Garden of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    â€œI’m a stranger,” she replied, wishing she could growl.
    â€œYou’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, got 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.
    â€œUse 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.
    â€œHe’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.
    â€œJackie!” 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 get you out of there, you puling fool! Where do you think he is?”
    The boy’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...
    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 the boy looked on helplessly from the engine end. For just a second, long-lashed brown