True to the Law by Jo Goodman

“Well?” she asked him.
    “That was what you call a rhetorical question,” he said. “The answer to one is usually self-evident.” With that, he returned to his reading.
    Jennifer smiled proudly at Tru. “He’s a bright one, my Jim.”
    Tru nodded. “You don’t see how he looks at me,” she said.
    “Jim?”
    “No, Cobb.”
    “So it’s Cobb now.”
    “He asked me to call him Cobb. I haven’t given him permission to call me Tru.”
    “Well, you better. Otherwise he might take to thinking of you as Gertie, Gert, or Trudy.”
    “My mother’s mother was Gertie.”
    “And I’m sure she was a fine woman, but do you want to be your grandmother? That’s a rhetorical question. Tell me how he looks at you.”
    “It’s hard to explain. He says all the right things, kind things, flattering things, but sometimes I feel as if he’s studying me.”
    “That doesn’t sound awful.”
    Tru shook her head. “You know how boys study something they stumble over by the creek or in the grass or in the middle of the road?”
    “I know what you mean. Usually it’s something dead.” Her needles clicked for another couple of beats then stopped completely. “You better say more about that. Jim will want to hear it. I know I do.”
    “Well, he easily carries on a conversation, but I have the impression that he’s not really engaged, that he’s watching me at least as much as he’s listening, trying to decide which wing he wants to pluck, or what will happen if he pokes me with a stick.”
    Jennifer pulled her mouth to one side as she considered what Tru was saying. “I don’t know, Tru. Could be he’s just got that way about him and doesn’t mean anything by it.”
    “Did you notice it when he was in your shop?”
    “I honestly can’t say that I did. Oh, he looked around some, but then you have to allow for that, as it was his first time in. I thought it was all kinds of thoughtful that he wanted to buy you a slice of apple pie.”
    “So you’ve said. Several times.”
    Shrugging, Jenny returned to her knitting. “You’re right about him being easy with conversation. Not like Jim here. I think I would have told him my life story if he’d asked. He and I talked up a storm anyway.”
    “I didn’t realize,” Tru said. “What did you talk about?”
    “This and that. The school. How you’ve taken to the town like a duck to water. I think I mentioned that folks are tickled to have a teacher again.”
    “But you talked about things that weren’t related to me, didn’t you?”
    Jennifer angled her head, thinking. “I’m sure we did, though nothing comes to mind. Wait, I did tell him how you and I became friends on account of you helping me in the shop when that storm blew through and my roof leaked like a sieve.”
    “That has something to do with me as well,” Tru pointed out.
    “You are determined to pick all the enjoyment out of this. If you ask me, you’re the one pokin’ and studying this thing from all sides. The man barrels into you in the street, apologizes, sits with you at dinner, shows a kindness to your students, takes his meal with you a second time, and you are ten ways suspicious that he’s up to no good.”
    “I never said that.”
    “Well, what other reason do you have to be so guarded?”
    Tru recalled that Cobb had also said the same about her. “I think I’m being prudent.”
    “Prudish is not the same as prudent. You don’t want to mistake the two.”
    Agitated, Tru stood. She ran her palms over her midriff, smoothing the fabric of her lettuce green gown. Her hands came to rest at her sides, but the tight-fitting skirt made no allowance for hiding them. It was a struggle not to curl them into fists.
    “You’re leaving?” Jennifer began to put her knitting aside, but Tru stopped her.
    “Don’t trouble yourself to see me out. I have a lesson to prepare, and I want to look over something I’m considering reading to the students.”
    “You’re out of sorts with me.