LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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