A Drive-By Wedding Read online

  Or maybe not. A lot of cops around meant the possibility of a lot more casualties than just her. She’d never particularly thought of herself as either noble or heroic, but the idea of bringing a man desperate enough to car jack her at gunpoint into an arena of even more weaponry suddenly didn’t appeal as strongly as she’d supposed it might. She didn’t want anyone shot or killed. And she knew, because it was one of the things Gabriel had taught her, that minimizing a situation like this was not only possible, but plausible.

  She let her eyes flick carefully toward the rearview mirror where she could glimpse only a small portion of her kidnapper. Her lungs were tight, the muscles in her throat contracted to keep from breathing him in. He still had the gun in her ribs, but a significant portion of her mind was traitorously occupied with the taste the scent of him left on the back of her tongue. Never in her life had she inhaled anything that matched him.

  Probably fear, the incorrigible half of her brain said, and snorted. His and yours.

  The thought, unexpected as it was, caused Allyn’s mouth to quirk sideways, made her relax. So she liked the taste of fear—or was it adrenaline—did she? Well, that was something she wouldn’t have thought of herself.

  Always before she’d considered her life a matter of choosing the safer path: ordered, straight, narrow-paved and without potholes. Now all of a sudden she’d hit a totally unforeseen and rather dangerous chuckhole, and she found it terrifying but interesting.

  And downright exciting.

  Mentally rolling her eyes at herself, Allyn risked another glance at her abductor. His face was turned mostly away from her while he did something to adjust the bundle in the back seat. There was strain in the set of his shoulders, obvious strength in the cord of muscles along his arm and neck when he struggled one-handed with the duffel bag. She heard the light whishk draw of a well-soaped zipper, felt rather than saw the man beside her strain harder for a moment before relaxing slightly. His left arm remained stretched over the seat, apparently to keep his bag propped upright.

  Curious, Allyn stretched her neck slightly to see what divided his attention. A bag full of ill-gotten cash? Drugs? Some rare and priceless artifact? Or maybe it was—

  A baby.

  Her heart caught, slammed upward into her throat and started to pound. Her foot reflexively pressed the gas pedal, hands stuttered on the steering wheel, and the car veered sideways toward a power pole. A baby. Oh, holy mother. Oh, sweet merry Christmas. However unwillingly, she was aiding and abetting someone whose picture would wind up on a milk carton alongside somebody else’s baby’s. She couldn’t let him do this, couldn’t let him threaten a child. She had to do something, she had to—

  “Watch it!”

  In one swift move the man beside her jerked, dumped his weapon and grabbed the steering wheel, forced the car away from the pole, out of the line of oncoming traffic and into a side street lined with houses, cars and scraggly trees. Tires squealed as the Saturn swerved back and forth, jockeying a none-too-straight path down the street. A lone, early morning cyclist swiveled hard between two parked cars and over the curb to avoid them.

  Allyn’s captor swore and reached for her clam-digger-clad knee. “Get your damned foot off the freaking gas,” he ordered, yanking the steering wheel so they skidded into the empty school parking lot at the end of the street.

  “Quit telling me what to do, you baby-stealing bastard,” Allyn retorted. With a furious twist she wrenched control of the Saturn back. Nobody who kidnapped kids for a living was getting away with it on her watch.

  She spun the steering wheel hard, sending the car into a controlled sideways skid over the parking lot gravel, gave the wheel a second tug and stamped on the brakes. Unbalanced by trying to keep the duffel-bagged toddler safely on the rear seat, the man rocked back and forth across the seat, then banged forward into the dashboard before winding up on the floor. Momentarily stunned, he waited a fraction too long to regain control of the situation. Before he could react, Allyn did something she’d done only once before in her life—and that was at her stepfather’s insistence when he’d taken her to the shooting range to teach her how to handle them. She picked up her captor’s weapon. Then she got out of the car and did something she’d never before done: pointed the gun at a human being and threatened him with it.

  “Get out of my car,” she told him flatly.

  Chapter 2

  Jeth viewed her, stunned, trying to decide whether or not she’d actually use the weapon. Hard to tell. He couldn’t read her eyes from here, but she certainly held his Browning properly.

  Like she knew exactly how much kick to expect from it.

  Damn.

  Her weight was well balanced, two-handed grip classic and firm. Nuts, the functioning half of his brain thought. One of the new breed of women who believed in handling their own affairs—and being responsible for their own safety in all ways. Her mother was probably a member of the women’s lib generation. Damned do-it-yourself bra burners had a lot to answer for. Blasted woman probably believed in the turkey-baster school of procreation, too.

  Good grief. Jeth shook his head lightly, checking for dizziness and nausea. Where had that come from? Must have hit his head harder than it felt like to even bring that thought up at a time like this. Especially when he had greater things to worry about.

  Like if anybody from this neighborhood saw her with the gun, witnessed this standoff, they were well and truly cooked.

  If the local cops got involved in this so, undoubtedly, would his own chain of command which, at the moment, included the FBI as well as the DEA and a few other agencies he wasn’t particularly comfortable with. Because whichever one got hold of him first would not only put his head in a basket, but they’d take the kid from him and put the baby—Sasha, Jeth thought that’s what he’d heard the boy called—back smack where Jeth had found him. And that, above all, was not going to happen. Because even if the locals were willing to take Sasha into protective custody, Jeth had seen politics win out too often to be willing to risk Sasha’s life anywhere but with him.

  A tad arrogant, perhaps, to think that he could protect Sasha better than an entire unit of cops, but it was his experience that the fewer people in on a plan, the fewer places for leaks to pop up. And since he was currently the acting Dutch boy with his finger jammed into the dike, that made him Sasha’s best chance for survival.

  The way it should have made him Marcy’s. He forced the thought aside. Now if only he hadn’t gone and screwed things up by choosing the wrong car to hop into.

  Focus, babe, he commanded himself. Don’t let it get away from you. Probably ought to be glad the damned woman hadn’t chambered a round before she’d drawn down on him. Take it slow and easy. Don’t spook her. Gotta check the kid.

  He held up his hands, offering appeasement. “Be careful with that thing, okay? I just want to get up and see if the kid’s all right.”

  “He’s still in the bag on the back seat,” she said, as though he were an idiot to think otherwise. “Get out of the car and spread it across the hood. I’ll make sure you haven’t done him any permanent damage.”

  Spread it across the hood? Jeth’s eyebrows crooked, and a startled grin trickled through him. He controlled the almost amusement before it reached his face. God almighty Moses, what had he gotten himself into? Sheesh, she probably carried a badge and handcuffs, too. And wouldn’t that just be super.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “The person with the gun gets to say what happens next,” she said coolly. “That’s me.”

  He stared at her, disbelieving.

  She shrugged, less a movement than an attitude. “You made the rules. I’m following them.” Then, when he still didn’t move, she motioned with her chin, not taking her eyes off Jeth. “Go on, back out that side.” She slid her thumb up to make sure the safety was off the nine millimeter. “Move,” she ordered softly, calmly, in a tone he’d have been foolish to ignore. “I’ve got a kid to look at.”r />
  Oh, yeah, she was dead serious—or he was about to be. His gut was right on about this one—too late to do him any good, true, but right on nonetheless. She was afraid, but not so much that the fear had stopped her from thinking—or acting. Which meant he was deep in it now. Better come up with a way to make this work—for her sake as well as his, and to his and Sasha’s advantage, and fast, because if she found a way to take off with the kid but without him and the guys he was running from found out and caught up with her… Well, he didn’t want to think what that could mean.

  His brain was full of the vivid images of what that could mean. Not nice people, these guys he’d rescued Sasha from. Cannibals and headhunters had better manners. So even did the men who’d killed Marcy.

  “Look,” he said, sliding onto the seat and reaching behind him for the door handle. “I know what this looks like, but it isn’t what it seems. Well, it is, but there’s a reason for it. A good one.”

  She looked at him over the top of the car as he rose out of it at the same time she reached inside and flipped the driver’s seat forward. “You’ve got a good reason for car jacking, kidnapping and baby snatching? Don’t tell me, let me guess. Ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, current girlfriend doesn’t want your child but has full custody and hates you enough not to let you see him. Or she wants your child, has full custody and won’t let you see him. Or she has full custody but is abusive and you snatched the baby for his own good. Or you’re gay and you didn’t find out until after your marriage ended and your ex won’t give you access—”

  Startled once again, Jeth snorted. “I’m not gay.”

  He thought he heard her mutter good before she said, “Fine, you’re straight. Pick one of the other scenarios, then.”

  “Scenarios?” he asked, incredulous. Who talked like that? “How much TV do you watch?” Only FBI agents and people who watched too many FBI shows on TV, maybe a few corporate executives with delusions of danger talked like that. And he had the distinct feeling she wasn’t among either of the latter. Judas, she couldn’t be with the bureau, could she?

  He could almost feel the grave opening at his feet ready to welcome him.

  “How ’bout I pick E as in none of the above?” he asked.

  “How ’bout you spread your legs, stretch out across the hood of my car facedown and lace your hands behind your head?” she returned.

  Oh, yeah, Jeth thought, reluctantly doing as he was told. Deep in it and getting deeper all the time. Much as he hated to do it, he was going to have to tell her the truth.

  He only hoped she’d believe him.

  The car hood was hot against his chest, stuck to his skin in itchy patches full of sweat. Even minute movement was painful, but move he had to if he wanted to see what she was doing. Carefully he raised his head. She sat in the back seat, Sasha spread limply across her lap, and stared at Jeth through the windshield, coldly furious. Fear circulated through him. Something more was wrong here than the circumstances.

  Ripping himself upright, he swung around the Saturn’s open driver-side door without thinking about the weapon she’d taken from him. It lay in quick pieces, bullets scattered in the well of the passenger floor, clip tossed empty on the back seat beside her, gun wide-open and clearly harmless, wedged neatly under her foot where he obviously wasn’t going to get at it easily even if he wanted to.

  He didn’t.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He stooped in front of her, automatically reaching to touch Sasha’s throat, feel for the pulse. She slapped his hand away and gathered the toddler protectively against her.

  “What the hell have you done to him?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Jeth assured her—or tried to. Tried to assure himself, too. “He was like this when I took him. It’s why I took him.”

  “He smells bad and he’s too small,” she said, paying no attention. “What is he, two? He doesn’t weigh anything. They sleep hard at this age, but not like this. He’s malnourished, he’s probably sick and he needs help.” She aimed a swift but awkward kick at Jeth that he blocked with a forearm. Damn, she was going to be a handful, and he was stuck with her now. Her eyes were bright; anger and something more painful, more accusing—and, unaccountably, disappointed. It was an odd thing to feel, but he didn’t want to disappoint her. “Why aren’t you helping him?”

  “I am helping him—I did help him. I got him out of hell. I found you. You’re going to help me help him.” The hair on the back of his neck stood on end: a caution he knew to heed. They weren’t far enough away from the house he’d removed Sasha from to stop for any length of time. He felt naked and vulnerable, weaponless thanks to his stupidity and her, and now he had more than a tiny child to protect; he had her. A school parking lot in a populated neighborhood was not the place for long explanations—especially not this explanation.

  “Look,” he said, and she did. Looked him straight in the eye and waited for him to lie convincingly to her. He swallowed. Who needed falsehood when the truth would suffice? “Look,” he repeated, “I wish I could let you go, but I can’t. I wish I didn’t need your help but I do. I wish you’d turned out to be somebody else, some other kind of person—” what was he saying? He didn’t know what kind of person she was “—but you know what they say about wishes.”

  “If wishes were kisses all frogs would be princes,” she said. “Or were you thinking of the one where all beggars would ride?”

  Animosity was palpable. So was the sudden and out-of-the-blue desire to find out if he could become a prince if she kissed him. He wanted to taste her, that was sure.

  The hair on his arms fuzzed to attention. God, he was an idiot. If he kept on letting her make his mind wander, they were dead.

  He tightened his jaw. Whatever it took, no kids or strangely fascinating women died on his watch ever again. Especially not because of him. He drew a breath and focused his whole attention on his…captive.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said. He reached out to stroke Sasha’s head. “I promise you I don’t mean you or him any harm. I want to get this little guy whatever help he needs, but it has to be far away from here. If we stay here discussing what’s right or wrong about what I’ve done so far this morning, we put him and ourselves at more risk than I can tell you. That’s the truth.”

  She had no reason to believe him, but she studied him seriously nevertheless; held herself perfectly still and assessed him with those strangely colored eyes. It was almost a cop’s stare, flat and unyielding, guaranteed to make the guilty look away first. Well, he might be guilty as hell, but he’d be damned if he looked away.

  Time passed, a minute, two, before she dropped her chin in the merest fraction of a nod. Then she inclined her head toward the keys still sitting in the ignition.

  “You drive,” she said.

  He took great pains to belt her and the little boy securely into the rear seat before he grabbed the padded duffel bag, pulled a black T-shirt out of it and mopped himself off with it before sliding it on. Then he climbed into the car, repositioned the driver’s seat to fit his height and did as Allyn suggested. Gravel spit out from underneath the tires when they pulled out of the parking lot, punctuating the urgency with which he drove.

  The sensation of power shifting and balancing uncomfortably between them was almost overwhelming.

  Allyn did her best not to look at him, not to watch his face in the mirror. The accidental touches when he’d wrapped the shoulder belt around her had been wholly impersonal but nonetheless a challenge to ignore. She liked the smell of him, the taste of him, the muskiness that lay heavy in her lungs. The very thought scared her to death.

  He scared her to death.

  Of course, being afraid of him only made sense, but there was no way on earth she planned to let him know it.

  Reluctantly, Allyn turned her attention to the child in her arms. She’d held a lot of little ones in her lifetime; she was a fair bit older than most of her cousins, and then there were Becky’s kids. All in
all, in a family as closely knit as her mother’s, it added up to experience. Experience told her that this youngster was not at all in the shape he should be.

  He was dressed in a toddler’s dirty undershirt and a pair of cotton training pants, underneath which he wore a soggy disposable diaper. His hair was blond, skin white to the point of translucence, threaded with the blue and lavender of veins; the light pulse at his throat was visible. Aside from the occasional twitch of eyelids, the pulse was the only movement she could detect in him. And while outside it was hot, he felt cold and clammy to touch; instinctively she wanted to bundle him tight, to warm him. She twisted as best she could to reach behind her for the blanket she kept on the car’s rear window shelf.

  “What are you doing?” her captor queried sharply.

  “He’s cold.” She met his gaze in the rearview mirror, noted the color of his eyes for the first time: midnight blue. Concerned, but about as genial as a hawk’s. “I’m wrapping him up.”

  “Good.” Then, almost apologetically, “There weren’t any blankets where he was. There wasn’t much of anything. I’m not even sure he’s worn clean clothes in the past couple of weeks. Or had a bath. Or eaten much, or done anything kids do. I couldn’t do anything for him where he was. I had to take him.”

  Again he met her glance in the mirror. Truth and something more were there where she didn’t want to see either of them. She dropped her gaze first, stroked the child’s hair.

  “Do you really mean to help him?” she asked finally, quietly.

  “Yes.” Succinct, ferocious. A man who’d found himself in an untenable situation he’d no control over and who’d decided to change the circumstances to appease his conscience—even if it meant forcing his ends to justify his means.

  And that included abducting Allyn and stealing her car.

  She glanced at him again, considered the simplicity of his yes, the shape the child was in. And for the second time in her life made an abrupt and rash decision—and never mind that she’d currently been in the process of regretting the first quick decision she’d ever made. She decided to throw caution to the winds for the sake of a child. Doing so didn’t mean rashly trusting the guy driving her car, after all. It simply involved making sure that the baby got cleaned up, got help, got home—or got someplace that would make him a good home. In which case, if they were going to spend any time together—if she was going to help him help the toddler—she’d need a name for both of them.