“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