Page 22 of The Hanukkah Hoax
It made his ever-looming presence at her back just then, and all his charming thoughtfulness, even more worrisome.
Marisa relished the distraction of her house key biting into her palm before she closed her eyes and turned to face him. “Why did you date her?”
When she’d finally worked out the words and he didn’t respond to them right away, she opened her eyes. Sure enough, the question that had been agitating her brain matter ever since they’d met had been flung, not at his stubborn chin but squarely between his pecs, which was all she could see of him until she looked up. Once she did, however, she instantly regretted it.
Alec’s jaw had sharpened into harsh angles that even the shadows found ways to skirt around. A steely somberness shook out the warmth in his eyes from earlier, and he shoved his hands—including the one that had just brushed her lower back—into his coat pockets.
“I think this needs to be talked about, given who and what we’re involved in,” Marisa said. “I don’t need particulars or anything, but I’m about to introduce you to my family. And even though my mother’s idea of social media still involves pulling out the slide projector during Passover, she’s not above Internet stalking. If there’s something that might . . . hurt me, even if you and I know what’s going on between us isn’t real, I’d still just rather be prepared for all of that, you know?”
“Marisa,” he said, though his features remained twisted into that disconcerted sadness. Funny. She’d never really imagined what shame would look like on such a proud Scotsman, but there it was, and it wasn’t pretty.
Which meant she really, really didn’t want to know and most definitely shouldn’t have asked.
“Never mind. It’s okay. I don’t have a right to know that stuff. I mean, I’ve known you for all of ten minutes. So, forget I ever said anything. We’ll figure it all out as it comes, I guess.”
“No,” he rushed out, pulling his hand free from his pocket and reaching toward her, but he stopped halfway there. “It’s not that. It’s just a bit?—”
Shrouded in shadows, three hulking figures slid out of the alley and headed toward them, drawing Alec’s attention. In the paltry glow of the pedestrian crosswalk light, all Marisa could make out were the towering heights and incredibly broad torsos that cut a menacing path through the darkness. They moved in an eerie synchronicity, with one man—a bald, thickly bearded fellow—assuming the lead while the other two fell in step behind him. Then they all stopped. The man in question swept his gaze along the sidewalk through the shadows, until it landed firmly on Marisa, who still had her keys in hand and her purse wide open.
The large man grunted, and all three headed toward her with singular stalking purpose.
Before Marisa could say anything, Alec grabbed her and threw her behind him. “Run. Get to the nearest open store. Anything with lights. Call the police. Now!”
She stumbled back slightly, nearly tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. When her head popped up, she kept trying to look over his shoulder, but he shifted just as quickly, keeping her out of sight of the approaching men. “Alec, wait!”
“Just run, woman!”
“I think she’s fine right where she is,” the man in the front said, chuckling heavily. “Besides, I have something for her.”
Then the head of the menacing trio advanced into the mild light of a nearby streetlamp.
There, tucked within the wide pocket of the man’s winter coat, was the indistinguishable outline of a?—
“He’s got a gun!” Alec cried before throwing her backward onto the sidewalk and lunging at the man.
Chapter 9
Alec had numbed himself beneath his fair share of ice packs in his day, but the clunky resealable snack bag Marisa handed him was a first.
An assortment of loose change, newly chilled from their temporary bout in the freezer, slid between the tracks of his fingers until they’d found a home on top of his swelling knuckles.
Had she really just given him bloody pocket pennies after he?—
“I still can’t believe you threw a punch. A punch! An actual, literal flying of fist into face. Why would you do that?” Marisa opened and closed cabinets with more ferocity than the injury that had landed him in the States. But it wasn’t until she’d slammed the cabinet shut above the stove that he truly felt it, not only in his clenched fingers but the back of his jaw as well.
Damn, the woman was angry, and if this was what an irate Marisa looked like, he’d do well to gird far more than just his fists.
Alec adjusted the—was he really meant to call this an ice pack?—bag and gentled his tone as best he could. “Because three threatening men cornered you outside your door in the dark,” he remarked wryly. “Forgive me if I didn’t wish to see your pretty head clobbered against the side of a building and all your money stolen.”
Marisa paused her frantic rummaging to regard him through sharp brown eyes that were rounder than the coins cooling his knuckles. Her gaze grew more introspective, as though just realizing how her circumstances would have looked to someone with more sinister interests.
Or to someone determined to protect her from those more sinister interests.
Alec took the opportunity to smooth away what fear he could. “I can see the anxiety ping-ponging behind your eyes. Regret doesn’t get paid by the hour, so best not give it so much airtime. We’re all fine. Besides, I must know”—he reached into the ice pack stand-in and pulled out a silver coin with a gold center—“what the hell kind of currency is this anyway?”
That thousand-yard stare of hers had just come back into focus, earning him a small smile of thanks—another bonny keepsake he’d managed to earn. She started up again with the drawer perusal. “A subway token. And it’s not regret that’s twisting me up. It’s reflection. Ugh. Absolutely nothing about tonight is going as I thought it would.” Then Marisa poked her head out of the kitchen and yelled, “Hey, Sid, did you find that antibiotic ointment yet?”
Sid, or Sid the Sparrow as Alec had come to learn, was a sturdy man with a shaved head, an impressive beard, and a preponderance of neck tattoos. He was one of three similarly costumed individuals who were not, as Alec had incorrectly assumed, street thugs intent on hurting Marisa. Instead, they were some of her closest friends.
