Blue Clouds

by Patricia Rice

  Like bloody hell would she give him the keys to her car. She’d thought he might take the motorcycle. She snorted at the notion of a cell phone. If he only knew...

  She glanced inside the truck and wished she hadn’t. The stranger had apparently smacked the windshield when the van rammed him. He’d probably had his seat belt off so he could climb out. Blood crawled down a face too bronzed even for this southern climate. She winced at the bloody gash in his scalp. No wonder he was out cold. His doubled-up position against the far window didn’t look too comfortable either. One boot-clad foot tangled with the gearshift at an awkward angle.

  Clenching her teeth against the sight, Nina contemplated some way of prying him out of his unconscious sprawl. If they could lift the pickup high enough, they could possibly slide him out the passenger door. The alternative was hauling him up by the thick ebony hair of his head. She figured the battered brown Stetson on the floorboard belonged to him. Too bad he hadn’t been wearing it. Then again, she’d never seen a motorcycle thug wearing a Stetson. Maybe it belonged to the boy.

  The boy watched her anxiously, as if she held the answer to all his problems in her hands. Nina imagined that at any other time he had the tough fifteen-year-old swagger that matched his long hair and earring, but right now he barely looked twelve.

  “You’re right. If we could lift the truck just enough to open the door, we could slide him out. I’d better drive back to town and see if I can find someone to help us.” She didn’t like the idea. It meant a twenty-minute round-trip at best. She searched her brain for someone who might live closer, but she couldn’t think of anyone who would be home. Even the farmer who owned this field worked in the factory up at Calvert.

  The kid looked dubious. “I can lift the truck, but how will you slide him out?”

  Hell if she knew. Twisting a short lock of stick-straight white-blond hair, she stared out over the soybean field. The beans were barely peeking through the ground. All that wet weather earlier this spring, she supposed.

  Wet weather. Canvas. “Stay right there,” she ordered, as if the kid could go anywhere else. Sprinting up the hillside, she dashed back to the battered Camry. She’d protected the carpet in the trunk with canvas when she’d hauled plant trays in all that rain.

  Seldom did she find occasion to appreciate her petite size, but she did a few minutes as she climbed down inside the cab with the canvas. The truck cab was smaller than a double bed. She felt extremely awkward sitting on the stranger’s head while determining the extent of his injuries. The man beside her wasn’t terrifically large, but the muscular shoulders she’d noticed earlier pretty well filled the doorway. He groaned as she tried stabilizing his neck.

  Nina pulled her hand back from the heated warmth of him as if burned. The blood disguised his features, so she assumed her sudden breathlessness had to do with the heat. She couldn’t tell from this angle, but she figured him for six feet of dead weight. As she worked around him, bile rose in her throat at the sticky sweet smell of blood. Damn good thing she’d never wanted to be a nurse.

  By the time she had him situated, an RV and two pickups towing fishing boats had roared by on the road above. None of them stopped. Blasted tourists.

  “Why didn’t you flag them down?” Nina asked in irritation as she climbed out of the cab.

  The kid shrugged and spit on his hands as he looked for just the right spot to heft the truck. “Dad wouldn’t want strangers nosing around.”

  Dad? She’d like to know where the damned hell Dad was and if the asshole would want his son baking in an overturned pickup, but she didn’t ask. She’d better quit swearing while she was at it. One of these days she’d let those words fly in a classroom and the parents of her students would take off her head.

  “I’m a stranger,” she replied, wishing she could growl.

  “You’re a woman.”

  Oh, good. Oh, really good. And she supposed that attitude came from the boot-wearing stud inside. If he hadn’t already had his block nearly hacked off, she’d gladly take it off for him.

  It was too hot and miserable to argue the point. Fine. She was a woman. Nina wiped her forehead with her arm, stood beside the twerp, and with a shove to match his, dug in her heels and felt the cab lift all of three centimeters.

  They inched around and shoved some more, gaining another inch or two. The man inside groaned more loudly than before.

  “Use the door for a wedge,” Nina gasped. “Pry it open.”

  Still holding the truck cab with one hand, the boy eased the other down to the door handle. It opened a crack and dug into the dirt.

  “He’s going to be mad about those computers,” the boy muttered as something inside slid around.

  Nina figured the heat had affected her hearing. Motorcycle thugs didn’t know the word computer as far as she knew. For that matter, ninety percent of Madrid thought computers a necessary evil designed by the outside world for the single purpose of making their lives crazy. She didn’t respond but pushed from a different angle. The hot metal scorched her hands.

  A furious curse roared out of the interior. Nina blinked, and the boy jumped. The cab slipped back to the ground again. This time a stream of curses sailed through the open window, each one more inventive than the one before.

  “Jackie!” the voice roared. “Where the fuck are you?”

  Now that was one particular word Nina never used, even in her own head. She didn’t think anyone should fling it around a teenager. Swiping at the perspiration pouring down her face, she yelled at the truck roof, “Trying to drag you out of there, you puling fool! Where do you think he is?”

  The boy—Jackie’s—eyes widened in surprise and admiration as if she’d invented a new curse word. Nina knew the reaction. That particular word never failed to send half her class to the dictionary. The other half threw it around for weeks, sometimes months after. She’d even had one valedictorian work it into his graduation speech. The power of words never ceased to amaze her.

  The silence in the truck grew so long that Nina feared he’d passed out again. But then a blunt-fingered, sun-browned hand clamped over the edge of the driver’s door at the top, and she heard another onslaught of swear words, only slightly less loud than the first outburst.

  She glanced at the boy. “Maybe we’d better climb up there and see if we can help him out.”

  The boy nodded and scrambled back up the engine side of the pickup. Nina didn’t see how both of them could fit up there, but she didn’t see how a seriously injured man could pull himself out either. Cautiously, she judged the nearness of the truck bed to the door. Maybe if she lay flat against the side...

  Another hand wrapped around the doorway edge. Before she could contemplate climbing up, a pair of powerful shoulders emerged, followed by muscular arms in a tight black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She hadn’t seen anyone roll up T-shirt sleeves since the last James Dean movie. She stared as muscles bulged with the strain, and then a narrow waist and a blue-jeaned rear end settled over the side.

  He looked ready to tumble backward off the truck. Nina leapt on the pickup bed and crawled up beside him while Jackie looked on helplessly from the engine end. For just a second, long-lashed brown eyes stared into hers. Wide and momentarily unguarded, his gaze reflected a pain that pierced her soul. Then, with blood still running down his face, the stranger closed his eyes wearily and murmured, “Send in the clowns,” before slumping backward into her arms.

  A fine way to greet a rescuing angel. Nina could tell right now she’d just rescued one of those smart-mouthed hillbillies who couldn’t utter a gracious word. She just couldn’t immediately think why a hillbilly would know the words to Stephen Sondheim’s music. Send in the clowns, indeed.

  “Jackie!” she screamed as her patient began to slide back down. But the boy had already jumped up beside her and grabbed the man’s other arm.

  Between Nina and Jackie, they laid him on the side of the truck. A combine stopped on the side of the road, and
Nina whistled in relief as Gary Thomas slipped down the embankment toward them. She didn’t think she had the strength left to drag a full-grown man up that hill. In fact, she figured she’d pass out from the heat and exertion in another thirty seconds.

  The boy beside her stiffened nervously, but he simply didn’t have a choice. They had to take his brother somewhere cool and safe, then have a doctor look at him.

  Gary was a stocky farmer, father of two little girls in her Sunday school class. Nina nodded, gave him a hasty explanation, and let him take over. Gary seldom said much. At the moment she rather admired that particular trait.

  “Put him in the back of my car,” she ordered as they hauled the unconscious man up the hill. “I’ll drive him over to the clinic.”

  “We have to get the bike first!” the boy yelled as she opened the back door. “And the computers! Dad would kill me if they got stolen.”

  Dad again. Either this boy had a strange notion of what fathers thought important, or he had one mean bastard of an old man. Nina was inclined toward ignoring him, but Gary turned and answered reassuringly, “There’s room in back. Go unload the computers. I’ll take care of the bike later.”

  Obviously Jackie trusted strangers more than his old man did. After watching fearfully while they arranged his brother partially across the hatchback’s flattened backseat and into the trunk, he dashed down the hillside and began lugging boxes up the hill.

  There for a while, Nina thought the kid contemplated putting a few of the boxes on top of his unconscious brother in his efforts to pack them all in, but he finally stored the last one under his feet on the passenger side of the car. Then he looked anxiously at Gary. “You won’t let anyone steal the bike?”

  Gary wiped his sweating brow with his handkerchief and shook his head. “I’ll haul it over to Miss Toon’s while you’re at the clinic. It’ll be safe enough there.” He glanced at Nina. “Should I call Bob to tow the truck out?”

  Nina slammed her door and turned the key in the ignition. “Not yet. The sheriff may need a look at it. I’ll call him when we get back. Thanks, Gary.”

  Checking the road before pulling out, Nina didn’t notice the boy’s silence until she had the car under way. Her heart thumped nervously at the look on his face when she finally turned in his direction. “What’s wrong?”

  “You can’t call the sheriff,” he said adamantly.

  “That van ran you off the road. The driver has to be caught before he kills someone.”

  “We can’t call the sheriff.” He crossed his arms over his scrawny chest and glared out the windshield. “They’ll put Dad in jail.”

  Behind them, the injured man groaned and began swearing again.

  Remembering the ice cream, Nina sighed. This had certainly turned out to be one of those days.

  We hope you enjoyed this sample of Garden of Dreams by Patricia Rice.

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  VOLCANO

  By Patricia Rice

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not inspired by any person known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by Book View Cafe 2012

  Originally published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1999 by Rice Enterprises, Inc.

  VOLCANO (sample)

  by Patricia Rice

  As the airplane circled the runway, Penelope’s stomach clenched with panic. She’d never flown out of the country before, never dealt with the unanticipated complications of foreign travel alone. She’d never had such an important assignment, either, one that carried all her desperate hopes and prayers.

  Given a choice, she’d take the security of the known any day. She blamed the unfairness of life for assigning the most important project of her career to a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean, where she knew nothing and no one.

  As the airplane wheels bumped on the runway, Penelope watched the tropical landscape fly by with an interest heightened by fear. She was such a damned coward. She should be thrilled at this opportunity.

  She steadied her emotions by envisioning the interminable wait to file off the plane, the ordeal of negotiating the soulless terminal with thousands of strangers hurrying toward unknown destinations, and the cab ride to some faceless hotel like all the other hotels she’d ever known. Only then could she finally start the job that would establish her foothold in the career of her choice. She needed that partnership so desperately her teeth ached with it.

  Her uneasiness arose from hunger and exhaustion and nothing more. If she could readjust her thinking and consider this as simply one more assignment in a string of successful assignments, she would be all right. She knew she was good. She might be an emotional basket case, but she had brains.

  Carting her briefcase and overnight bag off the 747 into unknown territory, she just wished she could solve her growing anxiety along with her growling stomach. Neither of the flights had served meals. Surely her nervousness had more to do with an empty stomach and incompetent airlines than fear.

  Heat slammed into her the instant she stepped down the plane stairs. No brief hike through weather-protected tunnels into an air-conditioned terminal on this underdeveloped island. Warily watching more seasoned passengers, Penelope followed them across the tarmac to a shaded walkway. The tropical sun glared off the pavement, and drooping palm trees shimmered behind the heat in the distance. Even coming from Miami, she could feel the difference.

  Penelope skirted around the chattering passengers trailing along the walkway as if they had all day. Even in her low pumps, she still towered over most of the crowd. As a twelve-year-old, her height had embarrassed her. Sometimes she still felt like that gawky teenager, especially when people stared.

  She’d been warned her destination required a lengthy taxi journey to the other side of the island. She wanted to arrive before dinner, so she needed to hurry. But she was starving now. Would a restaurant be too much to hope for? Garbed in a man-tailored business suit meant for an office and not the tropics, Penelope felt moisture pooling beneath her shirt as she hurried toward the terminal.

  Adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses, Penelope breathed a sigh of relief under the slow-moving fans of the high-ceilinged immigration office. The sight of half a dozen long lines ahead of her didn’t help the gnawing in her stomach, but the consequences of Beth’s accident had taught her patience. She was almost there. The hotel had promised an agent would meet her outside the gates. Setting her briefcase safely between her navy pumps, she tightened the pins in her upswept hair.

  She may have led a sheltered childhood in an upper-class environment, but she’d spent these last eight years since college making her own way in the world. Caught up in their divorce, her parents had never offered a helping hand. Besides, they were still disappointed that she hadn’t married Zack and settled down back in Charlotte as Beth had.

  Looking around at the tourists crowding the room, Penelope summoned pity for the harried women with crying children clinging to their hands while their husbands juggled baggage and pretended competence. If those women had fooled themselves into believing their husbands would take care of everything, they would be sorely disappointed. Men couldn’t do a blamed thing without a woman behind them.

  As if confirming her opinion, the man at the head of her line searched frantically through the pockets in his expensive L.L. Bean traveling jacket while his wife held a crying baby and watched in bewilderment. Lost the passports, Penelope thought cynically.

  The next man in line looked vaguely familiar. Wearing an expensive suit in contrast to the casually dressed tourists around them, he clutched a leather briefcase as he handed over his passport. Penelope frowned as she tried to figure out why a middle-aged, balding, burly man would look familiar until she realized he was a major contractor who used PC&M for his accounting. Maybe
the contractor had recommended PC&M to Anse Chastenet. That was how these good ol’ boy networks worked. She mentally filed the knowledge for future use.

  Shoring up her confidence, she decided that after a few more trips like this one, she’d be an experienced traveler, ready to specialize in Poindexter, Combs, and MacMillan’s Caribbean accounts. Maybe then she could take the time to enjoy the exotic setting of the islands.

  Right now, she worried about finding her suitcase, getting through customs, and locating her assigned agent. Then there would be the perilous journey to the hotel. Cadogan’s guidebook hadn’t called it perilous, but she could read between the lines. “Tortuous paths,” “series of switchbacks,” and “rough, potholed roads” meant any number of things, none of them pleasant in her current frame of mind. She didn’t like situations she couldn’t control.

  Finally, her turn arrived. The agent gave her passport a cursory glance, stamped it, and motioned her away. Penelope had already watched the passengers ahead of her and knew they’d disappeared somewhere to the left. She couldn’t see any signs to guide her, and the agent’s heavily accented English reduced the possibility of asking questions. Gathering her courage, she shouldered her bag and trudged down another corridor.

  At least the natives of St. Lucia were supposed to speak English. Her high-school Spanish and college French wouldn’t hold up well in this nerve-racking environment. She’d known the islanders spoke a patois. She hadn’t counted on their heavy accents converting their English into a foreign language. She prayed the hotel management had a better grasp of her native tongue or she’d be in for an uphill struggle in installing their software.

  She saw no sign of the contractor in the crowd of tourists circling the baggage claim. He must have only brought his briefcase for a quick trip. Pity. She might have made some new connections here if he knew the area. Maybe another time.