Garden of Dreams (22 page)

Shattered into little splinters, Nina couldn't pull together the strength to fight.

Within sight and smell of the joyous abandon of her rose garden, Nina's dreams crumbled into dust. Letting her gaze drift over the greenhouses, the vegetable and herb garden, the saplings she had nurtured through winter frosts and summer droughts, she sobbed brokenly. She couldn't believe she'd lost it all in one fell swoop. It didn't seem real right now. Those trees and bushes and flowers were her children, her life, her future. How could anyone rob her of them with just a few words?

She couldn't let them. Gradually, that knowledge sank in. She had to fight.

Sobbing with righteous anger, Nina straightened her spine and rubbed furiously at her tears. She'd worked and slaved here for twenty years. She'd paid the taxes with her meager teacher's salary. She'd installed the new wiring when Hattie got sick. She'd built the greenhouses with her own money. They were hers, and she wouldn't let anyone take them away.

She still had JD's thousand dollars in the bank. The check hadn't bounced. She would get the name of that fancy lawyer he'd talked about. She'd hire some city lawyer to come in here and walk all over Matt Home and Helen Mclntyre. She wouldn't be a victim this time. Damn them all to hell, she would fight tooth and nail for what was hers, and not with the rusty shotgun she'd taken to the cell phone people.

Leaping up and heading back down the hill, Nina supposed on the face of it, it would look bad fighting her own mother over land that had belonged to her mother's mother. It would look nasty in the newspaper. But she didn't care. Helen Mclntyre had abrogated her responsibilities a long time ago. She should be made to pay for her carelessness now.

Only, it was Nina's own carelessness that had caused this. She'd known the taxes had come in Hattie's and her grandmother's name. Her grandmother hadn't left a will that Nina knew of. No one had ever questioned the legality of Hattie running the farm. As long as the taxes were paid, no one cared. But now Nina was paying for that negligence.

She couldn't let Matt know what she was doing by asking for copies of wills and deeds. Someone from out of town would have to research them for her. There had to be some legal angle she could play.

Nina saw JD leaning against the pin oak, watching her storm down the hill and across the field. Fine. She'd pick his brain first. She didn't have time to worry about kisses that reduced her to pulsating jelly. She needed his brains and his knowledge, nothing more.

Not acknowledging the look in his eyes as she approached, Nina waited until she was close enough not to have to yell. “Have you got the name of that fancy lawyer yet?”

He calmly raised those devilish eyebrows. “Jimmy isn't answering his e-mail. I'm looking for another source. Your professor friend called. He wants to meet with us over dinner and show us his plans.”

‘To hell with his plans. I need a lawyer first. I'll call the bar association.” Planning on stalking straight past him, Nina nearly stumbled as JD stepped in her way. She glared up at him and tried skirting around him again.

JD caught her arms and held her still. “I don't know what happened between you and your mother, but we're meeting with the professor. I don't start something and then quit.”

Eyes widening, Nina decided she liked him better when he was wearing his horn-rimmed glasses and the loose work shirt. This JD with the unwavering dark eyes and tight T-shirt scared her a little.

“I might not have control over the land,” she threw at him in self-defense.

He didn't flinch. “We'll worry about that when the time comes. Go get cleaned up and ready to go out. We're meeting him over at Grand Rivers. And splash your face with cold water before you let your mother see you. Always present a confident appearance in front of your adversaries.”

She wavered a little. She hated it when he was right. At the same time, she felt the overwhelming desire to fling herself into his arms and weep uncontrollably against his broad chest. She wanted to dump the whole gigantic problem in his competent hands and let him deal with it. Which was an absurd notion from beginning to end.

Stiffening, she gave a curt nod. “Patti's?” she inquired, naming the best restaurant in Grand Rivers, and the entire region for that matter.

“That's what he recommended.” Releasing her arms, JD asked, “Do I need a tie?”

That put her back on firmer footing. She should insist on both jacket and tie. She'd like to see him dressed up and uncomfortable for a change. But it wasn't JD's fault that her entire world had just turned over. She managed a weak grin and shook her head. “Just not a T-shirt, please.”

He eyed her long skirt and loose bodice skeptically. “I don't suppose I could persuade you to wear a T-shirt instead of one of those things, could I? Now that I know what you're hiding under there, I'd like to see a little more of it.”

Nina felt her cheeks flush crimson. She wanted to smack his face as hard as she could, but surprisingly, the temper wasn't there. Instead, an unexpected heat swept through her.

“Forget it,” she said curtly. “That won't happen again. I've more important things on my mind.”

She stalked off, leaving JD with an ache in his crotch and his gaze fastened on the tempting sway of her hips. More important things on her mind, had she? Well, hell, so did he. That had never stopped him from seeking a physical release from his frustrations. He thought the uptight little teacher might benefit from that same release. All he had to do was make her realize it.

Why not move the moon and the stars while he was at it?

***

Jackie watched as his dad came down the stairway with Miss Toon. He'd just found JD. He wasn't ready to share him. And yet, at the same time, he had this niggling understanding that came from thinking of JD more as a brother than a father. Man to man, he could see what JD was seeing.

He watched as the silky soft stuff of Miss Toon's skirt swayed and clung in all the right places. The dress was old- fashioned as far as Jackie was concerned, worse than anything his mother would have worn. It had a full skirt that stopped just short of her knees, a big wide belt, and huge, prissy lapels. But the whole thing was some kind of optical illusion, he decided, because he could practically see the curves of Miss Toon's breasts beneath the V of that neckline, and her legs looked shapely and tanned in those high-heeled sandals. No wonder JD looked like some slavering beast hanging over her shoulder.

He'd kinda hoped JD and his mom would get together again, but his mom never looked like Miss Toon. His mom looked like a mom, but Miss Toon looked like some funky movie star. She wasn't really pretty, but she was cool in a way he couldn't define. He liked her a lot, and so did JD from the looks of it.

Jackie felt kind of crawly under his skin just feeling the electricity when JD took her arm and Miss Toon jerked it away. He didn't know what they were fighting about, but he didn't think it was the kind of fighting his mom and stepfather had done. They weren't angry and throwing things. They were bouncing off each other like pinballs, but each time they bounced a little less.

Feeling pretty cocky with that observation, Jackie gave a wolf whistle that made his father scowl and Miss Toon smile. She tousled his hair, which Jackie hated but kind of liked, too. She smelled good, and he could see she actually wore lipstick for a change. That made him wonder if she really was holding JD off or just leading him on. Women, he thought with disgust. He'd never bother with the lot of them.

“Hold down the fort, tiger, and I'll bring you back one of those huge slices of meringue pie Patti's is known for.”

“You could take me with you,” Jackie pointed out. “It's just a business thing, isn't it? Not like a date or anything.”

JD affectionately clipped him upside the head. “Don't give the lady ideas, son. We have a moonlight drive across the lake ahead of us. I left the makings for tacos in the refrigerator. You won't starve before we get back.”

“I don't have to eat with her, do I?” Jackie asked anxiously, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. The woman who'd appropriated the empty corner bedroom upstairs reminded him of pictures of a barracuda he'd seen on the Discovery channel.

“I doubt she'll want to share your taco. Just be polite is all I ask.” JD caught Miss Toon's arm and steered her toward the door. Jackie noted with interest that this time she didn't pull away.

“Yeah, right,” he replied, suddenly eager to see them gone. They made him itchy and anxious at the same time. To hell with them. He could find better things to do than sit here eating tacos and waiting for spider woman to gobble him up.

Raiding the refrigerator and putting together a cold taco, Jackie hurried out the kitchen door before spider woman could come downstairs. It wasn't dusk yet. He could see the path toward the cove well enough. Maybe he'd run into some of the other guys.

He liked it in the woods. Maybe if they stayed, JD would get him a rifle and teach him how to shoot. Jackie didn't think he particularly wanted to shoot deer, but he could aim at bottles and tin cans. He kind of liked walking down this path as the sun set, watching the rabbits dart in front of him. He'd seen a raccoon washing a fish in the lake once. And he'd seen deer running across that big field Miss Toon called Hattie's Hill. This was a thousand times better than watching the guys at home beat up the video machines at the game room,.

All in all, he wasn't doing too badly out here. Let JD boff Miss Toon if he liked. Maybe they would stay longer if he liked her enough. Jackie wished his mom could be here, too, but he hadn't been gone long enough to miss her too much. She smothered him.

Taking a shortcut through the trees to the lake instead of the cove, Jackie slid down the embankment, keeping himself upright by grabbing saplings and branches as he passed. Maybe the fish were biting. JD had shown him how to make a pole out of a willow branch and some string. He'd left that last pole down here.

Reaching the tangled debris of dead leaves, plastic milk bottles, and old logs at the lake's edge, Jackie halted and checked the water for air bubbles as JD had taught him. The sun was setting on the far side of the lake, so the shadows of the trees hadn't reached the water here yet. Light sparkled off the ripples, dancing over a fish leaping upward farther out, catching on some shiny metal near the shore.

Intrigued by that last glint, Jackie worked his way through the underbrush in the direction of the dark shape bobbing beneath the twigs and leaves JD had said made up an old beaver dam. Sunlight sparkled on the metal again, but this time, Jackie excitedly caught his breath. That looked like a silver belt buckle, the kind the country music singers wore on TV.

Not until he realized the belt buckle was attached to the bloated shape of a body did Jackie begin to yell, and he didn't stop yelling until he dashed into the safety of the marina.

Restlessly, Nina tugged the brushed silk of her dress through her fingers. Refusing to look in JD's direction as he steered the car up the lane toward the house, she tried staring out the window and sorting her thoughts instead. They wouldn't sort. They bounced from one subject to another and always ended back at the man beside her.

Despite Albert Herrington's presence—or maybe because of it—JD had asserted a proprietary attitude toward her all evening. He'd caught her elbow going into the restaurant, teased her hand beneath the table, given her those damned intimate smiles over the menu until she thought she'd have to walk away or melt into butter. The butter part won out all the way.

The truth was, she'd never, but never, had a man look at her like that before. Back in school, she'd had boys tease her by pulling her hair. They'd occasionally carried her books or tried to cop a feel after a school dance. She'd had boys in college offer to take her out for coffee after class. But they'd all been boys. And she'd been busy with studies, with the garden, with Hattie, with so many adult things that their childish attempts had never stirred much more than a condescending smile on her part. She'd always been too damned adult for the males around her. And now that they were men, she still thought of them as boys. But not JD. Not by any shot.

JD made her feel all the dangerous things Aunt Hattie had warned her about. But somewhere along the way, her mind had parted company with the rest of her and she craved the touching, the smiles, the intimate looks, the feeling that they shared something special together.

She tried concentrating on the problem of her mother and hiring an attorney. JD had already disappointed her by not coming up with the name of a good lawyer as he'd promised. She knew in her mind that all men were a disappointment. If she kept a running list of disappointments, she might convince herself that JD was like all other men.

Of course, the problem with that was that he'd turned up Albert Herrington and fueled his enthusiasm for a plan that had no money and no backing and no future. On the basis of a few promises, she had a landscape designer and an entire pad full of sketches. The meeting tonight had been stimulating and exciting, and blissful rose gardens floated in her head.

And now she faced the crash back to reality. As they pulled up the long graveled drive, Nina closed her eyes against the impossibility of it all. JD's curses and the sudden gunning of the accelerator jerked them open again.