A Drive-By Wedding

“What?” he’d asked, feeling a certain impatience and paranoia to be moving—and also feeling suddenly daunted by the fact that she found his wardrobe wanting.

She’d blinked at him. He looked at her eyes and was suddenly more afraid of her than of the people from whom he’d retrieved Sasha. Because what he saw there told him better than anything she’d yet done that she was not some timid flower he’d plucked on a whim; she was the wind that blew the flower.

“These all the clothes you’ve got with you?”

“Yeah. You got a problem with it?” Oh, good, be belligerent. Show her the tough guy. Intimidate the hell out of her.

Yeah, right. As if. Instead of being either intimidated or impressed, she’d offered him exaggerated patience.

“How far do you plan to travel with me ’n’ Sasha?” A two-beat pause, then she did a little fishing. “Or at least since you’ve already said you don’t trust me, I presume you’re not planning to let me go until this thing of yours comes to some sort of resolution?”

He bit down on his temper, at once wanting to strangle her and, surprisingly enough, kiss her until she couldn’t speak.

He gritted his teeth against the unwanted impulse. Blast, in one way or another this entire trip was going to be hell, he just knew it. “As far as it takes to make sure I can keep him safe. And no, even though you’re the most annoying woman I’ve ever car jacked, I’m not letting you go any time soon.”

“You’ve car jacked other women?” Innocent. Unremittingly interested.

God save him, he was definitely going to kill her. “No.” The patience he had to exert in order to say it calmly was galling. “You’re my first and my only.”

“Oh.” Clearly, if cheekily, charmed. “What a nice thing to tell a girl.”

Understanding for the first time that the only way to win here was to remain silent, Jeth crossed his arms and stared at her.

She pursed her lips and stared back, giving him a look that stated as clearly as words, You’re behaving like a child. Cut it out. You’re the one who kidnapped me so I could help you—now don’t give me dense. “You do have a destination in mind?”

“Yes.” The paranoia of his experiences of the past several weeks caused him to glance about, looking for enemies, to not want to tell her more than he had to. He hadn’t really intended to tell her anything at all; she was simply to have been a tool. Not to mention that the less she knew, the safer she’d be.

“Jethro,” she said patiently, mildly.

“Jeth,” he snapped. “I don’t care how much my mother liked Max Baer. I’m neither a Beverly Hillbilly nor a Clampett.”

Her turn to stare at him somewhat nonplussed but waiting, tapping her fingers on the car door. As though he was the one wasting the time here, not her.

“Fine.” He shut his eyes, unwillingly granting her another win. “I’m taking him home.”

“Tucson?” she asked.

“Close enough.”

“Family on vacation?” she guessed, taking his plan a step further than he’d taken it himself.

Surprised at how easily she made it fall into place, he’d nodded cautiously.

“Okay.” She’d pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay. Now we know you’ll need stuff, too, and I know how to shop.”

And that had been that. They had two shopping carts full of toddler supplies that were certain to deplete his hastily scraped together escape fund, and she was off to buy him clothes, too. When he tried to talk her out of the extra purchases, she canted her head and eyed him with more of that apparently trademark patience.

“We’re a family on vacation?” she’d repeated, automatically rearranging the sweatshirt around Sasha while she looked at Jeth.

Just somebody’s mom discussing something mildly irritating with somebody’s dad.

Jeth’s jaw tightened with the unsought observation. No, hell, no. He was playing a role, and she’d done stage work in college maybe, understood theater, too. And yet…

Deliberately he ignored the sensation of rightness that scurried through him with the mom-dad-baby image, instead gladly noting that Sasha seemed to be responding to whatever it was Allyn was doing for him and was more with it than before. Marcy would have liked her. If Marcy could have met her. “That’s the idea.”

“Well, then,” Allyn said, as if that explained everything. When she saw that it didn’t, she elaborated, “I have a full two weeks’ worth of luggage, Sasha’s now outfitted for travel, but you look like you’re on the run. How safe will any of us be if people don’t see what they expect to see?”

Jeth paled, once again jolted by her seemingly instant insights. “What?”

“How safe—”

“I heard you. Where’d you learn that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“What undercover school did you go to, and where’s your badge?”

“Don’t have one.” She smiled, a flash of slightly crooked teeth in a small mouth bordered by dimples. He found himself suddenly and dangerously captivated by her mouth, fascinated equally by its shape as by what came out of it. “I just listen to my mother and read undercover non-fiction a lot. Makes a break from studying sharks and coral reefs and things like that. Now, what kind of underwear do you like, boxers or briefs?”

At that, and in spite of himself, Jeth nearly lost it. Before Marcy’s death and even before he’d arrived in Baltimore his sense of humor had been excellent, but lately it had been a tad…lacking. Obviously such would not be the case for long with Allyn Meyers around—regardless of the circumstances under which he’d forced their meeting.

“Boxers,” he managed to say, strangling on laughter. Lord, yes. Marcy would have had a ball with her and so would the rest of his siblings. The thought almost made him sober; the kidnappee with the odd sense of humor didn’t offer sobriety a chance to take root.

“Ah,” Allyn said, plainly pleased, leading the way to the section of apparel in question. “A man who intends to have children—unless you already have children?”

Laughter wheezed out of him, astonishment edged with painful humor. God, she was killing him, and the worst of it was, he was pretty sure he’d be more than happy to let her.

Especially if she continued to go about it like this.

“No. No children,” he said when he could speak. “No wife. No anything.” And no intention of ever having either, of getting close enough to anyone who could be taken away from him again.

“Probably a good thing,” Allyn said. “I can already see where you might be hell on a relationship of that sort.”

He should have been beyond amazement by now, but he wasn’t. “Do you always talk to strangers like this?”

“Only those who car jack me,” she told him, at the same time she supervised him to make sure he added an adequate number of boxer shorts to her cart. “Then I find it’s mandatory not to let them think they’ve ever got the upper hand. Take them by surprise, that’s what my stepfather says, keep them off balance, make them think you’re one with them. Makes it so much easier to get away when they won’t listen to reason and just take your car without you in it.”

With which pronouncement she left Jeth standing openmouthed in the aisle behind her while she sashayed ahead of him to men’s jeans.

He had to admit that, bust-him-in-the-chops personality or not, she had one hell of a spectacular sashay.

She floored him only once more during their shopping expedition. She stopped in front of the jewelry counter, looked at the wedding rings, then leaned into him for all the world like an excited wife who’d gone too long without and whispered for his—and the sales clerk’s—ears only, “It’s been almost three years since we eloped. We can afford them now, can’t we, honey?”

Torn between mirth and total disbelief, Jeth could only nod. Even as briefly as he’d known her, he should have realized that if she’d decided to play the part of family on vacation, she’d play it to the hilt, wedding rings and all.

With the two thoughts, Talk about one-stop shopping, and Judas, what have I gotten myself into?—which seemed to be his mantra of the day—he helped Allyn choose slim silver rings formed into Celtic knots, then on his own chose a small but lovely sapphire engagement ring that surprised genuine delight out of her and fit very neatly on her finger atop her wedding ring.

When she turned, raised herself on tiptoe and planted a shy kiss on his cheek, it was all Jeth could do to maintain his rather shaky equilibrium.