by Eden Connor
The crooked picture caught his gaze. A shot of an unsmiling Charlie in his cap and gown, kneeling beside Pete in his chair. Lila knelt on the other side, equally serious. Colton had a similar shot of his graduation day, as did each of his brothers. Sarah's was packed away in one of the boxes he'd dumped off at Dan's. But in their pictures, everybody was smiling and his dad had his arm around them.
Comprehension battered him like summer hail on a car hood. Pete hadn't been able to put his arms around her after he'd been paralyzed. How horrible that must've been for Pete, Colton could only imagine, but he'd never make her beg him for that again.
"I won't let you go, Lila," Colton breathed into her ear, wrapping his arms around her even more tightly as she rewarded him with an internal squeeze, but still avoided his attempt to kiss her. Everything she did defied him to keep an emotional distance. Not that he wanted one, but she seemed to erect a wall between them at the damnedest times. He couldn't make sense of it, but if her pussy kept clamping and releasing his cock, he was going to get another condom out, and to hell with going back to work.
Work. Oh yeah.
That place where one brother eyed his happiness with envious silence and the other made no secret of the fact that he thought Colton was a pussy-whipped fool.
Chapter Eleven
"Okay now, sweetheart?" he asked, moving his arm from beneath her head so he could look at his watch.
"Okay," she agreed, her smile subtle and satisfied. She made no move to get up as he eased off her, sitting back on his heels.
He stared down at her in fond exasperation, his hands on his thighs. "Lila, baby, I drove your truck, and thought you'd take me back to work. Do you want me to just take it back to the shop? I'll be back at five-thirty to get you for the game. It's at seven-thirty so I thought we'd eat first."
"Oh." She came to her senses. "No, I thought you'd eat first. Now, I mean."
He glanced at his watch again, mentally groaning. "No time left. Dessert was pretty special, though."
"I'll drive, you eat," she decided, reaching for her clothes he spied discarded nearby.
"Where are you going?" he demanded a few minutes later, as she hurtled her truck down a side road he'd never seen. He fought to balance the plate on his lap, eat her delicious homemade potato salad and not swallow his fork in fear for his life, or impale his own tongue. She drove like… well, damn it, she drove like a woman.
"Shortest way to the garage," she said, looking over at him with surprise. "Don't you come this way?"
Colton jammed his feet against the floorboard and managed to straight arm the dash as she got the most out of her new brake rotors and pads at a stop sign. "No," he choked, strangled by the seat belt, as his brain shrieked at him to save himself and take the wheel. "Never knew this road was here," he added, trying to sound nonchalant. "Fantastic potato salad, by the way." Luckily, it hadn't skidded off his plate onto the floor.
When she got off the curvy back roads, the ride improved marginally. He managed to eat half of one thick roast beef sandwich. With any luck, it would stay down. "You know, Delilah, it's not like I'm going to get fired, sweetheart." Taunted to hell and back for going to her house and coming back late and smelling like sex, yes. But not fired.
Lila had realized Colton's brothers couldn't help but suspect what 'lunch' had consisted of, from the look she shot him as a horn sounded angrily beside her, making him cringe. "They'll know what we did, plus, it took so long the day you came to get me in the wrecker," she worried aloud, oblivious to their impending deaths, which concerned him a helluva lot more than what Dan and E thought.
"Dammit, Lila, I can't work if I'm—" He knew the words "catatonic from fear" weren't a good choice, but he had no others.
Lila turned her head to glare at him again, prompting him to reach for the wheel and to hell with what she thought about that. She slapped his hand away, missing the single, upright finger in the vehicle window next to her, a salute from the driver she'd nearly swerved into. "Well," she huffed, "if you survive me, you should be able to handle teaching Jonah to drive."
"Jonah tries to pull some of this crap, and his main ride will be shoe leather," he snapped. "What is it, woman, did you used to drive an ambulance?"
"No, but for some reason, men don't like riding with me," she said calmly as she turned in at the shop. "Oh, no!" she cried as she romped the brakes again, stopping short of the front of the garage by a distance Colton calculated couldn't have been more than a layer of paint. They bounced in their seats like beach balls as the truck rocked on its worn-out springs after it came to a stop. Lila dropped her face into her hands.
Colton unlocked his large frame. "I think we're okay," he said cautiously.
Her face was the picture of dismay as she peeked through her fingers. "I forgot to give you the cash or a check for the repair. Oh no, Colton, this looks bad."
"I know where you live," he said, trying to joke as he threw open the door and sought solid ground with one foot. "See you in a few hours." When I'm behind the wheel, he thought. "Thanks for lunch, Delilah." Hell would freeze before he thanked her for that ride. Optimistically, leaned over for a kiss, but she pulled back.
"Are you mad at me?"
He was furious she took stupid risks. "No, I was teasing you," he lied through his teeth.
"Then why do you keep calling me Delilah? That name pretty well means I'm in trouble."
Now the exasperating woman was grinning like an imp.
Colton's anger faded. It was impossible for him to stay mad at her. He hoped like hell her guardian angel wore a crash helmet. He waggled his eyebrows, the sheer joy of survival making him cocky. "So, when you were bad, people called you Delilah?"
She huffed. "You like the bad girl."
I freaking love the bad girl, he thought but didn't say aloud. "Kiss me, beautiful."
She peered into the gloom behind the raised garage doors, shaking her head slightly.
"Never mind them." Colton laughed. "When the too-short replay of my life flashed through my head, all I could do was regret that I hadn't collected nearly enough your kisses."
She shook her head harder. "Five-thirty," she said, as he slammed her door. She found reverse with a grinding noise that made his teeth hurt. Her tranny wasn't going to hold out much longer. She pulled out of the parking lot in front of a tractor trailer, making him cringe as he stood in front of the garage, waving a good-bye she didn't bother to return. Her dirty truck disappeared over a hill. When he didn't hear the squealing brakes or crumpling metal he feared, he drew a ragged breath and looked to be sure she hadn't actually put her bumper through the neatly painted white stucco on the front of the building.
To avoid Eric's sharp eyes and smart mouth, he ate quickly in the office. Asking for a public kiss was pushing her too hard, he decided. He needed to slow down. So did she, literally. For the first time, Colton felt sorry for Pete, trapped in a body that couldn't move, riding in that big van with Lila driving.
When he got to the garage bay, Dan held out a hubcap, his huge shoulders shaking. "Those concrete bumpers we decided we didn't need? I'm taking up a collection so I can order them."
Eric was not to be outdone. "D, if we had those bumpers, Lila would have two flat front tires."
"We sell tires," Daniel drawled drily.
Colton gave his brothers a dark look. "Huh, tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking about Pete. I might know what killed him. Last I saw, the poor bastard had to ride with her."
E laughed until he went to his knees, doubled over, and laughed some more.
"It's not that funny," Colton raised his voice, feeling bad about making a joke at a dead man's expense. "Quit being such an idiot." Eric only laughed harder.
"He's your brother, not mine," Colton said firmly to Dan, selecting a socket wrench from his collection. "Get him some help."
"There's no help for him," Dan shot back. Then he busted out laughing, too.
* * * *
The game ende
d in ignominious defeat. Ken Davis's older, bigger, and better team won by ten runs, and the umpire invoked the mercy rule after the end of the fourth inning. The Tigers never got a runner past first, and there'd been only two of those. It made for an early evening, and put Jonah in a sour mood. As Jonah jumped into the front seat, Colton walked Lila to the door. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Still thinking about the game, I guess. Would you have a problem with me picking Jonah up after school tomorrow and bringing him here?"
He shook his head, smiling at her fondly. "You and Jonah, all baseball, all the time. Sure, you can pick him up, but I have to warn you, he's even less pleasant when it's not game day." He took his time dropping his lips to hers, enjoying the night air, her perfume, and the simple excitement of letting the anticipation of kissing her build. Working up the courage to say what was on his mind.
The usual summer symphony of crickets and bullfrogs played in the background as his hands slid along her soft curves, and it sounded like the hoot owl in a tree down by her pond was laughing at him for necking on her back porch like some horny kid. It'd been days since they'd been able to work out a time to get together and his kisses were edged with desperation as he showed her with his tongue what he'd much prefer doing to her with his cock. When he let her go, she laughed shakily. "This reminds me of high school. Only the obstacle isn't my mother. I can almost hear her laughing."
"My mother wasn't around to yell at me for kissing on the porch. She bailed before I turned two." Her hand felt nice on his cheek; he pressed his lips to her palm.
"You were so young to be without a mother," she said sadly. "Do you know why she left?"
"My dad and her, I guess they argued a lot. Sometimes, it got physical, based on things I've heard people say." He shrugged. "He loved her though. He never got over her leaving."
To blot out the feeling of abandonment, he kissed her again. Backing her against the house, he was all too well aware that Jonah wasn't the most patient of kids. His ears strained to listen for the truck door to open above the rural backyard boogie as hard as his cock strained to reach her. He broke the kiss.
"Lila, come home with me. Go inside, grab a change of clothes, and come spend the night."
She shook her head immediately. He'd half expected her to say no, but what she said pissed him off more than her driving. "Colton, you're raising a young man now, what kind of message will you be sending him if he sees a different woman at the breakfast table every day of the week?"
So he didn't strangle her he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away.
* * * *
Lila picked Jonah up after school. "Where's your catching gear?" Jonah asked when they got back to her house as she walked beside him to the pitching mound Pete had built for Charlie carrying a five-gallon bucket full of dusty baseballs.
"I'm not going to be doing any catching, not today anyway." Lila rooted around under the deck, finally emerging with a pop-up net she sat forty-six feet away from the mound. The mark for the exact spot to sit the net was faded but still visible, as if baseball had left a permanent mark on her yard. The pitching mound Pete had built for Charlie the week prior to his accident wasn't as neatly groomed as Pete would have liked, but whenever Charlie was heavy on her mind, Lila manicured the backyard mound where her son had once spent so much time.
"You need an out pitch," she informed Jonah, twisting a dusty baseball between her palms. "Charlie had one no one could hit, one he used from the time he was your age all the way through high school. This is the pitch he threw for the final out of the state championship. He showed me how to throw it," she explained. "If you can learn it, this will be that pitch you can always throw when you need an out." And maybe, just maybe, if Jonah could master the pitch, he wouldn't run up such high pitch counts.
Colton didn't seem to be concerned about the insanely high number of pitches Reggie was asking Jonah for, so Lila had decided that teaching the kid Charlie's trademark breaking ball might just save some wear and tear on his arm. "Before I go any farther, Jonah, you need to make me a promise."
"Okay, what kind of promise?" the kid said promptly, eager to get on with the pitching lesson.
"Promise me you will not fall in love with this pitch. It's only to be used when you have got to have an out, not one you throw every third or fourth pitch. It puts a lot of stress on your shoulder and elbow, and if you overuse it, you'll find you're in a lot of pain, and might even do permanent damage to yourself. The point here is for you to throw fewer pitches, to save your arm, so don't let this backfire, okay?"
"Okay," Jonah replied, his green eyes serious. "I promise, Lila, I will not fall in love with this pitch."
She began the lesson by placing her fingers carefully in the right spots, making sure Jonah saw what she did. "Most of the rotation comes from the elbow and the wrist, like so," she told him, moving in slow-motion throw to show him the arm movement.
He nodded, studying her intently. She threw a ball at half-speed, and he nodded.
She grinned, feeling the pitch mechanics come back to her. In the midst of some very dark days, Lila had felt a desperate need to try and fill the gap made in Charlie's life when her son's best friend and lifelong baseball coach had begun to sit frozen and resentful in his wheelchair all day. She and Charlie had once had some good times right here on this mound as she learned to throw the pitch he'd invented. "Grab your bat and I'll let you see if you can hit it." With her misty vision and the big batting helmet covering Jonah's dark hair, Lila could almost pretend it was Charlie that tapped the bat three times on the far edge of the plate before raising it into position just above his shoulder.
Jonah's eyes popped as he swung and missed on four consecutive throws. "That thing really moves, doesn't it?" he said admiringly.
She grinned at him triumphantly. "It could be my pitching, or it could just be your hair's in your eyes," she teased.
"I wanna grow it like Uncle C's." He shrugged carelessly. "My turn," he insisted, dropping the bat and loping toward the mound. "Let me try to throw it, Lila." Lila handed him the ball, thrilled the child had figured out Colton was someone he wanted to emulate.
Jonah worked on controlling the pitch while Lila watched him, making suggestions, corrections and giving him encouragement. Before too long he had the hang of the wrist and arm motion that caused the ball to break in a way that made it nearly impossible for a batter to get a hit and had begun working on controlling the location of the pitch. "You're a natural, Jonah," Lila crowed, jumping up and down in her excitement, as a few of Jonah's practice pitches began to look like strikes as they crossed the plate in to land in the net.
"Where is Charlie, Lila?" Jonah asked.
"He's in harm's way, in Iraq," Lila told him, growing serious. "I don't know where, exactly. He hasn't been able to call home in months. I'd give anything if he was here, teaching you his pitch instead of me. But he's a Marine now, teaching a little respect to terrorists." Be safe Charlie, she prayed.
"You think he'd like me?" Jonah asked.
"I'm positive he would," she assured Jonah, her maternal instincts telling her it wasn't Charlie the kid was really asking about. Impulsively, she threw her arms around the motherless man-child, sure she'd guessed correctly when his arms tightened around her fiercely.
Chapter Twelve
She broke their embrace, panting. Colton's eyes were green again she saw as he pressed his forehead against hers and made a frustrated sound. "Saturday, Lila. Me and you and no obstacles. I'm fixing you lunch."
"I'm becoming addicted to dropping my pants outdoors, thank you very much."
Her sassy comment made him laugh. "Is that your kink? Because baby, I'll do you anywhere, anytime you say," he leered at her, getting his usual kick out of making her laugh, "but I want you to see my house."
"Well, if it is my kink, it's one I just found out I had."
He looked around. "Lila, this back yard was designed for privacy. You can admit that you and Pete did it out
here. I know y'all did more than hold hands."
"Nope, Pete was a preacher's kid. He rebelled against a lot of the stuff his parents tried to shove down his throat, but somehow, they hooked him on the idea that sex was something you did in your bed with the door closed and the covers up."
Pete's loss; Colton liked the idea he'd helped her discover some part of her sexuality she hadn't known existed. "Saturday, my house for lunch. I'll pick you up at eleven. Say yes." He pressed his hands to either side of her face, tipping her head up and down. "It will be just us, no Jonah and no obstacles."
* * * *
Lila couldn't think of a single reason not to go, even though she tried. She had become curious about where he lived, to be honest. "I look forward to it."
Another kiss and he was gone, jogging down the ramp hurriedly on his way back to work. Maybe she'd find the courage to mention that obstacle to her complete enjoyment of their sexual encounters. She gnawed her lip. Maybe not. But what was the point in "hooking up" as Amy liked to say, if she didn't get what she wanted from the deal?
* * * *
Lila dragged a warm chip through gooey cheese as she waited for Amy in their favorite mall restaurant on Friday afternoon. Amy was in the final weeks of her third year in college, working toward her teaching certificate. She was also Tucker Sizemore's youngest daughter, so it was natural she umpired and refereed all kinds of sports for her spending money.
Once, Lila had friends in her own age group, couples she and Pete spent a lot of time with. They'd dropped her, and she knew part of their reasoning was that she hadn't usually been able to get away, but her suspicion they feared if Pete couldn't give her sex, she might ask their husbands for it, when it had been the other way around, burned hotter in her gut than the salsa. Once Pete died, they strolled past his casket pretending to care, but the red Carolina clay hadn't settled over his grave before they started pretending they'd never known Lila at all.
