Garden of Dreams (10 page)

“Owning your own business is pretty risky,” she said as JD took his seat. “Most small businesses go under in the first few years. You'd better make sure you have a good sound education in business management, then learn your trade from an expert before venturing out on your own.”

JD raised a quizzical eyebrow as he passed the bowl of cole slaw. “Shall I guess what subject you teach?”

She grinned at his satirical tone. “Economics, accounting, and math at the high school, bookkeeping and typing at the vo-tech school in the evening. I've also subbed in biology when desperation calls, which it frequently does. I keep telling them my minor is in botany and they should change it to a botany course if they keep putting me in there.”

Nina didn't know if she liked the look of amazement she saw in JD's eyes. Did he think her a total idiot? Of course he did, after that performance this morning. Coloring, she returned her attention to her food.

“I suppose I shouldn't ask, but with that kind of background, why didn't you get another degree and teach at the college?”

“Stupid question,” she replied more curtly than she'd intended. “The nearest college is on the other side of the lakes. I made that drive for five years through ice and rain and fog. There's no way I'll drive it for the rest of my life.”

“You could move to the other side of the lakes,” he pointed out reasonably.

“Aunt Hattie lived here.” She didn't embellish the topic. Aunt Hattie had raised her since she was a lonely child of nine. Her great-aunt had taken on a responsibility that had belonged to Nina's irresponsible parents. And Hattie had started losing her mental faculties shortly after Nina finished her master's degree.

“She doesn't live here anymore,” he prodded. “Have you ever lived anywhere else?”

“No. This is my home, and I'm quite happy with it. I wasn't cut out for an ivory-tower environment.”

JD's eyes narrowed. “You're afraid of the unknown. You're staying where it's safe.”

“What in hell difference does it make to you?” She bit her lip, and her eyes widened as she realized she'd sworn in front of Jackie. Glaring crossly at JD, she turned her attention back to the teenager who had instantly retreated within himself as soon as she'd raised her voice. “How does your fish taste, Jackie? My first fish tasted like heaven. I never thought I'd eaten anything so good.”

He regarded her warily and poked at the remains. “All right, I guess. How come you don't eat fish now?”

Nina wrinkled her nose. “A steady diet of fish when I was growing up, I guess. Sometimes, too much of a good thing ruins it.”

He regarded her solemnly, absorbing that piece of information without comment. It suddenly struck Nina that behind that long hair and earring was a mind of significant intelligence... like his brother's.

Teenage boys disliked girls who earned straight As, and she'd easily dismissed the boys she'd grown up with by garnering every academic honor available. She had the uneasy notion that she couldn't get away with that kind of arrogance with her new boarders.

That night, Nina returned to her childhood bedroom and lay sleepless, staring at the ceiling. Come daylight, she would see the crack that she had decided as a child resembled a stairway to heaven. She had lain awake nights wondering if her parents had climbed that stairway and looked down on her from above, watching out for her in death as they hadn't in life.

She didn't grapple with that image these days. She couldn't precisely remember when she'd figured out that her so-called parents hadn't actually died. They'd just left. She remembered struggling with their desertion, wondering if they might have stayed if she'd been a better student, if she hadn't outgrown her clothes so fast, if she'd been prettier. She'd never voiced her doubts aloud. She'd simply tried to be as good as any angel so Aunt Hattie wouldn't abandon her, too.

Somewhere along the line, she'd grown tired of explaining where her parents had gone, and she'd started telling people they were dead. She'd tried creating fiery spectacular deaths for them one year, but Hattie had put an end to those tales. After that, she'd just quit expecting cards at Christmas or surprises on her birthday.

At some point she'd heard Hattie say they'd married too young. Knowing people as she did, Nina imagined her father had left first, her stepfather actually. Her mother didn't know who her real father was, Hattie had said.

Nina had vague memories of screaming arguments in the little house at the far end of Hattie's farm where they'd lived at the time. Her stepfather had come home drunk once and broken a window when he discovered her mother had locked him out. He'd disappeared from her life sometime after that.

Her mother had left her with Hattie not much later. There'd been talk of returning to school, finding a job, and she'd even come home once or twice that first year. But obviously Nina hadn't been important enough to remember after a while.

Hattie had given Nina a home, but her great-aunt hadn't known how to play with a child. She'd just been another student for Hattie to teach.

Nina had the desperate feeling she would turn out just like her aunt if she didn't make some changes, but she didn't know where to begin. The prospect of finding a job and a home in another city terrified her. Besides, she had her dream of a botanical garden.

Listening to the television playing in the room below, hearing JD or Jackie turning on the water in the kitchen, Nina wondered if she couldn't stay and still make changes. Maybe she should take Hoyt up on the offer of a ride in his new boat.

She might as well go to the bars in Paducah and pick up strangers for all the good that would do, she decided. She'd surely fall asleep listening to Hoyt recount his football days.

With a sigh, Nina threw back the stifling sheet and listened to the clickety-clack of JD's keyboard in the room below.

Not since her teenage years of primping and preening had Nina regretted the farmhouse's limited amenities. She regretted it now as she entered the upper story's one bathroom to find alien male shaving razors and accoutrements cluttering the counter. The small bathroom they'd added downstairs had little space and no mirror.

Nina felt a moment's guilt as she locked the bathroom door so she might shower in peace. She disliked inconveniencing guests, but it wasn't as if she'd invited them, she reminded herself. They would just have to adapt. As she would.

After years of scattering her underthings where she pleased, dropping towels until she got back to them, leisurely soaking for as long as she liked, it seemed odd to consider anyone else in her private den. For a thousand a month, she'd live with it. She'd take JD's check to the bank this morning.

The low roar of Jackie's boom box filtered through the wall from his room down the hall. For a thousand a month, she couldn't ask the two of them to share a room. She was grateful they didn't need entertaining. She wanted to visit Hattie and attend the garden show this afternoon.

Nina heard the phone ring as she stepped out of the shower. Dripping wet, her hair sticking out in unruly spikes, she could only shrug and towel herself off. Whoever it was could call back. Even when living alone she had little inclination for streaking naked through the house to answer a phone. Answering machines and cordless phones were for people with fast-lane lives, not her.

She was in the process of blow-drying her hair when the knock rapped at the door.

“Nina? The landscape designer from the university just called. He said he could come out this afternoon if that's all right with you. What do you want me to tell him?”

She almost dropped the dryer at the warm rumble of a male voice not two feet from where she stood, stark naked. Inexplicably shy, she considered pretending she had evaporated.

Lord! She was turning into Aunt Hattie.

Nina swallowed to ease her suddenly dry throat. “Designer? What designer?”

“From the university. The one you said was so good. I left a message on his voice mail, and I just talked to him. He seems interested.”

“Albert Herrington? You have Albert Herrington on the phone?” Dazed, Nina donned a robe and flung the door open.

She nearly fell into JD's arms. He caught her, gave her brief robe an upraised eyebrow, then released her before she froze up completely.

Ignoring the tempest of sensations engendered by his strong hand, Nina ran for the phone in her room.

“Mr. Herrington? I'm delighted you called.” Holding a hand on her chest to keep her pounding heart from leaping out, Nina listened to the faint British accent of his reply.

Not until she had breathlessly agreed to forgo the trip to Hopkinsville so she might show him around Hattie's acres did she realize JD had propped himself in her bedroom doorway. She glared at him as she hung up. “Has no one told you eavesdropping isn't polite?”

His gaze drifted to where her short robe met her bare thigh. “Since I initiated the call, I think I'm entitled to hear the result.” A slow, heart-stoppingly sexy smile curved his lips as his sleepy gaze swept downward. “How can I persuade you to wear a silk robe all the time?”

Nina slammed the door in his face.

Did the man have no decency?

Sighing, she fished in her closet for something suitable to impress Mr. Herrington. She couldn't pay the man. She hoped JD had made that clear. Grabbing a summer print Sunday dress from the closet, she slipped it on and went in search of JD. What on earth had he told the man to bring him out here this quickly?

She found her guest nibbling crackers as he searched the refrigerator. “He's coming out this afternoon,” she announced, pulling the pitcher of iced tea from beneath his nose. “Did you tell him I have no money?”

“That's not precisely what I told him, no.” He produced a jar of jam and opened a cabinet. “I told him a large corporation is interested in sponsoring the garden, that it would be good publicity, and could lead to major referrals.”

“In other words, you lied,” she said flatly, setting a glass of tea in front of him before sipping her own.

“I did no such thing. Once this garden idea takes off, we should have several corporations involved. This is the way big business operates. If everyone sat around waiting for the money to appear, nothing would ever get done. It's just a matter of timing.” He matter-of-factly chewed his sandwich and glanced at his watch. “What time is he coming? Jackie met some kids at the cove, and I promised to drive him down there. I could use a few winks of sleep before your friend shows up.”

Nina opened her mouth, but too many scathing words crowded her tongue, and she couldn't decide which to let fly first. She shook her head in disbelief. “There's a path to the cove from here. Jackie can walk it easily. I'll show him.”

Why had she done that? Why had she let him get away with those whopping big untruths?

He nodded. “Wake me up before Al gets here. I'd like to hear what he says.” He wandered off, half-eaten sandwich in one hand, tea in the other.

Nina wondered if he always ate like that and, if so, why he hadn't died of rickets.

As she led Jackie across the back field to the cove path, Nina tried prying out a little more about her lying bum of a boarder. She knew better than to write any checks against the money JD had paid her until she was certain his rent cleared, but if she threw her boarders out for dire lack of morals, she would have to give the money back.

“Do you and JD go fishing a lot when you're home?” she asked, knowing better than to ask a teenager a direct question.

Jackie cast her an anxious look and swiped a thick lock of hair from his forehead. “No place to fish,” he answered reluctantly.

“I hadn't thought of that. I'm just used to having water handy. Then you're from out west?”

He nodded, clearly hesitant about saying too much. That made Nina even more nervous, but she persevered. “The school here doesn't have too many computers, and I've not learned a lot about them. I bet with a brother like JD, you know a lot. Are you going into his business when you graduate?”

The boy brightened. “I think it would be great working in a place where everybody sits around playing Monster House. I've got some good ideas for new games. Gnomes and trolls are old. They need cyberpunks and narcheads. Cool dudes could be the good guys, and then we could have a whole slew of metro-fuzz who could go either way.”

He suddenly shut up and slanted Nina a shrewd look. “JD says ideas can get stolen and I'd better hang on to mine until I'm old enough to write programs.”

Well, apparently the man did work in the world of computers. She still suspected him more apt to be the thief of ideas than someone capable of persuading large corporations into donating untold sums to lost causes.

Nina halted at the top of the well-worn path to the cove. She liked Jackie. He acted tough, but he was a good kid. “I don't think too many people could take your ideas and convert them into anything constructive. If you can write computer programs, you'll have it made.”