Garden of Dreams (12 page)

“Dammit, you stupid young pup!” JD bellowed as Jackie bent over with another round of retching. “I gave you credit for a little more sense!” The smell of beer permeated the air.

“Yelling won't make it better,” Nina said dryly, closing the lantern shutter so it didn't reveal the boy's embarrassment. “I don't think he'll be joining us for pizza tonight. Jackie, if I leave the lantern, can you find your way back up the path?”

The boy shot her a pitiful look, but when she offered no sympathy, he nodded and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He took the handkerchief JD shoved at him but didn't look in JD's direction.

“If Jackie's taking the lantern, I'll accept your offer of a ride, Mr. Smith,” she said, interrupting JD's useless growls. “We can stop at Rosa's and pick up the pizza on the way.”

“I want to throttle the brat first.” He continued glaring at the boy.

“I'm certain you can think of something much more constructive to do with him in the morning. Go on home, Jackie. I won't let him throttle you until daylight, at least.”

Still holding the handkerchief to his mouth, Jackie nodded, picked up the lantern, and hurried toward the house.

“What do we do now?” JD muttered.

“We wait and make certain he doesn't double back to avoid facing you. Does he do this often?” she asked as the sound of the boy's feet in the dry leaves faded.

“How in hell do I know?” he asked with equal parts frustration and irritation, running his hands through his hair. “His mother didn't mention it.”

“Then we'll assume it's just a matter of peer pressure for now. Let's go see who's down at the cove.” She marched toward the lake. As a high school teacher, she knew every teenager in the district. One of the advantages of small-town living was that she also knew all their friends and family.

The older men had congregated out on the houseboats at the end of the dock. The kids had a campfire just around the bend, out of sight of the adults. The boats might contain summer tourists, but the campfire belonged to the locals.

Ethel's seventeen-year-old nephew looked up at her guiltily. One by one the other young louts caught sight of her. Several looked longingly at the shadowed shrubbery as if they wished they could disappear, but when the others didn't flee in the face of her wrath, they reluctantly held their places.

“Hey, Miss Toon,” Ethel's nephew called nervously, glancing at JD behind her.

“You will stand and make appropriate introductions to Mr. Smith, Jackie's brother,” she demanded curtly. “That is, if you're still capable of standing.”

The boy looked rebellious, but the challenge to his manhood couldn't be ignored. He staggered only slightly as he stood up. “We ain't doin' nothin' wrong, Miss Toon,” he sputtered belligerently after grumbling out a few names in introduction.

“You're underage and drinking. I know Sheriff Hoyt ignores it as long as you behave, but if I complain, he'll have to act. Tommy,” she spoke sharply to a boy hastily shoving something under a deflated rubber raft, “hand that over. The lot of you have had enough for the evening.”

“I ain't got nothin', Miss Toon.” The culprit held up his empty hands in innocence.

JD stepped over the campfire, picked up the raft, and uncovered the hoard of beer cans. Without a word, he lifted the heavy bucket of ice and beer and strode toward the lake with it.

“Hey, mister! You can't do that! That's stealing.” A couple of the older boys leapt to menacing positions, but unfazed, JD waded out in the water and dropped the bucket into the lake. Cries of protest erupted, but no one stopped him.

JD walked back across the sand. “Aluminum pollutes,” he said pleasantly. “You'll have to go in and empty those cans into the water so you can toss the empties back to me for recycling.”

“Yeah, and who's gonna make us?” one of the larger boys demanded.

As JD reached for the ruffian's collar, Nina interrupted. “Sheriff Hoyt, your father, Mr. Clancy”—the football coach—”and Tammy, if I tell her what you were doing. She works with Students Against Drunk Driving, I'm sure you realize.”

The mention of the girlfriend was the deciding factor. Sheepishly at first, then making a game of it, they dived in after the beer, emptying it into the water and onto themselves and each other until a healthy stack of cans built on the beach.

JD didn't once crack a smile, but Nina had the distinct impression he fought back a bad case of chuckles. He confirmed her opinion after they gathered the cans and proceeded toward the road. His laughter emerged softly.

“Defeated by a girl's name! Men don't stand a chance, do they?”

“Not as long as all they require is animal trainers.” Her observations had led her to conclude some boys were capable of growing into intelligent men instead of bigger animals. Some, but not all. She wasn't sure into which category JD fell.

He didn't have the leisure for a reply. Sheriff Hoyt sauntered toward them, eyeing the rattling sack skeptically. “Partying, Nina?”

“Just doing your job for you, Hoyt,” she answered. “Unless you want to arrest half the football team, you'd best not go any farther.”

He frowned, glanced over their shoulders, and gave JD's cheerful grin a disgruntled look. “They're good kids, just sowing a few wild oats.”

“Fermented barley, looks like to me,” JD said as the sheriff took the sack. “If I find out where they bought this stuff, you'll be minus one bootlegger. Maybe you should spread the word.”

JD issued the threat in such a pleasant tone that Nina wasn't certain if she'd interpreted it correctly.

Hoyt obviously didn't have any problem digesting it though. He scowled. “I'll do my job. You keep your nose out of it.”

“Someone, somewhere, hasn't done their job or the kids wouldn't have this stuff. I don't much care if adults drink themselves under the table, even in a dry county, but there's no excuse for selling to kids. I'm offering my help, if you want it.”

Hoyt backed down a hair. “I'll get the word out, but I reckon it's one of the older boys buying it at a package dealer over in McCracken County. There's too many ways these kids can get it.”

“Well, I don't know what you'll do with that lot back there, but I mean to make it a good deal less appealing to a certain fifteen-year-old of my acquaintance.” With a nod to the sheriff, JD limped across the parking lot, dragging Nina after him.

“What will you do with him?” Nina asked as they reached the Harley. She gave the bike a look of misgiving. She'd never been on a motorcycle. She had no clue how to get on.

“Hell if I know,” JD admitted, swinging his leg over the seat. “Hop on and tell me where to find the pizza place. I think better on a full stomach.”

“Hop on, he says,” Nina muttered, glaring at JD's broad shoulders and the narrow seat.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Scared?” he taunted.

“Ignorant.” She looked at the seat skeptically. “Maybe I should walk.”

His reckless grin convinced her walking was the best alternative. “Throw your leg over the seat, Miss Toon, and wrap your arms around my waist. You won't go up in flames, I promise.”

Nina seriously considered kicking a wheel to see if she could turn him over on his smug expression, but she decided that would be childishly unbecoming to a woman her age. Motorcycles had never fascinated her, but she could deal with one in the same way she dealt with horses—carefully.

JD had promised she wouldn't go up in flames, but feeling the heat of him through his shirt nearly burned Nina's fingers, and the play of his muscles beneath her hands as the Harley roared to life sent her thoughts straight to hell. She had never in her entire life,
never
, been aware of a man's physical presence like this. Her aunt had warned her about the dangers of teenage petting, and Nina had always managed a sufficiently frosty distance to keep the boys wary, even as she grew older. She'd never particularly regretted it. But JD was not one of the boys she'd grown up with.

Nina tried just crunching his shirt between her fingers, but JD turned the bike into a curve, and she grabbed his waist rather than fall off. She pretended that clinging to a man's trouser band had no significance for her, but she suspected JD knew better. He struck her as a man of some experience.

After picking up the pizza, Nina found the problem multiplied. She had to wrap one arm entirely around him and lean against his back so she could hold the pizza in her other arm. Nina had the vicious urge to bite JD's shoulder blade when he chuckled at her awkwardness.

“I never thought I'd resent a box of pizza,” he murmured as Nina adjusted her position to keep the box between them.

“Next time, I walk back with Jackie,” she muttered in reply.

The motorcycle's roar drowned their words away after that. Nina tried not to think about the man's hard body vibrating against hers, or the smell of hot pizza in the warm summer air rushing around her, or the stars twinkling above the dark shapes of the trees as they flew down the road. She'd always lived cautiously, never stepping far from the beaten path of her existence. She had never considered the word
sensual
in terms of her life, but she thought she experienced it now. All her senses had her blood thrumming hotly, and deep down, she knew JD was responsible.

Nina almost felt disappointment when JD shut off the throttle, and she realized they'd reached the house. She climbed off awkwardly, gripping the pizza box.

JD glanced up at the darkened windows. “Think he's there?”

“Hiding in his room, most likely. It's such an awkward age. They think they're too old for coddling, but they miss it. Try to remember how you felt at that age when you talk to him,” Nina replied, thankful for this return to sanity.

She couldn't interpret JD's grimace as they climbed the steps. Perhaps his foot pained him. Nina wondered—not for the first time—how there'd come to be such a disparity in the ages of the brothers, or why their father hadn't stepped in if his son had been abused by another man. The various complications of divorces amazed her.

The muffled sound of rock music drifted down from the upper story, and they breathed mutual sighs of relief.

“May I eat first?” JD asked dryly as Nina hesitated at the bottom of the stairs.

“You're asking me?” she asked incredulously. “He's your brother.”

“Yeah, but you have a better handle on kids than I do. I don't have much experience.”

Nina looked at the man beside her. She saw his physical strength, his beguiling features, and the worry in the depths of his dark eyes. He wasn't angry at the boy. He was genuinely concerned about doing the right thing. He'd intimidated her with his size and his motorbike and his self-assurance, but he had his vulnerabilities, too.

She nodded toward the kitchen. “There's no textbook answer that I know. Each one is an individual. You have to know how they respond, how they feel, what makes them tick. I really don't think there's a psychiatrist in the world who can make those calls better than a concerned parent. Let's eat first.”

JD seemed unusually subdued as they consumed the pizza and a liter of Coke. His anxiety didn't affect his appetite, Nina noted wryly. He could eat. He just didn't talk much. She began to think she'd just imagined the sexual innuendos of earlier.

“Kids learn best by doing,” JD finally said. “He's learned drinking large quantities of beer makes him sick.”

He was already looking for an out. Nina smiled at his logic. Maybe he didn't know much about the boy, but he didn't want to hurt him. “He hasn't learned to stand up against peer pressure,” she pointed out.

JD glared at the last piece of pizza. “I was afraid you'd say that. What kid can stand up to peer pressure? Especially when he's the new kid on the block and has to prove himself?”

“A child who is sure of himself can fight peer pressure best,” she said. “I don't know how you go about providing that kind of self-esteem. I had stability on my side.”

JD gave her a skeptical look. “You never felt inclined to make out with the captain of the football team so you'd be popular?”

“Hoyt was captain of the football team,” she pointed out with a smile. “What do you think?”

He gave a rueful grin. “How about captain of the debating team?”

“No such critter. Familiarity breeds contempt, I fear.”

“Hmm, there is that. If Jackie really knew those kids, he wouldn't be so interested in imitating them. What do those bums usually do with their summers?”

“Work at the Dairy Queen, or their fathers' farms, whatever. What did you have in mind?”

He grabbed the last slice of pizza and chewed a bite thoroughly before replying. “Your landscape friend said the scrub plants in the woods need clearing out to make it into some kind of woodland garden, didn't he?”

Nina regarded him warily. “There are acres of junk trees out there. I'm inclined to think a bulldozer faster. And without a design, we don't know which acres need clearing.”