A Drive-By Wedding Read online

  By the time Jeth entered the huge hall, Sasha was standing on one of the long tables surrounded by kids of all sizes, plying him with this, that and the other thing. By the time he reached Allyn to ask her what the devil was going on, the group of youngsters had disappeared outside, with Sasha in the midst of them visibly enjoying himself.

  “My little sister and some of my cousins,” Allyn offered by way of explanation before Jeth could ask.

  Furious, he towed her away from the office where she’d confirmed her reservation and made arrangements to add Jeth and Sasha to it. Sitting in the van beside her and suspecting she’d brought them here was one thing, seeing what she meant by family and the numbers of children involved was quite another.

  Marcy.

  His sister’s name echoed hollowly through him, constant reminder, omnipresent threat of the havoc this part of his life could wreak on children.

  “You think we were followed, but you let Sasha go off with a bunch of your cousins?” The question was bitten out, ground to dust, thrown in her face. “You think that’s safe for any of them?”

  Allyn wrenched her arm away from him. There was something in his face, pain, memory, a thought he refused to share that bore later investigation. But right now was right now, time to get their stories straight.

  Put him in his place while she made him understand hers.

  Her eyes flashed. “I think he’s safer with them than he was in your duffel bag. With them he’s just another kid in the group. With you and me standing over him all the time he stands out. Where did you go to safe-house school, anyway?”

  “I took classes at the FBI training center at Quantico, what about you?”

  “My stepfather taught classes at the FBI training center at Quantico.”

  It took a second for the pronouncement to sink in, but when it did, it sank hard.

  “Your stepfather—what?” He stared at her, aghast. “Your stepfather’s a fed, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Was a fed,” Allyn corrected with a sweetness Jeth didn’t buy for an instant. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Judas, Allyn.” He jammed his hands through what there was of his hair, rubbed his mouth, walked away, came back. “Once a fed, always a fed. He’s got contacts. If he went to them to find you… Hell, Allyn, there are feds in on this. The feds are one of the groups who think Sasha makes a good pawn.” He swung away from her. “Geez-oh-damn. I’ve got to get him out of here.”

  Allyn touched his arm, made him look at her. “No,” she said quietly, “you don’t.”

  She traced his face with a palm, drew his attention, softened his anger, stilled his instinctive urge to fight or flight to protect the young.

  “Trust me, Jeth. I know you’re worried about him. I am, too. That’s why we had to come here. My family needs to see I’m okay. Otherwise you could be in real trouble, and Sasha will wind up back where you got him from just because Gabriel doesn’t know the situation. If he knows, maybe he can help.”

  He knew better, but she leaned into him, pleading.

  “Trust me. My family goes off and gets married for life at the drop of a hat. We know who’s right for us in a heartbeat, so me meeting and marrying you a few days after graduation…truth or lie, my great-grandmother pocketed the Blarney Stone, no big deal. We can keep that cover and only tell Gabriel as much of the truth as you want. But he needs to see me in order to call off the dogs. Do you understand?”

  Jeth shut his eyes against her earnestness, her naiveté. Her stepfather might have the pull to call off the dogs, but that didn’t mean all the dogs would stray from the scent—nor that they’d believe anything the ex-fed told them. He, Sasha and yes, even Allyn—maybe especially Allyn, the more her safety came to mean to him personally and depending upon whether or not her stepfather had once been high enough in the bureau that someone might think she’d make a fine hostage to exchange for Sasha—were still in danger, a danger to those around them.

  She was undoubtedly also right, though, too. She had family—lots of it, judging from the number of cousins who’d surrounded Sasha and the few things she’d mentioned while they drove. She was not a person whose absence would go unremarked or unmissed. He wasn’t sure he believed they’d be as willing to accept him as she was, but she’d gone miles for him already, believed him—in him—when she had no reason to. The least he could do was offer her the same.

  God, what a choice: rock, hard place, deep end of the ocean.

  He opened his eyes, sighed. “Okay.” Cupped her face in his hands, his lips twisted with doubt and capitulation. “I probably need my head examined, but okay. Wife.”

  “Husband,” Allyn confirmed, and wrapped her hands around his wrists, stood on tiptoe to seal the pact with a kiss.

  If he hadn’t recognized it previously, that was the exact instant Jeth knew he was lost. Knew where any hope for his present, his future lay.

  Knew he had to walk away from Allyn before he ran the risk of losing her.

  So he kissed her with feeling, in early goodbye, with all of himself poured into it.

  With longing and desire, but mostly with need. Need to keep her safe. Need to see her home. Need to have her home.

  With him.

  “Wow,” Allyn murmured, dazed and drug-eyed when he lifted his head. “Wow. That was—that was—” She blinked, losing her train of thought. Lost to any world but his. “Can we do that again?”

  Jeth smoothed her hair with his thumb, more than a little bemused. “Yeah,” he muttered, and ran his hands down her back to pull her closer. “Yeah, definitely,” he said, smiling when she came to him, sank into him, reached for him. Forgetting where they were, neglecting everything but this moment and Allyn, he bent to her.

  Cherished her mouth, her being, even as she unreservedly offered herself to him.

  Even if he would have, he couldn’t help but take everything she tendered, give back all there was available of himself in return. Because he understood with sudden despair there was no other way to be with her.

  And therein lay both salvation and destructive flame.

  Somewhere outside the cocoon they wrapped around themselves, someone cleared his throat.

  Twice.

  Reluctantly Jeth came back to the world and started to set Allyn away. Allyn, not only disinclined to give him up but stubborn to remain where she was, as well, turned to face the intruders while drawing Jeth’s arms about her shoulders and under her chin. He hesitated not at all, merely hugged her close, smiled into the hair hiding her right ear and blew seductive, pulse-bubbling warmth along her neck. She closed her eyes and pressed against him, let herself savor the heat that curled and slithered down her spine, spread indecent fingers through her belly and headed south.

  “Mmm,” she breathed for his ears alone—and just loudly enough for anyone who might be listening to overhear, “That’s nice. Save some of that for later, would you?”

  He ran his mouth along the side of her neck, found a vulnerable spot over her pulse and nipped it. “My pleasure,” he muttered, “Just as soon as we can find a room and get rid of this audience.”

  He didn’t need to see Allyn’s flush when he said audience. He felt the heat rise in her neck and face. Felt her stiffen briefly in his arms when she remembered the crowd of onlookers—the family resemblance was remarkable and unmistakable, Jeth decided—then force herself to relax. Her jaw squared, chin rose determinedly; she settled herself more firmly into Jeth’s arms.

  He stifled a grin in her hair. God, she was something, wasn’t she?

  “Hi, Mum,” she said and rubbed her ring hand blatantly over Jeth’s arm, showing off the jewelry. “This is Jeth Levoie.” She gave the introduction, the view of her rings a healthy beat to sink in before she finished her announcement with a gleeful grin and a grand flourish worthy of a circus ringmaster—which, when Jeth thought about it later, was exactly what the ensuing pandemonium could have used. “My husband.”

  A flurry of women descended upon Allyn on
the instant, pried her away from Jeth and immediately flocked around him.

  Neither a murder of crows nor an unkindness of ravens had anything on a curiosity of Brannigan women—as Allyn, a Brannigan by gene pool if not surname, later informed Jeth the mobbing of the aunts, like the clustering of the aforementioned birds, was referred to by her and her sister.

  They poked him and prodded him, sized him up, down and sideways and squeezed his biceps. When Jeth impassively but ironically offered to let them look at his teeth, too, the one Allyn referred to as “Oh, my God, not Aunt Twink” took him up on the offer—until her husband reached into the clique and rescued Jeth by dragging the feebly protesting Twink forcibly away and suggesting that Jeth never make an offer to a Brannigan that he wasn’t ready to have at least one of them accept.

  Before Jeth had a chance to file that advice under Keep Handy, the women were bearing Allyn away, and he was left to face the men alone.

  Or rather make that the stepdad.

  The ex-fed and sometime Quantico instructor.

  Who appeared to be in amazingly good shape for a man who had to be in his middle forties.

  And who also appeared to have decided he didn’t like Jeth much.

  While the men who’d married Allyn’s aunts and her sister shook hands and introduced themselves, the man Jeth recognized by reputation as Gabriel Book stood back and observed. When he shook hands with Jeth it was not out of politeness; it was challenge, pure and simple. An unspoken, “Are you as good as you think you are, boy?” A wordless, “What makes you think you deserve to marry my daughter?”

  A nonverbal warning that stated, clear as glass, “I don’t know who you think you’ve fooled, but I’ve got your number. If you hurt her I will dial it, bet on it.”

  The grin Jeth fed Allyn’s stepfather was wide and ferocious, accepted the challenge and informed the ex-fed, “You’ll try,” even as he squeezed Gabriel’s hand hard, returning what he was given. It was a definite bunch of macho-posturing hooey, but hey, they were hard-nosed macho guys; it was what they did.

  “Oh, dear,” Allyn’s mother, Alice, sighed, spotting the exchange—or lack thereof. “For such an incredible man, Gabriel really is a turkey sometimes.”

  “I don’t see Jeth behaving better,” Allyn observed.

  “He’s yummy,” Becky said. “Where did you find him?”

  “Hey, drool over your own guy.” Allyn covered her sister’s eyes and turned Becky so she was no longer salivating over Jeth, but appreciating the blond, blue-eyed, none-too-shabby six-foot-two-inch hunk she’d married two days after their high school graduation. “And I didn’t find him, he found me. Car jacked me, actually—well sort of,” she amended quickly, mindful of the truth. “Not exactly. Maybe heart-jacked me is a better phrase. Him and Sasha.” She turned to her mother. “Have you met Sasha? He’s with Rachel and Libby and the rest of the kids. Isn’t he beautiful? And such a sweetheart. He calls me Mama already.”

  Alice nodded. “That’s how we knew you were here.” She glanced at Jeth, back at her daughter. “He wasn’t at your graduation. You’ve never mentioned him before. How long have you known him?”

  Allyn hesitated. Now that it came down to it, lying to her mother was more difficult than she’d imagined it would be. She’d never actually done it to Alice’s face before. Shaded the truth, hedged, yes, but she’d never told her mother an outright lie. Something to do with wanting to be different from Becky, who’d spent a goodly portion of her high school career sneaking around with Michael and lying to their mother about it.

  Standing in Jeth’s arms, the lies came naturally—mostly because, she realized in a panicked flash, when she was with Jeth, the lies didn’t exactly feel like lies. But here, in front of her mother, her sister, her aunts, deception felt like cowardice, like a path she wasn’t sure how to take. She blurted the truth because, in the end, it was easiest.

  “We met Sunday morning. In Baltimore on my way out of town. I helped him and Sasha out of a jam. We spent the day together, and—I don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly, gave the waiting women a sheepish grin. “Something was right. We bought the rings and got married Sunday afternoon. Then we got rid of the Saturn and picked up Jeth’s van, spent a couple of days in Pennsylvania Dutch country and came here.”

  There, she thought, trying to convince herself she’d done well. One tiny piece of perjury amid the absolute truth.

  “Instant wife, instant family?” her mother asked gently, understanding more than Allyn would have expected about her daughter’s latest druthers.

  “Add water and stir,” Allyn concurred, distracted, unintentionally telling and altogether greedy eyes focused once more on Jeth.

  He turned his head and caught her staring, locked gazes with her. His smile was slow and frank, an invitation to touch, to play.

  To learn.

  Allyn swallowed the impact of that proposition, breathed hard once in and out, tore her attention away. He didn’t mean it, she reminded herself. Yes, they were attracted to each other, but this was an act, a skit they performed in front of a live audience. Nothing more.

  Nothing more.

  “What about your life, your career, Lynnie? You just got your doctorate. Where are you going? Where will you live? What about you?”

  Allyn’s attention returned to earth with a crash amid her mother’s currently unanswerable questions. “I don’t know yet, Ma,” she said truthfully. “We’re still working that part out. But look at him, Mum. Look at him. You always said I’d know. Well, I do, Ma. I know.”

  And frightening as it was to admit, that was truth, too. She did know. Her body knew.

  Her heart knew and pounded with the weight of the knowledge.

  And that was the worst thing of all. Because except for the part where she and Jeth weren’t really married, whatever else Allyn projected about him was true.

  She didn’t need to act to look at him softly, to play blushing newlywed games with him. To pretend anything at all.

  She gave her mother a beseeching look. “I’m sorry you weren’t there, but—”

  Alice snorted and waved a dismissive hand at her. “Weddings in this family are a good deal more trouble than they’re worth. Becky eloped with Michael after going with him for four years, I eloped with Gabriel after knowing him six weeks, you eloped with Jeth the day you met him. That’s not the point. What I care about is your happiness. That’s all. It’s sudden. It’s not like you—well, that is, except when you decided to become a marine biologist in the first place. That was pretty unexpected, especially since no one even knew you were interested in the subject in the first place, but—”

  “What she’s trying to say,” Becky interrupted, grinning, “is that you have her blessing with reservations if you want it, but since you probably don’t want the reservations, you might not want the blessing—”

  “Oh, heck,” her aunt Helen cut in, shushing Becky, “your mother’s a worrywart. You’re married. If you made a mistake, you’ll find out in due course and you’ll handle it. In the meantime enjoy the ride—”

  “—and that body of his,” Aunt Twink interrupted.

  “And don’t let anybody monger disasters upon you just because you moved too fast without a thought for tomorrow,” Aunt Edith admonished.

  “Or let women with holes in their heads advise you of anything,” Aunt Grace, who was a mere three years older than her niece and the youngest of her aunts, said darkly. “Because they don’t know anything of any particular use to you at the moment—”

  “—even though we are older and supposedly wiser,” Aunt Meg added.

  “Definitely wiser,” Aunt Sam, who hated her given name Samantha, informed Meg firmly.

  “And even though we love you to bits,” her grandmother, Julia Block Brannigan, finished.

  All of which dizzying advice cum backhanded chiding made Allyn feel oh-so-much better about the entire lying part of the situation. In fact, the whole ridiculous sequence of statements exonerated he
r conscience entirely. Heck, in a crowd like this, a little truth-hedging of this sort was like storytelling of the finest kind, only real. The great-grandmother who’d left Ireland with the Blarney Stone up her sleeve and spent the rest of her life lying about her age would be proud of Allyn.

  So, fortified with this knowledge, Allyn forgot about her conscience entirely and settled in to answering all the questions thrown at her about Jeth and Sasha, whether she knew the answers or not. After a bit the men rejoined them to add their kibitzing to the mix, then the children returned with an exhausted but giggling Sasha, who seemed to have enjoyed meeting the cousins.

  By the time Allyn and Jeth finally reached the cabin set aside for them near the rest of the family’s cabins, Becky had decided Sasha would spend the night with her since Allyn and Jeth were still on their honeymoon; Helen had gone ahead and found sheets and pillowcases and made up the bed; Twink, Grace, Edith, Sam and Meg had rounded up candles, roses, an ice bucket, some fresh strawberries and a bottle of champagne; and Alice and Grandma Julia had arranged for an intimate dinner for two to be delivered to Allyn and Jeth at seven.

  Then they packed up Sasha, his diapers, his favorite book and toys and some clothes and whisked him away, leaving Allyn breathless and quite alone to spend the day with Jeth.

  Chapter 9

  Dumped, as it were, ceremoniously at the foot of the marriage bed as though by some mountain clan custom, trapped behind draped windows and a locked door while the chortling Brannigan revelers sang an impromptu chorus of “Good night, Irene” mostly in altos and sopranos—and no, it didn’t matter that it was only late morning—Jeth and Allyn could do little but stare at each other, gawping and nonplussed.

  “Good God,” Jeth said profoundly. “You thought it’d be good to bring Sasha into this?”

  Allyn sent him a weak grin. “They mean well?” she asked. “Or at least,” she amended, and the grin went wide with mischief, “as well as they can when they weren’t taught reverence is a virtue.”