One line meant she wasn’t pregnant…

Lucia Osborne stood in her candy-striped bathroom with its antique claw-footed tub and pedestal sink, holding the little plastic wand in her hand and studying the instructions.

Two red lines indicate a positive result.

Finally she took a deep breath and looked at the wand. Her eyes blurred for a moment, then focused in horror on the two red lines.

“This can’t be happening,” she moaned aloud. Then, with the careful precision that was an integral part of her nature, she took a second wand from the package and repeated the entire test.

Again the two red lines appeared clearly in the little window.

There was no doubt. The principal of Crystal Creeks middle school was going to become a single mother.

Dear Reader,

Almost ten years ago, Harlequin approached a number of authors with an exciting new idea. We were given the challenge of helping to create a central Texas town and ranching community, along with a host of interesting, heartwarming characters to populate this setting. The result was the 24-book CRYSTAL CREEK series, which has remained popular with readers since publication of the very first book in 1993.

As an author, I loved everything about writing the CRYSTAL CREEK books. So you can imagine my excitement when the Superromance editors suggested I might want to return to Crystal Creek with a new series of books. I could hardly wait! Consequences, the second book of this trilogy, continues the story of the beautiful Delgado sisters, Bella and Lucia. We also revisit June Pollock who was one of the featured characters in Mustang Heart, the thirteenth book of the original series, and who remains one of my favorite characters of all time.

I loved making this nostalgic return to Crystal Creek. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I did.

Warmest regards,

Margot Dalton

Crystal Creek titles by Margot Dalton:

Harlequin Superromance

#914—IN PLAIN SIGHT

#928—CONSEQUENCES

#940—THE NEWCOMER

Consequences
Margot Dalton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

LUCIA OSBORNE was the principal of the middle school in Crystal Creek, a small central Texas community where everybody knew everybody else’s business, and gossip whirled around with the destructive speed of a brushfire whipped by the wind.

Lucia was divorced, thirty-seven years old, and had not had a man in her life during the seven years she’d lived and worked in Crystal Creek.

So, early in October when she needed to buy a pregnancy test kit, Lucia could hardly walk down the street and make her purchase at Wall’s Drugstore, which had been serving the locals in the same capacity for more than sixty years. Ralph Wall, the pharmacist, was one of the most garrulous men in the county, and also happened to be married to Gloria Wall, chairwoman of the school board.

As a result, Lucia had to wait the whole of an agonizing week until she could get away long enough to make the sixty-minute drive to Austin, buy a testing kit and bring it home to the privacy of her little apartment.

She lived on the third floor of a gracious old house owned by June Pollock, who worked as a cook at one of the local motels. The big house had fallen on some hard times during the hundred-odd years it had stood in Crystal Creek’s downtown area, but June had come into a tidy sum of money a few years earlier and done a lot of renovating. Now she rented a few suites to carefully chosen residents.

Lucia had lived for five years in this apartment where flowered paper covered the slanted walls, and live oaks and pecans rustled against the dormers. Though it was vastly different from the palatial estate she and her brother and their younger half sister had grown up in, Lucia loved her cozy little home. These high airy rooms were her sanctuary and retreat, a place where she could let down her guard and relax, away from the measuring eyes and sharp tongues of the community.

But on this mellow Sunday afternoon, her silent rooms felt more like a prison, and the air seemed heavy with menace.

She stood in the candy-striped bathroom with its antique claw-footed bathtub and pedestal sink, holding the little plastic wand in her hand and studying the instructions.

Two lines in the window indicated a positive test. One line meant you weren’t pregnant.

Lucia took a deep breath and looked at the wand. Her eyes blurred for a moment, then focused in horror on the two red lines.

She moaned aloud and leaned her forehead against the cool surface of the mirror. Then, with the careful precision that was an integral part of her nature, she took a second wand from the package and went through the whole test again.

Again the two red lines appeared clearly in the little window.

“Oh, God,” she murmured aloud.

After a moment she wrapped all the testing equipment in a plastic sack and stuffed it in the trash can under the sink.

A warm breeze was blowing from the south, off the gulf and across the rolling valleys of Texas Hill Country. At the bathroom window, the white muslin curtain billowed and drifted on the wind, brushing the leaves of a potted African violet on the windowsill.

Moving automatically, Lucia closed the window and touched the soil around the plant. It was dry, and she used a little copper pitcher from a nearby shelf to water the violet, being careful not to drip onto the sensitive furred leaves.

Then she wandered out into her bedroom and lay down on the old brass bedstead, gazing up at the ceiling. Finally she rolled herself up in her soft green-and-white quilt and began to cry soundlessly.

ON MONDAY MORNING Lucia was at school early, going through her normal end-of-month routines. She finalized the agenda for the upcoming staff meeting, recorded attendance statistics for the first two months of the school term, examined purchase requisitions for school supplies and made opening announcements on the intercom to the eight classes in her school.

She had just settled in to look over a stack of résumés for the vacant teaching position in seventh grade when one of the secretaries popped her head around the door.

“Ms. Osborne?”

“Yes, Leslie, what is it?” Lucia made a notation on one of the job applications.

“Gloria Wall is here to see you.”

Lucia glanced up sharply. Leslie Karlsen stood calmly in the doorway, her doll-like face impassive, but Lucia sensed a certain spitefulness in the young woman’s manner.

You’re in trouble now, Leslie seemed to be telling her employer smugly. Let’s just see how you deal with this, Ms. High and Mighty.…

Lucia pressed her fingers to her temples briefly, then squared her shoulders.

“Thank you, Leslie,” she said. “Would you show her in, please?”

Leslie, the younger of the school’s two secretaries, nodded without expression and turned in the doorway. She wore a red sweater and a very short red skirt, and her well-endowed body curved ripely beneath the tight garments. Lucia sighed, watching her leave.

Normally she would have said something about the inappropriate garb. Leslie’s seductive clothing tended to titillate the young adolescent boys in the school, and caused a good deal of unnecessary loitering and disturbance in the office area. At intervals Lucia had pointed this out, and her censure had made the young secretary even more sullen and resentful.

This morning Lucia didn’t have the energy for a conflict with Leslie Karlsen. Not when a much more serious confrontation was possibly waiting for her out in the front office.

Gloria Wall appeared in the doorway, looking pleasantly cheerful. The head of the school board was a plump woman with a soft, matronly appearance, an impression she liked to intensify by dressing in pastel colors and soft, flowered prints like the one she wore today.

But Lucia knew from experience that Gloria’s personality was far from warm and cuddly. In fact, the woman was hard as nails, and could be a shrewd, merciless opponent.

“Good mornin’, Lucia.” Her visitor sank onto one of the upholstered chairs, fanning herself with a pink vinyl handbag. “My, my,” she said. “Isn’t it awful hot for October? You’d think we might have some relief from the heat by now. This place is just stiflin’. I don’t know how those poor little mites can concentrate on their school-work, I truly don’t.”

“I can’t afford to run the air conditioners this late into the fall,” Lucia said evenly. “With all those budget cuts, it’s just too much of a luxury.”

Gloria’s eyes hardened, and Lucia realized with a sinking heart that she shouldn’t have opened their discussion on such a controversial note. The school’s budget cuts had been at the center of a bitter conflict since spring, and were still not resolved.

It was important to stay calm, she reminded herself, looking down at her desktop. Regardless of provocation, she had to stay polite and neutral, and let the woman have her say.

But in spite of herself, Lucia kept seeing those two red lines in the little plastic wand. Her thoughts clouded into a mist of panic, and she struggled to concentrate on what Gloria was telling her.

“We had an emergency meeting of the school board on Sunday afternoon,” Gloria said.

The woman’s plump face was defiantly flushed. A pair of eyeglasses on a gold chain heaved up and down on her flowered bosom.

Lucia tensed and gripped a pen in her hands. “That’s odd, I didn’t hear a thing about it. Isn’t it customary to invite the school principal to board meetings?”

“We called, but you weren’t home.” Gloria’s blue eyes glittered behind lashes heavy with mascara. “We even checked with June at the club. She said you’d gone to Austin for the day.”

Again Lucia saw those two red lines in the white plastic.

“Yes, I had to run some errands.” She took a deep breath and looked directly at her visitor, folding her hands on the desktop with deliberate composure. “So what happened at your secret board meeting, Gloria?”

“It wasn’t a secret. An’ I sure don’t like your implication that we—”

“All right,” Lucia said wearily. “Just go ahead with whatever you’ve come to tell me, all right?”

“We voted to amalgamate with the middle school in Holly Grove, and bus all the students over there.”

Lucia’s jaw dropped. “You’re planning to close our school?”

“Now, there’s no need to get all hot and bothered.” Gloria shifted in the chair and squinted at her eyeglasses, then blew on the lenses and rubbed them with the skirt of her dress. “We plan to hold a plebiscite in March, after we’ve had time to let everyone know the details. We won’t amalgamate until next fall, so you’ve got a whole year to get this place shut down and tend to the paperwork.”

“Tend to the paperwork,” Lucia echoed blankly. “You’ve got to be kidding.” Her anger began to rise. “Look, if you’re all doing this just to spite me, it’s certainly an unkind way to treat the children of this town. They deserve better from their school board.”

“Just to spite you?” Malevolence flashed briefly in the other woman’s eyes. “My, my, but you do take a lot on yourself, don’t you? Why does everything have to be about you?”

“Because I honestly think that’s your motivation in this, Gloria. What’s more, it always has been, ever since I came to Crystal Creek.”

Don’t do this, Lucia told herself. Don’t let her get to you.

But Gloria was staring at her angrily. Two red spots flared in her cheeks. “You think you’re so important,” she said. “Walking around with your head in the air like some kind of fashion model, looking down on everybody as if we’re a bunch of peasants. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it?”

“I really don’t think we should bring this to the level of personal conflict.” Lucia struggled to retain her composure. “Not when the welfare of the student body is at stake.”

“The kids in this town got along fine before you ever came here.” Gloria heaved herself from her chair and marched toward the door. “And they’ll get along just fine after you’re gone.”

“The townspeople will never agree to give up their middle school,” Lucia said, with more confidence than she felt.

Gloria paused in the doorway, “When the people hear the school board’s side, they’re going to agree it’s the only way to cut costs. They’ll vote with us, just you wait and see.”

Then she was gone in a swirl of flowered cotton, leaving Lucia staring at the closed door.

THE REST OF THE MORNING passed in a blur of pain and confusion. Lucia went about her duties mechanically, avoiding Leslie’s speculative glances and the sympathetic gaze of Jean Mulder, the other secretary, who had always been kind to Lucia.

She spent her noon hour supervising in the cafeteria, a task she’d taken upon herself to give the teachers some much-needed preparation time, since their weekly spare periods had been swallowed up in the new round of budget cuts.

However, Lucia didn’t detest cafeteria supervision nearly as much as most of her teachers, probably because the students were a little frightened of her and tended to behave well in her presence. They sat quietly over their lunches, glancing at her surreptitiously as she worked at a table near the door. As soon as possible they collected their trash, dumped it and escaped outside to the playground.

After the lunch hour, Lucia returned to her office, closed the door and opened a brown paper sack on her desk, taking out an egg-salad sandwich and a banana. She ate without tasting the food, lost in her tumult of thoughts.

Uppermost in her mind was sorrow over the possible loss of the school, and guilt about her own part in the matter. Regardless of the chairwoman’s protestations, Lucia knew this action by the school board had its beginnings in personal animosity.

And those hard feelings, she thought gloomily, were mostly her own fault.

Somehow she’d offended Gloria Wall, simply by being what she was. Everything about Lucia seemed to anger the woman.

Of course she couldn’t change her physical self, but maybe if Lucia had been warmer and more willing to mingle with the community, perhaps the students of Crystal Creek wouldn’t be losing a school that had served the community for almost ninety years.

Lucia put the sandwich down on its waxed-paper wrapping and buried her face in her hands, trying to think calmly.

Somehow she had to launch a campaign to convince the townspeople that their middle school was vital, and that budget restraints were not a good enough reason to tear the heart out of a community. Furthermore, she had to do it before March, when Gloria said they were intending to hold their civic plebiscite.

But that brought another thought into her mind, and made her groan aloud in despair.

Because when March rolled around, she was going to be…

Lucia took a notepad from the desk and jotted some dates and numbers, then stared at them bleakly.

In March she would be five months pregnant.

“Oh, God,” she whispered aloud, staring at the dusty lilac bushes beyond the window. “What in the world am I going to do?”

She felt a sudden deep yearning for somebody to talk with, a friend to share the pain and help her deal with all this. But Lucia had nobody in her life who was that close to her.

Well, there was her half sister, Isabel, of course.

Isabel Delgado had recently dropped out of nowhere to live on the Gibson farm up the river. She was married to Dan Gibson, father of one of the students in this very school. Moreover, when Lucia had run into Dan’s family at the Longhorn the previous week, Bella had looked radiant, so much in love that her face and body had seemed almost incandescent. Bella and Dan had been married for about a month now, and their happiness showed.

The memory of her younger sister’s newfound contentment made Lucia feel both happy and wistful. It would be such a huge relief to talk with Bella and confide all her troubles. But Lucia had her reasons for avoiding all contact with her family for over ten years, and she didn’t want to reinstate those relationships now. Not even with sweet little Bella.

Sometimes she chatted with June Pollock, her quiet landlady, who hid a warm heart under a brusque manner. But their conversations were casual and superficial, just friendly exchanges about everyday things. The truth was, Lucia had never developed emotional closeness with anybody.

She pictured herself telling June the whole unhappy story.

I was so lonely, June. You couldn’t imagine how lonely I’ve been, and how much I want a man sometimes, just to hold me and be close to me. Until last month, do you know I hadn’t been with a man for seven years.…

She picked up the pen again and made some aimless doodles on the notepad.

It had happened at a school administration convention in Austin in September. He was based in Washington, working in the federal government on one of the education commissions, and was a guest speaker. By chance they’d been seated next to each other at the banquet, and enjoyed their conversation. Afterward they went up to the hotel’s rooftop bar and had a drink, laughed and talked about inconsequential things, all the while flirting and drawing dangerously closer to each other.

Lucia knew he was a career politician, not at all her style. And by the time they went down to her room together, she understood completely that their relationship was going to be a weekend fling and nothing more.

But after so many lonely years, she was prepared to accept that.

Desperately she craved the warmth of a man, the hard sweetness of his mouth and body, the feeling of being lost in his power.

In a way, the fleeting nature of their encounter had actually been appealing to her. Lucia didn’t want any entanglements like the kind that had been part of her long-ago marriage and messy divorce. Most especially, she didn’t want to get close to anybody because closeness always led to pain and loss.

All she wanted was a man to hold her for a while in his arms.

And the politician had been a satisfying lover for the two nights they were together. No doubt he’d been surprised by her passion, because she didn’t really look like the kind of woman who would be wild and responsive in bed.

Or maybe he wasn’t surprised at all, Lucia thought, her cheeks warming with shame. Perhaps those predatory men had the ability to see past a woman’s air of reserve, all the way into the banked fires and hunger in her eyes.

At the end of the weekend, when the cab was waiting to take him to the airport, he’d asked politely if he could call her when he was in Texas again, and she’d refused.

“We both knew the ground rules at the beginning,” she’d told him. “A weekend, nothing more. We’ll never see each other again, but it’s been nice all the same.”

How relieved he’d appeared at her dismissive words, standing in the doorway of the hotel room with his leather garment bag slung over his shoulder.…

Lucia stared down at the notepad.

They’d been so careful, and used a condom every time they made love. But obviously, they hadn’t been careful enough.

She wondered if she had a responsibility to contact that handsome politician and let him know about this child. He certainly didn’t want a relationship with a thirty-seven-year-old Texas school principal, let alone the complications of a baby. In this situation, he’d really been nothing more than a sperm donor.

The problem was Lucia’s alone, and all the decisions would have to be hers as well.

But still…

Through the window she saw a muddy pickup truck pull into the school parking lot. In the back were two bales of hay and an upended saddle, as well as a big brown-and-white spaniel whose long ears flapped in the breeze.

A man got out of the truck, said something to the dog and then strolled toward the school, checking his watch. He wore faded jeans, a white cotton shirt and a black felt Stetson, and walked with the lithe, confident stride of a born cowboy.

Absently, Lucia watched the man until he disappeared around the front of the school. Then she returned to her gloomy thoughts.

Again she longed for someone she could talk to, a trusted friend who would answer her panicky questions and give her sensible advice.

Lucia realized, of course, that it wasn’t necessary to carry this baby to term. She was still very early in her pregnancy, and the procedure was probably simple enough. She could drive over to Dallas for a couple of days and solve all her problems, and nobody in this town would ever have to know.

But Lucia couldn’t bring herself even to contemplate such an action.

Her own childhood had been so sad and lonely, filled with people who gave her money and material goods but nothing else. She’d been rejected as surely as any unwanted waif. The thought of doing the same thing to her own unborn baby was simply beyond her.

On the other hand, bearing this child was a prospect so daunting she could hardly even begin to imagine it. Lucia thought of Gloria Wall’s malicious eyes, and the sly, barely disguised triumph of people like Leslie Karlsen. The struggle to save her school while she was coping with a swollen body and the bewildering complexities of impending motherhood…

Motherhood.

Lucia touched her flat abdomen under the trim pleated trousers. For the first time it dawned on her that if she went through with this pregnancy, she was going to be somebody’s mother.

In rising panic, Lucia thought about her own mother, a woman so bitter and self-absorbed that she’d hardly noticed her family. After years of abusing prescription drugs, Marie Delgado had killed herself with a deliberate over-dose when Lucia was eight.

Nowadays she had only dim memories of her mother’s erratic moods, stormy tears and occasional rare moments of tenderness.

A couple of years later Pierce Delgado had brought home a new wife, a lovely young woman named Claire who gave birth to Isabel in the year following their lavish wedding ceremony. But soon after that, Claire had resorted to alcohol to help her deal with the stress of marriage to one of the wealthiest and most selfish men in Texas. It took Claire a lot longer to kill herself than it had taken Pierce’s first wife, almost twenty years of a sloppy, vodka-induced haze that finally led to liver cancer and a painful death.

How could you possibly be a mother when your own life had never supplied you with a personal example of the way a mother was supposed to behave? And how were you supposed to—

“Ms. Osborne?”

Lucia looked up blankly. “Yes, Jean?”

“Are you feeling all right, honey? You look a little pale.”

Jean Mulder was tall and thin, fifty-five years old, with a severe manner that concealed a warm, generous nature. For decades she’d been a surrogate mother to every student in the school, and many of them came back year after year to visit her.

Under the woman’s sympathetic gaze, Lucia felt her defenses begin to crumple dangerously. Tears stung behind her eyelids. She blinked rapidly, looking down at her desk. “I’m fine,” she said, struggling to control herself. “Just a touch of flu or something, I guess. Do you need me for something, Jean?”

“One of the applicants is here about that seventh-grade teaching position. He claims he has an appointment with you.”

Lucia paged through the papers on her desk. “What did he say his name was?”

“James Whitley.”

Lucia found the teacher’s résumé and forced herself to concentrate on it.

“Thanks, Jean,” she murmured. “To tell the truth, I’d forgotten all about the appointment with Mr. Whitley. Can you give me five minutes to look this over, and then send him in?”

“Sure thing.” Jean paused in the doorway. “You want me to make you a nice pot of herbal tea?”

“Thanks,” Lucia said, her voice unnaturally stiff because she was battling another embarrassing threat of tears. “That would be very nice. You can bring it after Mr. Whitley leaves, okay? Our meeting shouldn’t take very long.”

When she looked through the teacher’s application form, Lucia began to recall why she’d decided to give this man an interview.

One of her two seventh-grade teachers had quit without warning just into the new school year when her husband, an oil company employee, was abruptly transferred to Dallas. Lucia had sensed that the young woman was relieved to get out of her job, since the class was large and unruly.

They’d been coping for the past two weeks with a succession of substitute teachers, but desperately needed a qualified person to take the job on a permanent basis. However, not many good teachers were available on such short notice, especially in rural areas like Crystal Creek. Most of Lucia’s applications had been from people just out of college and looking for a first job, or teachers unable to find employment because of old career problems or gaps in their training.

But James Whitley was eminently well-qualified, and supplied glowing recommendations from other schools he’d worked in. The only problem was that his employment record was oddly erratic. He would stay at a particular school no more than a year or two, then go a few years without working at all before he popped up somewhere else in the educational system.

Still, without exception, the man’s references were impeccable. It seemed Whitley had no problem with student discipline, and did an outstanding job whenever he decided to work.

Maybe he had some kind of sideline that allowed him to teach only part-time. Lucia wasn’t particularly concerned, as long as he could start immediately and control those rowdy seventh-graders.

While she was frowning over the application, her door opened and she stared up in openmouthed astonishment at the man who stood there, hat in hand. The overhead lights gleamed on his curly auburn hair, and he had hazel eyes that crinkled warmly in his tanned face when he smiled down at her.

It was the tall cowboy who’d arrived a few minutes earlier in his muddy pickup truck.

CHAPTER TWO

JIM WHITLEY GRIPPED his hat and stared at the slim blond woman across the desk.

He’d already heard a whole lot about Luciana Osborne. It seemed there was no shortage of folks in this town who were fascinated by the woman and who were more than happy to discuss her when they learned he was applying for the teaching position at her school.

Part of the appeal was her aura of mystery, since nobody seemed to know where she came from, or how she spent her time outside of school, even whether she’d ever had a boyfriend.

Many of the young bucks around town had decided the beautiful school principal was gay, mostly because when they tried their personal charms on her, they were always rebuffed.

Jim grinned privately, thinking about Joe Dan Williams, who swaggered around town in a muscle shirt and tight jeans, and simply couldn’t believe a woman existed who was able to resist him.

Across the desk, Luciana Osborne apparently misunderstood his grin and glanced up at him with quick suspicion. She got to her feet and leaned over to shake his hand, her beautiful face cool and remote.

“Mr. Whitley?” she said. “My name is Lucia Osborne. Thank you for coming today.”

“My pleasure, ma’am. Definitely my pleasure.” Jim smiled at her again, and was surprised to see a tiny flush on her pale sculpted cheekbones.

She was tall, almost able to look him in the eye though he stood a couple of inches above six feet. Her blond hair was shining, clipped short and combed behind her ears in a boyish style that looked both simple and elegant. Her eyes were ice blue, and her face was finely molded, like a marble statue in some Greek temple.

Her body was slim and nicely rounded, with high shapely breasts under a demure white silk blouse buttoned all the way to her chin. While Jim could certainly appreciate her beauty and grace, two things about her struck him as really remarkable.

One was her commanding presence, and the other was her mouth.

Lucia Osborne had a kind of dignity and style, an air of cool composure that he found instantly appealing. This was a confident woman with both feet on the ground, who wouldn’t take guff from anyone. If you ever won her heart, you’d have a treasure beyond price.

But she wouldn’t be easy, you could tell that right away by those frosty blue eyes with their look of guarded caution.

Her mouth, though, was another matter altogether. It was wide and inviting, soft and generous, and lifted just a bit at the corners as if she found life secretly amusing. Luciana Osborne, for all her dignity and icy reserve, had a mouth made for kissing.

The more Jim stood looking at her, the more he had to restrain himself from leaping the desk, sweeping her into his arms and devouring that sweetly curved mouth…

All his wayward male fantasies dissipated like mist in the sunrise when she sat behind the desk in a businesslike manner and folded her hands.

“Mr. Whitley, please sit down so we can discuss your application. For openers, I’m really not sure if you’re suitable for this position.”

He levered his long body into a chair and watched her across the desk, holding his hat on his knee. “Not suitable? In what way?”

She put on a pair of reading glasses and flipped through his application.

Lucia Osborne had the role down pat. She knew all the lines and mannerisms. In fact, she looked pretty damned convincing, and there was no doubt she was good at her job.

But somewhere deep in her eyes he caught a flash of the woman who lived within, the one who probably laughed when she was by herself, and maybe even sang aloud. A woman who felt lonely sometimes, and perhaps even scared of the heavy responsibility of running this school.

Get a grip, cowboy, he told himself, shifting in the chair. Don’t start letting your imagination run away with you.

In fact, this was often a problem for Jim Whitley. He had a warm easy manner, and a vivid imagination that sometimes caused him to endow other people, especially women, with qualities they didn’t really possess. In the past, these mistakes had caused him a lot of painful disappointment, and now he tended to be more wary.

She gestured at his application with a slim hand.

Jim realized he also really liked her hands. The nails were neatly trimmed and free of polish, and she wore no rings at all.

He pictured himself lifting that hand and kissing the tips of each pink finger, then…

“You have a rather erratic employment history,” she said.

He grinned and leaned back in the chair, extending his long denim-clad legs. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” he admitted cheerfully. “You might say I’m a bit of a rolling stone.”

“Well, I’m really looking for somebody a little more stable.” She took off her reading glasses and gazed at him directly. “This is a very difficult class, Mr. Whitley. They’re bright, lively students, but there are thirty-two in the class. They need somebody with enough commitment to bring them under control and keep them in line.”

“Then I’m your man. I’ll have them shaped up in no time.”

“I see. And how will you do that?” she asked.

“I’m a teacher, Ms. Osborne,” he told her calmly. “I know how to deal with a tough group of students. As you can see in my application, I’ve never had any kind of discipline problems.”

“But this class needs more than a strict disciplinarian.” The principal frowned again at the papers in front of her. “They also need to have their test scores brought up at least eight basis points, because they’re the lowest in the school. They bring down our average. And right now,” she added, her face clouding, “we need the highest average we can possibly muster.”

“Why?” he asked, surprised by her sudden look of tension. “What’s so important about test scores right now?”

She ignored his question. “Now, about your previous experience—”

“Is there anything in my application that leads you to believe I can’t raise their test scores?” he asked.

The flush mounted on the pale curve of her cheek. Jim watched its soft color with interest, wondering again what was bothering her.

“I just…” She waved her hand at the forms on her desk and searched for words, something he suspected she didn’t have to do very often.

“You’re wondering why I never stay in one place very long,” he said to help her.

“Yes, in fact I am. You’ve apparently done a good job at quite a number of schools, Mr. Whitley, yet you keep moving on. And it seems there are a number of years when you haven’t taught at all.”

“A number of years?” He raised an eyebrow at her, unable to resist the urge to tease, though he suspected he might pay for it later.

But she wasn’t about to banter with him. “You graduated from A & M, getting an education degree with distinction when you were twenty-one,” the principal said. “In the fifteen years since then, it appears to me that you’ve worked about eight school terms, or slightly more than half the time. What do you do when you’re not teaching, Mr. Whitley?”

Jim couldn’t keep from staring at those soft curving lips…

“What do you do when you’re not being a principal, Ms. Osborne?”

Again that enchanting shadow of color touched her cheeks, as soft and lovely as the bloom on a wild rose, or the first colors of dawn painting the eastern sky.

“I’m not the one applying for employment,” she said stiffly. “So I hardly need to—”

“You’re right.” Jim repented again when he saw how uncomfortable he was making her. “You’re absolutely right. And I’ll answer your question, ma’am. What I do when I’m not teaching is travel the rodeo circuit.”

“Rodeo?” she repeated blankly, as if he’d said he was an elephant trainer. “A schoolteacher who travels to rodeos?”

“It’s not as rare as you’d think.” Jim gave her a sunny smile, wishing she could relax and smile back at him. “There are a lot of guys like me who love teaching, but also love the rodeo. Teaching is certainly a more secure way to make a living. Plus, if a guy ever makes the huge error of getting married and tied down,” he added, his smile broadening, “at least he’s got the whole summer free to take in some local rodeos here and there.”

“I see. But you seem to take more than the summers.”

“I’ve never been tied down,” he said casually, “though I came close a few times, back in my wild and careless youth. What I like to do is take a year off now and then to hit the road full-time. I travel the western states and up into Canada and collect enough points to qualify for the national finals in Las Vegas. Years when I’m feeling lazy, or when I’m packing some kind of injury, I just settle down somewhere and teach school for a couple of semesters.”

“It sounds like a very pleasant life,” she said.

Jim examined the woman’s face closely. There was something at the back of her eyes…

“What’s wrong?” he asked abruptly, forgetting the purpose of the interview.

“I…don’t know what you mean.”

“You look like you’ve been crying,” he said, “or at least trying hard not to. Is there something bothering you?”

“Nothing that’s any concern of yours.” Her face was remote again, devoid of expression, and she riffled briskly through the papers on her desk. “Now, about this job application…”

He got up, holding his hat. “Ms. Osborne,” he said gently.

She looked up at him in surprise.

“You know, and I know,” Jim said, “that I’m the best applicant you’re going to get. We both know I can handle those kids, and give you the kind of results you need. So let’s just dispense with all the preliminaries and get me on the payroll. Then I can start helping you with this class, and also move into some kind of permanent residence.”

He thought she’d fire up at that and object to being pushed around, but she didn’t. She just nodded thoughtfully and looked at the papers under her hands.

“Where are you living now?” she asked.

“I’m staying out at J. T. McKinney’s ranch, in the guest house. Cal McKinney’s been a friend of mine since we were both kids,” Jim added with a fond, reminiscent smile. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of hell we used to get into.”

“Yes, I’ve met Cal, and I’m sure I would believe it.” This time, he thought there might actually be a trace of a smile deep in those blue eyes. “So you don’t intend to keep living at the Double C?”

“It’s been real good of them to have me, but I think J.T. and Cynthia would like their guest house back soon. The idea was that I’d stay there until I found a job. And since I have a job now,” he added calmly, “it’s time for me to move out.”

“If I choose to offer you this position,” she told him with a brief show of spirit, though both of them knew she was ready to give in, “where would you move? There aren’t a lot of rental places available in Crystal Creek, you know.”

“I already talked to June Pollock,” he said. “We were neighbors as kids, and we’ve always been friends. She has a big old house down by the river, with a nice second-floor apartment she’s willing to rent out. So I’ll just go over there and tell her—”

“June Pollock?” the woman interrupted him. Her air of cool reserve had deserted her for a moment and she looked almost panicky. “You’re planning to live in the Pollock house?”

“Why not?” Jim fitted his hat on his head and paused by the door, watching her curiously. “Is that against some kind of school regulation?”

“Of course not. It’s just that…” The principal bit her lip and looked down at her hands, folded tensely on the desktop. “I happen to…I live in June Pollock’s house myself, in the third-floor apartment.”

“No kidding?” He stared at her in astonishment. “Well, I didn’t know that, Ms. Osborne. June never said a word about it.”

“June’s not exactly what you’d call a chatty person,” Lucia said dryly.

“No,” he agreed. “June’s not chatty.” He smiled at her bent head, and the delicate line of her neck with its glossy tendrils of short hair. “So you live there, too. I’ll be damned.”

“Mr. Whitley…”

“It’ll be fun,” he told her with an easy grin. “You can make friends with my dog and take her for walks. We’ll have popcorn in the evening and play Scrabble. I’m a hell of a Scrabble player, you know.”

“I’m afraid we’ll do nothing of the sort.” She gave him a cold, dismissive glance designed to chill any man right to the bone. “I’ll call you if I decide to offer you the job, Mr. Whitley.”

Jim responded with another sunny grin and tipped his hat at her, then moved toward the door.

“Mr. Whitley,” she said behind him.

“Yes, ma’am?” He paused and turned.

“Which is it this time?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said you tended to stop traveling and teach school for a year whenever you felt lazy or had been injured. I wondered which of those might be the case at this moment.”

“I got a real nasty groin pull at the Mesquite rodeo last month when I was thrown from a bareback bronc. Couldn’t walk for two weeks, and it still hurts a lot. I won’t be in serious competitive shape again for months, probably not until spring.”

“Oh.”

Her glance dropped involuntarily to the crotch of his jeans, and his grin broadened when he saw the way her face turned bright pink with embarrassment.

“It’s getting a lot better,” he said, trying to keep his voice sober. “As my prospective employer, you’ll be glad to know my injury doesn’t interfere with any important activities.”

Her flush deepened. “Good day, Mr. Whitley,” she said coldly, looking away from his teasing smile. “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve spoken with the school board and reached a decision.”

“Thanks. I’ll be waiting.” He let himself out of the office and strolled through the halls of the school to his truck, whistling softly.

JIM SAT at the McKinney dinner table a few nights later, enjoying the warm ebb and flow of family conversation. Both Cal and his brother, Tyler, had brought their families to J.T.’s home for dinner, and the laughter of young children seemed to fill the big house.

J. T. McKinney was in his element, presiding at the head of the table. As long as Jim had known him, the lean handsome rancher had been the heart and soul of Crystal Creek, the man they all looked up to and depended on.

About seven years ago J.T. had suffered a scary heart attack, but his new young wife was taking great care of him and nowadays he looked as tanned and fit as ever.

Not that Cynthia McKinney was either new, or all that young anymore.

Jim smiled at his beautiful blond hostess across the table. Though not much older than her husband’s adult children, Cynthia had been married to J.T. for almost a decade and was in her mid-forties now, with a six-year-old daughter of her own. Jennifer was about the same age as J.T.’s lively brood of grandkids.

Life at the Double C ranch was warm, happy and busy, full of family love and closeness. Sometimes being here made Jim feel a little wistful.

He didn’t regret his years of travel and the things he’d seen and done. But there were moments when he found himself thinking about everything he was missing.

“Jim, how did your interview go?” Cynthia asked.

“Just fine, thanks.” He took a sip of fine Double C cabernet, made right here at the McKinney winery. “I think I’ve probably got the job, so I’ll be clearing out of your guest house soon.”

“What job is that?” Cal’s wife, Serena, frowned at one of her twin sons who was sitting on the floor near her chair, trying to insert a whole stuffed toy into his mouth.

“Jim’s applying for the vacant teaching job at the middle school,” Cynthia told the group. “He went to see Lucia Osborne on Monday.”

Cal shuddered dramatically and punched his friend’s shoulder. “The Ice Lady? Poor ol’ Jim. That’s one chilly woman, you know. I could never warm her up, and God knows I tried.”

His pretty wife glared at him, making Cal throw back his head and laugh aloud.

“It was way before I married you, darlin’,” he assured Serena solemnly. “Back in the dark days of my youth.” Still grinning, he kissed her lustily in front of everybody.

The table erupted in laughter while J.T. helped himself to another slice of lean roast beef under his wife’s watchful eye.

“I’ve been hearing down at the Longhorn,” he said casually, “that Lucia Osborne might have more to worry about than hiring some broken-down rodeo cowboy to teach in her school.”

“What else has she got to worry about?” Tyler’s wife asked, looking a little harried. Autumn was a busy time at the winery, and much of its operation was Ruth’s responsibility. “Lucia Osborne’s got no kids, no husband, no house to look after…”

“And soon she may have no job, either.” J.T. poured a dribble of gravy on his beef, then smiled apologetically at his wife, who shook her head with gentle reproof.

“No job?” Cal asked. “What’s that all about, Daddy? I thought Lucia was doing a great job at that school.”

“She is, but it seems she’s made some enemies around town. And one of them,” he added grimly, “is that damn Gloria Wall.”

“Gloria Wall is a small-minded, hypocritical troublemaker,” Ruth said firmly, surprising everyone. Tyler’s gentle wife didn’t normally make such harsh pronouncements.

“Well, Ruthie,” Tyler said, grinning at her. “Now, honey, what brought that on?”

Ruth looked down at her plate. “I just don’t like the woman. Remember back when we first started selling our wine, and Gloria got it into her head that we were getting uppity or something? She spread rumors all over the Hill Country that McKinney wine was made with musty grapes and could cause disease. It cut into our sales a whole lot the first year. I could never believe you all were so casual about it.”

“California girls tend to hold grudges,” Tyler told the group around the table, hugging his wife fondly. “Now, in Texas, if somebody does us wrong, we either shoot him or forget him.”

Ruth chuckled and disengaged herself to go feed her newest baby, now squalling faintly from his bassinet in the morning room.

Jim thought about the druggist’s wife. “How can Gloria Wall do any harm to Lucia Osborne?” he asked.

“Those two women don’t like each other,” J.T. said. “Never have, as far as I can tell, though I don’t rightly know why.”

“It’s because Lucia’s so beautiful,” Serena said, “and so classy. The way she dresses and carries herself, she probably makes Gloria feel like poor white trash. But I’m sure Lucia’s not even aware of the effect she has on people.”

“I still don’t see how…” Jim began.

“Gloria’s the chairwoman of the school board,” J.T. told his guest. “And the word around town is that she’s pushing the board to close the middle school next year and bus the kids over to Holly Grove.”

Cynthia looked up in alarm at her husband. “Close our middle school? J.T., that’s preposterous.”

“Gloria Wall is a preposterous woman,” J.T. said grimly. “But she’ll still get lots of support for this crack-brained idea. The town’s been failing in recent years, lots of folks moving to the city. It makes for a heavy tax burden on the ones who stay behind.”

“And if you tell folks they can cut their taxes by getting rid of a school, they’ll go along with it?” Serena asked in disbelief.

“Damn right they will,” Cal told his wife.

Cynthia shook her head, looking troubled. “Oh, dear,” she said. “There’s going to be a terrible fight in town over this. Will we even have a chance to vote on it before they close the school?”

“From what I hear, the school board is planning to take it to plebiscite in the spring,” J.T. said.

“After Gloria’s had time to poison the minds of everybody in the county,” Tyler added bitterly.

“But it all comes down to Lucia Osborne.” J.T. made a wry face as he accepted a dish of low-fat ice cream from Lettie Mae Reese, the Double C’s longtime cook.

“Why does it all come down to her?” Jim asked, thinking about the slim quiet woman behind her big desk.

“Lucia’s the one who’s got to rally the town and convince these people her school and her job are worth saving,” J.T. said. “With somebody like Gloria Wall nipping at her heels, she’s going to have to watch herself every step of the way. She sure can’t afford to make any mistakes this winter.”

CHAPTER THREE

ON FRIDAY, the autumn day continued warm right into the evening. By twilight, Lucia’s little third-floor apartment was stifling.

She opened all the windows to let in a breath of air, then wandered downstairs and out to the garden where June Pollock was weeding her pumpkin patch.

“Hello, Lucia.” June looked up briefly at her as she sank wearily onto a wooden bench at the edge of the garden in the shade of a rustling pecan tree. “How are you tonight?”

“Well, I’m not feeling so great. Suffering from the heat, I guess.” Lucia watched June’s strong arms as she wielded the hoe.

Everything about June was strong, from her square shoulders to her sturdy brown legs in denim shorts. She had waist-length blond hair that she wore in a thick braid pinned on top of her head, and blue eyes so level and steady that most people had a hard time looking at her directly.

June Pollock was probably close to forty, and had lived all her life in Crystal Creek, except for a long-ago fling with an oil wildcatter that had ended her high-school career, broken her heart and left her with a baby girl to raise alone.

June’s daughter had been born with a club foot, but Carlie Pollock was a sweet girl, beloved by everybody in the town. At nineteen, after numerous surgeries, Carlie was able to walk and run normally, even ice-skate, and was off at college studying marine biology.

Lucia suspected that June missed Carlie a great deal, though with characteristic stoicism she gave no sign of her feelings. But it was probably loneliness that prompted her to rent parts of her house to strangers. Since her financial windfall a few years earlier, when June sold a valuable antique carousel horse that had been hidden in her cellar for more than sixty years, she no longer had any need of the rental income.

“You’ve got a good crop here,” Lucia commented, watching June work the hoe carefully around the ripening globes of pumpkins. “This looks like it could be your best year ever, June.”

“It will be if the nights ever start to cool down a bit.” June paused and brushed her forehead with a tanned arm, then resumed her task. “How’re things at school these days?”

Lucia looked up in surprise. Her landlady hardly ever initiated conversation of any kind, and certainly didn’t ask about Lucia’s job.

“It’s…fine, I guess.”

“Really? Well, I heard at work today that damn Gloria Wall is fixin’ to dump you,” June said with her usual bluntness.

Lucia gave her landlady a wan smile. “Yes, it appears she’s going to try. But I intend to do my very best not to get dumped.”

“Well, you’re gonna have your work cut out,” June said. “Lots of folks around this town just gotta hear ‘lower taxes,’ and they’re lining up to sign on the dotted line no matter what they stand to lose. Damn idiots!” she added, pounding away at the dried soil.

Lucia watched the woman’s muscular arms for a moment as they moved in steady rhythm. At last she ventured a question.

“June…”

“Yeah?”

“What can you tell me about James Whitley?”

June smiled, showing strong white teeth. “Jimmy Whitley? He grew up in this town, right down the street.”

“Really?” Lucia asked, startled.

“His daddy was the middle-school principal when I was a girl, worked in the very same office where you’re sittin’ nowadays. Little Jimmy, he was just the nicest kid,” June said thoughtfully, leaning on her hoe. “All big eyes, curly hair and dimples, and so smart nobody could believe it. We all thought he’d go to the moon someday, or grow up to be president. But he got bit by the rodeo bug as a teenager, and that was pretty much the end of him. It gets to a lot of boys that way.”

Lucia picked up a trailing vine and wrapped it around her finger, absorbing all this information.

“What happened to his father?”

“Well, that was a sad case.” June plied her hoe again, frowning. “Sarah Whitley, that’s Jim’s mother, she died of cancer quite young. After that, Carl Whitley just sort of lost his spirit. One day down at Lake Travis he swum out into the water and never came back. They found his body next day, tangled in some weeds.”

“And Jim…”

“He follows the rodeo circuit some years, and teaches school whenever he stays in one place long enough. My cousin up in Lampasas says they had Jim Whitley for a term with their eighth-graders, and he was the best teacher ever to set foot in that place. But he wouldn’t stay another year, even when they begged.”

“So you think he’d make a competent teacher at my school?”

June looked at her shrewdly.

“For God’s sake, Lucia,” she said. “Just hire the man and quit fretting over it. If Gloria Wall’s on your case, you’ll be having yourself a tough enough year ahead without passing up the chance to get a real fine teacher.”

“Well, I guess your recommendation is good enough for me.”

“Just be warned,” June said, “that you can’t make the man do anything he doesn’t want to. He may seem like a laid-back sort of guy, but he’s all steel at the core, Jim Whitley is. Nobody’s ever been able to push him around, and you won’t be able to, either.”

Lucia hesitated for a moment, then nerved herself to speak. “He told me you’d promised to rent him the apartment on the…”

But June was no longer listening. She stared toward the vine-covered fence rails bordering the garden, her face pale beneath the tan.

Startled by the other woman’s intensity, Lucia followed June’s gaze and saw Willard Kilmer, standing in the back lane, holding a manila file folder.

Willard was a member of Lucia’s staff. In fact, he taught the other group of seventh-graders. Bella’s stepdaughter, Ellie Gibson, was in his class.

He was a tall, thin man in his early forties, with pale thinning hair and a slight stoop. Willard seemed utterly drab and inconsequential until you noticed his eyes, which were filled with gentleness and lively intelligence behind horn-rimmed glasses.

Lucia had always liked the man, and they’d worked efficiently together in the years since she’d come to the school. But Willard was painfully shy, and not easy to get close to. At faculty meetings and social functions he kept to himself, usually watching from a corner and saying little.

He lived with his ailing mother in a big, well-kept house a couple of streets over from June’s. Lucia often wondered about his personal life, and whether he was as lonely as he appeared to be.

“Hello, Willard,” she said, smiling across the fence in an attempt to set him at ease. “It’s a nice evening, isn’t it? Not quite so hot today.”

“It’s warm enough, but considerably better than yesterday,” he agreed, clearing his throat. The dying sunlight flashed off the lenses of his glasses, making him look remote and sad. “Mama tends to suffer a good deal in the heat, I’m afraid.”

“I reckon we all do,” June said with her customary bluntness, hammering at a stubborn clod of dirt with her hoe. “But we don’t talk about it all the time, because complaining won’t make it any cooler.”

“Hello, June,” the teacher said shyly. “Your pumpkins are looking great this year. I’ll have to remember to pick one up before Halloween.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll set a good one aside for you.” June turned her back and knelt to pull at a weed under one of the pumpkin vines.

“The sixth-graders are having a pumpkin-carving contest this year,” Willard told Lucia with a timid, luminous smile that made his craggy face light up. “They’re allowing me to enter, and I aim to win first prize.”

Lucia smiled back at him. “I’m sure you’re going to win. I’ve seen those artistic jack-o’-lanterns you carve.”

For a moment he seemed taken aback, almost panicky, as if he’d suddenly realized he was having a casual conversation with two women outside the safe confines of the school.

Lucia took pity on him and gestured toward the manila folder in his hand. “What have you got there, Will?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s…” He waved the folder nervously. “I just brought this over for you to look at. It’s a proposal for that new social studies curriculum we were talking about last week.”

“Thank you,” she said, a little puzzled, watching as he opened the gate awkwardly and came into the garden to hand her the folder. “I’ll have a look at it right away and let you know what I think.”

“Oh, there’s no rush.” He stood in front of the bench like a long-legged stork in his rumpled khakis and knitted vest. “We won’t be starting that unit until the next semester, anyhow.”

Then why did you come all the way over here to bring it to me tonight? Lucia wanted to ask.

But there was something strange in the air, an odd tension in the way he stood at the edge of the garden while June kept chopping at her weeds.

Finally Willard turned and made his way back toward the gate, casting a brief wistful glance at the garden and the silent woman among her pumpkin vines. He turned back to Lucia.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I should be pushing off now.”

She ached for him in his nervousness, and glanced around to see if June might be disposed to offer this unexpected guest a glass of iced tea or some of the blueberry tarts she’d made that afternoon.

Lucia could hardly invite him up to her own apartment, not the way this community watched and gossiped. If she did, it would be all over town by morning that Ms. Osborne was entertaining a male colleague in the privacy of her rooms.

Even the students would know, and be whispering about it…

But June was still wielding the hoe, her face impassive as she worked.

“Good evening, Will,” the landlady said with odd formality. “Don’t forget to stop by and pick up that pumpkin, will you?”

“I won’t forget, June.” He paused with his knobby hand on the latch.

By now Lucia was deeply intrigued, looking from June to Willard.

“Well, good night,” he said at last, his Adam’s apple jerking nervously. “I’ll see you at school, Lucia. Good night, June.”

Lucia murmured another farewell but June said nothing, just turned away deliberately and began to work along the fence line, her shoulders rigid.

Willard Kilmer trudged off, his thin back swallowed up in the hedges down the lane.

When he was out of sight, June rested her hoe against the fence, plodded through the garden and sprawled on the bench next to Lucia. She sighed wearily and rubbed one of her shoulders.

Lucia stole a cautious glance at her landlady, whose composure seemed badly unsettled for some reason.

“June,” she ventured at last. “Is something the matter?”

“That man just gets under my skin,” June said. “He makes me so mad I could scream.”

“Willard?” Astonished, Lucia thought about her mild-mannered colleague. “That’s not the effect he normally has on people. Most of the time,” she added, “it’s hard to even remember he’s in the room.”

“He can sing like an angel,” June said, surprising her again. “Did you know that? Will’s a true baritone, and he has perfect pitch.”

“No kidding. How did you happen to learn that?”

“He sings in the choir with me, down at the Baptist church.”

Though Lucia never attended church, she knew that June Pollock had a fine alto voice. But in the seven years of Lucia’s relationship with Willard Kilmer, this was the first she’d heard of his musical talents.

“And he has one of the best arrowhead collections in the whole state,” June went on, stretching her legs and letting her blond head rest against the back of the bench. There were some silver strands among the rich gold, and her face looked tired and strained.

“An arrowhead collection?” Lucia asked blankly.

“He goes out most weekends to hunt for arrowheads in plowed fields and washed-out creek beds. Whatever Will finds he catalogs and mounts, enters the information on a big computer file. Colleges and museums even contact him sometimes to borrow parts of his collection.”

“Imagine the man never talking about that at school,” Lucia marveled, then looked at her companion, still puzzled by June’s reaction. “But why does he make you so angry?”

“Because he’s wasting his life.” June frowned at the rustling branches above her, where a nighthawk fluttered and woke to set out on its evening hunt for insects.

“Willard is wasting his life?”

“He lives with that awful mother of his, and she’s got him wrapped around her little finger. She’ll never let loose of him. Willard Kilmer doesn’t have the courage of a mouse or he’d tell her where to get off, the nasty old dragon.”

“But how can you…” Lucia paused, genuinely shocked by this harshness. “Faye Kilmer’s an invalid, June. She can hardly get out of her chair to walk across the room. Everybody knows that.”

“Invalid!” June snorted, her face hardening. “Liar is more like it.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that. Willard brought her to the staff Christmas party last year, and she was so sweet to everybody. I thought Faye Kilmer was a lovely woman.”

“Oh, sure, everybody thinks Faye’s such a lovely woman.” June got to her feet and began to chop aimlessly among the vines again. “She’s so little and dainty, with her big eyes and lace dresses and that I’m-so-delicate-I-might-break act of hers. But the woman’s made of iron, let me tell you.”

“She spends a lot of her time in the hospital, you know,” Lucia said gently, watching June’s tense broad shoulders.

“Sure she does,” June said. “Whenever it looks as if Will might be getting a life and planning to move out on her, Faye has some kind of attack. And then she’s just way too helpless to look after herself, so he creeps right back into line.”

“You think Faye Kilmer is using her medical condition as some kind of emotional blackmail over Willard?”

“I think she’s a truly selfish woman. It’s my opinion,” June said, “that Faye will never let go of him as long as she lives. And,” she added darkly, “mark my words, Faye’s likely to outlive all of us. Those kind always do, you know.”

“Have you ever told Willard what you think about any of this?”

June turned to look at her directly, and Lucia was stunned by the depths of pain and sadness in those level blue eyes.

“It’s hardly the kind of thing I could say to Will. Never in all this world. But dammit, Lucia, sometimes I wish I could.”

“You care a lot about him,” Lucia said gently. “Don’t you, June?”

A bit of color filled June’s tanned cheeks. She waved her hand in an abrupt, dismissive gesture, then let her shoulders drop, leaning on the hoe.

“Well, I guess maybe I do,” she said. “He’s such a nice man, you know. There’s times,” she added shyly, “when I hear him sing and it purely gives me goose bumps all over.”

She turned away, clearly embarrassed by this revelation, and knelt to tug at a weed near one of the biggest pumpkins.

“Once,” she said over her shoulder, “about four years ago, Will asked me to go along with him for the day, hunting arrowheads over by Llano. I packed a picnic lunch and we had a real nice time, even if he was too shy to talk to me very much. I found a big flint spear point, and Will made a wooden frame for it and gave it to me.”

“That sounds really nice,” Lucia said.

“It’s a beautiful thing. I still have it hanging in my front room.”

“So, did he ask you out again after that?” Lucia asked when June fell silent.

“Yes, he did. A week later he invited me to go with him to the church social. I went into Austin and bought a new dress, first one I’d had in years. Even had my hair done,” she added with a wry grimace. “Silly fool that I am.”

“And what happened?”

“The day before the social, Faye had one of her attacks. Will had to rush her to the hospital in Austin and spend about four days at her bedside because she refused to eat unless he fed her with a spoon. After that,” June said, “any time he asked, I turned him down, and it wasn’t long before he gave up.”

“Yes, I can understand that he’d soon give up,” Lucia said. “Willard’s so shy, I’m sure it would be awfully hard for him to ask a woman out and get turned down.”

“No doubt,” June said grimly. “I reckon it hurt him, all right.”

Lucia looked at the other woman’s bent head, with its heavy braid that flared dull gold in the dying sun. “But, June,” she ventured at last, “if the woman was really sick…”

“That’s just it.” June got to her feet and leaned the hoe against the fence. “I don’t believe Faye was sick any more than I was. I think she was just trying to keep Will from going out with me again. And the very same thing’s bound to happen, anytime he ever decides to have a life of his own.”

Lucia stared at the pumpkins, wondering what to say.

With June in such a rare confiding mood, Lucia was almost tempted to tell some of her own troubles. But the other woman had clearly had enough of personal revelations.

“Come on inside,” June told her, forcing a smile. “That’s enough talk for one night. I don’t know what got into me, blabbing my head off like this.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Let’s get moving. Take that hoe and shovel to the shed for me, and I’ll put the teapot on and give you some of those blueberry tarts I just made. You’re looking thin as a rail these days. I don’t know what women like you eat, but it’s sure not enough to keep a bird alive.”

Lucia got to her feet silently, put away the garden tools and followed the other woman into the house.

Behind them, the setting sun painted the western sky with a swirl of pastel colors and turned the rolling hills a deep soft mauve in the distance.

CHAPTER FOUR

AS USUAL, Monday morning was filled with a myriad of chores, all the daily administrative duties associated with running a good-size school. Still, Lucia was grateful for the busywork that kept her mind off her problems.

But by eleven o’clock, she could delay no longer.

With a touch of uneasiness and some other vague, distressing emotions that she was afraid to examine too closely, Lucia picked up the telephone to dial the number on Jim Whitley’s application form.

The phone rang incessantly at the other end, and Lucia frowned and tapped her fingers on the desktop as she waited.

At last she hung up and sat gazing at a framed diploma on the opposite wall, trying to picture the guest house on the McKinney ranch property. Lucia hadn’t seen the place for years, but recalled it as a rustic, lodge-style building, a big single room with fireplace and attached bath.

The guest house was pleasant and cozy, but there wasn’t much reason for a young man to be sitting there alone on a warm autumn morning.

After a brief hesitation, she looked up another number and dialed the main house at J.T. McKinney’s ranch. This time the phone was answered promptly by a warm female voice that brimmed with laughter.

“McKinney ranch, Lettie Mae speaking.”

“Hi, Lettie Mae. It’s Lucia Osborne calling. How are you this morning?”

“Well, I’m right as rain, Miss Lucia,” the cook said. “But I sure hope I’m not fixin’ to be called down to the principal’s office.”

Lucia laughed, picturing Lettie Mae’s silver hair, her quick smile and rich brown skin.

Lettie Mae Reese was one of the most beloved people at the Double C ranch, where she had been in residence for more than forty years. She also wielded a good deal of quiet, intelligent power behind the scenes, and provided motherly warmth and guidance to all three of J.T.’s grown children—Cal, Tyler and their sister, Lynn.

“As far as I know,” Lucia said, “your behavior has been exemplary, Lettie Mae. I was just wondering if you could tell me where I might get hold of James Whitley this morning. I understand he’s staying at the ranch.”

“He sure is, and he’s right here underfoot, trying to steal the recipe for my Double C chili. Come here, Jimmy,” the cook added, her voice suddenly distant as she moved away from the telephone. “It’s for you. Now stop messing with my saucepans, you young criminal. Git out!”

Lucia heard the sound of a slap, followed by gales of laughter. It sounded like a happy time in the big ranch kitchen, and she smiled wistfully.

But when a cheerful male voice filled the telephone receiver, all her tension returned.

“Mr. Whitley?” she said.

“I thought I told you to call me Jim. How are you this beautiful morning, Lucia?”

His voice was warm and somehow intimate, as if they were longtime friends and he genuinely cared about her welfare.

“I’m well, thank you,” Lucia said, wondering how the man had such an ability to unnerve her. “I had no idea you were interested in culinary pursuits.”

“Culinary pursuits,” he echoed, his voice teasing. “Is that what I’m interested in?”

“Well, you’re apparently hanging around in the kitchen on a Monday morning, bothering the cook. I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

“Hell, I just want to get hold of that secret recipe for Lettie Mae’s chili.”

“Why?” Lucia asked.

“If I could ever steal her recipe, I’d open a trendy restaurant in Austin, live off the profits and never have to teach school again.”

“From what I know of the restaurant business,” Lucia said, “I think it might be even more stressful than teaching.”

“But much less confining. With a good staff and Lettie Mae’s chili, I’d be free to roam all over the country and go to as many rodeos as I wanted. Hey, Lettie Mae,” he called, “you want to come and manage my restaurant? We’ll both get rich.”

Lucia heard a derisive snort in the background.

“A woman would have to be crazy to get tied up with you, Jim Whitley,” she heard Lettie Mae say firmly. “For any reason.”

“Now, I’m real hurt by that.” Jim returned to the phone, his voice full of amusement. “Lucia, don’t you think she’s being pretty harsh, turning down a legitimate business offer without even thinking it over?”

“I think Lettie Mae’s a very sensible woman,” Lucia said, refusing to be drawn into the fun. “And speaking of legitimate offers, I would like to discuss your job application.”

“Okay. When do you want me to start?”

“Why do you constantly assume I’m planning to hire you?” she asked, annoyed again by his brash, irrepressible manner.

“Because you’ve taken the trouble to track me all the way to Lettie Mae’s kitchen.” He lowered his voice. “Hey, Lucia, I think she’s sneaking dill into that chili. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”

“Look, Mr. Whitley—”

“Call me Jim.”

Lucia sighed. “Regarding this job, it seems I have no option. As you pointed out, we need a teacher right away. And this is quite a large and difficult class.”

“I can handle them,” he said with that placid, masculine arrogance that set her teeth on edge. “So, do you want me to start tomorrow? June said I could move my things in today.”

Lucia felt a wave of alarm, picturing this man simultaneously invading both her school and her home.

By tomorrow night there would be no sanctuary from him, anywhere…

“Lucia?” he asked.

“All right,” she said in defeat. “The school board’s approved your application, so I suppose you can start tomorrow morning. We can also discuss the details of your salary for this month, since you’ll only be working for part of the final week.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“If you could spare some time this afternoon,” Lucia went on, “I’ve called a meeting for three o’clock. I’d like you to be there so you can meet the rest of the staff and get caught up on certain issues facing our school.”

“Three o’clock,” he said. “That sounds fine. I can haul a load of my stuff over to June’s after lunch, then stop in at the school.”

“Thank you,” Lucia said. “I’ll have a class list ready for you. Goodbye, Mr. Whitley.”

“If you don’t start calling me Jim, I’ll find a job in another school.”

“Now, Jimmy,” Lettie Mae called from the background, “you quit teasing Miss Lucia. That poor girl has to deal with impudent puppies all day long.”

Jim laughed, a warm masculine sound. “Don’t worry, Lettie Mae. I intend to be real nice to this lady,” he said with a seriousness that made Lucia’s cheeks turn warm.

“I’ll see you at three o’clock in the staff lounge,” she said, and hung up quickly before he could say anything else.

JIM ENTERED the school in the afternoon, dodging noisy swarms of children who hurried past him, clearly excited at this early release from classes.

He strolled through the hallways to the teachers’ lounge, enjoying the unique vibrancy of a school housing young adolescents.

There was something about a middle school that always made him happy. He liked the raw vigor of the artwork on the walls, the sense of optimism and innocence, the sheer joy of children.

Teachers were already gathering in the lounge, getting themselves cups of coffee and cans of soda, chatting about the day. Jim nodded at a few people he knew, then settled next to Willard Kilmer, who was seated quietly in a corner, reading a physics textbook.

“Hi, Will.” Jim extended his booted feet comfortably. “What’s new with you?”

Willard looked up, beaming with warmth behind the thick glasses. “Hello, Jim. I hear you’re planning to take on the gang of seventh-graders.”

“You bet.” Jim bared his teeth. “I’ll eat ’em for breakfast.”

“When do you start?” Willard asked.

“Tomorrow morning. No sense wasting time, right? I need the work, and Lucia needs the help, so I might as well get myself in harness.”

Jim noticed that Willard Kilmer looked a little startled at this casual reference to the school principal.

“What’s that you’re reading, Will?” he asked, nodding at the textbook.

“It’s the new physics.” Willard’s thin face lighted with enthusiasm again. “I’m studying the principles of particle analysis. Did you know that in the world of the infinitely small, our universal laws of physics no longer apply?”

Jim chuckled and patted the other man’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Will. It’s going to be a lot of fun working with you.”

Willard flushed with pleasure and was on the verge of responding when Lucia entered the room and moved toward a desk at one end.

Even viewed casually from this distance, the woman was so beautiful that Jim could only watch her in stunned silence.

Her body was tall and graceful, with an understated grace that made the other women in the room seem clumsy and overdressed by comparison. Everything about her, from the cap of silvery blond hair to the fine leather shoes on her feet, spoke of breeding, elegance and a cool, unapproachable personality.

But again Jim sensed that breathtaking undercurrent of emotion. There was such promise in the rich curve of her mouth, a flicker of banked fires in those level blue eyes.

It would take a hell of a man to win this woman and awaken her passion, Jim thought. But if she ever trusted her lover enough to give herself fully, he suspected she could be a tiger in bed.

With shattering vividness, he had a mental image of that slim body in his arms, warm and naked, twined around him while her soft mouth devoured him, and her silvery hair fell across his skin…

All at once he was so passionately aroused that he felt weak and shaky.

Pitiful, he thought ruefully. As bad as some high-school kid, having erotic fantasies about the teacher.

She was seated now, speaking his name aloud, and he forced himself to smile and nod casually as the other teachers turned to look at him.

“As of tomorrow morning, Mr. Whitley will be taking over the vacant seventh-grade position,” Lucia said formally, shuffling papers on the desktop. “Jim, we’re very happy to have you join us at Crystal Creek Middle School.”

“Well, I’m happy to be here.” Putting aside his lustful thoughts, Jim shifted awkwardly in the chair and addressed the circle of teachers, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray him. “Howdy, folks. I already know most of you, and those who are new, I hope we’ll get to be friends soon enough.”

“You’ll be sorry, Jimmy,” an older woman said darkly. “That’s one tough class you’re taking on. Horrible little delinquents, every one of them. I wouldn’t want to tackle them.”

Jim grinned at the speaker, Betty Rickart, who’d been at this school for almost as long as Lettie Mae had cooked at the Double C.

“Come on, Betty,” he said to the assistant principal. “There’s not a kid in Texas you couldn’t handle. Back in fifth grade, you had me so scared I couldn’t talk for a year.”

This drew a general burst of laughter from the assembled staff, but Betty frowned and shook her curly gray head.

“Kids are different these days,” she said gloomily. “They used to have some respect. These kids just ignore us and do what they want.”

“Discipline is a real challenge nowadays,” Lucia said at the front of the room. “But Jim assures me he can handle our seventh-graders.”

“If he can, we’ll all bow at his feet.” This was from Jilly Phipps, an attractive young redhead who taught sixth grade. She gave Jim a meaningful smile that he returned with startled warmth.

Miss Phipps looked as if she might enjoy bowing at a man’s feet. The image was momentarily diverting. But then his mind filled with tantalizing images of Lucia’s silky fragrance. He was fascinated by her face, the pale curve of her cheek and the delicacy of those eyebrows against her fair skin.

“I’ve called this meeting,” she said quietly, “because we have a problem at our school, and I’m sure you’re all aware of it.”

“We’ve got a problem all right,” Betty said grimly. “And her name is Gloria Wall.”

“What’s going on?” Willard asked, looking bewildered. He avoided gossip, and was usually the last to know what was happening in his community.

“The school board wants to close our school and throw us all out of work,” Betty told him. “They’re taking it to plebiscite in the spring.”

Willard gaped, looking distressed. “But…I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where would the students go?”

“To Holly Grove,” one of the teachers told him. “On buses.”

“Hey, Willard, maybe you can get a job driving one of the school buses.” Jilly chuckled, then looked around to see if others appreciated the joke. Jim noted that nobody shared her amusement.

“I don’t believe it,” Willard argued with uncharacteristic stubbornness, though he still looked stricken. “It’s just crazy. Why would they do such a thing?”

“I heard it’s Gloria’s personal vendetta,” Betty said. “For some reason, she wants the whole middle school gone. And she’s the one who’s got the board all stirred up.”

“I have a cousin on the school board,” Clyde Tuttle said from the doorway, where he leaned against the wall holding a can of soda. “Sometimes she tells me a bit of what’s going on at their meetings.”

Tuttle was the gym teacher and basketball coach, dressed casually in navy blue sweatpants and a school T-shirt, with a whistle hanging around his neck. Clyde had been a few grades behind Jim when they were in school. An easygoing, good-hearted athlete with a big circle of friends.

Jim grinned at the younger man. “Hey, this is great news,” he told the assembled staff. “Clyde’s got an agent in place. A spy behind enemy lines.”

Despite the tension in the room, this drew another ripple of laughter, and an answering chuckle from the gym teacher.

“Damn right,” Clyde told his colleagues smugly. “And it’s not cheap, either. I have to buy the woman a steak dinner and at least three beers before I can get her to talk.”

“So what’s your cousin telling you, Clyde?” Jilly Phipps asked.

Clyde shrugged and toyed with the whistle on its black nylon cord. “The school board knows the whole idea won’t be an easy sell in this town, even if moving the school means lower taxes for everybody. So the board’s going to war. They’ve got themselves a plan.”

“A plan?” Lucia asked from the front of the room. “What kind of plan?”

“They’re going to start watching this school real close,” Clyde said.

“What for?” somebody asked.

Clyde shrugged and took a long gulp from the soda can. “Looking for any signs of mismanagement, wasted money, discipline problems, anything they can use to stir up public feeling against us.”

Jim was watching Lucia as Clyde spoke, and for a moment he detected a fleeting expression on her face. It was a look of stark fear.

Intrigued, he studied the beautiful blond principal more closely. She looked almost as if she had some kind of guilty secret, and the threat of this kind of close scrutiny terrified her.

But as he watched, Lucia got herself under control. When she spoke, her voice was as cool as ever, her expression remote and watchful.

“Does your cousin have anything else to say about this plan, Clyde?”

“Just that the board’s also been planning a series of surprise visits to the school,” Clyde said. “Different members will be dropping by here without warning, and strolling around to look in on our classrooms while we’re working.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Betty Rickart said indignantly. “Now, why would they want to do something like that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lucia said, her cheeks coloring briefly. “They want to see if they can catch us making mistakes. You all know how gossip travels in this town. If they can convince people we’re not doing a good job, or that some of us can’t handle our students, they’ll have no problem getting enough votes against us when they hold their plebiscite.”

Jim glanced in sympathy at the circle of worried faces around the room. If Gloria Wall succeeded in her attempt to close the school, a lot of these people would be thrown out of work and forced to leave the town where some of them had lived all their lives.

“Well, folks, we have nothing to worry about,” Clyde said heartily from the doorway. “We’re all good teachers, so I reckon none of the board members will find anything wrong when they drop in on our classrooms. Will they?”

“I certainly hope they won’t,” Lucia said from her seat at the front of the room.

As she spoke, she gave Jim a glance of such pointed significance that he was startled again, and a little wary. Her words had been for everybody, but it was almost as if she’d issued a specific warning to him alone, letting him know he was on probation and she expected him to toe the line.

He met her eyes steadily. After a brief moment of tension, she was the first to look away, down at the notes on her desk. For the remainder of the meeting, she didn’t glance at him again.

IN THE EARLY EVENING, Lucia sat upstairs on the cushioned dormer seat in her living room, gazing down at the shady backyard.

June was baby-sitting for her niece, Sally Carlyle, who went bowling on Tuesday evenings. The landlady sat on a bench beside her garden, with a length of blue knitting in her lap, while Sally’s two children played on the grass nearby.

The older boy was almost three, a sturdy red-cheeked cherub who ran around shouting and chasing after a ball with Duke, June’s old spaniel. A fat baby sat on a blanket gnawing the head of a yellow rubber duck and staring at the dog with round, solemn eyes.

While Lucia watched, June leaned over casually and drew the baby onto her lap, cuddled him for a moment and reached inside his plaid overalls to check the diaper. Then she kissed him and placed him back on the blanket where he resumed his contemplation of his brother and the big dog. The much-chewed duck was still gripped in his chubby hand, but for the moment he seemed to have forgotten it.

Lucia touched the waistband of her khaki shorts and felt a warm, melting trickle of love.

“Hello,” she whispered. “Are you really in there? And are you a boy or girl?”

Outside, the setting sun glimmered through the branches of the oak tree as if it had caught and tangled among the leaves. Golden fingers of light caressed June’s hair and the bright curls of the two children.

In a stone birdbath near the lilac hedge, a robin perched at the edge of the bowl. He preened and ruffled his feathers daintily, then bent to dip a wing in the brimming water. The older boy stopped running to gaze at the bird, his thumb jammed thoughtfully in his mouth.

This was all like some kind of waking dream, Lucia thought, watching the two children.

She couldn’t possibly be having a baby. Not now, when the school board was planning to launch its scrutiny of the school, and so many people depended on her for their jobs. And all because of a fleeting encounter with a virtual stranger who meant nothing at all to her.…

Maybe the test had been wrong, and none of it would happen after all.

But in spite of the wishful thinking, Lucia knew that her pregnancy was real. This baby existed. In fact, though infinitely tiny, it was every bit as much a reality as that fat little fellow down on the blanket in his plaid overalls, gnawing on a plastic duck.

And Lucia already loved her baby more passionately than she’d ever loved another person in all her life.

“We’ll get through this,” she whispered to the unseen presence within her. “I still don’t know how it’s all going to work, darling, but somehow we’ll manage.”

Lucia glanced out the window again, stroking her abdomen gently.

“Maybe if everything else is going just perfectly, and they can’t find a single thing wrong at our school except that the principal happens to be pregnant and there’s no father in sight—”

She stopped abruptly, tensing as Jim Whitley came through the back gate with his dog, strolled up the path and paused to say something to June, who set her knitting aside to greet the new tenant.

He wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt and faded denim shorts. Even from this distance, Lucia could see how the thick dusting of hair on his powerful legs glistened warmly in the dying light. His bare arms looked brawny and muscular under the fabric of the shirt.

He’d just moved into the house, but already his presence seemed to dominate everything. Though Lucia hadn’t spoken more than a few words to the man since he’d arrived, she was painfully conscious of Jim Whitley in the rooms just below hers. Even worse, she was dismayed by a warm tingle of excitement when she pictured him listening to her footsteps, the sound of her shower, the creaking of the wooden floorboards as she got into bed.

Nothing separated them, actually, but some old timbers and a few feet of space. The man’s personality was so powerful that Lucia felt his nearness in every cell of her body.

In the yard below, he gave June a questioning glance and said something. At her reply he crossed the grass and bent to lift the baby in his arms, holding him close.

June laughed as the tall man kissed the little boy’s cheek, then held him aloft and nuzzled his fat stomach while the baby kicked and squealed with delight.

Jim walked back to the bench, still carrying the baby, and settled next to June with the child in his arms and his long tanned legs extended on the path. The two adults talked casually as Jim cuddled the little boy and watched the older child run and play with the two spaniels.

Something about the scene below brought a painful lump to Lucia’s throat.

The four of them looked so peaceful and surreal in the fading light, like a misty image from some sweet, half-forgotten dream. And Jim’s arms were strong and brown against the baby’s fragile bare shoulders. He looked powerful and protective, as if nothing bad could happen to a child as long as this man was nearby. For no reason at all, Lucia found herself crying. She wasn’t even aware of the tears until she felt them running down her cheeks.

To her alarm, she saw Jim glance up briefly at the window where she sat. There was no way he could see her behind the heavy chintz drapes, but still she drew back hastily and huddled against the wall, dashing a hand across her streaming eyes.

When she peered out again, she saw Jim as he stood up to kiss the baby again, hand him to June and come toward the back door. He paused by the rose trellis and called something to the landlady, then vanished inside the house, leaving his dog out in the yard.

Lucia turned from the window and looked around at her snug little apartment, thinking she should get up and tackle some of the paperwork in her briefcase. But she couldn’t seem to stop crying. Maybe pregnancy had this effect on a woman, unsettled her emotions for no reason.

Soon she would need to visit a doctor and make sure she was eating properly, taking vitamins and doing all the right things. But she would have to go to Austin and she’d have to find a doctor who wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Lucia rubbed at her eyes again and got up from the window seat, then stiffened in panic when she heard footsteps clattering up the last flight of steps to the third floor. Before she could do anything to prevent it, the door opened and Jim Whitley’s curly auburn head appeared.

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