Teach Me a Lesson (13 page)

Smith slapped the table as if closing that discussion. “Now what do you think of Alexander’s proposal for a bond measure to build a new library?”

In an unfortunate accident, fire had gutted the elementary school library during the summer. Principal Alexander had designs for an entirely new library building that would include a computer lab. In theory, not a terrible idea. In practice, totally unnecessary. “The insurance payout covers a complete overhaul and the restocking of every damaged book. There’s no need to go to the voters for a bond.”

“But we need a computer lab.”

“Then don’t try to fool the taxpayers into believing the existing building isn’t usable or that the insurance won’t cover the costs of repairs and restocking.” The details were in the fine print of the bond proposal, but what the voters would hear was a sob story about the poor students who were without any books or resources. What hadn’t been publicized was that grade school students had been granted access to both the high school and middle school libraries for any research needs they might have in the interim. The arrangement had actually increased traffic through the libraries. All three schools were in basically the same complex, the elementary school on the other side of the football field and the middle school across the street.

“We’re not
fooling
anyone,” Smith stressed. “We’re simply seeking to upgrade our facilities.”

“There is no money.”

“Which is why we need a bond.” If approved, the measure would show up on the June ballot.

“But interest needs to be paid on a bond.” Did Smith need an economics lesson? Floating a bond wasn’t free. You got the money now, but you had to pay later.

“You’re standing in the way of progress, Hutton.”

He was standing in the way of bankrupting the school district, the county, and the state of California. “I’m not backing it,” he said unequivocally. “We don’t need it.”

Smith opened his mouth, closed it, rolled his lips between his teeth, then puffed them back out. He resembled a fish. “Let’s move on for now.” He smiled his politician’s smile. “Have you considered our last discussion?”

“Which part of it?” Lance knew which part.

“The school board needs a good man like you. It’s the next step. It would give you the chance to influence all these decisions. You’d have my full support in the election.”

Despite his battles with the board over issues like school uniforms and a gratuitous new library, Lance did not view becoming a member of the school board as an advancement. Being the principal, he protected his students from bad decisions. He was in the trenches with them daily. It was where he wanted to be, not out playing politician. And he was very good at influencing school-board resolutions right from the principal’s office.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Which was the same answer he’d given last month. And the month before that. He figured the only reason Smith wanted him on the board was because the man believed Lance would then be under his thumb. No way. He would never be anyone’s toady, and certainly not Smith’s.

The waiter arrived, cleared their plates, offered the dessert menu. Lance waved him away. “I need to return to school,” he told Smith. The lunch had gone on long enough, and the school was where he belonged. Of course, he’d need to make a few calls to the other board members, do a little backslapping and influencing of his own.

* * *

“THANK YOU FOR COMING TO SEE ME, ERIC.” CHARLOTTE SMILED
encouragingly.

“You’re welcome.”

Hmm. A polite boy, handsome, too, with blue eyes and blond hair cut relatively short. The only strike against him in the teenage world was his height. He couldn’t have been more than five-three. Being only a freshman, he would probably still have a growth spurt, but for now, he looked like he should be in middle school. He was dressed neatly in a blue shirt and jeans that fit, were free of holes, and hadn’t been washed so many times they were threadbare. Of course, kids could buy them that way right off the rack.

“Have a seat.” Charlotte closed the door and sat next to him.

“I know why I’m here,” he said. Charlotte’s office was warm and he removed his jacket, folding it on his lap. “Melody told me you’d be calling me in.”

Now that was unexpected. So they were actually talking.

“What did she say?”

“She said I could tell you whatever I wanted to, it didn’t matter to her. But I suppose you’re interested in why she poured the water on my head.”

He was direct, she’d give him that. “She said you called her Mudly.”

He laughed without a trace of humor. “I did.”

She knew there was far more to the story. “And?”

“My mom says you should turn the other cheek. But my dad says you can’t let people walk all over you”—he glanced at her and added—“my real dad, not my stepdad”—as if that made a difference. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to do both.”

It was a thoughtful statement that deserved a thoughtful answer. “To me, it’s a matter of using the politest possible terms to tell people when they do something wrong or hurtful.”

He smiled softly, and Charlotte liked him. He was a good kid, she knew it instinctively.

“I guess I wasn’t polite enough,” he said, looking through Charlotte’s half-closed blinds. “But she can be so mean, just picking and snapping and making a guy feel like an idiot. So I asked her why she was treating me like dirt.” He gave an eloquent teenage shrug. “Then I told her that maybe she really was Mudly just like everyone says.”

Despite the shrug, he wasn’t your typical teenage boy. She’d found the majority of students were closer to Melody on the communication spectrum, unwilling to talk candidly with an adult, unless it was about college or football. Which worked for her, since she normally counseled pupils on career choices and suitable universities. But it was as if Eric Collins had needed to talk and no one was willing to listen until now. She barely had to prompt him.

“I just wanted to talk to her this morning. Tell her I was sorry. I asked her if we could have lunch sometime.” He shook his head, as if the world of teenage girls totally baffled him. “And she got all uppity. She said she didn’t need my pity.” He looked at Charlotte. “That wasn’t why I asked her. But then she made me mad, and I said it was hard to pity someone who was a total bitch.” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “So she grabbed my backpack.”

Melody hadn’t lied about what happened. She’d merely said as little as possible. Maybe to her it was the truth. Eric had called her Mudly, and she’d dumped a beaker on him. He’d called her a total bitch, and she’d thrown his backpack on the ground.

“She never used to be like this. We were friends. She was nice. We’ve lived in the same neighborhood and been in the same class since my mom and stepdad got married. I . . . she . . . we . . .” He clamped his lips shut.

Charlotte leaned in. “You like her a lot,” she said softly.

“Used to,” he said with equal softness.

“Not anymore?”

“She makes it too hard.”

“You know, she might not even hear how bad it sounds when she’s snapping at you or making you feel like an idiot.”

He curled his lip slightly. “How could she not know?”

“Sometimes we’re in pain and that’s all we understand. We take everything that anyone else says the wrong way. We don’t see how bad our own behavior is.”

“I never said anything about her face. Not once. I didn’t even look at it. I pretended it didn’t exist. But that was never good enough for her. It was like she
wanted
me to say something.” He shook his head slowly. “Probably so she’d have a reason to slam me down.”

“Maybe she thought you didn’t know
she
existed anymore.”

He huffed out a great breath. “Well, a guy can only take so much, then he’s gotta stand up for himself.”

Jeanine Smith could take lessons from this kid. “Don’t give up on her yet.”

Eric looked at her, his eyes the deep blue of a cloudless sky. “I didn’t give up. She did.”

* * *

CHARLOTTE SAT AT HER DESK A LONG TIME AFTER ERIC LEFT. SHE
didn’t have another student meeting for half an hour.

When she was ten, she’d had a huge fight with her best friend, Sharon. They’d borrowed each other’s clothes, played dolls, swam in Sharon’s parents’ pool every day in the summer. They were inseparable at school, eating lunch together, sharing the same seat on the bus. Then one day, Charlotte had marched over to Sharon’s house and stuffed the shorts she’d borrowed into the mailbox. They didn’t speak for over a year despite the fact that they’d lived only half a block from each other and rode the same school bus every day. For the life of her, Charlotte couldn’t remember what the argument had been about. She simply remembered the birthday party they’d both attended one year later. Sharon had walked up to her, said hello, and suddenly they were best friends again, until Sharon’s family moved to Chicago.

When you were young, small things, an unkind word, a snarky remark, a thoughtless action, could seem so important. Charlotte snorted aloud. Hell, that happened even when you were old and should know better. The thing she remembered most was that she’d regretted the year she’d lost with Sharon. She’d missed all the games and the secrets and the laughter.

She didn’t want Melody and Eric to have that same regret.

“Are you daydreaming on duty, Miss Moore?”

Lance filled her doorway. The sight of him, big, solid, handsome, sexy, made her realize she didn’t want to regret missing a moment with him. It would come to an end soon enough—they were too different, incompatible, he was too old for her, et cetera, et cetera—but until then, she was going to savor each encounter.

“Fuck you, Principal Hutton,” she said softly enough to contain the word within the confines of her office.

He closed the door, just the way she’d hoped he would, and stood towering over her on the other side of the desk. She really did love his height. “On Tuesday it was lewd behavior in my office,” he began.

“Not to mention all that lewd behavior at Lookout Point.” She was feeling giddy with his scent permeating the small office.

He parted his jacket to jam his hands on his hips. “Lewd behavior, provocative attire, inappropriate language, Miss Moore, it’s beyond the pale.”

She wondered where the old expression had come from. “It most certainly is. I’m at your disposal for punishment tonight. What time shall I come to your house?”

“I’ll come to yours. At seven o’clock.”

Her stomach sank. “But—” Her house was teeny-tiny and hopelessly out of date compared to his.

“That way you can throw me out when we’re done.”

“What if you refuse to go?”

He smiled, a spark in his dark eyes. “That was one of your limits. I can’t very well ignore a limit since I told you to set them.”

What had she just been thinking? She didn’t want any regrets. She didn’t want to miss a moment. She didn’t want to look back on this short period and say
I wish I’d done this or that.

“Fine.” She leaned forward, grabbed a notepad. “Here’s my address. But don’t forget that at midnight you turn into a pumpkin and roll out of my house.”

She felt his laughter deep inside her chest long after he’d left.

11

LANCE HAD NEVER MET A WOMAN WHOSE COME-ON LINES WERE
fuck you
and
cocksucker
. But when Charlotte wanted sex—or punishment—she had a mouth her mother would have surely washed out with soap when she was a child.

Her home was in a tidy little neighborhood built in the late forties. The streets were laid out in a grid pattern and named after trees. Neat houses with clipped lawns and manicured hedges lined the sidewalks, and those that hadn’t been remodeled came from a time of one-car garages. An economy model he recognized as hers sat in the driveway. Her home was fronted by a stoop edged with flower pots and a bay window covered by lace curtains behind which she’d closed the blinds. He couldn’t see a thing inside.

She opened the front door before he rang the bell. His breath caught in his throat. Her sweet little rump was covered in the tightest pair of short-shorts imaginable, and the top bared her midriff almost to her bountiful breasts. Smith would have gone apoplectic and demanded school uniforms even for the staff.

Hand on the door, she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You accused me of provocative attire, but since I don’t recall wearing anything provocative, I thought I’d better make up for it.”

“Slut,” he muttered, infusing the word with heat that had nothing to do with anger or disgust.

“Why thank you, Principal Hutton.” She stepped back to let him in, then closed the door.

“What would you call your attire the other night if not provocative?” he said. “Nothing more than a coat and shoes, completely naked underneath.”

“You ordered me to wear it.” Her makeup was heavy, dark liner, penciled eyebrows, deep crimson lips. She was too sexy for words.

“You could have said no.”

“Then you’d have had to punish me even more.”

He advanced on her, backing her into the room. “Oh, Miss Moore,” he said softly, “I don’t need any extra excuses to punish you.”

She raised one brow and put a finger to his chest, holding him off. “This is my house, Principal. And my rules.”

The touch of her finger was like a brand. Though he towered over her, she held all the power. And he was sure she loved it. “I don’t recall that being part of the bargain.”

She smiled with those kissable crimson lips. “I must have forgotten to mention that. But I’ve got a plan for tonight.”

He realized then that candles flickered on the mantel. The fire was lit, probably in deference to the brevity of her outfit. She must have rearranged the furniture slightly because a chair didn’t face the TV, but was instead turned toward the sofa beneath the bay window. On a small table beside the chair, she’d set out a glass of wine, and next to that, a vibrator standing on its base.

His heart started to hammer in his chest.

“Sit,” she directed. “I hope you like white wine because it was all I had.”