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.”
Chapter 23
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.
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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.
He thought she relaxed a fraction as she considered his question. Resting his head against the seat back, JD stared at the shadows on the porch ceiling. She couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. He didn’t think anyone or anything had ever felt so good in his arms. Maybe he should buy a dog if he was this damned deprived of companionship.
“I believe everyone has a soul,” Nina whispered from somewhere below his chin.
“Yeah, I guess I believe that, too. I’m just not too certain I believe we all go to this place in the clouds and wear halos and wings.” JD adjusted her more comfortably in his lap and was rewarded with her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t think Aunt Hattie would much care for halos or wings,” she murmured. “Sometimes, I think earth is hell, or at least some kind of purgatory we have to earn our way out of. But I don’t know where we go from here.”
“Maybe there’s something to this reincarnation stuff. Maybe we keep coming back until we get it right.” He’d really never thought about death much. He’d been estranged from his father too long even to notice his passing.
“You don’t think Hattie’s right here, watching over us now? Her heart was in this house, you know.”
“Maybe. But you wouldn’t want her lingering here forever, would you? There’s got to be a better place. And she had a lot of time to get ready for it. She might have passed right on over to the other side.” JD relaxed and ran his hand up and down Nina’s arms. Her voice had regained some of its liveliness. Maybe he’d helped a little. Maybe he wasn’t entirely hopeless.
“You could be right,” Nina agreed slowly. “But I still think she would find some way of checking in. Hattie didn’t like letting things go.”
As if suddenly realizing where she was, Nina sat up, but JD tugged her back into his arms again. “It’s nice out here. Don’t go yet.”
Obediently, she snuggled against his chest. JD rocked her until she slept. Then, reluctantly, he carried her into the house and up the stairs. There might be more to this reaching-out business than he realized, but he had a suspicion it was damned painful. Machines couldn’t twist a man’s guts into knots.
***
The odd peace Nina had found in JD’s arms dissipated with the blistering dawn of the next day.
The phone rang so incessantly, she wished for another line just so she could call out. Word traveled fast in a small community. Those who hadn’t heard about Hattie called about the garden. Both Matt Home and JD’s lawyer called, along with the newly appointed board of directors. Once Nina notified the funeral home, the sympathy calls began.
Helen got in her battered Cadillac and drove off, leaving Nina fending for herself, as usual. Perhaps it was for the best. She couldn’t have borne speaking politely to her mother at a time like this.
As she sat at the telephone table in the hall, staring blankly at a framed daguerreotype of her great-great-grandmother before making the next call on her list, Nina looked up in surprise as JD slapped a coffee mug down beside her.
“You haven’t eaten. I’ve fixed a fruit salad. Come and have some. I’ll answer the phone while you eat.”
She liked the idea of someone taking care of her entirely too well. She couldn’t give in to the luxury of it. Shaking her head, she didn’t even look up at him.
“Matt’s pulled the power of attorney from the docket, but he wants Hattie’s copy of the will. I have to search her desk for it.”
JD caught Nina’s shoulder as she stood, steering her toward the kitchen instead of the stairs. “I know what a will looks like. I’ll look for it. Why in hell didn’t he keep a copy?”
“Do lawyers keep copies?” she asked vaguely, too weary to fight. “Helen’s down there with him now.”
JD’s curse had a rather picturesque quality that almost made Nina smile. But the image of her mother in the position JD suggested seemed a little improbable, and she let it fade.
He shoved her into the kitchen chair in front of a bowl of cut-up peaches and strawberries. He’d used one of Hattie’s cut- glass bowls from the china cabinet, the ones she saved for the entertaining they never did. Nina admired the prism of color created by the glass and the sunbeam from the window. If those bowls were hers, she’d use them every day.
But they weren’t. They would go to Helen along with the house and the land and everything she’d worked for her entire life. Too depressed to eat, she pushed a strawberry around with her spoon.
“Eat, or I’ll feed you,” JD commanded.
The phone rang again, and JD shoved her back in the chair. “Sit. I’ll get it. And if that fruit isn’t gone by the time I get back, I won’t tell you if I find Hattie’s will.”
He strode off down the hall. Nina watched him go, admiring the straight set of JD’s shoulders and the grace of his stride. He wasn’t using his walking stick, she noticed.
She wondered how much they paid teachers in California. Would they accept a Kentucky teaching certificate? The idea of following JD to California was an insane one, born of desperation. The realization that it actually lifted her spirits for the first time today terrified her. JD had never given any indication that he wanted a permanent relationship.
Nina turned back to the fruit. It was too pretty to throw away. She nibbled at it until Ethel knocked on the back door, carrying a cake.
The day went from hectic to chaotic even with JD manning the phone. The regional newspaper heard about the garden and wanted to do a feature story. Distant relatives Nina hadn’t seen in years called to ask about funeral arrangements. Tom returned with three more farmers, bulldozers, bushhogs, and trucks, and began clearing the bottomland. Jackie came home and took over the duty of answering the doors and collecting food, but Helen returned and sent him outside so she could entertain in the front room. JD reported he couldn’t find anything resembling a will in Hattie’s belongings, and Nina didn’t have time to look.
She didn’t even have time to mourn Hattie, she realized later that night as she stood in the drive, watching the last car drive away. She hadn’t time even to begin figuring out what to do with her future. Maybe she’d better start packing her clothes and books before Helen claimed them, too.
JD caught her before she returned to the house and steered her toward the rose garden. “We need a minute to talk.”
Nina shrugged him off. Everybody kept pushing her around, and she was damned tired of it. Angry over nothing, she stalked toward the rear of the house.
“The lawyer is filing a lien in your name against the property.” Despite his injured foot, JD had no trouble keeping up with her, she noticed grumpily.
“How can he file a lien? On what basis?” At least legal talk could occupy her mind so she didn’t have to think of anything else.
“On the basis of all the money you’ve spent on this place over the years. Even if a will is found, you’ll have a claim against the estate. You need a list with approximate amounts. Accuracy isn’t important. Just make it huge enough to prevent anyone from selling the place out from under you immediately.”
“I haven’t any idea how much I’ve spent. I’ve taught for eight years. Say I’ve had an average take home p
ay of twenty thousand dollars a year. We grew most of our food. The house is paid for. I paid the utilities, but they’re not much. Almost my entire salary went toward taxes, insurance, maintaining the house, and expanding the gardens. Hattie’s insurance covered most of her medical bills, and her pension paid her personal expenses. We lived simply. Do you have any idea how much that greenhouse alone cost?” Nina turned and stared at JD through the dusk.
He stopped and stared down at her. “Would a hundred-fifty- thousand-dollar lien pretty much cover the worth of this place?”
“Pretty much. Farmland is cheap out here, and the house needs too much work to be worth much.”
JD stroked her cheek, and Nina longed to lean into his embrace, but she couldn’t afford weakness. He dropped his hand as she moved away.
“Then let Helen post all the for-sale signs she likes. Until a court settles the matter, she can’t complete a sale without paying you first.”
Nina felt an enormous burden fall from her shoulders. “It’s that simple?” she asked in awe.
“For now. It’s not a permanent solution. Unless we find Hattie’s will, most of the property goes to your mother under Kentucky law, since her mother died intestate, too. A court will decide on the legitimacy of your lien. But the lawyer says that takes months, when and if your mother files suit for a judgment on the matter.”
Nina nodded and wandered down the path between the rose beds. The tea roses filled the air with their heavy scent, and she drank it in as if smelling them for the first time.
“Matt has influence. He’ll try to get the lien thrown out. Will it stop the phone company?”
“They’re still working on that. Don’t think about it now. Go to bed. Get some rest. You’ve had a rough day.”
“Tomorrow’s visitation. I’ll have to sit down at the funeral home and listen to old women cry. Am I being selfish wishing I were a thousand miles away?”
In the dark, Nina could only sense JD walking in the shadows beside her, his hands in his pockets. She shouldn’t cast these burdens on him. He was—for all intents and purposes—a stranger. But he was the only person she could talk to now that Hattie was gone. That was a terrible comment on her own life.
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