Soft Sounds of Pleasure (5 page)

Well, the bad news was Colton had some damage control to do.

He'd just fixed them both a glass of her sweet tea when she came downstairs, a small cardboard shirt box in her arms. "I thought about tossing all this, but didn't. It's everything from… well, there's a lot of information here. Pete's notebook is probably the place to start." She showed him a blue binder and dropped it back into the box.

Prying the box from her arms, he set it on the table, then took her face in both hands and forced her to look at him. "That stuff can wait. I owe you an apology, but an apology isn't enough. I am so sorry, Lila. I've never lost my head like that before. Did I hurt you? Can you ever forgive me?"

Her brows drew together, and then her eyes rounded and the brows shot up. "Colton, you didn't hurt me. I'm a big girl, and I still have all my own teeth, too. Sharp nails, I was hardly defenseless. No apology required. I… just don't… I have no idea what I'm doing."

All her own teeth. Colton grinned and drew her to his chest, slipping his arms around her as he chuckled at her sense of humor. He knew all about the nails. "You can quit trying to convince me you're old. We both know better. Is that what's bothering you? Our age difference?" He nuzzled the soft skin of her cheek beside her ear, wondering if she would kiss him.

She pulled away. Reluctantly he let her go, and she sat down in a chair, grabbing one of the glasses of tea. "You are such a sweetheart, but I am aware there is no 'us'. I'm about to turn forty-one, and I don't care who knows it. Because I know it's better than the alternative. Pete never made it to forty. But just for the record, how old are you, exactly?"

He took the chair across from her and answered, letting the 'us' statement pass by unremarked, but his answer came from between his teeth. "Twenty-nine."

"Twenty-nine, that's a lovely age," Lila mused, a thoughtful look on her face. Then she grinned. "The year I was twenty-nine, really, truly twenty-nine, everybody said, 'No, seriously how old are you?' Even my mother argued I had to be thirty."

He warily avoided any trap she might be setting. Age and weight, both taboo topics to discuss with females, he'd learned. "No comment, since I didn't meet you until you were thirty-one, based on what you just said. I thought you were the sexiest woman I'd ever seen. I still do. You didn't have on a ring, but then you said you had to get to the school for your son." By now, he'd figured out she removed her rings to work.

Lila laughed, and this time the laughter reached her eyes. "You draw the line at banging unwed mothers, huh?"

Colton snorted. Lila was back, the funny Lila. "You mentioned a husband, too, as I recall." That reminded him of a question he'd wanted to ask before she'd distracted him. "How old was Pete when he died?" Getting to know Lila meant learning more about Pete, it was a fact he accepted.

"He had just turned thirty-seven." She sobered.

So, he thought, she had a history of younger men. If their age difference wasn't her problem, then what? Something about the unwed mother crack wasn't sitting so good with him. "Lila, about yesterday, I don't want you to think I make a habit of sleeping with married women. It's not worth the hassle. I'd have walked away, if it'd been anybody but you."

Her disbelief was plain from the way her eyes rolled. "Colton, you don't owe me explanations. I don't want them."

He allowed her to change the topic to Jonah, baseball, and Reggie, recognizing that he had to let her set the pace of whatever happened between them. "Winning is all he cares about, Colton," she said again. "Don't ever be afraid to pull Jonah off the field if you think Reggie's doing something that is contrary to Jonah's best interests or that might hurt his arm."

Later, when she dressed him in Charlie's catching gear and tried to show him how to manipulate the fat, padded piece of leather she stuck on his uncooperative left hand, he didn't hold it against her when she was amused by his awkward attempts to wrap the stiff mitt around the baseballs she threw at him, mainly because he'd have done just about anything to hear her laugh.

Chapter Seven

Lila handed over the fifty dollars as soon as the young man had helped her load the last item into the back of her old truck, watching the way his hands shook when he snatched the bills. The guy looked like a living skeleton, but his dead grandmother had once had good taste in furniture. Just as well that woman was dead, Lila thought, no doubt she'd have been unhappy with her grandson's choice of a life partner—crystal meth, she was betting, from his rotten teeth and uncontrolled twitching. She thanked him politely and hopped into her truck, positive his drug dealer would soon have her cash. She mentally reviewed the furniture in the back, trying to decide which of her dealers would be interested in what new dusty treasure as she navigated the narrow streets and hills of the old mill village.

She needed a sale. She had a house payment coming due, and she should never have bought the damn sunglasses perched on her nose. Before she had decided which dealer to visit first, her old truck made a hideous, grinding screech. The wheel in her hand shuddered so badly she pulled into an empty driveway, barely maneuvering off the road before the truck stopped moving in response to her foot on the gas.

She felt like banging her head against the steering wheel but feared the truck was in such bad shape it might just snap off. Looking around the blighted neighborhood, her eyes lit on a house whose sagging porch was lined with pots of with bright red geraniums. In this area, since all the cotton mills had closed down, flowers were in short supply. Hopefully, there was an old lady tending these, who'd be home on a weekday morning.

Now who looks like the meth addict, Lila thought ruefully as she reached to take the phone book the elderly lady handed her with hands trembling from stress. Her hunch had been right, netting her access to a phone in relative safety, but now she had to call De Marco's.

Lila despaired as she dragged the resisting rotary dial of the heavy black phone around in recalcitrant circles, waiting impatiently for the dial to return to its home position. She had time to glance curiously around the kitchen at the worn red and gray linoleum tiles beneath her feet and the faded Formica countertops edged with strips of chrome as she listened to the peculiar 'burring' sound of the phone and the droning of the television in the background. Plastic daisies in a narrow green vase shook in their precarious perch on the rounded top of the refrigerator as a whistling train flew down the tracks a few miles away.

Worse than the conflict she felt at needing to call De Marco's Garage was the knowledge she didn't have the money to fix her truck and still make her house payment, if it was much of a repair. Thrilled when Daniel answered instead of Colton, she explained her problem, gave him her location, and accepted a glass of tea while she waited, chatting idly with her Good Samaritan while blindly watching
The Price Is Right
and trying to figure a way out of her predicament.

She stopped feeling sorry for herself in favor of looking around at the furniture, knowing she still had four twenties in her back pocket. Best thing then, was to try and spend them wisely.

* * * *

Colton dropped the hood on the Celica he'd just finished and began to fill out the repair ticket, glancing up when Dan strode over.

"Done with that?" Dan asked abruptly, eyeing Colton. When he'd realized it was Lila on the phone, he decided to play a hunch. He and Eric both agreed Colton had something going on he didn't want them to know about, and based on Colton's face and actions after that baseball coach had said something about Lila Walker, Daniel was thinking he'd been wrong to dismiss the suspicion Colton and Lila might be knocking boots. Eric had bet him two hundred dollars, taking any woman but her, yet agreeing Colton had a woman on his mind.

"All done," Colton said, head bent to the clipboard in his hand. "What's the next emergency?"

Dan shoved a piece of paper at him and studied his baby brother as Colton automatically translated his hieroglyphics into meaningful information. His head snapped up. "What in the hell is she doing on Haynes Street?" he demanded. "That neighborhood's not safe for a damn dog, much less her."

Daniel returned his youngest brother's fierce gaze placidly. "So, when Scott gets back with her truck, you got time to take a look at it?"

"That's not proof." Eric shook his head in denial when Daniel held out his hand after Colton snagged the wrecker keys and stormed out without another word, nearly burning rubber in his hurry to get the wrecker out of the parking lot.

Daniel shrugged casually. "Okay, my money can sit in your pocket a while," he said. "But think on this while you hold it for me. When's the last time you cared
where
a car broke down, if your ass wasn't in it?"

Eric blinked twice, and reached for his wallet, counting the money into Daniel's palm. "Why her?" Eric wondered aloud. "She's old. She must be like, fifteen years older than him, isn't she?"

"About my age, maybe," Daniel guessed, driving his fist into Eric's shoulder. He was thirty-seven to Eric's thirty-three. "Not that damn old."

* * * *

Colton reminded himself to hold his tongue when he spied Lila's dirty red and silver truck. He had no right to complain about where she went, but when he found she wasn't locked in her vehicle, he began to panic. She couldn't be far, because there was furniture in the back and in this neighborhood, he figured nothing of any value would last long unattended. He'd broken every speed limit coming here. He raised the hood and saw at a glance what the truck's immediate problem was. Wondering whether he needed to call the cops as he dropped her hood with a loud bang, he looked around the shabby neighborhood, praying for a glimpse of her.

The screech of a rusty hinge made him whirl around, and he heard her voice before she stepped out of a wretched house which was peeling so badly it was nearly devoid of paint. He bounded across the empty lane, intending to help her descend the rickety steps, since she held what looked like a box on legs and the rotten handrail had fallen into unkempt shrubs that were all that appeared to be holding the house upright. On the drooping porch behind her, an old woman tucked something that looked a lot like cash into the bosom of her housecoat.

The hold on his temper threatened to fail. She was running around in this neighborhood handing out cash? What a great way to get killed. He ground his teeth as he reached her, holding out his hand.

"I have it," Lila assured him, twisting away as if she thought he wanted the small piece of furniture. He gripped her elbow as she skipped down the steps, nodding politely to the old woman on the porch as Lila said her good-byes, but his temper was as ragged as the woman's cotton shift.

She tugged away from his grasp as soon as her feet hit the cracked sidewalk. "Do you mind awfully if we stop at one little place on the way back to the garage?"

"Fine," he said shortly, trying to breathe through his fear and outrage that she'd take risks like this. The truck was the only vehicle he'd seen at her house. She probably needed something from the store.

"It's not exactly on the way," she said worriedly. "But if I talk sweet enough, I won't have to cry when I hear what this repair is going to cost."

Concern at her comment began to overwhelm his anger. Lila had money problems? He'd assumed an insurance agent like Pete would've left a big policy. He chewed on that information as he dropped to the ground, reaching under her truck to hook the winch to the axle.

Twenty minutes later, he stood on the sidewalk in front of a junk shop every bit as dilapidated as the neighborhood he'd just rescued her from. The rundown building was several miles in the wrong direction, but the errand seemed important to her. When he heard the price she quoted for that leggy wooden box to the eager-eyed white-haired shop owner, whom she had introduced as Jimmy, he'd almost forgotten how pissed off he was. Almost. The old guy had asked if there was anything else in the back of her truck. Colton lowered the winch without being asked, watching as the cardigan-clad man and Lila went through their negotiations. The bite of jealousy he felt when Jimmy got the smile she hadn't offered him only made him angrier, even though he knew it was just part of her pitch. When her arms flew around Jimmy's stooped shoulders after the old guy emptied his thick wallet into her trembling outstretched hand, Colton figured she was thrilled by the fast profit she'd turned.

All he could think about was how she had risked her life for less than the cost of a new transmission.

The crease between her brows was gone when she climbed into the wrecker, and she finally flashed him the sunny smile he loved, but Colton didn't feel like smiling back. It was going to take a while before his brain stopped telling him she could have been murdered. For once, he didn't have to adjust his pants in her presence.

* * * *

Lila could see the tension in Colton's handsome face. His jaw was set and pretty much had been since he'd tried to take the Regency sewing box from her on the sidewalk outside the house where she'd used the phone. Though he'd agreed to double back to Jimmy's shop, he wasn't happy about something, based on the snarl of his brows. "Look, I'm sorry about the extra mileage, Colton. But Jimmy doesn't drive or own a car. I know it's above and beyond, and I really appreciate this."

He gave her a hard look as they rolled up to a light. "That's not the problem. That part of town, Lila, where I picked you up. It's Crack Central, everyone who lives there is drugged out or desperate. What the hell were you doing there?"

Stung by his tone and annoyed by his answer, Lila snapped back. "Shopping? Working? Take your pick." She hadn't been in the projects, after all. The street wasn't one she'd like to live on, but why did he care? He was about the last person she wanted to see, and she sure didn't answer to him. The thrill of her find and the pleasure from her fast profit faded. They drove in silence. As she watched him out of the corner of her eye, a different sort of thrill took over.

The thrill of remembering how good sex had been with Colton. The thrill of remembering how it'd felt to tame the monster, until she'd remembered Pete. But Pete wasn't here, was he? Pete had been more reserved, sexually speaking. He'd never have agreed to have sex on the deck. He'd have been too worried about the neighbors.

Lila wasn't worried about her neighbors, not that they could have seen a thing. Those were the same neighbors who had known how afraid she was to leave Pete home alone after his seizures began, and had still driven right past her house on their way to the grocery store, not a single one stopping to ask if she needed bread or milk.

So why had she been avoiding Colton? He'd called and she had simply stared at the caller ID without picking up.

"You don't lock your doors, either."

"What?" Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't heard him. Big raindrops began to hit the windshield of the wrecker, beating a louder tattoo than her heart.

"The day we went to lunch, you left your doors unlocked. Today, you go to the worst part of town carrying cash, and you're damn lucky you didn't get beaten up and robbed. Or worse." He raised his voice to be heard over the loud cracks made by the fat drops on the windshield and the deep roll of thunder from the sudden spring storm.

She simply stared out the windshield, aware they were only a few miles from her house now, but cringing every time the brake lights flared on the car in front of them. Nothing he'd said required a response. She wanted him to concentrate on driving. Being in a moving vehicle in this kind of rain scared her to death. How he could see a thing was beyond her. She darted a glance at him again, horrified to see he had his wrist draped casually over the top of the wheel, his other hand clenched into a fist on his thigh.

"If you're so worried about my well-being, do you mind using both hands to drive?" she croaked, panic setting in as the rain roiled against the windshield in a pearly curtain of angry froth, seemingly just a bit more than the wipers could handle.

He turned his head slowly, eyebrows raised in disbelief. He glared at her so long she begged, "Colton, watch the road, please."

He rolled his eyes and grinned at her, but mercifully he turned his attention back to the road. As he pushed the wrecker through the storm at a speed she felt dangerous, she bit her lip to stay silent, but her terror intensified along with the storm. Pete had done this too, rushing through rainstorms like they were fucking liquid sunshine. She ground her teeth and gripped the padded arm rest tightly.

This was why she hadn't answered the phone. She absolutely did not want another man, she decided. Once they got in your pants, they thought they could tell you what to do. They laughed about the things that scared you. He probably had dirty laundry piled up too, waiting for some idiot like her to offer to wash them in return for some good, hard attention from the monster.

As he turned onto her street, she pried the truck key off her key ring, dropping in onto the seat between them. The sun popped out from behind the curtain of gray. Her wild cherry trees looked as if they were dripping in diamonds, and the baking heat releasing from the concrete teased tendrils of steam off her drive as her feet connected with solid ground. "Just get it running, and I'll have someone give me a ride to pick it up when it's ready. Add whatever you need to for the side trip, and thanks for the rescue." She heaved the heavy wrecker door closed and strode toward the back of the house. Damned if she'd go inside through the unlocked walk-through door to the garage and give him another thing to act superior about.