Garden of Dreams (6 page)

She could feel his glare clear through her new cotton chemise dress. Ignoring him, she scooped the eggs into a blue willow bowl.

“JD,” he answered, without any seeming relevance.

She turned and squinted at him. “JD?”

“John David. People call me JD.”

She grinned. “As in, juvenile delinquent?”

“Juris doctorate,” he threw back at her, carefully spreading a thick hunk of butter on the soft toast.

“James Dean.” She took the rest of the toast slices and cut thin slivers of butter to melt on them while he struggled with his hunk.

“James Dean was a stupid punk with no ambition. He liked making an ass out of himself. I do not and will never resemble James Dean.” He took a hungry bite out of the toast.

“You look more like a victim of war this morning.” She amazed herself. She talked with this stranger as if she'd known him all her life. Better. The boys she'd grown up with had been tongue-tied most of the time.

She'd grown up here on the farm with Great-aunt Hattie, a confirmed spinster, and she'd seldom had an opportunity for bantering with any man. The boys she'd gone to school with didn't count. She still thought of them as boys. She'd never had a man in the kitchen or any other room in the house, except when the preacher came calling, and he scarcely counted. She'd never related well to strange men. She'd hoped college would change that, but not many men attended teaching classes, and she'd commuted, so she hadn't had time for hanging around afterward in the pizza parlor or wherever men hung around. Anyway, according to her aunt, all men were predatory. And she distinctly felt like prey when this one looked at her the way he did now.

He didn't seem to notice her ignorance. Rather than hobble around on his good foot, he continued sitting at the counter as he hollered “Jackie!” at the ceiling. The sound of the shower had stopped some minutes ago.

“I can keep his eggs warm. Teenagers like to make sure their faces haven't been rearranged overnight. I suppose I must have spent inordinate amounts of time in front of a mirror when I was that age, too.”

“When was that, last year?” He sat back so she could ladle a generous helping of eggs on his plate.

He made her feel giddy. Nina wanted to laugh like a teenager. Instead, she placed Jackie's eggs in the warming oven and scraped out the pan. “Not unless I was a child prodigy, which I assure you, I was not.”

“I was, but no one knew it.” He gestured at the stool beside him. “Sit down and eat before your breakfast gets cold.”

“I'm not much of a breakfast eater.” She remained standing by the sink as she sipped her tea. Looking for a different direction for her thoughts, she glanced out the window. The roses needed watering. This early heat wave would shatter the blooms before the bake sale Saturday.

The buzz of the hair dryer filled the awkward silence. Then the doorbell rang, and the hair dryer shut off. Jackie must be listening from upstairs.

Jackie had said they would put his dad in jail if she called the sheriff. She wondered where their father was and how this man felt about that. Nina watched her guest at the counter, but he had casually returned to eating his eggs and sipping his coffee, as if the ringing bell had no significance for him. Maybe he wanted their father put in jail. She couldn't quite understand cause and effect here, but she'd had to call the sheriff. If she hadn't, Gary would have. Or Bob, when he towed the truck out.

Without a word, she swept past Mr. JD Smith into the front room. At this hour, it could only be Sheriff Hoyt.

He stood on the front porch, hat in hand, revealing his crew cut. She'd known Hoyt forever. He'd been a short, fat little boy in grade school, but he'd begun growing in junior high. He'd started working out in the gym after he made the football team. Now his shoulders stretched considerably broader than his stomach, but she still saw him as that boy who couldn't bend over to tie his own shoes. She gestured for him to come in. His size didn't make her feel uncomfortably aware of his physical presence as the man's in the kitchen did.

“We're having breakfast in the kitchen, Hoyt. Come on back.”

As he followed her, Nina contemplated the overabundance of males cluttering her hitherto all-feminine domain. The stranger gave the sheriff a short nod. Hoyt took the mug she handed him but didn't add cream or sugar. Neither spoke. She'd seen two male dogs size each other up in much the same way. She wondered when they would begin circling and growling.

“Sheriff Hoyt Stone, JD Smith. Have a seat, Hoyt. I don't like people towering over me.”

Hoyt gave her a vaguely surprised look, as very well he might. She'd just said more to him than she'd probably ever said in her life. She hadn't thought she got chatty when she was nervous, but there was a first time for everything.

“We ran a check on that license plate you gave us, Nina,” Hoyt said as he took a stool on the other side of the counter. “It was stolen a few days ago.”

“That's why the van didn't stop then,” she said with satisfaction, glad to have the mystery explained. “It must have been stolen, too.”

“License plate?” JD raised his rugged eyebrows. “You got the license plate?”

She shrugged diffidently. “It was either that or chase after the van like on TV. I didn't think the Toyota would catch up though. Four cylinders have definite drawbacks.”

Nina gazed in astonishment at the warm look of approval in his dark eyes. She couldn't remember any man, anywhere, anytime, looking at her like that. She had an instant understanding of all the love stories she'd ever read. A look like that could lay a woman flat and roll right over her.

“Chasing after the van would have been dangerous, Nina,” the sheriff said with disapproval before turning back to JD.

“Mr. Smith, I'll need a look at your driver's license for the report.”

JD shrugged and reached for the coffeepot Nina had left on the counter. “My wallet wasn't in my pocket when I went to bed last night. It must have fallen out in the truck. Has anyone towed it in yet?”

Nina opened her mouth to protest that Jackie had the wallet when he paid the clinic last night, but for some reason, she closed it again. Maybe she was protecting Jackie.

“Bob was out there working on it this morning. I'll have him look for your billfold.” Hoyt gave JD a suspicious look. “We ran a make on your tags, too. They're registered to a James Robert MacTavish in California.”

JD shrugged again. “He loaned me the truck to transport the Harley. I hope you haven't called him yet. I've got to figure out some polite way of telling him I've wrecked his baby. He was in the process of completely restoring it.”

“I'll need to call and confirm the story. I've been waiting for a decent hour out there.”

JD glanced at his watch. Only then did Nina notice it looked like real gold with an exorbitantly expensive number of fancy dials. She couldn't put the fancy watch together with the T-shirt and the battered pickup. Maybe he'd stolen it.

“He'll be up in another hour. Just make sure you tell him JD says he'll pay for the repairs. How good is the town mechanic? MacTavish will want all original parts and no jury-rigging.”

Hoyt took another sip of his coffee and stood up. “Bob's good. I'll tell him what you said.” He put his hat back on and turned to Nina. “Thanks for the coffee, Nina. See you at the bake sale?”

“You'll see my flowers, Hoyt, but I doubt you'll see me. There's a lawn and garden show over in Hopkinsville I plan on attending when I visit Hattie.”

Hoyt looked as if he wanted to say something, but Nina headed toward the front door without giving him a chance. She thought her teeth might start chattering at any moment. She didn't know if she imagined the tension in the kitchen, or if it was all on her part. She had the strangest feeling that Hoyt had asked all the wrong questions and that JD had led him down a garden path. What in the devil was she doing letting a man she knew nothing about stay in her house?

After letting Hoyt out, she marched straight back to the kitchen with every intention of telling Mr. JD Smith he'd have to leave. Only, when she got there, she found him sitting on a stool at her kitchen sink, filling the basin with sudsy water to wash her dishes. Jackie came in behind her, and instead of saying all the things she should say, Nina retrieved the warming dish and prepared more toast.

“If you have a phone book and could tell me what to look under, I think I'd better call that Bob and talk to him.” JD said as Nina poured a glass of milk and set it in front of Jackie.

“You're not supposed to walk on that foot,” she reminded him. “If you're going to hobble all over the house, you should use one of Aunt Hattie's canes.”

She couldn't believe she'd said that. Had her brains flown out the window the moment this dark-eyed stranger entered her house? He wasn't even good-looking. But JD's muscular physique made her feel feminine and petite instead of like an unappealing shrimp. She really should have her head examined, except it wasn't her head that was in trouble. She was almost thirty years old, and for the first time in her life she had the hots for a man. At least, she thought that was what the kids called it.

Without another word, she went in search of one of Hattie's walking sticks. She usually kept them in the umbrella stand near the front door. By the time she returned, she knew the brothers had discussed her and reached some decision. Nina didn't like the way they looked at her at all.

JD took the stick and hefted it in his hand. Admiring the hand-carved cedar with the fire-breathing horse on top, he smoothed the polished wood. “This is a fine piece. Someone has a lot of talent.”

“A lot of people have talent. Not many people appreciate it,” she answered absently. She'd seen sticks like that most of her life. They were pretty, but seldom useful. That was half the problem with handicrafts. They made lovely ornaments with no particular purpose. Of course, she pretty much had the same problem with her garden.

“Unfortunately, the business world demands logic, not creativity. Without government funding of the arts, society will lose all beauty and originality, and stifle in its own lack of imagination,” JD said as he took the stick and wandered down the hall to the front room and the telephone.

Nina stared after him as if he'd mentioned he'd met Shakespeare. He'd just nailed the crime of the century and wandered off as if it were common knowledge. She couldn't think of one single person in the entire town who could have phrased the problem so neatly.

Shaking her head, she caught a glimpse of Jackie watching her. “Can I fix you anything else?” she asked politely. He'd devoured the eggs and toast as if starved, but she'd seen him put away four hamburgers with all the trimmings last night. Teenage boys had hollow legs.

“May I fix myself more toast?” he asked politely. “That jam's awful good.”

“Freezer jam. I made it from last year's strawberries. Help yourself.” She set another loaf of bread on the counter and let him fix his own.

“My d—JD's pretty smart, isn't he? My mom says he's too smart for his own good, whatever that means.”

Nina had a strong feeling she knew exactly what that meant. She still had difficulty grasping the concept of intelligence as acquainted with a man his age wearing T-shirts and driving beat-up pickups with Harley-Davidsons in the back. She'd about decided the computers must be stolen.

She picked up her garden gloves from the table on the enclosed porch. “I'm going out to water the plants. Just holler if you need anything.” She hadn't had to tell anyone where she was going for the last year or more. She couldn't quite decide if she liked the feeling it gave her now. Perhaps she had been a little bit lonely since Hattie left.

JD found her some time later as she stared up at the river birch Hattie had planted at the corner of the house. He limped on one foot and the walking stick, but he did it with a grace she could never have managed. Athletic, she added to the tags she'd applied to him.

“I'm losing this blasted tree,” she muttered—mostly to herself—as he came up beside her. “How do other people keep them alive?”

He looked up at the still green leaves and back at her with a quizzical expression. “How do you know you're losing it? It looks fine to me.”

She shrugged and pulled off a single yellowing leaf from a bottom branch. “I can just tell. If you'd listened to Billy's warning yesterday, you wouldn't have stalled out when you did. You should listen when people talk.”

“MacTavish just overhauled that engine. It shouldn't have gone out,” he protested, limping after her as she headed for the greenhouse.

“You'd better sit yourself down somewhere, Mr. Smith, before you hurt something.” Nina considered asking him when he would leave, but she didn't have the gumption. She'd apparently used up all her gumption reserves yesterday.

She really should get busy on the phone-company problem, though. Would Matt do the job, or should she start looking for someone else? Remembering she'd also started him on Hattie's incompetency hearing shut down any further thought in that direction.