Garden of Dreams (28 page)

JD caught her chin and forced her to look up at him. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, remember. We're just showing our intent, Nina. Remember what the lawyer said?”

She damned well couldn't remember anything when he touched her like that. The warning thunk of a Coke bottle against the kitchen table brought her back to reality. Jerking from JD's hold, Nina caught the wary expression on her mother's face and, with sudden resolve, nodded her agreement. “If you'll fetch Mr. Hancock, I'll find Albert. Maybe they can suggest others who might join us.”

***

Nina breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the newly formed board of directors of the Western Kentucky Botanical Garden Association drove down the driveway. She hadn't been able to focus on paperwork once Helen had disappeared into the front room with the telephone.

She wished JD had hung around, but he'd refused the honor of joining the board. A tiny cynic in the back of her mind warned he'd refused the offer because he didn't want to sign his real name on any legal papers. But her weak side, the one obviously influenced by her frustrated libido, said he just wanted to take his son out fishing, as he'd promised.

Nina glanced up at the threatening sky. JD and Jackie had been gone for hours now. She wished they would get home before the storm broke.

A brisk wind blew through the treetops, and she cast another anxious glance at the clouds, watching for the greenish hue that often signaled hail or worse. She had insurance on the greenhouses, but the deductible was outrageous. She couldn't pay it if the storm destroyed the expensive glass panels.

The wind whipped at her long skirt as she dashed around the house to fold up the patio chairs and haul them into the cellar stairwell. Surely JD had seen the storm coming and had made for shore by now.

Grateful she didn't have any animals to worry about, she tied down what she could, put away what she could carry, and ran inside just before the first fat drops of rain splatted against the rooftop.

Hauling the porch rocker into the front hall, Nina unplugged the television, and hesitated at the door of JD's room. The sharp crack of thunder overhead provided, the impetus she needed. Breaking the barrier of his privacy, she flung open the door and hastily disconnected the computer equipment from its various outlets. Lightning had blown up Aunt Hattie's radio and fried her heating pad the last time she'd neglected this room.

She tried ignoring the rumpled state of JD's bedding and the assorted articles of clothing scattered about the room, but he'd made the room so definitely his own that it almost took her breath away. The quilted comforter that usually adorned the end of the bed now padded the kitchen chair JD had appropriated. His desk was actually the old-fashioned vanity Aunt Hattie had once covered with antique colored-glass perfume bottles. A denim shirt hung where Hattie's robe used to be, and a large pair of man's shoes occupied the place beneath the bed where fluffy slippers once resided.

Nina waited for a wave of anger or sorrow or some emotion to roll over her at the changes, but to her surprise, her spirits lifted at the sight. JD had returned the room from hollow emptiness to vibrant life.

Carefully closing the door behind her, Nina hurried down the hall to the kitchen. She didn't have many electrical appliances, but she would unplug the toaster at least.

She hadn't seen her mother since the Western Kentucky Botanical Garden Association's first directors meeting. The official name gave her a kind of thrill, as if a name could make a dream become real. She shoved the excitement back into its box as soon as she walked into the dimly lit kitchen and saw her mother at the counter mixing a drink that included the contents of a whiskey bottle.

The sordidness of the scene repulsed her. Perhaps she had seen one too many movies about alcoholics and the evils of drink. Perhaps her Puritan upbringing had narrowed her mind.

Acknowledging Nina's frozen expression with a salute of the glass, Helen threw back a healthy swallow before returning the glass to the counter.

Hating her own rigidity, Nina forced herself to enter the room and unplug the toaster. “Aunt Hattie never allowed alcohol in the house.” Nina tried not to sound disapproving, but the comment sounded just like her aunt. Disgusted with herself, she opened the refrigerator and grabbed a peach.

“Well, Hattie isn't here and I am, so get used to it.” Carrying the bottle and the glass to the table, Helen sat down, crossed her stocking-clad legs, and pulled a cigarette from the case already lying there.

She was doing it on purpose, Nina told herself as she bit into the peach. She had the urge to cram her mother's cigarette into the drink and heave them all into the storm. She'd never truly known bitterness, but it roiled inside her now. The best thing she could do was go upstairs, but her newly formed rebellious streak kept her planted where she was. People had walked all over her once too often.

“Cigarettes are a fire hazard. The house isn't fully insured, and I can't afford higher premiums. As long as I'm paying the bills around here, I think I have a right to make the rules. Drink yourself into a stupor if you like, but put the cigarette out. I take my health and safety seriously, even if you never have.”

Helen blew a smoke cloud and considered it briefly before stamping out the cigarette against the polished oak of the table. “That's the problem here, isn't it?” she said thoughtfully, not bothering to look at Nina as she spoke. “I never looked after you, so I have no business walking in on you now. It doesn't work that way, dear daughter.”

“That is not the problem here, and you know it. It's not even the tip of the iceberg. We can let the lawyers solve the worst of it, but in the meantime, we need a few rules. No smoking is one of them.”

The declaration shocked Nina. She didn't know where it came from, but she didn't know herself very well anymore. She'd never laid down rules for JD, except for that one embarrassing scene the first day. JD had uncomplainingly adjusted to her habits as if he'd lived here all his life.

“Rules won't make the real problem go away. You despise me, and you'll never give me a chance. You're just like my mother. The irony hasn't escaped me.” Helen sipped at her drink.

“It's a little difficult despising someone I don't know,” Nina replied, wiping the peach juice from her mouth with a paper napkin. “In general, I don't like drunks or adults who expose impressionable children to them. And while smokers can kill themselves all they like, I don't want the house burned down around my head or stunk up with secondhand smoke. And as long as we're being blunt, I have a fairly low opinion of parents who abandon their children.”

A flash of light and crack of thunder directly overhead blew out the lights after that pronouncement.

“Oh, shit,” she heard Helen mutter. In silent agreement, Nina felt her way along the counter to the back door.

Although it was early evening, the storm had blotted out all remains of the setting sun. The security light had gone out with everything else, and only the lightning illuminated the swaying trees and pouring sheets of rain.

Her mother echoed her thoughts. “Do you think your boyfriend and the kid had sense enough to get in?”

“He's not my boyfriend, and unless something happened, he has more than enough brains to come in out of the rain.” Nina didn't like thinking about that “something.” Evil villains in Mercedes took on a new reality on a night like this.

“You damned well need a boyfriend,” the woman behind her muttered. Nina could smell the scent of a match as she lit another cigarette. “You'll turn into a frustrated old woman like Hattie.”

“Hattie's enjoyed a healthy, respectable life,” Nina protested wearily. She'd had this argument with herself enough times lately to repeat it by rote. “She didn't need a man to make her whole.”

Helen snorted. “Fat lot you know. My mother was the tight-laced one, not Hattie. My mother would have thrown me out in horror when I came up pregnant with you and had no husband to show for it. Had she been alive, she would have scratched my name out of the family Bible when I divorced Richard. But Hattie always understood. She might have despised men, but she knew all about them.”

That didn't sound like a promising road to follow. Since the lights hadn't immediately come back on, Nina figured a wire must be down. She reached in the cabinet and brought out the oil lamp and matches.

“Aunt Hattie raised me to respect myself,” Nina replied without inflection. “She didn't despise men. She just didn't need them. She had everything she needed here. So do I.”

Helen laughed harshly. “She must have decided she was such a failure at raising me, she'd better follow my mother's example. Hattie didn't need men because she had me, then you, to raise. And a classroom of kids every year, of course. Hattie liked raising things—dogs, cows, roses, trees, kids, anything. She liked controlling them, training them to suit herself. Except for the roses and trees, most of us got a little too unruly to suit her.”

Nina hadn't grown unruly. Terrified Hattie would abandon her as her parents had, Nina had obeyed all Hattie's rules. She would have crawled on the ground and licked dirt if Hattie had asked it of her.

Nina jumped as the jarring ring of the phone shattered a momentary silence between thunderclaps.

Taking the lamp, she left her mother pouring another glass of whiskey in the dark and grabbed the receiver on the third ring.

“Miss Toon?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Speaking.” She set the lamp down and clenched her fingers in fear.

“This is Shady Grove Nursing Home. Your aunt passed away a few minutes ago.”

JD winced as another jagged streak of lightning lit the horizon, but he judged the roll of thunder that followed to be at a sufficient distance for safety as he took the Harley into the turn at Hattie's Lane. He'd left Jackie with friends in town, but he couldn't leave Nina worrying about them. Briefly, he cursed rural telephones and their tendency to break down at the most inconvenient times, but he cursed out of habit. His mind was on the woman waiting in the house ahead.

He never thought about women. That he did now worried him as much as the weather. He didn't have time for worrying about anything other than Marshall Enterprises. The women who had floated through his life had pretty well thought of themselves without his help.

But Nina was different. She was so spaced out with her plants and garden and aunt and neighbors that she needed a keeper just to make sure she ate properly. He couldn't be that keeper.

JD swung the motorcycle up the gravel drive, belatedly noting the absence of light from the old farmhouse. Damn, the electricity must have gone out as well as the phone. He hoped to hell it hadn't been a direct strike. His surge protector wasn't designed for that.

He roared to a halt in a flurry of gravel and mud. Forgetting his injured foot, he kicked the stand in place and yipped at the pain shooting up his leg. He hated being crippled. He'd never been sick in his life. Only Nina's concerned and admiring looks had kept him using the damned cane. He didn't have it with him now.

Grimacing as he hobbled up the porch steps worrying about his equipment, JD almost missed the huddled figure on the porch swing. Catching sight of her out of the corner of his eye, he felt his heart plummet to his feet. He he could feel the pain and anguish emanating from her curled-up posture.

He had no experience comforting women. Still, whether he knew what to do or not, he couldn't just walk away.

“Nina?” JD stopped hesitantly by the swing. When she didn't respond, he took the seat beside her. She was curled into such a tiny ball, it was like sitting beside a sleeping kitten. “What happened?”

He thought she shivered, but she didn't reply. Despite the storm, the air still held a humid heat, so she couldn't be cold. Hesitating to touch her in his drenched clothes, JD slid his arm along the back of the swing. “Your mother?” he asked tentatively, searching for clues.

She shook her head, then uncurled somewhat to rest against the seat back where he could caress her shoulder with his fingers. “Hattie,” she murmured hollowly.

The emptiness of her voice shivered down JD's spine. Until this moment, he hadn't realized how much life and emotion Nina packed into her few chosen words. She seldom ranted or raved or talked to hear herself talk, but often her few words concealed a sly humor, a joy of living, an appreciation for her surroundings. He heard only emptiness now, and he knew what had happened.

He didn't know what to say. He'd buried his head in machines for so long that he couldn't communicate on any meaningful human level. Where was her damned mother?

“Oh, hell.” Giving up on finding the right words, JD grabbed Nina in his arms, pulled her on his lap, and held her tightly. He rocked the swing with his foot and watched the lightning fade into the distance. “You knew it would come sometime, Nina,” he said gruffly, then cursed himself for gross stupidity.

She nodded against his chest. Her fingers curled in his wet shirt, and the warmth of them seared his skin. That wasn't all her touch heated. Sighing at the perversity of his wretched hormones, JD concentrated on her plight rather than his own. “Do you believe in an afterlife?” he asked idly, searching for a topic to divert his thoughts from the pressure of her rounded bottom against his thighs.