Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (people reading books .txt) 📗

sling and cast were in the way. He could move them.

"I'll make you a deal," she said.

"Anything."

Marilyn paused and blinked up at him, a smile spreading slowly over her face. "Who was it said to be careful about issuing open invitations?"

Eli grinned back at her. "Long as you don't kick me out, babe, I'm all yours. Anything you want."

She smacked the back of his head. He was beginning to think of those light blows as love pats.

"I should know better than to think you might give that up," she said. "I've about decided that the only way you'll stop propositioning the nearest woman is if you're unconscious."

"Or dead," he agreed.

"Bite your tongue. I don't want to hear that word, dead." She capped the ointment, dropped it in the kit and went on. "It's like your brain is on autopilot. If there's a female handy, you open your mouth and a proposition pops out, even if you don't mean a word of it."

"If I didn't mean it, I wouldn't say it." Eli tried to hold her gaze, but she looked away. He went back what she'd said. "What's your deal?"

"I know you have to test yourself, see what you can and can't do as you heal. I'd like you to promise me you won't try anything new unless I'm there."

"So you can catch me in case I fall on my ass?"

Marilyn slanted a look at him. "It's not your ass I'm worried about."

"What do I get out of the deal? If I promise you, what do you promise me?" He didn't know why he asked or what he wanted, but he wanted something. Wanted more.

"I promise to catch you. And bite my tongue when you start doing something stupid."

He shook his head. "That's part of my promise--to let you catch me. And I don't care what you say. Your promise has to be different. Has to be something I want."

"Well, that leaves out sex, doesn't it?"

Instantly his body went hot and tight, zero to sixty in point five seconds. He never would have brought it up, certain she would not only refuse but probably kick him out if she thought for one second he was serious. But she was the one who brought it up, sounding like she honestly believed he didn't want it. Was she nuts?

"Marilyn--" Eli racked his brain for words to convince her of the truth, and the phone rang.

"Promise me first, Eli," she said, moving toward the phone.

"I promise. But you owe me one back."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Fine." She picked up the receiver and punched the button. "Hello? Oh, hi, Mom."

Marilyn put the phone against her shoulder as she plucked a T-shirt from his bag and tossed it to him. "And put on a shirt," she whispered.

"Hurts." He raised his arm to show her his scrape again. But that wasn't the reason he left it off. Not anymore.

Six

***

Marilyn's mom wanted a ride to the store. Marilyn had been gone maybe half an hour when Eli realized the phone he heard ringing wasn't on the television. He backed his chair into the corner and dug his cell phone out of the magazine basket.

"Court," he said. "Talk."

"Eli, is that you? Where are you?" Teresa's voice sounded high and thin. Scared.

"Around. What's up?" He wheeled to the sofa and dug the remote out of the cushions to mute the TV.

"Are you in Pittsburgh? What about Pete? Where is he?"

"He's safe. Talk to me, Tee. What's going on?"

"I need to find Pete. I want my son."

"He's safe. What about you, Teresa? Where are you?" The ache in his gut told him she wasn't where he'd left her.

"I want my son." Her voice rose in pitch, nearing hysteria.

"What do you want him for? What's going on?"

"Damn it, Eli, give me my son. He's my son. You can't keep him from me."

"He's my son, too, and I'm not going to let you trade him for a week's high like your mother did you."

Silence roared in his ear a long moment.

"I wouldn't-- I never--" Her protest came too slow, too full of stammers.

"Don't try to bullshit me, Tee. Where are you? At the shelter?"

"They hate me. I couldn't stay."

Eli closed his eyes in weariness. He had tried. Again and again, he'd tried, but some people carried their own destruction around with them. "They don't hate you. They have rules. Rules that help you. Keep you safe."

"I can't do rules. You know that. You gotta help me."

He could hear the desperation in her voice, the way he'd heard it so many countless times before. "I can't do that, Teresa. I told you. This time you brought Pete into it. If you don't stay where I put you, if you don't do what I said, I can't help you anymore. Didn't I tell you that?"

"But Eli--"

"Didn't I?" He pressed, needing her to believe him.

"Okay, yeah, that's what you said. But you didn't mean it. I know you didn't. You can't."

"I can. I do."

"But he's going to kill me if I don't tell him where Pete is. You gotta help me, Eli. You have to."

"Who's gonna kill you? Flash? He can't find his ass with a diagram and a flashlight." Not exactly true. Flash had a nasty nose for profit and a vicious streak that rivaled a cornered rat. Only Flash didn't have to be cornered.

"Eli, I'm scared."

"I know." He could feel himself softening, the way he did every damn time Teresa got herself into trouble. She was the mother of his son. He didn't love her. Never had, truth be told.

But he loved Pete. Loved him with everything he had in his crippled heart and blackened soul. He'd never known he could love anything so much, never thought it possible, before that tiny, reddened body had been placed in his arms seconds after his birth. Pete had blinked his big eyes up at Eli, his crying stopped, and Eli tumbled head over heels in love.

He'd barely been sixteen himself, but he'd sworn at that moment that