LITMIR.BIZ

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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,

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