A Drive-By Wedding Read online

  As inexplicable and frightening as the sudden terror rose tears; Sasha clung to Jeth’s shirt and sobbed.

  “Shh,” Jeth pleaded, wishing he knew what he’d done wrong. Wanting to kill whoever had terrified Sasha by doing it first—whoever had continued to do it. “It’s all right, Sasha, I promise. It’s all right. Ah, please, babe, I don’t know what I did, but I won’t do it again, I promise, just hush, please? It’s okay, I promise, nobody’s ever going to hurt you again, I won’t let them. Shh. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  “Jeth?” Yawning but aware, Allyn rolled over to see the man and the baby on the other side of the room. Reflex brought her upright at the sight of Sasha’s way-more-than-I-hurt-myself tears. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Feeling helpless but still attempting to soothe his charge, Jeth shook his head. “I don’t know. He was getting loud. I didn’t want him to wake you so I covered his mouth.” He looked at her, distress evident. “This happened.”

  “Somebody scared him doing that before.” She was on her feet and across the room in a wink. “Somebody hurt him.” She dropped to her knees in front of Jeth, ran a gentle finger down Sasha’s cheek, cupped the back of his head in her hand. “Here,” she said, “Let me have him.”

  At a loss for what else to do, Jeth peeled Sasha reluctantly away, turned the little boy so he could see Allyn reaching for him. One peek was all it took; Sasha released Jeth and flung himself into Allyn’s arms, wrapped his own around her neck and hung on for dear life.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” The sound choked involuntarily out of her, a strangled, mother-toned croon. She sat on her heels and hoisted Sasha into her lap, rocked him. “There, there, darlin’. It’s all right, I’m here.” She glanced at Jeth, whose anxious fingers continued to stroke Sasha’s hair. “We’re here,” she corrected herself. “We’re here, we’ll take care of you. We won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.” Assurance was fierce and absolute, inviolable. “I promise.”

  She was talking to Sasha, but it was Jeth who believed her. Nothing would happen to this child that she could prevent. And the very thought of her so willingly and brashly taking on the people who threatened Sasha quite simply and suddenly scared Jeth to death. Dear God, what had he done?

  Oh, not much. Stolen a child, car jacked a woman and created for himself an instant family, instant wife—and gotten all the unexpected but attendant emotions that went with creating the real thing: a woman he wanted to sleep with, a wife and child he’d protect to the death.

  What he’d intended should be used only in the line of duty, then be disposable, had in the space of a day become vital to him. Something about her was becoming vital to him.

  A quiet lament filtered through this revelation: Allyn singing one of the Childe Ballads, the Skye Boat Song, while she rocked Sasha.

  The words themselves—particularly when you thought about them—were hardly comforting, but the tone, the music were. Allyn’s voice was an untrained but pleasant alto, and Jeth felt himself relax even as Sasha was soothed and quieted.

  Allyn finished the song. “I can’t see,” she whispered. “It feels like he’s asleep. Is he?”

  Jeth nodded. “Looks like it from here.”

  “Good.” She sighed with relief, then looked Jeth square in the eye. “You realize I’m going to find whoever hurt him and show them the hooked end of a fishing pike, don’t you?” The statement was informational, the question rhetorical and matter-of-fact.

  Jeth controlled the sudden rise of bile in his throat with effort. “No.” The single word was soft but emphatic. “You won’t.”

  “Yes,” Allyn said, still matter-of-fact, still disquietingly serene. “As soon as I’m sure he’s absolutely safe, I will.” When Jeth would have argued, she shushed him with a meaning glance at Sasha and an offered hand. “Now help me up so I can get him to bed.”

  “Fine.” Jeth grabbed her hand in one of his and spotted Sasha with the other while he helped her to her feet. “But you’re not. Uh-uh.” He shook his head and put a finger to her lips when she would have argued with him. “Don’t wake the baby.”

  She glared daggers at him but held her tongue and turned on her heel to carry Sasha to the bed and lay him down. The moment she withdrew her hands from underneath him, the toddler sat up, rubbed sleepy eyes and made a single, reproachful—if bleary-voiced—demand.

  “Chee-tat,” he said, “Mama chee-tat.”

  Just like that laughter returned, quiet, intimate, shared.

  Jeth picked up the book from where he’d dropped it and handed it to her. “Here, Mama,” he said, chuckling. “Chee-tat.”

  Grinning, Allyn accepted the offer she’d no intention of refusing and crawled onto the inside of the bed beside Sasha, rearranged the pillows behind her. Instantly Sasha climbed into her lap. She glanced at Jeth, saw the look of longing he sent the space beside them. Found herself as unable to resist the man as she was the child she held. She patted the bed.

  “Come on.” She motioned her head at Jeth. “Help me get the words right.”

  Jeth snorted something probably unprintable under his breath but willingly stretched out beside them. The word book had no actual story to read, but there were plenty of pictures with accompanying descriptions, and Jeth and Allyn took turns reading the words while Sasha pointed out the pictures. In very short order, he began to watch first Allyn’s mouth, then Jeth’s when either pronounced something; a short while later he was attempting to pronounce the words after them. At every attempted word Allyn clapped and exclaimed her praise. Jeth chuckled, overwhelmed at the sight of them.

  Before he yawned and nodded off into heavy sleep, Sasha had bear, truck, car, dog, cat, house and a few other simple words down pat, Allyn wore a smile of total delight and motherly pride, and Jeth had an ache in his heart the size of Arizona. When Allyn leaned over and brushed a good-night kiss across Sasha’s brow, Jeth thought his heart might burst. When she reached over, squeezed his hand and whispered, “Thank you,” before sliding contentedly down beside Sasha and closing her eyes without even suggesting that Jeth leave the bed, he was sure of it.

  Swallowing the lump in his throat, Jeth eased himself off the bed and reached for the blanket to cover Sasha and Allyn. Without opening her eyes she smiled sleepily at him and snuggled more comfortably around their charge. Suddenly unable to bring himself to do otherwise, Jeth unholstered his weapon and removed the clip, stripped off his shoulder holster and T-shirt and stretched out on his back beside Sasha. Allyn drew light fingers of welcome down his shoulder. He squeezed her hand and tucked that heat-inducing thing firmly beneath the sheet away from him. Then he got control of his pulse, listened to her breathing and, just when he was sure it wouldn’t come, lost himself in sleep.

  He woke to the sound of throttled giggling and the intermittent pressure of something that weighed not quite twenty pounds straddling him, then jouncing up and down on his chest. He opened his eyes to find Sasha’s baby blues regarding his chest with disapproval.

  “Ucky!” the toddler announced decisively, and yanked at the fine smattering of hair near Jeth’s nipples, trying to pull it out.

  Jeth yelped and brushed Sasha’s fingers away. “Ow. Thanks a lot, twerp. Remind me to pay you the same compliment when you’re my age.”

  Beside them Allyn buried her head under her pillow and howled.

  Jeth dragged the pillow away from her face and viewed her darkly. “You got him to do this. This is revenge, isn’t it.”

  Grinning, Allyn rolled onto her side and jacked herself up on an elbow. Loosened bits of hair fell across her face, making her look tousled and inviting. Jeth thought he’d never seen anything quite so beautiful.

  Nor anyone he’d wanted to touch quite so badly.

  “Hey,” she said cheerfully, “you’re the one who kidnapped me so we’d look like a family. Well, this is the sort of thing little boys do with their fathers. Besides, it serves you right for coming to bed without a shirt on.”

 
For the first time since he was nineteen he flushed deeply enough for it to show. “I was hot.”

  “Ah.” Her eyes were bright with amusement.

  Jeth wanted them bright with something else.

  Without giving himself time to think, he bounced Sasha twice more and hefted him onto the floor. Rolled, and before Allyn knew what was happening, tipped her onto her back and pinned her beneath him. Her eyes widened, nostrils flared. The tip of her tongue flicked nervously between her teeth.

  But she didn’t pull away.

  “Jeth, what are you—I thought you said—” She swallowed. Again her tongue curled around her teeth, slipped out to moisten her lips. Jeth bent his head and nipped it.

  “Don’t tease me with that thing, Allyn, I mean it.”

  Exactly as he’d known it would, the command left her unable to do anything else. Again that tantalizing bit of pink poked out of her mouth, withdrew, clearly begging for him to follow. On a groan of relief, he dipped his head and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.

  The tang was intense, warm and spicy, sweet and sour at once. She tasted of morning, of daydreams, of fantasy—of a night spent sleeping in the same bed with him and him wanting her, wanting…without allowing either of them to touch.

  He drank her flavor into himself and craved more of it, more of her.

  She gasped, struggled for an instant to fit herself more comfortably to him, then slid her palms along the sides of his face and opened for him, drew him into her. He deepened the kiss, and she trembled, following him, leading him; treaded heavily down the path with him to more.

  She took her hands away from his face, dropped them to his shoulders, dragged them lower; breath rasped harshly in his lungs. Her fingertips on his chest seemed alive with sparks; everywhere she trailed them his skin became as something separate from him, sentient and vital on its own yet wholly part of him. It jumped and shuddered, heated and began to slicken with sweat. His ears roared with the crash of his heartbeat, with the tremble of Allyn’s breath pumping life into his lungs. Even if he’d wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to think.

  He slipped a thigh between hers, pressed against her and rubbed gently.

  “Jeth.” His name was half whimper, half moan, imploring. “Jeth, please.”

  He rode the call of his fingers, like autonomous entities that urged him to haul her T-shirt up her belly so they could introduce themselves to her satin textures, the muscles that tightened and undulated to his stroking, brought her arching into him.

  His hand crept higher, shaping her ribs, easing upward to palm the curve of her breast. She felt so good, so good, and he wanted, needed….

  “Jeth, please.”

  The plea was different this time, broken, almost frantic. Her fist wrapped his wrist, held his hand still.

  “Jeth, wait, please stop.” She struggled to disentangle herself, roll from underneath him. “Stop. Please. Sasha…we can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  It took him a moment to come back from that drugged place, the euphoria of the instant, to hear her and understand. The second her no registered, he consigned himself to the devil for what he’d done, hoisted himself on his hands and let her go.

  Reluctantly.

  He swung away from her, dropped his feet over the side of the bed, sat up and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, silently cursing himself for his reluctance. Judas, he was a cad, he was an ass, he was in more unrelieved sexual pain than he’d experienced in his life, he was—

  “Jeth.”

  Allyn touched his back with tentative fingers, and he jerked, grabbed her hand and held it away from his skin. “Criminy, woman, what are you trying to do, kill me? You said no, now back off. I’m not made of steel.”

  “No.” Flustered. “I mean I’m glad.” A tad befuddled. “I mean I’m sorry. I mean I didn’t mean… Oh, geez, Jeth I don’t know what I mean.”

  Confused, she pulled her hand back, rubbed her wrist where his fingers had cut into it. Great. Something else to condemn himself for.

  He slumped, hooked a knee onto the bed and angled toward her. Sighed at the swollen-mouthed, mussed-hair-and-clothing beauty of her, then steeled himself against a new flare of need. Reached out and tucked the loose hair hanging in front of her face behind her ear, took the wrist she gripped and chafed it to take away the stinging marks left by his fingers.

  “You said no, you meant no,” he told her gently. “That’s all you have to mean. No explanations other than that.”

  She swallowed; her mouth worked. She looked into his eyes, blushed at whatever she saw there, glanced at Sasha, happily oblivious, playing on the floor with his toys. No man had ever looked at her the way Jeth looked at her. No man had ever been allowed to look at her that way.

  Nor to be so physically close.

  She shook her head, let the loose hair fall across her face once more. How could she explain it so he’d understand that even though she’d only known him a day it wasn’t him she rebuffed, but herself?

  “I know what no means,” she said, troubled. “I’ve said it before, but always at the beginning. Always before anything…happened. Before there was ever a kiss, even.” She peeked, ducked away. “I mean, I guess you could say I have a kind of reputation. Not exactly ice queen, but prude, maybe. I mean, you know what it’s like to get involved with the guys you work with and especially in a graduate program where they’ll just figure a woman sleeps her way into the—the…positions she wants no matter how qualified she is.”

  His fingers stilled on her wrist, his mouth tightened. “Allyn, I mean it. You don’t—”

  She fluttered the hand he didn’t hold, brushed him to silence. “Maybe. But it doesn’t really matter. Explanations or not, I’m still a virgin, and no matter how much I just wanted to give that up to you, I can’t, I just can’t. Not in the daytime. Not with a two-year-old in the room.” She looked earnestly at him. “But I really did want to. Do want to. And I’ve never wanted to with anyone else before, so maybe some other time… I mean if you’re not totally turned off, or—or…anything. If—if we have time?”

  Jeth gaped at her, speechless. She’d stunned him how many times in the past twenty-four hours and still he was floored by an admission she didn’t have to make? When God made Allyn Meyers He’d taken unique to its maximum, then thrown away the mold, Jeth was sure of it.

  And she wanted him.

  Her eyes flicked nervously over his face, skittered away; she hunched into her shoulders, uncertain. “I wish you’d say something,” she told him. “My twin sister doesn’t even know I’m still, um, er, unsullied, so to speak. I mean, knowing Becky, she’s probably guessed, but it’s just not… Well, it’s not… It’s just…geez, Jeth, just say anything, will you? Tell me where we’re going. Let me know you’re still in the same room with me?”

  “Still in the same room with you?” he repeated incredulously. He dropped her hand, huffed out a soundless whooo, and shook his head. “Oh, I’m definitely still in the same room with you.” He pinched his arm. “Yep. Me. Right here in front of you. I’m just not sure I heard you right, that’s all. And if I did, what planet are you from and…”

  Allyn’s face crumpled. Somehow she’d managed to do the blithering-idiot thing her mother’s family was so talented at and made herself look ridiculous in front of a guy she really thought she liked. Maybe even more than liked.

  Liked. Yeah, right, as though Jeth were some teenage boy and she was a sophomore with a crush. She’d been out of high school how long?

  Okay, so in future she’d remember: she was a woman, he was a man. Women were from Venus and men were from Mars. Earth was like the person stuck in the middle, wondering how to explain them to each other.

  She swung away from Jeth, determined to get things back on an even footing. “Look, it was stupid— I shouldn’t have said— I’ll take Sasha and get him dressed and we can—”

  Before she could move, his arm snaked out and wrapped around her waist, and he hauled her acro
ss the bed and into his lap. Strong fingers tunneled into her hair, wrapped the back of her head and pulled her into a kiss that sizzled and scorched and curled her toes.

  “Shut up,” he muttered against her lips. “Don’t go sensitive on me. It’s not you. But since it’s happened, I’m going to tell you this once. Every time you open your mouth, you say something that drives me crazy. I want you. I have rules against getting involved with civilians, but that didn’t stop me this morning. I’m glad you stopped me. I’m glad you told me. Let me tell you, you deserve better than me. You deserve more.”

  Allyn smiled and nuzzled his mouth, nipped his lower lip and dragged her teeth across it, self-confidence somewhat restored. “Not if all I want is a guy with a great body to show me the ropes,” she whispered blithely.

  Then, before Jeth could stop her, she bounced out of his lap, scooped Sasha off the floor and headed for the bathroom, leaving Jeth staring after her shaking with disbelieving laughter and wondering how on earth she always seemed to regain her equilibrium at exactly the moment he was losing his.

  Chapter 7

  For the better part of several days, they drove a circuitous route through Pennsylvania Dutch country, then down into western Maryland and West Virginia and back north. They alternated between side roads and expressways, tourist traps and truck shops—anything that might allow them to elude trackers or, barring that, to keep a paranoid eye out for anyone following them. Jeth wanted to be sure that when they finally cut and ran for the southwest, anyone following them would be too confused to automatically do likewise.

  She said little about it, but Jeth knew it bothered Allyn to realize how late she was to her family reunion and how worried her family must be about her. It bothered Jeth, too, especially knowing that Allyn’s family must be searching for her by this time. But he couldn’t bring himself to break the silence he’d assured her they must maintain in order to keep Sasha hidden. If, as he suspected, Sasha’s captors had figured out who Allyn was, it would be a simple matter for them to find her—and subsequently Jeth and Sasha—by listening in on the receiving end of phone calls she placed. Jeth didn’t like the risk of being captured as her kidnapper, but it was one he had to take. The alternative was unthinkable.