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“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.”
