Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

call the police, let me tell you that I will call them first and tell them you're having a senior moment. You've done it before. They'll believe me. You know they will."

"Oh, all right, I won't call the police."

"Thank you."

"But I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. This is crazy, Marilyn. I just don't know what's got into you."

"I don't either, Mama, but I like it."

"I don't. You tell that boy to go home."

"When it's time for Eli to go, he'll go. Until then, it's not really any of your business, is it?"

"Marilyn--"

"I have to go, Mom. You should go to bed. You should have been in bed hours ago."

"How could I sleep for worrying about you? Marilyn, I just--

"I have to go, Mom." She hit the disconnect button on the cordless phone with a sigh.

"Hey, at least she cares," Eli said, watching her through half-closed eyes. "Some moms don't."

"I know." Marilyn laid the handset back in the cradle to recharge, then she disconnected the phone line. She didn't want the phone ringing before she was ready to get up. "She drives me absolutely nuts sometimes, but I know it's because she cares. I don't fit into the ideal daughter mold any more. I've gone off track, according to her, and she wants to shove me back on it."

"Ideal daughter?"

"You know--" Marilyn waved her hand in the air as she came back to sit in her chair. "Husband, kids, house in the suburbs with petunias out front. Nice little job to keep busy with while the kids are in school. And when the husband dies, nothing's supposed to change. Everything stays just the same in its nice little rut." She shrugged. "I had to get out of my rut. Mom doesn't understand that."

"Do you miss him? Your husband?"

She looked up at Eli. He leaned back in the chair, head against the wall, his broken arm cradled on his bare stomach, broken leg propped on the stool. His relaxed posture belied the intent watchfulness of his eyes. He really wanted to know.

Marilyn didn't understand why, but she didn't see any reason not to tell him. Except she wasn't sure what the answer was. "He was a big part of my life for a lot of years. But he's been gone four years now. My daughter went away to college last fall. I miss her more."

"But she can come home weekends."

She laughed. "Yes, but does she? College is much more interesting than her mother. Come on. Let's get you settled."

She had to help him into the bathroom, but Eli managed on his own from there. When he called her back in, he was stripped down to the black briefs again, his jacket hanging on the door hook with her nightgown, the jeans crumpled on the floor.

Eli looked different standing balanced in her bathroom in nothing but his underwear from how he had looked dressed the same way in the hospital. Maybe because he was upright, or maybe because he was in her house. He looked bigger, broader, inches taller than she was, the muscles well-defined on his lean form. She tried to focus on the purpling bruises marring his winter-pale skin. Instead, she noted the tracing of light brown hair across his chest from nipple to pierced nipple.

He met her gaze in the mirror's reflection and touched his swollen eye. "Look godawful, don't I?"

Marilyn had to agree. With one eye swollen shut, his mouth battered and bruised, more bruises marking his cheeks and jaw, he looked terrible. Nothing like the sharp-featured man who'd rescued her first. She wished kisses really could make it all better, because then she could do something to heal him. But only time would help.

"Come on." She put her arm around him, trying not to notice the smooth warmth of his skin. "Your bed awaits."

She put him on the right side of the bed so his good leg could swing out first. He was sleeping in the sling, so surely his broken arm wouldn't bump against anything. She brought him one of the pain pill samples he'd been given to last until they could get to a pharmacy and fill the prescription. He lay back after he swallowed it, watching her.

"Go to sleep," she said, pulling the sleeping bag out of the closet. She used it watching TV on cold nights. She wished for one of those instant inflatable mattresses, but the area rug would have to do. "I'm just puttering around."

"This is all there is, isn't it," Eli said. "I thought there was a bedroom behind one of those doors, but there's not."

"No, there's not." Marilyn turned on the light over the stove and turned off the rest of them, transforming the room into dim shadows.

"This is your bed. You're giving me your bed, aren't you? That's not right." He struggled to sit up and Marilyn pushed him back down.

"Of course it's right. You're hurt. You've got a broken leg, for heaven's sake, not to mention a broken arm. If you slept on the floor, how in the world would I ever get you back up off it?"

He shook his head, stubborn as ever. "It's not right, to put you out of your bed."

"Eli--" Marilyn sighed, exasperated, as his good leg came sliding out of the covers heading for the floor. She shoved it back where it belonged, not noticing the hard muscle under the crisp hair dusting his skin. Much. She sat down, pinning the covers in place to prevent him from trying it again. "You are sleeping right here. No more arguments."

"I'm not taking your bed," he repeated.

"This is getting us nowhere. I'm not arguing with you, Eli. You are sleeping in the bed and that's final."

"Then you sleep here too."

She blinked at him. Did he really just suggest that they share the bed? Eli looked a little surprised by what he'd said too, before that mule-stubborn expression came back.

"Why not?" he said. "It's a big bed. What is it--queen size? Plenty