Consequences. Margot Dalton

those long shadows lying across the ground.”

      “You know, I’ve always been just the same way,” Jim said, surprising her. “No matter how good my life is, there seems to be a little time right around sunset when nothing feels worthwhile, and I get flooded with this huge sadness.”

      She forgot her annoyance and gazed at him in surprise. “You get those feelings, too?”

      “All the time.” He studied her face and reached a hand toward her, then drew it back. “Are you upset about the school board?”

      Gratefully, Lucia seized on this. “I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s so awful to know what they’re planning, and that—”

      She stopped midsentence, looking down at the papers on the table and wondering how much she should allow herself to be drawn into conversation with this man, no matter how sympathetic he seemed.

      “What?” he asked. “You were going to tell me something.”

      Again she hesitated. But Lucia seldom had the luxury of a confidant with whom to share her troubles, and, despite all her misgivings, she found herself wanting to tell Jim Whitley things she wouldn’t normally say.

      “I feel so responsible.” Miserably, she twisted her ringless hands and studied a chip on her thumbnail. “All those teachers are going to lose their jobs if this happens, and the town will lose its middle school. And everybody knows why it’s happening.”

      “They do?” Jim asked.

      Lucia gave him a level glance. “You can’t pretend you haven’t heard that Gloria Wall resents me, and she’s launched this whole school-closure program just to spite me.”

      “You’re right, I’ve heard that,” he said quietly. “But I wasn’t sure if it was true.”

      “Well, I believe it is,” Lucia said. “Of course, Gloria denies it, but I realize she’s never liked me much. I honestly don’t know why, though.”

      He leaned back on the chair and laughed, his eyes crinkling with amusement.

      Lucia glanced up at him. “What’s so funny?”

      Jim regarded her thoughtfully, his smile fading. “You really don’t know why Gloria Wall dislikes you?”

      Lucia’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment. “I think it has to do with her perception that I’m…snobbish, or something. She seems to believe I think I’m better than other people in this town. I realize,” Lucia added when he kept watching her gravely, “that the…the way I behave might have something to do with that. But I can’t change who I am, can I?”

      “No, and I don’t think it would help anyway,” he said. “Not even if you started wearing clothes like that to school every day.” He gestured at her khaki shorts, sandals and plaid shirt. “You could even join a bowling league and drink beer down at Zack’s on Friday night with all the cowboys, and Gloria Wall would still be out to destroy you.”

      “Why?” Lucia asked with genuine curiosity.

      He leaned back in the chair, arms folded, eyeing her with disconcerting steadiness. “Because no matter what you do, Lucia, you’ll always stand out in a crowd. And there’ll always be some women who are going to hate you for that.”

      His gaze embarrassed her, and made her uneasy. “Look, I really have to get this paperwork done,” she told him.

      “Come on, it’s a beautiful evening. Leave the paperwork. In fact, why don’t we walk down to Zack’s and have a beer right now? Let’s show these people you’re just plain folks.”

      Lucia felt a rising panic. “I couldn’t possibly,” she said.

      “Why not? Don’t you like beer?”

      “Well, actually, I much prefer a good Beaujolais,” she said, and then smiled wanly when he laughed at her small joke.

      “Maybe Zack has some wine.” He put a hand on her bare arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

      His palm was hard and callused, and so warm that Lucia’s skin burned at his touch. Hastily, she pulled away.

      “This town is terrible for gossip,” she said. “If you and I even went outside for a walk, it’d be all over town inside an hour that I’m socializing with one of my teachers.”

      “Would that be so bad?”

      “Some people might think so. At this point, I can’t risk even a breath of scandal.”

      Involuntarily, Lucia touched her waistband again, then clasped her hands tightly together in her lap.

      “Scandal?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “When two unattached adults go out together for a walk and a glass of beer?”

      “Obviously you don’t know this town,” she said bitterly.

      “Lucia, I was born in this town.”

      He seemed on the verge of pressing to get his way, and if he did, Lucia was afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist him.

      Especially if he happened to touch her again…

      Desperately she cast around for something to change the subject. “There’s something else I’m worried about. I just found it out the other day,” she said, getting up to turn the heat on under the copper teakettle.

      Maybe if she gave him a cup of coffee, he’d take the hint when their drinks were finished, and return to his own apartment.

      “What did you find out?” Jim got up to turn his chair around, then sat down again, watching with obvious pleasure as she moved about the kitchen.

      Lucia flushed, trying not to think about his warm hazel eyes gazing at her bare thighs under the khaki shorts.

      “You mustn’t tell anybody,” she warned him, taking down a tin of oatmeal cookies that June had given her. “It’s a very private matter.”

      “Cross my heart.” He touched his broad chest with boyish solemnity, and Lucia was suddenly almost overcome by an astonishing urge to kiss him.

      She turned back to the counter, shaken.

      “It’s…about June,” she said, reaching for a couple of mugs. “Do you mind instant coffee, or would you rather have tea?”