any sense. It was making her miserable. She had to find a way to get over it.

As she approached the Airstream kitchen, she heard a little mewp. From the shelter under the trailer, a pair of gold eyes peered out of the darkness. They looked as if they were floating, then her black face disappeared in the shadows. Ruby blinked, once. Mewp.

“Oh, poor baby!” She reached down and scooped the kitten up. Ninja Girl wiggled up to Ruby’s shoulder, her fur wet and cold against her neck. Ruby stroked her, turning her face to kiss the kitten’s soft side. “See,” she said, adding aggrievement to the yeasty brew of her emotions. “This is why humans sometimes need to intervene. Why aren’t you in the barn?”

As soon as the trailer door was open, Ninja Girl jumped inside and delicately ran over to the licked-clean saucer on the floor by the table. “Mewp!” she said, blinking over her shoulder at Ruby.

Ruby allowed a chuckle to break up some of the craziness in her chest. “You’re a hungry thing! Luckily,” she said, opening one of the cupboards, “I stocked up on the yucky stuff you like. How about salmon with greens?” She held up the can. Ninja Girl twirled around her ankles.

This was why old ladies had too many cats, Ruby thought. She scooped the food onto the dish, and the kitten delicately ate one tiny bite at a time, chewing each three hundred times, like a proper lady.

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