Read Online Passionate Pleasures by Bertrice Small - Free Book Online Page A

get to choose their own reading material, but they still have to report to me.
    “For the first one hundred points they are awarded a coupon for an ice-cream cone at Walt’s. Reach two hundred points and you get a two-scoop sundae. Reach three hundred and you win a banana split with three scoops of ice cream, three sauces, whipped cream, and a cherry.” Kathryn smiled. “We’re going to have at least five three-hundred-point winners by summer’s end this year. Three are in the Middle School, which is pretty good considering the distractions kids that age are bombarded with nowadays.”
    “Agreed,” he said. “I think you’ve devised a great program, Miss St. John! Maybe next summer you’ll allow me to offer a few suggestions for reading material?”
    “Of course,” Kathryn answered, surprised he would even be interested. His predecessor had never cared. She had been grateful for the program, and left it up to the library to do it. “I do try and challenge the children.”
    “Yes, that’s a good thing. Make it too simple and they’re bored,” he said.
    Suddenly they both heard Rowdy begin to howl.
    “I never knew a clingy dog,” Kathryn said, half irritated.
    “He’s not clingy.” Tim defended his animal. “That’s his Help! I’m scared howl.” He turned and went back outside. Rowdy was hunkered down, attempting to make himself invisible behind the hitching post. He was shaking. Seeing Tim, he yelped and tried to leap at him, but his leash, still tied to the post, hindered him. “It’s all right, boy,” Tim assured him, kneeling down to put comforting arms about Rowdy.
    “What on earth is the matter with him?” Kathryn, who had followed him outside, asked. “He’s absolutely shaking all over. Is he sick? You did say he had had his shots.”
    Tim looked about, and then he spotted it. A large, fat ginger tabby cat was seated beneath a blue hydrangea bush, calmly washing its paws and staring directly at Rowdy. “That’s the problem,” Tim said, pointing to the feline.
    “ The cat? What on earth could Dickens have done to that dog of yours that’s caused him to go all to pieces like that?” Kathryn asked him.
    “Rowdy is afraid of cats,” Tim told her with an apologetic grin.
    “A dog afraid of cats?” she said disbelieving. “Nonsense!”
    “Not at all,” Tim replied. “I got Rowdy from friends who lived in the country. He was one of three puppies born to their dog after a casual encounter with a neighbor’s male dog. When he was about six weeks old he found the family’s litter of two-week-old kittens. He didn’t hurt them. He was just curious. The mother cat attacked him, however. She scratched him up pretty badly, and he’s been afraid of cats ever since.”
    “Good grief!” Kathryn exclaimed. Then she added, “Poor Rowdy.”
    Dickens the cat now stepped nonchalantly from beneath the bush, and while Rowdy practically clung to Tim the feline strolled down the brick walkway. Kathryn could have sworn it had a smug smile upon its face.
    “I guess I’ve caused enough excitement for today,” Tim Blair said with a smile.
    She noticed that the smile extended all the way to his eyes, and that his teeth were even. What was the matter with her? Kathryn thought. She wasn’t a woman to assess a man’s good and bad points as if he were a race-horse. “Rowdy can’t help it that cats scare him,” Kathryn said. She reached out to pat the dog. “He’s a good fellow. You’ve got a good house for a dog. I hear you rented the Torkelsen place. It has a lovely backyard. Martha was a sweet woman. She always returned her books on time, and brought us produce from her garden every summer.”
    “The garden’s overgrown right now, but I’ll start it up again next summer,” he said. “I like fresh vegetables,” Tim told her. He wondered what she would look like with that hair of hers loose and falling over her shoulders. And those breasts of hers were perfect. Just how old was she?