Free The All You Can Dream Buffet by Barbara O'Neal

resident magician, Noah, managed to get her back into happy shape, as you see. This is her first lambing season, andshe’s taken to it like the champ she is. Sometimes survivors are the most sensitive of all.
    Sheep cheese is not as common in America as cow’s milk cheese, but don’t let that stop you. Here are a few of our best cheeses, available only in limited amounts:
    Rosemary manchego
    Pecorino wrapped in walnut leaves
    Malvarosa (one of my favorites!)

Chapter 8
    Monday morning, after her tour of the perimeter, Lavender cut behind the house to follow a path through the woods behind the farm. It was a sunny morning, promising to be hot later in the day, and the bees were hungrily gathering pollen and nectar from the throats of the millions of lavender blossoms. It was a sight she loved as much as any, the bees so certain of their place and purpose. She fancied she could smell the honey from hives as she passed by.
    Her destination was the manager’s small house, which crouched at the edge of the stream that looped around the farm in almost too picturesque a manner. It ran fast this time of year, still fed by clear melting snows.
    Noah sat on the steps of the porch in his stocking feet, drinking a mug of coffee. His hair, too long as always—a rebellion against his soldier days, she thought—hadn’t yet been brushed, and his eyes were swollen with sleep. Or what passed for sleep with Noah Tso. He was known to get by on an hour or two, snatched from the maw of his nightmares.
    That’s what happened when you sent men to war over and over. It sucked something out of them. She’d been a teenager during World War II, and those men fought a long time, too. Years on end, most of them. Noah had spent three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and wanted only a place where he didn’t have to pretend he still had the usual small talk andfoolishness of everyday interactions. He just wanted to be left alone, to spend time on the land. Lavender could practically see the ghosts who followed him around, and, having known some ghosts herself, she’d taken pity on him.
    Good thing, too. He was the best manager she’d ever had and was devoted to the principles of the farm that she’d laid out twenty-five years ago, long before it was hip: organic, whole, integrated, natural.
    He ignored the women who angled for his attentions, with such aloofness that he was labeled arrogant, stuck-up, too good for himself—all those things people said when they didn’t know what to make of a body. Because he was beautiful, they wanted him to see them in return; when he didn’t, they felt embarrassed.
    “ ’Morning,” Lavender said now. “You have a minute?”
    “Always.” He wiped a hand over his face. “What’s up?”
    She sat down next to him on the step, grunting a little. Her knees were creaky, no matter how much ginger she imbibed.
    “Any more trouble along the fences?”
    “Fixed a little breach yesterday afternoon, but it could have been anything.” Noah turned his copper eyes, as penetrating as a laser, on her. “You’re being paranoid.”
    Lavender shook her head. “Nope,” she said, pushing her lower lip out. “Wade is after this land, mark my words, and once I’m gone, those nephews of mine will sell it to him so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
    Noah nodded.
    “He’ll ruin it, Noah, every bit of it. He’ll just turn it into another Wade Markum Enterprise, and everything I’ve been working for all this time will be lost.”
    “You keep telling me this, but I’m not sure what you want me to do. Sell it now. Rewrite your will.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one I want.”
    “No can do,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”
    “Mmm.” She took a breath. “Well, that’s what this party is about, then. One of these gals might be my heir.”
    He frowned into his mug. Took a sip. “What makes you think any of them could do it? Running a farm like this isn’t a little