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

dictate the terms? One where she thinks she can blackmail me every time I do something that upsets her?" Marilyn started the engine, grateful for the warm-up time it needed. She needed to think this through before she had to drive.

"I don't think I want that, Eli. She's eighteen. She's left home. She doesn't live there anymore, not really. I've got, what? Twenty, maybe thirty good years ahead of me while she's out living her own life. That's a lot of years. Do I want to live the rest of my life according to someone else's whims? Even if that someone else is my daughter?"

"You don't want to lose her."

Tears welled up in Marilyn's eyes. "God, no. You know I don't. But Eli, would it be any better if I lost myself? What kind of mother would I be then?"

The car was warming up so the tears didn't freeze, but she didn't want Eli to see them. She didn't want to cry them. Angrily she wiped them away.

"I hate this!" She tried to shout away her frustration. "I hate everybody issuing ultimatums. I'm sick to death of it."

Eli nodded, listening, waiting to hear what else she had to say. His presence soothed her. She took a deep breath, calming herself down. "Maybe that's why I like you so much."

"Like you said, whatever you decide, I'm there."

His words coated her wounded soul like some magic balm, the kind that actually did all the things the hucksters promised. And just like that, her mind was made up.

"Then you're here." Marilyn backed out of the tight slot. "With me. I don't pay blackmailers, no matter who they are. Julie's problem with you is her problem, not mine."

"You're sure?"

When she looked, Eli was staring down at his hands, picking at the scarred plaster where the handcuff had marked the cast.

"I'm sure. Let's see where this goes. No regrets." She paused at the end of the parking row to look at him again.

This time he was looking back, his pale eyes so intense they made her shiver. "No regrets."

The next few days passed in a blur of guilt and delight for Eli. He couldn't believe Marilyn had chosen him over family, and the guilt over it bothered him. Her delighted response to his every kiss soothed away most of the bother. Never once did she turn him away. If she had a headache, she wanted him to rub her neck, which inevitably turned into a full body massage, which inevitably turned into the kind of sex that required remaking the bed before any sleeping could be done.

He had a few bigger twinges of guilt when Marilyn called her mom to yell at her for calling Julie, and her mom hung up on her the second she learned Eli was still there. And when Marilyn called her brother to ask him to talk some sense into Julie, Eli thought about loading up the Harley and taking off. That thought lasted until Marilyn hung up and wanted him to hold her. As long as she wanted to be held, he would stick around to do it.

He didn't forget the situation with Pete and Fitz either. He spent half of every day racking his brain for a solution to the problem. It wasn't that he didn't want to keep the kid himself. But could he? Without screwing up?

Marilyn seemed to think he could. Maybe so. With her help.

If she was around to catch his mistakes, tell him when he was doing something wrong. Maybe, once his casts came off, he'd talk to her about it. Maybe.

Detective Jackson called one day to let them know that Flash had been picked up and was being charged with possession of the narcotics he'd had on his person at the time and would be charged with murder as soon as the DA had all the ducks lined up. They didn't have all the evidence collected and analyzed yet, but now that they'd found the other crime scene--the place where Teresa had been murdered--it was only a matter of time. Eli didn't tell Marilyn about that part of the conversation, just about Flash getting arrested.

He was going through the Yellow Pages, making a list of cycle and engine repair shops, places he could look for work once he had two hands again, when his phone rang.

"Court here. Talk."

"Eli?" Pete's voice sounded quavery, scared.

"Yeah, squirt, what's up?" Eli forgot to sound cool or confident when every muscle in his body tensed up. The last time Pete sounded this way was when he'd called to tell Eli about the scary men coming to bother Teresa. And now Tee was dead.

"It's Mr. Fitz. Something happened to him--a heart attack or something, I think."

"What happened? Is he okay? Are you okay? Where are you?"

"The hospital. They let me ride in the ambulance with him. I called 9-1-1 when he fell down. I don't know anything else..."

"Good. You did good. But you're okay, right?"

"They said somebody had to come get me."

"Okay, kid. Stick tight. I'm on my way. Don't go anywhere, hear me? Don't let anybody take you anywhere. You tell 'em your dad's coming to get you and he's coming there to the hospital. Okay, Pete? You got me?"

"Yeah. Okay."

"What are you supposed to tell them?" Eli needed to know Pete understood.

"My dad's coming to get me and I can't go anywhere."

"Good. Hang in there, Pete. I'll be there fast as I can." Eli hung up the phone and whirled to find Marilyn holding out his coat, her own already on and buttoned.

"You don't have to go," he said.

"Yes, I do." She grinned at him. "You don't want the police stopping you again, right?"

Eli had to smile back, grim as he felt. "Right. Thanks."

On the way down in the elevator, she asked the question he'd been dreading. "Where do we go to pick up Pete's dad?"

"Nowhere." He beat her out of the elevator. "I'm Pete's father."

They were through the tunnel and heading north through town