Margot Dalton - Consequences

Lucia Osborne stood in her candy-striped bathroom with its antique claw-footed tub and pedestal sink, holding the little plastic wand in her hand and studying the instructions.

Two red lines indicate a positive result.

Finally she took a deep breath and looked at the wand. Her eyes blurred for a moment, then focused in horror on the two red lines.

“This can’t be happening,” she moaned aloud. Then, with the careful precision that was an integral part of her nature, she took a second wand from the package and repeated the entire test.

Again the two red lines appeared clearly in the little window.

There was no doubt. The principal of Crystal Creeks middle school was going to become a single mother.

Dear Reader,

Almost ten years ago, Harlequin approached a number of authors with an exciting new idea. We were given the challenge of helping to create a central Texas town and ranching community, along with a host of interesting, heartwarming characters to populate this setting. The result was the 24-book CRYSTAL CREEK series, which has remained popular with readers since publication of the very first book in 1993.

As an author, I loved everything about writing the CRYSTAL CREEK books. So you can imagine my excitement when the Superromance editors suggested I might want to return to Crystal Creek with a new series of books. I could hardly wait! Consequences, the second book of this trilogy, continues the story of the beautiful Delgado sisters, Bella and Lucia. We also revisit June Pollock who was one of the featured characters in Mustang Heart, the thirteenth book of the original series, and who remains one of my favorite characters of all time.

I loved making this nostalgic return to Crystal Creek. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I did.

Warmest regards,

Margot Dalton

Harlequin Superromance

#914—IN PLAIN SIGHT

#928—CONSEQUENCES

#940—THE NEWCOMER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LUCIA OSBORNE was the principal of the middle school in Crystal Creek, a small central Texas community where everybody knew everybody else’s business, and gossip whirled around with the destructive speed of a brushfire whipped by the wind.

Lucia was divorced, thirty-seven years old, and had not had a man in her life during the seven years she’d lived and worked in Crystal Creek.

So, early in October when she needed to buy a pregnancy test kit, Lucia could hardly walk down the street and make her purchase at Wall’s Drugstore, which had been serving the locals in the same capacity for more than sixty years. Ralph Wall, the pharmacist, was one of the most garrulous men in the county, and also happened to be married to Gloria Wall, chairwoman of the school board.

As a result, Lucia had to wait the whole of an agonizing week until she could get away long enough to make the sixty-minute drive to Austin, buy a testing kit and bring it home to the privacy of her little apartment.

She lived on the third floor of a gracious old house owned by June Pollock, who worked as a cook at one of the local motels. The big house had fallen on some hard times during the hundred-odd years it had stood in Crystal Creek’s downtown area, but June had come into a tidy sum of money a few years earlier and done a lot of renovating. Now she rented a few suites to carefully chosen residents.

Lucia had lived for five years in this apartment where flowered paper covered the slanted walls, and live oaks and pecans rustled against the dormers. Though it was vastly different from the palatial estate she and her brother and their younger half sister had grown up in, Lucia loved her cozy little home. These high airy rooms were her sanctuary and retreat, a place where she could let down her guard and relax, away from the measuring eyes and sharp tongues of the community.

But on this mellow Sunday afternoon, her silent rooms felt more like a prison, and the air seemed heavy with menace.

She stood in the candy-striped bathroom with its antique claw-footed bathtub and pedestal sink, holding the little plastic wand in her hand and studying the instructions.

Two lines in the window indicated a positive test. One line meant you weren’t pregnant.

Lucia took a deep breath and looked at the wand. Her eyes blurred for a moment, then focused in horror on the two red lines.

She moaned aloud and leaned her forehead against the cool surface of the mirror. Then, with the careful precision that was an integral part of her nature, she took a second wand from the package and went through the whole test again.

Again the two red lines appeared clearly in the little window.

“Oh, God,” she murmured aloud.

After a moment she wrapped all the testing equipment in a plastic sack and stuffed it in the trash can under the sink.

A warm breeze was blowing from the south, off the gulf and across the rolling valleys of Texas Hill Country. At the bathroom window, the white muslin curtain billowed and drifted on the wind, brushing the leaves of a potted African violet on the windowsill.

Moving automatically, Lucia closed the window and touched the soil around the plant. It was dry, and she used a little copper pitcher from a nearby shelf to water the violet, being careful not to drip onto the sensitive furred leaves.

Then she wandered out into her bedroom and lay down on the old brass bedstead, gazing up at the ceiling. Finally she rolled herself up in her soft green-and-white quilt and began to cry soundlessly.

ON MONDAY MORNING Lucia was at school early, going through her normal end-of-month routines. She finalized the agenda for the upcoming staff meeting, recorded attendance statistics for the first two months of the school term, examined purchase requisitions for school supplies and made opening announcements on the intercom to the eight classes in her school.

She had just settled in to look over a stack of résumés for the vacant teaching position in seventh grade when one of the secretaries popped her head around the door.

“Ms. Osborne?”

“Yes, Leslie, what is it?” Lucia made a notation on one of the job applications.

“Gloria Wall is here to see you.”

Lucia glanced up sharply. Leslie Karlsen stood calmly in the doorway, her doll-like face impassive, but Lucia sensed a certain spitefulness in the young woman’s manner.

You’re in trouble now, Leslie seemed to be telling her employer smugly. Let’s just see how you deal with this, Ms. High and Mighty.…

Lucia pressed her fingers to her temples briefly, then squared her shoulders.

“Thank you, Leslie,” she said. “Would you show her in, please?”

Leslie, the younger of the school’s two secretaries, nodded without expression and turned in the doorway. She wore a red sweater and a very short red skirt, and her well-endowed body curved ripely beneath the tight garments. Lucia sighed, watching her leave.

Normally she would have said something about the inappropriate garb. Leslie’s seductive clothing tended to titillate the young adolescent boys in the school, and caused a good deal of unnecessary loitering and disturbance in the office area. At intervals Lucia had pointed this out, and her censure had made the young secretary even more sullen and resentful.