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couldn't help yourself, is that it?"
    Thomas stopped and thought for a moment. "No. I suppose it's partly your fault, too."
    Maddie stood up. "My fault? How is your shagging these freshmen my fault?"
    "Well, if you'd been more satisfying, I wouldn't have had the energy or inclination, now would I?"
    Maddie walked the campus that day feeling like the top of her head had been blown off. A spring rain pelted her face, but she'd barely noticed. Incoherent thoughts tracked through her mind mixed with images of Thomas, her parents, the newspaper headlines.
    A litany of defining words ran through her mind: betrayed, manipulated, used, demeaned. Thomas was a big phony and she was a bigger idiot for not seeing through him.
    Her stomach and chest hurt as if she'd been physically assaulted. She became one of the walking wounded.
    Maddie stared into Grammy's ghostly image once again. "I've learned my lesson, Grammy. I need to be strong and independent, keep my emotions under lock and key. I'll never trust a man's smooth talk again. I should thank Thomas for showing me what men are really like."
    Grammy scowled. "That's the biggest load of horse manure I ever heard."
    "Oh, what do you know? You're just a figment of my imagination." Maddie pushed herself away from the mirror, and pretended she hadn't seen anything unusual.
    Her eyes focused on the early pregnancy test she'd purchased in the grocery store. Still a little early to get a true reading. Who are you kidding? You don't want to face that possibility yet.
    Being pregnant would blow her carefully built life to smithereens. After leaving Boston in humiliation and despair, moving to Arkansas had been her salvation. She'd spent precious time with Grammy while making her place at Beaver Cove High. While not a great career, she enjoyed working with the teens. She loved the beauty of the Ozarks. Being an unmarried pregnant assistant principal would not be acceptable in this part of the Bible belt. And imagine the wagging tongues in Boston if she returned home unemployed and pregnant.
    So, she could get an abortion, right?
    She imagined lying on a paper-covered vinyl examining table with her feet up in the cold steel stirrups. A shiver ran through her body.
    Abortion had always been a social issue until now. Something to discuss in women's awareness groups. Up close and personal, it took on completely new dimensions. Could she scrape away a chance at motherhood?
    The whole baby issue was too confusing and so she put it off a little while longer. Like Scarlett O'Hara, she'd think about it tomorrow.
    * * *
    The first week of school went pretty well for Phil. Teaching history to hormone happy teens provided an interesting challenge. Who would have thought it? Phil looked back on the brash, egocentric kid he used to be and knew that the last decade had transformed his inner man. He spent more time considering the people around him, what made them tick. All these kids going through his classroom and across his playing field had stories of their own. Maybe he could make a positive contribution along the way and make up for his screw-ups of the past.
    Out on the practice field after school, the fledgling football team hit it hard. Perspiration dripped off adolescent foreheads, drenched uniform armpits. Oh, yeah, Phil loved the smell of turf and sweat. With the first game four days away, they had a ways to go. Phil had decided on three key plays and drilled them over and over.
    "Come on, you candyasses! Get in there Morely! Now, Martinez!"
    The quarterback overshot the ball to his receiver.
    Phil inwardly groaned, but put a positive spin on it. "All right! That was better. Do it again!"
    So intent on his players, Phil didn't notice an observer in the stands until she yelled, "Run, for God's sake! You got rocks in your pants or what?"
    Phil turned around and spotted Melissa, his hostile, distant daughter. Their visitations of the last couple weeks remained strained, but at least they had taken