"Noble of you. Which one's yours?" What did she mean by that "Sometimes I wonder" crack? Was she suicidal?
The woman blinked and paused to look around. Then she pointed back the way they'd come and across the street. "There. The white one."
"That barge?" Eli's eyes widened as he saw the elderly vehicle, a wide, squared-off luxury car from a dozen or so years back. Maybe she wasn't quite as foolish as he'd thought. Nobody'd steal that car, even here.
He escorted her across the street and waited while she unlocked the door. But instead of opening it, she turned back to face him.
"Thank you," she said, offering her hand. "I suspect I owe you a great deal more than mere thanks. I wish--"
"Thanks is more than I expected."
Eli pulled his hands back out of her reach. He wanted to take her hand, wanted to hold it in his and the wanting felt too weird. He looked at her outstretched hand, needing to lighten things up. "Better just go. Whoever heard of a mom shaking her son's hand?"
She smiled then, a twinkly-eyed grin. "You're right. Whoever heard of that?" Before he could react, she cupped his cheek in her hand, leaned forward and kissed his other cheek.
"My name is Marilyn," she murmured in his ear, lingering close enough he could feel her warmth against his chilled face. "Don't call me 'mom.'"
With a pat of his cheek and another twinkly smile, Marilyn got in her car and drove away, leaving Eli staring after her.
What was wrong with him? He felt hot and cold at once, his insides all churned up, both body and mind out of whack. How could a touch and a kiss on the cheek, for Chrissakes, get him so stirred up? She had to have ten years on him, minimum.
What was wrong with her? Didn't she have any sense of self-preservation? Why didn't she turn up her nose? Sneer? Didn't she know bad news when she saw it? Why in hell would she kiss him? Was she that hard up?
Couldn't be. She was probably on her way home right now to the guy she married right out of high school. Off to fix a big pot roast and sit down around the table with the kiddies--three at least--and talk about "what did you do today dear?" And she'd tell them about the guy who saved her by pretending to be her son, and they'd all laugh, and her husband would tell her he didn't want her coming down here anymore, it was too dangerous, and she'd smile and say "you're right, dear," and she would stay home in her suburb where she was safe.
And Eli wouldn't have to worry about seeing her again or what to do with his hard-on if he did. He could stop wondering if she would tell them about kissing him and wondering why she did it, because it wouldn't matter. She'd be gone. It wasn't like it was a real kiss anyway.
Eli turned up the collar of the coat and walked back up the street to the bar where the guy he was looking for hung out.
What an interesting young man. Marilyn Ballard cranked up the heat in her car and turned the fan to low to wait for the engine to heat up as she headed for the freeway. He could have joined the others in stealing her purse or tried to take it after chasing them off. Instead he'd escorted her politely to her car. A regular knight in black leather.
Why had he chosen her as his damsel to rescue? Marilyn stopped at the light and hit the auto-lock button. Just in case. Her knight might not appreciate his damsel-rescuing being wasted if somebody decided to carjack her. The conceit amused her, though her laughter never reached surface. Her knight indeed. Still, he was an attractive young man, in a hard-edged, "rebel-without-a-cause" sort of way.
He had been absolutely flummoxed when she kissed him. Amusement swept over her again as the light turned green. He'd probably thought she was just an average suburban housewife, someone who always did the expected thing, the "right" thing. Three months ago, he'd have been correct. But lately, she'd taken a kind of perverse delight in doing the unexpected. Shocking people had become her greatest pleasure.
The trickle of air flowing over her feet began to feel warm and Marilyn clicked the fan up a notch as she made the turn toward the onramp and accelerated onto the freeway. She unbuttoned her coat and reached inside to pull her scarf free. But it wasn't there, looped around her neck. She reached deeper into her coat, groped down her back and finally pulled over to the side and stopped to search more carefully.
Her scarf wasn't anywhere. Not in her purse, her pockets or slid down into a sleeve. Marilyn fought down her panic. It was stupid to be so attached to what was nothing more than a length of cloth. It had no magic powers, wasn't even particularly valuable, though it was cashmere. But Bill had given it to her for Christmas four years ago. Their last Christmas together, only days before he'd driven into a fatal encounter with a trucker twelve hours past his designated rest stop.
She pulled back into a traffic lane and hunted for an exit. It was more than a mile before she found one and was able to get off and turn around. She must have left the scarf at the center. She had a key. She could park in the alley right beside the back door and find her scarf before anyone knew she was there. Okay, so it was crazy. Stupid, even. But she couldn't go home without the scarf. If it was crazy, so be it.
The street was empty where she'd been accosted, lights shining dim through the heavily curtained windows of the tall, skinny row houses. The storefront Youth
