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

hand past Eli to her brother and he covered it with his. Eli didn't want to interfere with this sibling bonding, so he simply slid his good hand onto the table, ready for an opportunity.

"Grief is normal," Mom said. "I know about grief. Haven't I grieved in my life? Of course you're going to mourn. You lost your husband. You lost--"

Marilyn's head whipped around to her mother quick as a striking snake. Eli couldn't see her expression, but whatever it was, it was enough to shut Mom up. Why? What had Mom been about to say?

"But it's normal, Marilyn." Mom's silence lasted only a second or two. "This--this whatever you're doing now, it's not normal. Moving out of a perfectly good house into a box barely big enough to turn around in is crazy. Quitting a perfectly good job to flit around taking silly classes is crazy. Tutoring juvenile delinquents in a place where you could get mugged every time you walk to your car is crazy. Letting some strange man half your age move into your apartment and sleep in your bed is beyond crazy. It has to stop, Marilyn. It has to stop now."

"Why?"

Eli could hear the tears in Marilyn's voice, in the single word she spoke. He turned his hand over and insinuated it beneath hers where it lay covered by Joey's hand. Her hand lifted, letting him in, then gripped him tight.

"Why does it have to stop?" she demanded. "If it makes me happy, if it makes me feel sane and alive again when I haven't felt any of those things in so long--in years, Mom--why should I stop? Because of how it looks to other people? Who cares?"

"I care," Mom said. "We all care. About you, Marilyn."

"No, you don't." The tears were falling now. "If you did, you wouldn't have waited so long to show it. You wouldn't be acting like this now." Marilyn shook her head. "I'm sorry. I can't take any more of this. Come on, Eli. We're leaving."

She stood and left the dining room. Eli backed from the table, then paused.

"I won't let you hurt her anymore," he said. "If you need a ride to the store, Marilyn's mom, you call somebody else. She's not coming home again half-sick from the things you say to her. She's great just like she is, but you're all worried about how things affect you. Was it really like she said, after her Bill died? Nobody looked after her?"

He looked from one of Marilyn's relatives to the next. They all looked away, or else failed to meet his gaze at all. Except for Mom who glared at him like always.

"Well, I'm looking after her now," he said. "You can say whatever you want about me. Most of it's probably true. I deserve whatever I get. Marilyn doesn't. She's a good person. People like her don't come along very often. Believe me, I know. And I intend to protect her. From anyone I have to, in any way necessary. I will not let anything hurt her. Not anything."

Once more he tried to look Marilyn's family in the eye, and succeeded this time, taking satisfaction in their expressions of mingled surprise, alarm, and chagrin. Except, of course, for Mom who looked angrier than ever. And Joey, who looked surprised and pleased.

"Eli?" Marilyn's voice behind him made him back slowly from the table till he had room to turn his chair.

She was holding his coat, already wearing her own. He leaned forward and let her help him into it, then they proceeded out of the room, the sound of Joey's solo applause echoing behind them.

Their dramatic exit from the house was altered somewhat by the comic relief created in getting Eli and his wheelchair off the front porch. The direct reverse of the operation that got him onto the porch, it seemed twice as awkward, three times as laughable as the earlier balancing and thumping and clanking and hopping.

"That was fun," Marilyn said, as they started back down to her car, the brake on his wheelchair squealing as it slowed his speed on the slight slope.

"We'll have to do it again sometime." Eli winced at the screech but didn't dare let up on the brake. The street got steeper ahead. "Is five years too soon?"

Marilyn smiled, even as she shot him another one of her sharp, sidelong looks. "You won't be here in five years."

"I'll come back." He would, he realized. Marilyn had somehow become that important to him.

She had placed herself on the very short list of people he would come back for, from anywhere, for any reason. He would do whatever he had to in order to make sure she had what she needed, whether it was support in family situations or protection in bad neighborhoods. The only other people on that list were Pete and Fitz. Teresa had been on it once, but she'd been taking herself off for the last few years.

It didn't mean he was in love with her or anything. He'd never been in love with Teresa, so why would he be in love with Marilyn? But she was important. She mattered. That was enough.

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Marilyn got in the car after stowing the wheelchair in the back seat.

"I never do."

"Not ever?"

"Nope."

Marilyn studied him a long moment before she started the car. "You're telling me that you've kept every promise you ever made?" Outrageous as the claim seemed, she didn't find it that hard to believe.

"Every single one." He met her gaze, held it. Something in the back of his pale eyes, like heated steel, made her shiver. Made her think that she didn't want to know what some of those promises might have been.

She turned away, put the car in gear and started down the hill. "You don't have to protect me from my family."

"No?" He sounded skeptical, casual. Like it didn't matter whether he believed her or not.

"They're my family."

"That means they can hurt you worse. Because