A Drive-By Wedding

She waited a few beats. “Where have you shopped while you’ve lived here?”

“Corner liquor store, corner grocery store, corner pharmacy.”

Allyn cleared her throat, trying hard not to laugh at how disgruntled he sounded. “I see.”

“I doubt it,” he assured her darkly. Then he sighed, checked the Saturn’s side mirrors and switched lanes, zigzagging through the city toward the expressway where he hoped to find an exit labeled Shopping.

Chapter 3

They stopped fourteen miles from Baltimore at a super-store in Ellicott City.

After a fair amount of negotiation over who would go in, Allyn bundled Sasha into the smallest zip-front sweatshirt she had with her. Then all three of them went into the store.

This was what he’d wanted when he’d started out this morning, wasn’t it? Jeth thought. A woman whose mother tiger instincts would come straight to the fore once she took a look at Sasha? He simply hadn’t bargained on finding one who was quite so…uniquely qualified to hand him his head and stir up his senses at the same time.

Or quite so enthusiastic about helping him shop.

As Jeth watched, Allyn spent a fair amount of his cash on hand with a certain flair he found both impressive and frightening—as though she’d been trained by a take-no-prisoners master in the art of procurement. Other than for staples, he shopped as infrequently as possible.

But when she headed into the men’s department, Jeth had the most disturbing sense that he was doomed.

In the parking lot, she’d ransacked his duffel bag, then her suitcases in search of something to diaper Sasha in. What she found had made her roll her eyes and tsk disgustedly at him.

“What?” he’d asked, feeling a certain impatience and paranoia to be moving—and also feeling suddenly daunted by the fact that she found his wardrobe wanting.

She’d blinked at him. He looked at her eyes and was suddenly more afraid of her than of the people from whom he’d retrieved Sasha. Because what he saw there told him better than anything she’d yet done that she was not some timid flower he’d plucked on a whim; she was the wind that blew the flower.

“These all the clothes you’ve got with you?”

“Yeah. You got a problem with it?” Oh, good, be belligerent. Show her the tough guy. Intimidate the hell out of her.

Yeah, right. As if. Instead of being either intimidated or impressed, she’d offered him exaggerated patience.

“How far do you plan to travel with me ’n’ Sasha?” A two-beat pause, then she did a little fishing. “Or at least since you’ve already said you don’t trust me, I presume you’re not planning to let me go until this thing of yours comes to some sort of resolution?”

He bit down on his temper, at once wanting to strangle her and, surprisingly enough, kiss her until she couldn’t speak.

He gritted his teeth against the unwanted impulse. Blast, in one way or another this entire trip was going to be hell, he just knew it. “As far as it takes to make sure I can keep him safe. And no, even though you’re the most annoying woman I’ve ever car jacked, I’m not letting you go any time soon.”

“You’ve car jacked other women?” Innocent. Unremittingly interested.

God save him, he was definitely going to kill her. “No.” The patience he had to exert in order to say it calmly was galling. “You’re my first and my only.”

“Oh.” Clearly, if cheekily, charmed. “What a nice thing to tell a girl.”

Understanding for the first time that the only way to win here was to remain silent, Jeth crossed his arms and stared at her.

She pursed her lips and stared back, giving him a look that stated as clearly as words, You’re behaving like a child. Cut it out. You’re the one who kidnapped me so I could help you—now don’t give me dense. “You do have a destination in mind?”

“Yes.” The paranoia of his experiences of the past several weeks caused him to glance about, looking for enemies, to not want to tell her more than he had to. He hadn’t really intended to tell her anything at all; she was simply to have been a tool. Not to mention that the less she knew, the safer she’d be.

“Jethro,” she said patiently, mildly.

“Jeth,” he snapped. “I don’t care how much my mother liked Max Baer. I’m neither a Beverly Hillbilly nor a Clampett.”

Her turn to stare at him somewhat nonplussed but waiting, tapping her fingers on the car door. As though he was the one wasting the time here, not her.

“Fine.” He shut his eyes, unwillingly granting her another win. “I’m taking him home.”

“Tucson?” she asked.

“Close enough.”

“Family on vacation?” she guessed, taking his plan a step further than he’d taken it himself.

Surprised at how easily she made it fall into place, he’d nodded cautiously.

“Okay.” She’d pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay. Now we know you’ll need stuff, too, and I know how to shop.”

And that had been that. They had two shopping carts full of toddler supplies that were certain to deplete his hastily scraped together escape fund, and she was off to buy him clothes, too. When he tried to talk her out of the extra purchases, she canted her head and eyed him with more of that apparently trademark patience.

“We’re a family on vacation?” she’d repeated, automatically rearranging the sweatshirt around Sasha while she looked at Jeth.

Just somebody’s mom discussing something mildly irritating with somebody’s dad.

Jeth’s jaw tightened with the unsought observation. No, hell, no. He was playing a role, and she’d done stage work in college maybe, understood theater, too. And yet…

Deliberately he ignored the sensation of rightness that scurried through him with the mom-dad-baby image, instead gladly noting that Sasha seemed to be responding to whatever it was Allyn was doing for him and was more with it than before. Marcy would have liked her. If Marcy could have met her. “That’s the idea.”

“Well, then,” Allyn said, as if that explained everything. When she saw that it didn’t, she elaborated, “I have a full two weeks’ worth of luggage, Sasha’s now outfitted for travel, but you look like you’re on the run. How safe will any of us be if people don’t see what they expect to see?”

Jeth paled, once again jolted by her seemingly instant insights. “What?”

“How safe—”

“I heard you. Where’d you learn that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“What undercover school did you go to, and where’s your badge?”

“Don’t have one.” She smiled, a flash of slightly crooked teeth in a small mouth bordered by dimples. He found himself suddenly and dangerously captivated by her mouth, fascinated equally by its shape as by what came out of it. “I just listen to my mother and read undercover non-fiction a lot. Makes a break from studying sharks and coral reefs and things like that. Now, what kind of underwear do you like, boxers or briefs?”

At that, and in spite of himself, Jeth nearly lost it. Before Marcy’s death and even before he’d arrived in Baltimore his sense of humor had been excellent, but lately it had been a tad…lacking. Obviously such would not be the case for long with Allyn Meyers around—regardless of the circumstances under which he’d forced their meeting.

“Boxers,” he managed to say, strangling on laughter. Lord, yes. Marcy would have had a ball with her and so would the rest of his siblings. The thought almost made him sober; the kidnappee with the odd sense of humor didn’t offer sobriety a chance to take root.

“Ah,” Allyn said, plainly pleased, leading the way to the section of apparel in question. “A man who intends to have children—unless you already have children?”

Laughter wheezed out of him, astonishment edged with painful humor. God, she was killing him, and the worst of it was, he was pretty sure he’d be more than happy to let her.

Especially if she continued to go about it like this.

“No. No children,” he said when he could speak. “No wife. No anything.” And no intention of ever having either, of getting close enough to anyone who could be taken away from him again.

“Probably a good thing,” Allyn said. “I can already see where you might be hell on a relationship of that sort.”

He should have been beyond amazement by now, but he wasn’t. “Do you always talk to strangers like this?”

“Only those who car jack me,” she told him, at the same time she supervised him to make sure he added an adequate number of boxer shorts to her cart. “Then I find it’s mandatory not to let them think they’ve ever got the upper hand. Take them by surprise, that’s what my stepfather says, keep them off balance, make them think you’re one with them. Makes it so much easier to get away when they won’t listen to reason and just take your car without you in it.”

With which pronouncement she left Jeth standing openmouthed in the aisle behind her while she sashayed ahead of him to men’s jeans.

He had to admit that, bust-him-in-the-chops personality or not, she had one hell of a spectacular sashay.

She floored him only once more during their shopping expedition. She stopped in front of the jewelry counter, looked at the wedding rings, then leaned into him for all the world like an excited wife who’d gone too long without and whispered for his—and the sales clerk’s—ears only, “It’s been almost three years since we eloped. We can afford them now, can’t we, honey?”

Torn between mirth and total disbelief, Jeth could only nod. Even as briefly as he’d known her, he should have realized that if she’d decided to play the part of family on vacation, she’d play it to the hilt, wedding rings and all.

With the two thoughts, Talk about one-stop shopping, and Judas, what have I gotten myself into?—which seemed to be his mantra of the day—he helped Allyn choose slim silver rings formed into Celtic knots, then on his own chose a small but lovely sapphire engagement ring that surprised genuine delight out of her and fit very neatly on her finger atop her wedding ring.

When she turned, raised herself on tiptoe and planted a shy kiss on his cheek, it was all Jeth could do to maintain his rather shaky equilibrium.

Allyn’s obvious giddiness over the unexpected addition of the engagement ring not only dumbfounded Jeth—who wanted to ask her about it then and there, but managed to refrain—but seemed to tickle the salesclerk, who mouthed, genuinely pleased for them, “Nice,” at Jeth over Allyn’s head, then offered them both congratulations and best wishes, and told them the rings would be waiting for them at the service desk when they were through shopping.

In the checkout line it appeared to be all Allyn could do to wait to get her hands on the rings once again—especially the sapphire—and Jeth could only watch her animated face and hope that maybe this trip he’d inadvertently arranged for them wouldn’t be complete hell after all.

When the cashier rang up nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise, he paid without any reluctance whatever.

Allyn couldn’t believe he’d thought of adding in the sapphire on his own.

More than that, she couldn’t believe she’d kissed him over a darned ring. For God’s sake, the man had stolen her, scared her, made her angry and ruined her vacation plans barely a couple of hours ago, and she’d kissed him?

His cheek was warm and bristly beneath her lips, with a slightly salty aftertaste—the result of his jog, she guessed. She’d liked the feel of it.

She’d also liked the feel of him when she’d leaned into him, stretched against him to kiss his cheek. That visceral recognition she’d experienced when she’d first seen him running at the side of the road was there in the flesh, enticing, hot.

And more than a little electrifying. And she knew all this because of one small, oval-cut sapphire circlet that now perched snugly on the third finger of her left hand.

She couldn’t help it. For reasons she could neither fathom nor have expected, Allyn saw Jeth differently than she had earlier. Perhaps that was normal. They’d spent a little time together. They’d shared an argument or two. They shared a single goal in the life of a lost child. But none of that really accounted for this.

When she’d paused at rings and considered the silver ones, she’d done so because silver wasn’t as expensive as gold, the idea of having matching rings had a practical side, she’d always loved playacting, and this little car jacking of Jeth’s was turning into her idea of theater of the finest kind. Also, her mother’s stories of how she had met Gabriel and forged a life with him had taught Allyn that sometimes desperate people did scary things for the right reasons. And although Allyn found herself having difficulty imagining Jeth’s alleged pursuing dangers as reality, she was having a grand time with everything else.

Of course, if Jeth had turned out to be a really badly dangerous guy…well, she was up hell’s creek. But at the moment she was going to fully enjoy the first ring any man—or even any boy—had ever chosen and given her. She’d cross hell’s creek when she came to it.

Now if only Sasha was all right.

She’d wanted to find a doctor for him first, but had settled for the shopping spree instead because, as she’d suggested to Jeth, if Sasha was cleaned up and they looked like a normal family on vacation, then they could visit any pediatrician and be found unremarkable in the extreme.

Unless, as Jeth pointed out darkly, the little boy was suffering from some extreme illness, or drugging, or abuse other than malnutrition that neither of them could see.

Which made it Allyn’s turn to point out that Jeth reminded her of her aunt Edith, the family disaster-monger. With Jeth’s black hair and looks and her brown hair and obvious Irish ancestry, it was quite apparent Sasha hadn’t actually been born to either of them. In which case he had to be adopted, recently and directly out of Russia.

Which meant, in Jeth’s estimation, that any doctor they saw in a small town in Maryland was sure to remember them clearly.

Unless, Allyn argued, they only told the story if they had to.

Since Jeth was equally as concerned about Sasha as she was, he conceded the round—reluctantly. Then he elicited a promise from her that if it began to look like they were going to have to tell a story, she would follow his lead, just in case he came up with something a whole lot less memorable on the spur of the moment. Because he, after all, was the one who’d come up with the rest of this…whatever this was on the spur of the moment and look how well it had worked so far.

His self-congratulatory tone made Allyn snort inelegantly, but keep her peace when he eyed her a dark admonishment of yeah, yeah, get over it and don’t remind me.

After a quick stop to pick up traveling grocery staples, they started searching for a doctor. Since it was Sunday, a doctor was difficult to find.

“Why don’t we ask someone?” Allyn said finally.

“Ask?” Jeth countered, teasing, continuing to drive. “For directions?”

“Cut the guy comedy,” Allyn told him firmly. “You don’t know where you’re going, and it’s for the good of the baby. Besides, we have to stop somewhere anyway so I can wash Sasha up and change his clothes so he looks like somebody cares about him.”

The moment the words were out, she wanted to take them back; Jeth looked unaccountably stung. “I care,” he muttered.

“I didn’t mean you,” she told him truthfully. “Or at least not since you let me buy all that stuff for him—and you.”

Ah, there it was, Jeth reflected ruefully. One of the benefits of shopping with a woman like there was no tomorrow: guys didn’t do it unless they cared.

Allyn returned full swing to her original conversational path. “Not only could Sasha use a bath, but a little soap and water wouldn’t hurt you, either. Fear and jogging don’t mix very well in a small car. Which means if we stop, everybody gets clean, you and I get some breakfast and coffee, you ask for directions…”

“Or you can ask for directions.”

“I don’t have any problem asking for directions,” Allyn said. “You’re the one who’s afraid I’ll tell someone you kidnapped the baby and me at gunpoint and they’ll call the police and it’ll all be over.”

“You won’t tell anyone anything,” Jeth said flatly. “You’ve decided you don’t mind being in this situation because it’s exciting and not your ordinary life, whatever that is, and you don’t believe anything could really happen to any of us, that this is some great fluke of an adventure that’ll work out just fine for all of us. I just hope you’re right.”

Allyn swallowed and stared at him. It was okay for her to take him by surprise, but not for him to have figured her out so easily. Heck, she couldn’t even usually figure herself out that easily. If she’d thought about it, the sense of familiarity between them, the idea of feeling comfortable with him after so short a time and under such circumstances would have scared her a lot more than the gun he’d pressed against her ribs earlier.

“Say you’re right,” she said carefully. “Then what?”

Something in the way she asked made him smile. “Then we stop at a fast food place for a quick cleanup and some breakfast and you ask for directions.”

Allyn viewed him suspiciously. “Does that mean you’ve decided to trust me or that you’re keeping your ego intact?”

Jeth merely grinned at her and drove.

After changing, breakfasting and asking for directions, they found what they were looking for in a twenty-four-hour ambulatory emergency care center.

Though still pale and groggy, Sasha looked like a different child, one who had someone looking after him.

Even half out of it as he was, he clung to Allyn’s neck and sobbed when the nurse and physician on duty tried to look at him, so neither thought to question her maternity; it was clear to whom Sasha belonged. While Jeth stood in the background, out of the way, Allyn rubbed the youngster’s back and held him gently so the doctor could look in his ears, at his throat and nose and probe his neck, abdomen and listen to his breathing.

“How long has he been like this?” the doctor asked, motioning for Allyn to hold Sasha up so he could use the stethoscope against the whimpering child’s back.

“A couple of days,” Jeth said, before Allyn could think of a response. “We’re on vacation, and he came down with a fever. We stopped at a clinic in Maine. Even though they gave him some medication and us a prescription for him, he’s been like this ever since. We’re on our way home, but we’ve still got a ways to go, and he’s not improving.”

The doctor nodded. “Probably a combination of a high fever, some dehydration and something in the other prescription he was allergic to. Do you have it with you?”

“No,” Allyn said quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it.”

The doctor made a sound of disapproval. “Hard to prescribe something new for him if I don’t know what he’s already got in his system.”

“He hasn’t had any medication since yesterday morning,” Jeth said positively. The look he turned on Allyn said, I know this for a fact, I watched him. “Does that help?”

“Should. Anything he had is probably pretty much out of his system by now.” He probed Sasha’s ribs and stomach. “Has he been eating?”

Jeth shook his head. “Not much. Hard to get anything into him.”

Allyn looked at her make-believe husband with approval. For a guy who didn’t seem to know anything about kids, he spun a pretty good story.

“We’ve tried Popsicles, ice cream, anything we can think of,” she said, “He just shoves it away.”

“Well,” the doctor said, “we should be able to take care of that. The nurse will give him a little something that should perk up his appetite, but you’ve got to get fluids into him or your next stop will be a hospital to get him IVs. You folks have insurance?”

Again Jeth shook his head regretfully. “Not yet. Headed into a new job. Old insurance cut out, new one hasn’t picked up yet.”

The doctor nodded, wound his stethoscope and put it in his pocket. “I’ll give you some samples of the medication I want you to give your son for the next few days. Don’t worry, I think he’ll be fine, but have him checked by your own physician when you get him home.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Allyn said gratefully.

“No sweat. Go ahead and get him dressed. The nurse will be right in with his shot.”

Jeth and Allyn waited until he left before giving vent to sighs of relief.

“He’ll be okay,” she said, hugging Sasha.

Watching her, Jeth understood for the first time that morning how fortunate he’d been. Somehow, some way, and pushing aside all Allyn’s stubborn oppositeness, he’d been guided to car jack the right person to help him help Sasha. “He might not have been if we hadn’t stopped.”

She looked at Jeth, a simple glance with eloquent thoughts behind it. “But we did.” Impulsively she held out her newly beringed hand to him; he hesitated, but when she didn’t drop it, allowed himself to cover her hand with his. “Thank you,” she said.

Inside Jeth’s chest, something tightened and made it hard to breathe. What kind of woman thanked the man who’d car jacked her—even if he had done so for real, if unthought out, reasons?

“I—” He paused, uncomfortable. “After the morning I’ve given you, I don’t know what to say to that.”

She laughed, the sound warm and rich, wholesome and unbelievably intimate within the confines of the examining room. For the second time that day she reached up and planted a kiss in the vicinity of his chin. “Say you’re welcome,” she advised. “It’s all the response you’ve got.”

Her mouth hovered dangerously, easily close to his. Sliding his arm around her waist, hauling her into him suddenly seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. “You’re welcome,” he whispered—and dragged himself from the brink of sure disaster only at the sound of the examining room door sliding into the wall and the nurse stepping into the room.

“Sorry,” the nurse said, clearly amused.

“Not necessary,” Jeth said quickly. He stepped to the door. “How ’bout I go settle up out front while you finish in here?”

He didn’t wait for Allyn’s response before he left.

“Big baby,” Allyn said affectionately for the nurse’s benefit as well as to cover her own confusion. Gee, holy crikey. She’d kissed him again. She’d practically invited him to kiss her. What on earth was going on inside her today? “Can’t stand the sight of needles near his son.”

The nurse grinned. “It’s always the strongest-looking dads who go weak when their kids get sick.”

“Weak is not quite the way I’d describe him,” Allyn managed to mutter before her attention was switched irrevocably to Sasha, who started to scream at the sight of the needle.

It wasn’t the first time Allyn discovered exactly how strong short humans could be—especially short humans who were only half-awake. She’d been so fortunate as to help Becky take her toddlers to the pediatrician on more than one occasion. She hadn’t been crazy about the results then, but this was the first time she’d ever really felt the child’s fear on a personal level. Nails on a blackboard didn’t begin to describe a toddler’s shrieks on the willies-down-the-spine scale.

Maybe it helped if you weren’t their primary caretaker.

Still, she survived, and so did Sasha. As a matter of fact, although he was still sobbing, sniffling and clinging to Allyn for dear life, by the time they left he was also awake enough to accept a red sucker from Jeth who’d managed to find a basketful at the admitting desk. Jeth had a purple sucker tucked into the corner of his mouth. The one he offered Allyn was green. She crooked an incredulous brow at him.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re supposed to be on the run from everybody in the world, but you stop for a sucker?”

He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and shrugged. “Got a sweet tooth, what can I say?” He waggled the candy at Sasha. “Whaddya think, huh, kiddo? Good, huh?”

Sasha buried his face in Allyn’s neck and drooled red into the fabric of her shirt. She rolled her eyes at Jeth and gave him an exaggerated, “Thank you sooo much.”