ONE SUMMER

Prim schoolteacher meets ex-con and finds happiness—in this highly predictable second hardcover romance from the bestselling Robards (Nobody's Angel, p. 425). When 17-year-old Johnny Harris was convicted of stabbing his cheerleader girlfriend to death 11 years ago, Rachel Grant—his 22- year-old, sexually repressed high-school English teacher—was outraged. True, Johnny was the well-known ``swaggering son of the local no-good'' who grew up on the wrong side of his Kentucky hometown—but though his rough beginnings were enough to prove his guilt in his neighbors' eyes, Rachel had once caught Johnny reading a book for pleasure and was convinced that such a boy could never kill. Now, it's 11 years later and Johnny, up for parole, has written to his former teacher requesting a job. Rachel hires him to work at her family's hardware store and thus, to the scandal of her friends, parents, and respectable middle-aged beau, enables the tough, virile ex-con to return home. At first Rachel is rather frightened of Johnny, who's no longer a rebellious teenager but a long-legged, tough-talking man 28 years old. But as the entire town gangs up on him, the teacher's protective instincts bloom, and her fervent defense of Johnny leads all too inevitably to a lusty clandestine affair (``I had a major case of the hots for you in high school,'' Johnny whispers. ``I still do''). The fact that another stabbing occurs causes few real disturbances in the mismatched couple's joy, and through a series of highly unlikely turns of fate, Johnny is cleared of both murders as his loyal teacher saves the day. Old-fashioned melodrama with nary a surprise.