“I didn’t know the battery was dead in Vegas. I can’t believe there’s so much empty countryside out here. Doesn’t anyone build cities anymore?” Hitting a straight stretch of two-lane, he accelerated to a dangerous speed.
“The interstates were designed to bypass cities,” she replied pragmatically. “You have to get off them to find stores.”
“Whose stupid idea was that, anyway?” Crossly, he slowed down as a farm truck loaded with round bales of hay pulled into the lane in front of him. “Damn idiot is asking to get run over,” he muttered.
“Not by this little bitty car.” Amused despite herself, Nancy turned off the static of the country music station and turned on the CD player. In the past two days, she had learned Jimmy MacTavish had a decidedly warped vision of the world. She suspected he had spent his entire life in LA, and the rest of the country was a foreign planet to him. His observations on the changing countryside around them had thoroughly tickled her, distracting her somewhat from her concern about Jackie. At least she didn’t have to worry about her husband coming after her. He’d never find her out here, and the divorce lawyers could handle everything just as well without her. For the first time in her life, she felt free as a bird.
“What are we going to do when we find Jackie? I don’t think he’ll fit in the backseat,” she asked, just to keep the conversation going.
“JD can buy you both plane tickets anywhere you want to go. And if you’re smart, you won’t argue with him. He’s a rich man. You could do worse.”
“I have done worse,” she answered wryly. “But I couldn’t live with a man like JD. I want someone who knows I exist.”
The man beside her shot her a startled look. “How could any man in his right mind not know you exist?”
She thought he almost blushed before he returned to watching the road. Realizing that was a compliment, Nancy warmed with pleasure. She hadn’t heard a man’s compliments in a long time. “Some men think of me as more or less an appliance, like their televisions or toasters. People don’t generally notice appliances until they need to use them.”
Jimmy made a rude noise and leaned over the steering wheel in a vain attempt to see around the farm truck. “People notice appliances that rattle and clank. I figured that was why most women talk so much.”
“Are you saying I talk too much?” she asked, surprised. He hadn’t said anything vaguely personal in two solid days. Now he’d made two entirely different observations.
“Not you.” Satisfied he could see far enough ahead, he hit the accelerator and practically pumped the four-cylinder engine around the truck, barely avoiding collision with an RV traveling in the other direction. “Any other woman would have whined and complained and worried the whole way out here. You’ve been a good sport. I can’t believe JD let you go.”
“You know the wrong kind of women.” Releasing her breath and her grip on the door handle, Nancy turned to observe her companion. He wasn’t a bad-looking man once she mentally removed those impossible wire-rimmed glasses. He had a kind face. “And I let JD go, not the other way around. I let my father annul our marriage, and I never answered his letters or phone calls. I was much too young, and he was much too old.”
Jimmy frowned. “I thought the two of you were almost the same age.”
Nancy shrugged. “In terms of years, maybe, not in any other way. JD was born old. Any other kid in his situation would have turned into a hoodlum. JD joined the marines. He could have released all his anger by shooting people. JD built computer programs that shoot people. We were together less than a week, and he had found two jobs and an apartment without cockroaches that we could afford on his pay. This is not normal teenage behavior.”
Jimmy looked as if he were trying to digest this information. “And what did you do?”
“I stayed in the apartment and cried and polished my fingernails. Like I said, I was too young. I don’t know what he saw in me.”
The look he gave her was definitely complimentary. Nancy acknowledged a thrill when he focused on her legs. She wore shorts because she knew she had nice legs.
“I can guess,” was all he said before diverting his attention back to the road.
Just that dry statement excited her. She trod dangerous waters here. She directed the conversation to safer ground. “Where are we going?”
“Madrid, Kentucky. That’s where JD wrecked my truck.”
***
Nina sat on top of Hattie’s Hill, gazing at the view. She had spent her entire life on this farm. She had built her dreams and her future around this land. Her friends were here. Her job was here. She didn’t know anything beyond those waving fields of soybeans. Oh, she’d visited the city a time or two, gone to Opryland with the class on trips, poked around Paducah, and once, even traveled as far as St. Louis. She’d never had any inclination to live in those places. She liked it here, with familiar surroundings, where she felt safe.
And now the woman making herself comfortable back at the farmhouse, the same one who had torn her life in two at the tender age of nine, threatened to rip it in two a second time. If Helen Mclntyre was Hattie’s heir, she could let the cell phone company install whatever it liked. She could sell the land and the house. She could leave Nina homeless; all the work and toil she’d put into this place over the years would become nothing. Nina simply couldn’t believe life could be so cruel.
She didn’t cry. She was still in too much shock to cry. Had that damn Matt Home known this all along? He must have. He was Hattie’s attorney. No wonder he was so confident about the phone company. Maybe he’d even written Helen and told her what was happening. She couldn’t believe that lousy turd of an attorney would have known where her mother was all this time and never once mentioned it to her. It didn’t make sense. Everyone thought her mother dead. Why should Matt Home know differently?
Because Hattie would have told him. That betrayal hurt more than any other. Hattie had known where to find her mother. It couldn’t have hurt worse had her aunt stuck a knife in her gullet and twisted it.
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. A
s 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.
Chapter 18
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.
Garden of Dreams Page 16