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Consequences
Margot Dalton
Welcome to Crystal Creek, TexasIf this is your first visit to the friendly ranching town in the Texas hill country, get ready to meet some unforgettable people. If you've been here before, you'll recognize old friends…and make some new ones.The principals pregnant…Lucia Osborne knows that her condition–she's about to become a single mother–will have the townfolk of Crystal Creek gossiping. And some members of the school board will use her "mistake" to have her fired.Lucia is also aware that hiring cowboy Jim Whitley to teach the difficult seventh graders is going to get her into more trouble. But when she sees how the kids respond to Jim, Lucia knows he's the right man for the job. Could he also be the right man for her…and her child?
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 (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u0298b41e-5542-5722-8139-dc7f108363e0)
CHAPTER TWO (#u54bf17e8-a8f2-54cf-bc64-d965df69c200)
CHAPTER THREE (#u466764d0-16d7-56f4-90df-c81b254965d1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u40e79fb8-6c36-5e5a-8d9d-21d0a4b1537d)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u41ef4377-0023-587a-9601-8ad903b0e61a)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
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.”
