A Drive-By Wedding Page 18

  “Silencer.” Grim and clipped. “His—or his partner’s.”

  Horror dawned. She put a hand to her throat, unable to wrap her mind around the implications, her breath stolen again when she thought it couldn’t be. “Jeth. He came to kill you. Maybe us.”

  “Us. Or so he said.”

  “But you—how did you—did you know him?”

  His mouth twisted; he nodded. “Colombian. I knew him. In Baltimore. He was muscle. I’ve seen his work before.”

  She swallowed, nauseated by the thought of what he’d had to do because of her and Sasha. “Are you hurt? Are you all right?”

  “Dandy.”

  “Jeth—”

  “Drop it, Allyn.” Hard and unforgiving. “It’s my fault, I screwed up. Now let me drive.”

  And for the next hundred miles that was all he would say. His focus was fierce, intense, and Allyn could only eye him warily and worry, do her best to behave as though she understood the incomprehensible—otherwise known as Jeth.

  Despite the jeep’s stiff suspension and the thud and rush of the highway around and underneath them, Sasha slept for most of the trip, innocent of the emotional havoc and physical peril his existence wrought for the adults in the front seat. Allyn checked on him constantly, craning to look over her shoulder at him, touching his leg—anything to feel she was contributing something when it was clear to her she had nothing to contribute.

  Except silence, caring and support—for whatever they might be worth under the circumstances.

  The farther west they went, the more ferocious Jeth’s concentration became. If Allyn hadn’t been so intent on making sure Sasha didn’t bounce around too much in his seat, she might have paid more attention to the fine gray pallor that edged his features, the sweat that sheened his skin. The desert wind was hot, but this was something more than reaction caused by the air. It wasn’t until they jounced unexpectedly off the route that marked a prohibited trailhead into one of the canyons and Allyn reached over to steady herself against Jeth that she realized what appeared to be simple perspiration was more the kind of clamminess related to shock than to heat. Her hand tightened on his arm; she glanced sharply at him. Sight confirmed what instinct told her: he held on to himself by will alone.

  “Jeth, damn it, stop here. Let me drive.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road, merely blinked sweat out of them and swallowed.

  “Jeth, can you hear me? I said stop, damn it, you’re sick, you need help before you kill us.”

  Another dogged swallow, this time accompanied by a tiny negative movement of his head. As though if the movement were any bigger either his head would shatter or his attention would. “I’m okay. Not much farther unless the damned rancher’s blocked the way. Road’s bad, you don’t know it. I do. Get in back and buckle up. Pad Sasha so his neck and head are braced and hang on.”

  He wasn’t kidding about the road. Unmaintained, it appeared to be rarely if ever utilized—hence the Prohibited sign. She couldn’t tell how long they’d been descending before she found herself trying to brace Sasha into his seat more securely by covering and cushioning him with her body. She also had the distinct impression that by the time they reached wherever they were going, she was going to wish her tailbone was more padded. Her arms, stretched hard across Sasha’s car seat, already felt as battered and bruised as the thigh she’d crammed against it to help keep the seat more stable.

  Jeth seemed oblivious to everything but the road, but by the time the narrow switchbacks through limestone, sandstone and shale that shut off even occasional views of the distant rimrock leveled out, he looked far rockier than the canyon around them. Appeared a good deal less stable than the occasional scrush of detritus that clattered out beneath their tires.

  With each decrease in elevation, heat collected more heavily under the jeep’s metal roof, stifling. The first sight Allyn got of the blue-green waters that flowed through Jeth’s birthplace would have been startling in any case, but through heat-limned eyes they were surreal, too bright—beautiful. She wanted to be in them, to dunk the sweaty Sasha and cool him down—to explore them at her leisure, to…

  She straightened with the road, put a hand on Jeth’s shoulder to grasp his attention, started to say something about the verdancy of the land they entered, the spectacular beauty of what she assumed must be the creek he’d told her about.

  And froze at the wet and pulpy texture beneath her fingers, jerked her hand quickly at Jeth’s agonized gasp of surprise. Shocked, she looked at her palm, damp with his blood.

  “You’re hurt.” It was an idiot thing to say, but it was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

  “I’m fine.” His voice was weak, and he sounded anything but.

  She unbuckled and grabbed a towel and a liter of bottled water out of Sasha’s bag, angled herself so she could see around the back of Jeth’s seat to assess as much of the damage to his shoulder as possible.

  And discovered with a gut-wrenching sense of fear that the damage was not so much to his shoulder as it was to the upper left quadrant of his chest below his collarbone. The pulpiness was actually a makeshift pressure bandage he’d fixed to give them all time.

  “You have to stop now.” Her voice shook. She was terrified for him and for Sasha, afraid for herself. It was too soon, too insane, there hadn’t been enough time to know anything for certain, but she didn’t want to lose Jeth.

  She couldn’t.

  “Please, Jeth. For me. For Sasha. So we don’t have an accident.”

  “Not yet.” Faint but ferocious, determined.

  “You have to, Jeth. You’re bleeding. You need help. Let’s get you help.”

  “No.” Guttural and harsh. With effort he removed his left hand from the steering wheel, raised it to clasp her wrist where she tried awkwardly to apply pressure to the wound she couldn’t see. “No. Gunshot. Too much paperwork. They’ll find you. They’ll find Sasha. I promised him, Lyn. Nobody hurts him anymore. Nobody gets near you without going through me. Nobody.”

  The struggle to speak, to make her understand, cost him dearly. For an instant his right hand wavered on the wheel and he started to slump. Then they jolted over a rock and hit a rut on the other side. Allyn’s chin banged hard on the back of his seat and hit his shoulder, causing her to nearly bite through her lip. He snapped to; both hands clutched the steering wheel, fought the jeep for control.

  Something viscous that smelled faintly of salt and iron soaked into the collar of his T-shirt.

  “Lynnie?” The query was faint but worried. He struggled to keep the world from blurring, while she once more reached over his shoulder and tried to put pressure on his bleeding wound.

  “We’re all right. I bit my lip, don’t worry about it.”

  Her mouth was close to his ear. It felt right there, Jeth thought absurdly, and he felt fuzzy. If only he could close his eyes and feel her breath there for a long time, he could die happy.

  “Jeth.”

  Her voice was sharp and insistent, furious. He tried to shake the fury away by nuzzling the side of his face close to her mouth. Something about her bottom lip didn’t feel quite right, but he couldn’t think what.

  He couldn’t think.

  “Jeth!”

  He felt her angle between the seats to get in beside him, try to take the steering wheel from him. He wanted to curl in toward her, to hold on to her to keep himself from slipping into the darkness that lapped around his vision, knew he couldn’t. He had a mission to complete before he could take any more comfort in her. If she got too close to him before then he might not be able to protect her.

  His mind couldn’t quite put the word on why, but he knew the reason was paramount. He had to protect her.

  Had to.

  The future of the earth, sun, wind, moon and stars depended upon her safety. His life depended on it.

  “Jeth, damn it! Don’t do this to me and Sasha. I won’t let you.”

  He recognized the panic, unders
tood something must be terribly wrong or she wouldn’t sound that way. She wasn’t a woman made of panic; she was forged of steel and iron, as easily controlled as flames in dry grass. Whatever made her frantic, he wanted to do something about it.

  Another deep rut jolted him, knocked his knee against the gearshift and put them into a sudden stall. Something thunked against the dashboard, and as from a great distance he heard Allyn swear. Then the jeep bounced perilously sideways a foot or two and went still at a slight slant. Somewhere behind him, Sasha loosed a thin wail and subsided. He tried to straighten, to gain control of the situation, but he kept slipping against the seat, sliding through a substance that seemed familiar though he couldn’t remember why. His body felt like lead, his entire left side numb and unresponsive. His pulse thumped inside him, but it didn’t feel like life flowing through; it felt like the tide ebbing out.

  Allyn’s mouth found his ear again. “Sit still,” she told him tersely. “You’re making it worse.”

  “Lyn…” His tongue felt thick, his mouth drier than it had ever been. He swallowed, tried again. “Lynnie…”

  “Not now, blast you.” Her hands on him were anything but gentle. “Save your strength. Don’t you dare die on me.” She pressed a wad of something to his left chest, planted his left hand over it. “Hold this.”

  He heard something tear, then she was wrapping something around him, strapping his hand tightly into place on his chest, tying his arm to his side. The sensation of the life pumping slowly out of him subsided to a dull, indifferent thrum. She drew his right arm across her shoulders, wrapped her arms about his waist and hoisted him slightly forward in his seat.

  “I want you to help me move you over here,” she said tautly. “On the count of three. Ready? One…two…three.”

  The word and her yanking him toward her came at the same time. He struggled to use his feet to push himself in the direction she wanted him to go. The undertaking was more costly than he could have imagined, left darkness tightening the edges of his vision.

  “One more time,” he heard Allyn plead. “Don’t pass out on me yet. Just help me get your legs…ah. There you go, you did it. Jeth, can you hear me?”

  He nodded—or thought he did.

  “Good.”

  He felt her relax a degree even as she leaned over to buckle him into the seat. Why did her body always feel so good against his, even now when most of him was so numb and out of it he shouldn’t be able to notice?

  But he did notice. His belly, his loins noticed and recognized her at once. He was pretty darn certain they always would. He always would.

  Laughing ruefully, Allyn made sure the shoulder harness clicked shut and kissed Jeth’s temple as she drew away from him.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “I guess if that can happen, you can’t be too far gone, can you?”

  Jeth tried to wink at her, failed. The moment he shut one eye, the other wanted to follow it. Neither could be forced to reopen.

  Striving to stay with her, he thought he heard Allyn say something else, ask a direction. He only hoped she understood whatever answer he attempted to make before he finally lost consciousness completely.

  Chapter 14

  Allyn put her ear close to Jeth’s mouth and hoped she understood him correctly as he tried to tell her which direction to take when they reached the bottom of the track into the canyon. He needed water and medical attention, but she knew he was right about the kind of paperwork gunshot wounds required. Probably almost as much as killing someone in the line of duty mandated. And since God alone knew who they could trust, she didn’t dare second-guess Jeth again.

  Yet.

  She glanced sideways at the center of her thoughts. She only hoped she’d be able to find where he planned to hide them, then be capable of taking care of his wound. It had been a while since she’d done the kind of dissection removing a lodged bullet might require. And even if she managed, there was always the threat of infection. Sea botany she knew. Land botany…those classes had been a while, and she wasn’t familiar with anything in Arizona’s indigenous plant life that might be used in place of antibiotics, in any case.

  Oh, God, oh, God. Her fists white-knuckled the steering wheel. How stupid she’d been to think that side trip to allay her family’s concerns about her was the right thing to do. Because sure as shooting all she’d done was make matters worse for all of them. Especially Jeth and Sasha.

  But she didn’t have time to consider past mistakes, nor anything other than the now. Sasha was wakening in the back seat and crabbily trying to unstuff all the things she’d stuffed around him to keep him from flopping about and getting hurt during their journey down the canyon. Beside her Jeth looked a whole lot grayer around the gills than she liked, and the heat was griddle-caking her brain into muddled eggs so the only thing she could think was that when she did get them to where she thought they were going there would probably be rattlesnakes waiting in the corners to terrify her. She’d never met one personally, but she really didn’t think she’d like rattlesnakes any more than she liked the men who’d tried to kill Jeth.

  It also occurred to her in passing that she was glad at least one of the guys was dead because if he wasn’t she’d have to do something quite serious about him—them. No one went around hurting her man—whether he was exactly her man yet or not.

  See, brain-fried.

  The track ended at last on the verge of lush farmland and an open, dusty road that ran along the river. Allyn downshifted and pulled to a stop, looked to the right, the left, trying to choose between what she thought she’d understood Jeth to say and what he might have said.

  Cottonwoods and willows edged the river, leaves fluttering lazily, inviting. A lone truck with an open bed approached from the east, dust billowing behind it. It slowed as it neared the jeep; a pair of dark copper faces looked Allyn over, then disappeared into the cab, apparently conferencing. Wondering what she’d say if they decided to talk to her, Allyn started to bite her lip, hissed and winced when her teeth found the cut she’d acquired earlier. The truck moved on without stopping, however, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One less lie to manufacture. But sitting here wasn’t getting Jeth help. It also wasn’t getting Sasha out of his car seat and sweaty clothes or getting fluids into him.

  So much to think about, to do. Damn Jeth, anyway. He was supposed to be awake to help out, not slumped half-dead in the seat next to her, scaring her to bits. She hadn’t been born to be a packhorse, the overseer of three lives hanging in the balance.

  She hadn’t been born to be Becky.

  Which, she suddenly understood by experiencing the situation out of context, was exactly what Becky’d been saying. Becky hadn’t been born to simply be Becky, either. But you did what the moments required of you, made your choices, your compromises, then took your chances and—

  Allyn whipped the steering wheel to the right and jammed the jeep into gear.

  Made her choice without a sense of compromise and took her chances, because she realized with unexpected clarity there wasn’t a risk in the world she wouldn’t take for Jeth and Sasha.

  Allyn hadn’t driven far before a white SUV appeared in her rearview mirror. A red light, cocked at a jaunty angle on the driver’s side roof, whirled madly in the sunlight. Allyn glanced at Jeth who muttered something unintelligible and fumbled weakly at his left arm in his stupor. Stop, don’t stop; both options bore stunning implications, risks she wasn’t prepared to take with either of her charges.

  As it happened, she needn’t have worried about making the choice herself; in another minute a dilapidated tan truck, also wearing a flashing light, came toward her at a break-neck clip, then suddenly slewed sideways in front of her, blocking the road. When she stopped and considered backing up, the SUV behind her did the same thing.

  For an instant her heart stopped, and she looked at the floor between the seats where Jeth’s weapon sat. Despite the fact that she’d learned how to handle a handgun, she’d never fired one.
But hey, the guys with the flashing lights didn’t have to know that.

  All too aware of Sasha fussing in the back seat, of the unconscious Jeth beside her, Allyn reached down to close her hand around the Browning’s grip.

  And waited.

  Copper-skinned men she hoped were Jeth’s tribal brethren climbed out of the vehicles and sauntered toward her. Something about the looseness of their movements, their physical structure seemed unnervingly familiar, but Allyn couldn’t quite place why. She was far too intent on remaining calm and gauging her options if push came to shove. After all, Jeth might have killed for her. The least she could do was contemplate doing the same if it became necessary in order to protect him.

  The idea made her shudder, but it didn’t put a dent in her resolve.

  Quite.

  The man approaching from the front stuck his hand in his back pocket, pulled out a small folder and flipped it open, held it up as he came forward. The one behind the jeep also pulled something out of a pocket and clipped it to the pocket of his T-shirt. It took Allyn but a moment to realize it was some sort of police badge.

  “Hey,” the one in front called. “Supai collection agent. You want to cross the rez you gotta pay the fee.”

  “I’m sorry, Officer—is it officer?” Allyn called, and saw both men start and stare. “We—I didn’t know there was a fee. Can I pay it and go? I’ve got…” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “My husband is sick and there’s my son…I need to get them to…to my husband’s home—”

  The men were on either side of the jeep before she even realized they were coming.

  “Wife?” the one who bent to peer at her asked. “Jeth got married?”