Garden of Dreams by Patricia Rice Read Free Book Online

won’t,” she answered with a hint of amusement. “Shall I call Jackie? I thought he might like a cot in the room with you, but I can make a place for him upstairs, if you’d prefer.”
    â€œI don’t want to trouble you. You’d best leave him with me.” Tilting his head, JD looked at her long and hard, drinking her in as if she were the tall, cool beer he needed. He couldn’t fit all the pieces together. The hick clothes, the punk hair, the shy voice.
    She retreated from him even as he stared. “It’s no trouble at all. I have plenty of room.” She slipped away before he could say anything else.
    As she left, JD contemplated with bemusement the new ache she’d aroused, the one forming a hard lump behind his zipper. He didn’t think this was a particularly appropriate time to end his jinx with women. But his rebellious body had never had a lick of sense.
    Great. Just great. He groaned, leaning his pounding head against the pillow as he considered his new predicament. He’d stolen his own program and computers, practically kidnapped a kid he didn’t know to keep the kid’s stepfather from killing him, and now his only means of transportation lay in a cornfield—while he sat here with a broken foot and a hard-on for a woman who looked like Tinkerbelle.
    Wasn’t life just a bowl of cherries?

Chapter 4
    â€œMiss Toon.”
    â€œNina,” she responded absently, beating the eggs.
    â€œNina Toon?”
    She thought she heard laughter in her guest’s tone and watched him warily. More stocky than tall, with narrow hips that emphasized his muscular shoulders, John Smith permeated her kitchen, making her pretty wicker stools seem small and unstable in comparison. She couldn’t remember ever seeing a man in Hattie’s kitchen. Maybe that’s why he seemed to dominate the butcher-block counter.
    She glared at his smirk. Nina couldn’t call her unexpected guest a handsome man by any standard she knew. Pierce Brosnan was her ideal. Or Sean Connery. Polished, sophisticated men with charm and wit and spectacular smiles. This man had broad cheekbones, a long jaw and powerful nose, a chin that stuck out entirely too far, and a smirk she’d like to wipe off his face. And he needed a haircut.
    â€œThat’s right. Nina Toon. Do you have a problem with it?” she asked warily.
    â€œKind of like Looney Tunes? Cartoons? Ninatoons. It fits. Where’d you get a name like that?”
    She suspected she should whop him upside the head with her frying pan, but she didn’t have much experience at entertaining strange men as houseguests. “Most of the Toons around here live across the lakes,” she replied stiffly. “They and a few other families formed a Catholic community back in the 1800s. We just kind of proliferated, I guess. I think it was my grandfather came over this way, but I have about ten zillion relatives back at Fancy Farm. I go over to the picnic every once in a while.”
    â€œThe picnic?”
    Well, she knew he wasn’t from around here. She poured the eggs in the pan. “The Fancy Farm picnic. It’s the oldest picnic in the world. It’s in the Guinness book. They’ve been holding a kind of homecoming picnic over there the first weekend of August since 1880. All the politicians come. It’s kind of a kickoff for the fall political campaigns.”
    â€œAll that hot August air and politicians, too. I imagine it’s delightful. Is it time for me to pop the bread in the toaster yet?”
    She knew he poked fun at her, but she couldn’t think of any way of politely telling him where to jump off. If Jackie had made those snide remarks, she would have clipped his hair to the scalp. But John Smith wasn’t a teenager. John Smith. He really did think she was a fool.
    â€œBy all means, Mr. Smith. Where did you leave Pocahontas?” She didn’t know where that had come