Soft Sounds of Pleasure

by Eden Connor

  Which meant her bright red dress was somewhere in the front yard? Along with her equally red panties, bra and heels, every bit of it brand new.

  Lila's dry lips stretched into a grin. She'd definitely want to wear that outfit again, given his reaction to it.

  Oh, yes, her "fuck-you-Joan" outfit had been put to good use. She almost laughed aloud as she recalled the stunned looks from her friends and her own amazement that Colton had shown up and kissed her in front of everyone in the restaurant about the time she'd put on that ridiculous tiara.

  It was as if she'd summoned Prince Charming.

  And his brother, who had been really nice, for once. "Damn, birthday girl, you look good for twenty-nine," Eric had said with a wink she'd decided was an apology, but all she cared about was the admiration in Colton's eyes as he'd told her something about not wanting to wait to unwrap her.

  The evening came back to her in vivid detail. Lorie, three years older than Lila, had almost cried when she'd realized neither Eric nor Colton planned to take off their clothes. No more Lemon Drops for her, ever.

  Lila laughed softly.

  "I thought you might have a hangover this morning," Colton said, tightening his arms around her. "Can't feel too bad if you're laughing." To her surprise, he flung back the covers and rolled away from her. "Don't move. Birthday girl gets coffee in bed. I bought that creamer you like."

  She stared at him, a bit dumbfounded when he returned, as he seated a tray over her lap. The only times she'd ever had coffee in bed she'd been in the hospital, once after delivering Charlie and the other after her surgery to remove her ovary.

  The coffee was perfect. The buttered, toasted blueberry bagel adorned with a single lighted pink candle held up by a dollop of cream cheese was heart-melting. The dish her treat rested on was adorned with hideous flowers painted in a color she immediately identified in her mind as Bachelor Brown, but the spray of red honeysuckle blossoms softened the effect.

  Especially when she spied the small, cranberry glass salt dish shaped like a swan the honeysuckle blossoms rested in.

  "Saw some in your cabinet," he said with a shrug. "But you didn't have one this color."

  No, she did not, because those were extremely hard to find. "This isn't casual, is it?" she finally asked, studying his beautiful hazel eyes across the tiny flame.

  "Not for me." His hand was warm on her bare thigh as Lila puffed out her cheeks to blow out one flame and ignite another.

  * * * *

  But for one dark cloud on the horizon, life was good, Colton decided while he helped Lila reassemble the breakfront in preparation for delivery. Even Jonah had said something positive about the huge piece before grabbing a fishing pole and heading to her pond.

  Colton was thoroughly impressed with the job she'd done, taking great care not to let the tiny screws slip and scratch the gleaming finish as he knelt on the dirty concrete floor of her garage and helped her reinstall the doors. Seated by his side, Lila's bright head was bent to the task in her lap as she used her own screw gun to install the brass hinges he'd buffed for her on another door before handing it to him to attach to the cabinet. It was enough for him to simply enjoy the brush of her hand on his every time they each grabbed for another screw from the container resting between them on the floor of her garage.

  In the days following her birthday, she'd changed, shutting him out less and less. He rarely saw Pete Walker's widow anymore. More and more, he saw his Delilah.

  And Delilah had worked magic with Jonah, who was almost as eager to spend time around her as he was. Jonah swore it was just her cooking, but he saw right through the kid.

  Too bad Jonah's new cooperative attitude didn't carry over to his behavior at school.

  "When are you planning to deliver this?" he asked, determined to help her this time.

  "Tomorrow. It will take three trips, I'm afraid, so it's pretty much an all-day job."

  "I'll make you a deal." He began to bargain. "I'll get Dan and E to help us. They both have trucks, so it can be done in one trip after we close, if you'll go with me to the school tomorrow afternoon. I've been summoned to a meeting to discuss Jonah's behavior." He winced as he recalled the middle school principal's tone. Colton had been made to feel he was the one still in school. "We'll manhandle this thing if you'll protect me in that principal's office. I think the man wants a piece of my ass."

  The truth was he knew Lila would be fair and impartial, something he wasn't sure he could be. She saw through Jonah in a way he couldn't. Colton knew he was a marshmallow when it came to the kid.

  The principal's tone indicated he didn't think much of the job Colton was doing, either. That made him mad as hell, so he figured he'd hold his temper better if Lila were there. But his own experiences in school were dancing in his head. Every time he'd been called in, his father had taken it personally and worked his animosity for having to take off work out on Colton's ass with his belt afterwards, even if he'd been wrongly accused.

  Because sometimes he'd taken the blame for Eric, who had been constantly in trouble. Or he'd been protecting Sarah, whether she'd wanted his protection or not.

  No way could he be impartial, he figured. His stomach tensed as he watched her think over his offer, prepared for her to rub her independence in his face and leave him twisting in an environment he felt unprepared to deal with.

  "Deal," she said blithely, after she scrambled to her bare feet to admire their handiwork, then wiped the sweat off her face with the hem of her shirt.

  * * * *

  In a town this small, it seemed to Lila that she never got that mythical six degrees of separation, but, of the two degrees that seemed more the norm, why did it feel as if half the town had no idea Pete had died while the other half seemed to have nothing better to do than to count off the days since his death on their calendars? It felt as if some were watching her every move and thought they had the right to judge that she had not yet given Pete his due and grieved long enough.

  Lila thought that over as she sat beside Colton in the dreary school conference room. The table was too large for the space, making her feel as if the concrete-block and dark-paneled walls were squeezing the breath out of her. She knew every member of the team assembled to go over Jonah's faults. It had begun to feel as though they might give her the two-for-one special and throw in their opinions regarding her own behavior. "Pete died last year," she told the Algebra teacher, despising the knowing look that came over the woman's face as she pointedly looked from Lila to Colton and back with a smirk.

  "Charlie's in the Marines, he turned down his scholarship to the University," she replied to the English teacher, her sense of being weighed and found wanting by this judgmental lot putting unwanted heat in her cheeks.

  The guidance counselor had once worked at the high school, and he and Lila had crossed paths before. Joan had reamed her about the way she had talked to the man then, since he and one of Pete's sisters were in the same Sunday school class.

  Lila stiffened her spine and crossed her legs at the ankles, ruefully aware her lady-like posture was at odds with a few of her thoughts as she stared down the counselor.

  The rotund principal, who had taken the chair at the head of the table, had once withheld water from the middle school football team Charlie had played on one late August afternoon as punishment for losing a game. Lila had gone straight for his professional jugular for that, taking her complaint right over his head to the district office, resulting in a reprimand for Mr. Gordon and a new district policy regarding hydration.

  Still, she silently soaked up every word of complaint about Jonah, trying to sift through what was valid and what was chaff borne of teacher burn-out late in the school year.

  Someone had said it took a village, and from her seat, it appeared some of the villagers weren't pulling their weight.

  * * * *

  Colton kept his eyes glued as fast to the table as the fake wood grain decorating the scuffed surface, humiliation pricking his ar
mpits as the teachers took turns illustrating how unfit he was to raise Jonah. He clenched and unclenched his hands on his thighs as the teaching team piled up incident after incident where Jonah had done nothing but cause trouble since he'd strolled through the doors. The kid had looked Colton right in the eyes and lied to him about doing his homework, and Colton felt like a damn fool for not asking to see his work every night, as one teacher was suggesting he do. Lila would've checked, he somehow knew, but he'd given the kid the benefit of the doubt, and that was his mistake, another instance of being Jonah's friend and not his parent.

  Discipline is love, she'd told him. And he had misplaced that particular pearl. Again.

  He regretted wasting Lila's time. It seemed plain from the way she sat so rigid, refusing to hold his hand beneath the table or even look at him, that she felt annoyed he hadn't taken her advice. He wasn't any better at parenting than she was at driving, but at least she had a license that said she'd passed her test.

  * * * *

  Lila noted the dejection and then the damnation on her lover's handsome face as he listened to their words, realizing he was too angry to see the real problem. Jonah was bored stiff, because he'd done this work already.

  By the time Jonah arrived here, even the teachers were tired of being in this building. He was an eighth grader; he wouldn't be around next year. His grades from California guaranteed he'd move on to the high school in the fall.

  The school had held its own fake tryout, in her opinion, no different than the one Ken Davis had offered, pretending to offer Jonah an equal place on their roster, but Jonah wouldn't count in their test scores or state assessments, so all they really wanted was for him to sit down and shut up, but they still had to go through the motions.

  Bored and struggling with some massive life changes, Jonah was asking for help the only way he knew how. He was acting out.

  The last person to speak seemed to be finished, and she knew Mr. Gordon was about to bore her with pompous patter, so Lila took control of the meeting. "Why don't you fetch Jonah for us, Mr. Gordon? I think it only fair we all hear what he has to say for himself." Lila gently phrased her demand as a request.

  "That's not necessary," the burly principal contradicted her. "He's in class. This is between the school and his uncle."

  "According to everyone present, he's just a distraction in his classes, so we'll do his teacher a favor and wait while you get him, please," she insisted, meeting the man's steely gaze with one of hers.

  * * * *

  Colton jerked his head up to look at her, surprised at the way Lila won that round, because from the look on the principal's face, this was a war, one he wasn't used to losing. Not with his ambush tactics. Colton felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but she looked pretty calm except for the two spots of color on her cheekbones as she smiled and finally put her hand on his arm.

  And damned if she didn't continue to keep the man off balance as she took charge the moment Jonah slouched into the room. "Have a seat across from me," she ordered the kid, "while your teachers briefly summarize their complaints so we may hear what you have to say for yourself."

  Jonah slid into the seat she'd indicated and stared at his hands while his sins were recounted, only this time the teachers spoke as Lila called each one by names Colton couldn't recall.

  "We'd all be interested to hear your explanation for this behavior, Jonah," Lila said when they had finished, her tone kinder than Colton had anticipated or would have used himself.

  "I've already done this work," Jonah burst out, his shoulders rounded but his chin upraised. "In California. We were way far ahead of this little Podunk school."

  "Perhaps you could share that superior California education you were blessed with and offer to help the person next to you, then, instead of keeping them from learning the material?" Lila suggested. "I hear schools are still trying to do more with less due to tight budgets, so free tutoring for some of your at-risk students should be welcome. Make some portion of Jonah's grade tied to the grade of the kid he's tutoring, so he takes his new responsibility seriously. Because from this moment on, there will be serious consequences for bad grades on his part, given that he has done the work already." She turned what he thought of as her gun-barrel gaze toward the teachers who now resembled the mounted large-mouth bass his grandpa had hung on the wall of his office at the farmhouse Daniel now lived in. "Would any of you have a problem with that?"

  What had Reggie Martin said about her problem-solving abilities that first day? Game, set, and match? Once again, it seemed Lila had her own way of looking at things. Colton stared at her with solid admiration.

  "Jonah, up to this point, your behavior has been unacceptable," Lila intoned. "If you work with your teachers, they will work with you. If not, I have nothing better to do than come back, since your uncle is needed at the garage. Do I need to spend my day at school with you, or can you become a help rather than a hindrance?"

  Colton wasn't sure exactly who had been threatened, but the teachers appeared intimidated and the kid had lost his grin. Jonah looked downright horrified, in fact, at the thought of Lila dogging his steps all day. And Lila had demolished the principal's suggestion she had no business in the room.

  "Go get your books and wait for Colton and me in the outer office," she continued, again preempting the man at the head of the table with a flick of her fingers. "Be sure you have everything you need for your homework," she added in a tone glinting with gunmetal, "because from this day forward, you will produce it, for every single class, every single day."

  Jonah locked gazes with her, then with Colton before nodding and stepping out, closing the door behind him.

  Colton realized he'd sweated through his shirt and felt another unexpected surge of compassion for his father.

  "I have one question," Lila continued, again pre-empting the principal, staring now at the guidance counselor. "Mr. Garnett, could you please explain to me what exactly you do here?"

  Colton saw anger flash in the man's eyes as he returned Lila's implacable gaze steadily. "I'm pretty sure you've asked me that before, Mrs. Walker."

  Colton wished he could have blocked that blow for her, because even he felt its punch.

  "I was hoping your job description had changed since you left the high school," she returned, her tone so falsely friendly now that Colton cringed inwardly, again reminded of Reggie. "Because you told me then your only job was to help these kids make career decisions, if I recall correctly. I've had a lot of time to think that over. Here's what I think."

  Her tone switched from friendly to fillet-knife sharp as she went on the attack.

  "I think that Charlie and Jonah cannot be the only two kids you've ever called to your office that could use some grief counseling. If you've never had instruction in how to provide such, I'm positive I can find my way to the district office to insist some be provided for you, courtesy of my tax dollars. This lack of compassionate counseling looks like a shortcoming that needs re-examination." She stood, effectively ending the meeting.

  Colton, along with everyone else, stumbled to his feet as Lila squared her shoulders and raised her chin, as regal as any queen, in spite of her shorts and casual shirt. And still, she talked, but things felt more balanced now that he—and she—towered over most of the people in the small room. "We'll all work with Jonah, he's not getting a free pass, I promise. And Mr. Gordon, be sure to let me know if you need me when you lobby for Mr. Garnett's training at the district level. I'd be delighted to share my story."

  Something passed between those two, but Colton saw the man give in and nod, anger fading from his eyes, replaced by something that looked an awful lot like respect.

  "Wait a minute, what grief?" the counselor demanded, sounding annoyed to have been called out for not doing his job. "He's bored, he said so. He wants to move back to California, that's all."

  "His mother was murdered three months ago." Lila bit off each word, and now Colton felt the score between the two had eve
ned. "And if you'd talked to that kid for five minutes, you might have learned that, young man. I'm not excusing his behavior, but it makes me wonder if any of you know how to recognize a cry for help or if you're just too burned out to give a damn anymore. With only two months to go when he arrived, why knock yourselves out for this kid? As I said, an outrage and hardly what I'd call professional conduct on the part of anyone here."

  Colton proudly took her hand as they walked out, leaving Mr. Gordon and staff to figure out how their time-honored battle plan of 'put all the blame on the parents' had gone awry.

  "You know, I could blow you for giving me the chance to get that off my chest," she said with a laugh as he stared at her with admiration while they let Jonah lead the way to his truck.

  Before he could stammer out an answer, she spoke to Jonah. "You can ride shotgun today."

  As they settled in the car Jonah asked mutinously, "So you can stab me in the back again, Lila?"

  "You might want to try seeing it in terms of we have your back," he suggested, fixing Jonah with a look he'd learned from her, the one saying he saw through the whining and loved him, but wasn't taking any shit. "You know what you did was wrong, Jonah."

  Jonah merely slouched down in the seat, putting his sneakers on the dash.

  "You know what, Colton?" Lila said as he cranked the truck. "I'm looking forward to sitting beside a cute boy like Jonah in class, now that I don't have that breakfront to keep me busy during the day. I kind of miss school."

  Jonah looked so horrified Colton had to fake a coughing fit, mentally adding up the pearls she'd cast him this particular day as Jonah took his feet off the dash.

  He would never sit across the table from her in a game of poker, either, he decided. Not unless the game was strip poker and she paid off on that blow job as soon as he lost all his clothes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "I can't believe it's the same cabinet." Mr. Pearls and Pumps was agape as Lila supervised the delivery and installation of the big breakfront. The De Marco men did the heavy lifting while she and Jonah replaced the shelves on their brass brackets.