Consequences

“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?”