A Drive-By Wedding Page 16

  “That was circumstances beyond my control,” Allyn told her twin loftily. “Not to mention you didn’t get your doctorate before you got married.”

  “No,” Becky shot back, “I got it afterward. Only mine’s in mom and marriage, not marine biology.”

  “And now you want the one in marine biology, too?”

  “Heck, no.” Becky looked appalled. “I’m not that big on water sports, if you’ll recall. No.” She huffed a sad sigh, pulled a tissue out of her hip pocket and blew her nose. “I just want…” She gestured ineffectually. “More. I don’t know what yet, but I want to find out. Lately, it seems like there’s no way to compensate. I talk to babies all day. They’re challenging, sure, but I want to talk to adults. I want to know life isn’t passing me by, that it’s more than diapers and don’t-do-thats. You always knew you wanted something more. Me, it’s like I’ve been married to Michael since I was fourteen.”

  “You wanted to be married to Michael since you were fourteen,” Allyn pointed out, not unkindly.

  “I still want to be married to Michael,” Becky responded ruefully. “I just don’t know if I can be anymore.”

  Allyn stared at her sister. “Crumb, Beck, you don’t—I mean he’s not…”

  Startled, Becky laughed, a weak, humorless sound that ended on a sob. “Oh, God, no. Michael? I don’t think he’s ever even looked at another woman, let alone thought about one. No.” She looked away, dabbed a damming knuckle into the corner of each eye where fresh tears gathered. “No, it’s me. It’s just me. I just don’t want to be who I am anymore. I don’t like me.”

  “Why?” Allyn was instantly curious, infinitely interested.

  “I yell.” Becky’s entire body, her face included, shrugged. “I lay down the law. I screw up the budget. I say no a lot. Some days I wish I didn’t have so many kids. Some days I wish I could run away. Mostly I wish I could trade lives with somebody else for like a day and a half, fall in love for the first time all over again and know what it’s like to actually have a life.”

  “You have a life,” Allyn said. “You have more life and more diversity in your life than any other six women I know—well, outside Ma, Grandma, Great-grandma and the aunts, that is.”

  “Exactly.” Becky nodded morosely. “Most of the women we know have more life than me, and they’ve got kids.”

  “Not Aunt Helen. Uncle John got custody of Libby. Aunt Helen’s too married to the Army.”

  “Oh, well.” Becky rolled her eyes. “The major or the colonel or whoever she’s been promoted to this year doesn’t count.”

  “And Aunt Grace is sort of tied up with her kids, like you.”

  Becky nodded, thoughtful. “True.”

  “And—” Allyn warmed to her topic. “Aunt Edith’s kids are old enough to baby-sit themselves. Aunt Meg’s separated at the moment, but she uses a nanny so that doesn’t count. Aunt Sam and Uncle Charlie work different shifts. Aunt Twink only works part-time, and her in-laws baby-sit when she needs them to. And Mom’s got Gabriel, and he takes Rachel to school with him half the time when she doesn’t take Rachel to the store with her.”

  “So you’re saying there’s a solution to this if I just look for it,” Becky said dryly.

  “Yes.”

  “Even if part of the reason I don’t like me much is because I feel like I wasted my potential by not going to college like you.”

  “Whoa.” Allyn gaped at her sister. “Back up. You don’t like you why?”

  Becky nodded. “You heard me. No college degree. Must mean I’m just some dumb old hausfrau, right? I mean—” she spread her hands at the trees “—Michael’s always taking training courses, updating his schooling. I almost never understand what he’s talking about. How can he keep finding me interesting if I don’t do something to better myself? What if I can’t keep up with him, Lyn? What if—”

  “Don’t be a dolt,” Allyn snapped, loyal to the ground. “You’re one of the most intelligent people I know. You just have this self-esteem problem.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And besides, I like you.” Allyn hugged her sister’s arm. “Not everyone can say that about their sisters.”

  Becky grimaced. “Thanks, but you don’t count.”

  Allyn snorted. “Swell. Boost my ego to kingdom come, why don’t you.”

  A grin this time. “I will.”

  “Brat.” The name was affectionate and huffy all in one, then the grin that twinned Becky’s kicked in. “Okay.” Allyn linked her arm through her sister’s and started them off down the trail toward the cabins. “We’ve established that you want what I’ve got and I want what you’ve got. Now what?”

  “Now that you’ve turned up with Jeth and Sasha, you’ve got what I’ve got, too,” Becky pointed out. “And the one’s pretty blessed hot and the other’s awfully cute. So it looks to me like you hit the career-marriage jackpot all in one week.”

  “True, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with my doctorate now that I’ve got them,” Allyn pointed out. Or how long I’ll have them, she finished silently, miserably. She drew breath and shook away thought, brought herself back on track. “I mean, we did go into this pretty fast. I don’t even know where we’re going to live or—” She hesitated. Lord, she hated lying to Becky. “Or anything—”

  “Mom, Mom!”

  There was a sudden flurry of activity through the brush and wood beside the trail, and three puffing six-and seven-year-olds materialized in front of the twins.

  “Mom!” Becky’s Andy bent over, trying to catch his breath.

  “Allyn, Becky—” Rachel collapsed in a heap atop some leaves that Allyn hoped would not turn out to be poison ivy.

  “There were these men.” Libby, hardly panting, eyes gleaming with excitement, looked at her cousins.

  “And they were asking us—”

  “About Sasha and Jeremy.” Becky’s two-year-old.

  “And they tried to get us to show them—”

  “No, you dunce, to come with them—”

  “No, they wanted to take us—”

  “One of us—”

  “And we yelled no, then we ran to tell—”

  “But they didn’t offer us candy—”

  “And they didn’t have a car—”

  “And they didn’t ’xactly try to grab us—”

  “So we didn’t know—”

  “But they were strangers and we’re not supposed to talk—”

  “Even if there are a lot of strangers around here—”

  “But they looked different,” Libby finished. “An’ we decided we didn’t like them so we came to tell an’ you were the first family we saw.”

  “Wait a minute.” Allyn laughed. “Slow down, back up, try that again. What?”

  So they repeated it. And Becky and Allyn stopped laughing and looked at each other in dawning horror. Before the children could finish the story, the twins had caught their hands and headed toward the cabins at a run.

  Chapter 12

  The news made Jeth’s gut knot and clench; he schooled his face to keep the appearance of overreaction out of his features.

  To no avail. Whether Becky and Michael saw it or not, Allyn took one look at him and read fear as clearly as if he’d printed it upon a page in one of her textbooks; he understood this in a heartbeat, comprehended, as well, that she’d interpreted his intention to take Sasha and run at the first available opportunity that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

  And leave her behind.

  Concluded from the thing that hardened behind those fascinating eyes of hers that he hadn’t a chance of leaving her anywhere but with him while she was conscious—unless he could convince her that the only way to throw the bad guys off Sasha’s trail would be for her to stay behind.

  We’re in this together.

  The echo of her less-than-a-week-old affirmation slithered unbidden out of the depths of his mind, lurked unwelcome amid the gathering debris of his fears for Sasha, for Allyn, for her famil
y, raised a haunting mist that seemed to cloud everything but instinct.

  Jeth heard himself ask the questions as from a distance, heard the answers as something disconnected from him. There were three of them. The men had asked if the children knew the names of the two little blond boys. They hadn’t asked about any of the bigger kids, only the babies. They’d said they were camp counselors, but they weren’t wearing uniforms. They were sort of old, like Aunt Edith, but not as old as Dad or Uncle Gabriel.

  Which meant somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five, Jeth translated, swallowing a grim smile.

  They didn’t have beards. One had curly hair—brown, with that funny yellow color on top like he’d dyed it. One had straight hair, sort of white like Sasha’s. The last one had long, black hair and something wrong with his lip. It looked puffy.

  Jeth nodded and tried to collect scattering thoughts. The descriptions didn’t quite fit any of the men he was familiar with in any of the pieces of the undercover, but they didn’t quite not fit, either. His mouth thinned. Judas damn, he hated this. He needed to choose a direction, had to. Now.

  Carefully.

  Because whatever he did, good, bad or stand-your-ground, one way or another, it meant life.

  Having one, or not.

  Damn, maybe Allyn was right. Maybe he should talk to Gabriel.

  It was hell not knowing who to trust.

  He eyed the children, Allyn, Becky, Michael, and tried to convince himself all would be well.

  “Did the men follow you when you ran away?” he heard Michael ask.

  “Uh-uh.” Andy shook his head. “We’re littler than them. We went places they couldn’t go.”

  Rachel nodded emphatically. “If they were from here, they didn’t know things very well.”

  “Yup.” Libby pursed her lips sagely. “We were good. We got away clean.”

  In spite of himself and the tenseness of the moment, Jeth choked on disbelieving laughter. Got away clean? Who were these children and where did they get their language from? He didn’t remember Marcy talking like this when she was ten. But then, she hadn’t known—would never know—Allyn or her family, and he’d been fifteen years older than his little sister. He hadn’t lived at home long enough after she was born to have known her much at all.

  In that moment of memory, of discovery, everything and nothing changed. What had happened was exactly what was happening now. Marcy had died because he screwed up, called the wrong shots, mistook true threat for mere warning.

  He’d reacted, in short, much as he had when he’d stolen Sasha out of hell six days ago: he’d done it on a wing and a prayer—only he’d probably used a lot more wing and only a third as much prayer as might have been useful.

  In through his nose, hold it, out through his mouth; three times he breathed, cleansing, steadying, purposeful. No, he would not turn on himself, weaken Sasha’s, Allyn’s, his own chances by thinking like that right now. Such thoughts were killers: crippling, exhausting, debilitating. He had no time for them. They—Sasha, Allyn, her family—had no time for him to court such recollections, dwell selfishly on either the things that certainly were, but especially those things that may not have been, his fault in Marcy’s death. God grant me the serenity, he thought. No matter what guilt he pursued, however justified, he could not bring Marcy back. But Sasha was here. Sasha was alive and growing healthier by the minute. Jeth wouldn’t give that up easily, if at all.

  He glanced at Allyn, who raised her chin in recognition of what he was thinking, in challenge and a dare to leave her out of it—and who eyed him with expectation, surety and hope. And he was pretty certain he wouldn’t give her up at any price.

  Partly because, he understood at once and with awful clarity, giving her up would be the biggest mistake he’d ever make in his life. And partly because—and this was far worse—giving her up would not be a choice she’d allow him to make for her. If a choice had to be made, she would make it herself.

  With sudden knowledge came power and definition, the icy coolness of decision. He looked at Michael, Becky and Allyn.

  “We’ve got to round up the kids and the families,” he said tersely. “Warn the camp office, let them call the local police—” He ignored Allyn’s start of surprise at that, turned to Rachel, Libby and Andy. “If you don’t think the men followed you, did you see which way they went, and would you recognize them again?”

  “Oh sure,” Libby said, unperturbed, competent and, as her mother’s daughter, a front-lines general and Nate the Great series mystery detective at the enthusiastic yet unflappable, slyly self-important age of seven. “After we ran and hid, we watched them. Then we followed them.”

  Evening slanted multihued across the sky, scattered rays of tangerine and vermilion amid deepening shades of purple and blue, painted the ground in a chiaroscuro of grays and golds, in a twilight that insinuated itself sooner and murkier among the trees.

  Above the hills and horse pastures where it could be seen, the moon rose, bloodred and full.

  “Trouble,” Allyn and Becky whispered to each other, shivering when they parted company as the exhausting day drew to a close. Neither remembered where the notion came from that dissonance attended a full red moon, only that it dated from somewhere early in their childhood, was tangled together with nights they’d shared similar—and occasionally identical—dreams and nightmares. As adults and women with periodically romantic inclinations, each appreciated the beauty of the crimson moon. Still, neither could help but regard it warily even as they told themselves they were too old to fear it.

  Especially after the day’s events.

  Libby’s afternoon announcement had been both heart-stopping and galvanizing, Jeth’s reaction to it swift.

  The local sheriffs arrived, descriptions were issued, the search began—and ended two hours later with the apprehension of two of the three men the children had not only described but could also identify. The third man, with the long black hair, was absent, and the two in custody refused to identify him.

  They also protested their innocence and refused to talk, but they were definitely not camp staff. When the sheriff’s office put their names and fingerprints through the computer, they both came up with records that were varied and long. Among the busts listed were several for alleged baby-snatching and black-market baby trafficking. Nothing had been proven in any of these instances, so there’d been no time served. But it certainly gave everyone—especially Jeth and Allyn—pause.

  When they came together that night after Sasha went to sleep it was urgently, desperately, with none of the playfulness of the previous night.

  Mouths fused, hands frantic, they pushed and tugged each other into the bathroom and shut the door, shed clothing without regard to how it came off as long as it did. Then they had just enough presence of mind to roll a condom onto him before he hoisted her against the sink, pulled her legs around him and drove into her.

  Hard. Deep. Fast. Sweaty. Powerful. Thoughtless. Thought-consuming.

  Violent.

  Primal.

  Their joining was not pretty, not tender, but it brought them closer, linked them, bound them, separated them—and made them more in tune with each other than anything else.

  Together they affirmed life, deposed mutual fear—bore witness to their shared desire to escape what lay beyond the moment. Together they strained and gasped, grunted and scrabbled for purchase, caught each other’s cries in their own throats when climax caught them unaware, crested suddenly and sharply and sent them tumbling to the floor, hips working in tandem, slamming them together until the first peak blended into a second, a third, then finally exploded in a shattering rain of lava and an endless trail of falling stars.

  Afterward they lay where they’d fallen: Jeth flat on his back, one hand on his chest, the other arm flung wide; Allyn beside him, not quite on her side, neck pillowed in the crook of his elbow. Their hearts thundered, their breath was harsh, their bodies were as slick and wet as though they’d bee
n swimming.

  “What was that?” Allyn gasped, struggling to control her breathing.

  “Sex.” Jeth rolled sideways, mouth twisted. “Sweaty, mind-numbing sex.”

  Allyn studied his face, the hooded darkness of his eyes, the deliberate callousness of his expression. “Really.” It might have been a question but it wasn’t. “I thought it felt more like goodbye.”

  He tightened his arm around her neck, leaned in and kissed her savagely. “Sex, Allyn, that’s all it was. Are you listening to me? Nothing more. I am not here to fall in love with you. I will not fall in love with you.”

  “No one asked you to,” Allyn said bitingly, while inside her something shriveled and sank. “No one said you had to.” She pushed away from him and scrambled to her feet, turned on the low-wattage, bare-bulb overhead light to be sure he could see her and looked at him. “Still, be that as it may, you’re not leaving here without me.”

  He jacked himself upright, elbow first, surging to his feet in one fluid, catlike move to eye her squarely before sinking onto the stool—both literally and figuratively getting away from the all-too-painful recognition in her blue and green eyes. His jaw tightened; a muscle ticked in his cheek. Damn, she’d gotten good at reading him. How had that happened? He’d changed his mind again about taking her with him the minute he’d heard about the black-market guys and brought the local law into it. Because if they’d had law tailing them here, there would be law again once they left, no matter how likely it was that Gabriel had called off his dogs because he’d had a chance to see Allyn was all right. The very nature of that call would also inform somebody else of where they were. Where Sasha was. But now… “Allyn—”

  Her mouth thinned; she shook her head. “Not a chance, Jeth. I’m in this. You brought me into it. Don’t even think about leaving me out now.”

  “It’ll be safer—”

  “For whom? Not for me. Not for my family if I stay with them. Sure as hell not for you and Sasha. Because I know you now, Jeth. I know where you’ll go. I know where you’ll hide him.” She stooped to be eye to eye with him. “I know, damn you, do you hear me? And that means if I stay here whoever’s looking for you and Sasha, whoever saw us together that first day, saw my car, probably ran the plates and knows who I am. Whoever followed us here knows I’m with you or have been and’ll come looking for you by starting with me. Which means they go through my family, and you’ve got to know that’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.