A Drive-By Wedding

by Ramin, Terese

  “Ah.” Sada nodded as though that explained a great deal. Then, “Who hurt my son?”

  Allyn raised her chin, looked Sada in the eye. “Someone who will never hurt Jeth or Sasha or anyone else again.”

  Sada smiled. “Good.” Another pause. “Do more come?”

  Allyn didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “For your son?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  Sada’s eyes and mouth firmed. “Then we will not let them find him.”

  Relief and fear flooded Allyn. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But I can’t let anyone else—”

  “You take care of my son,” Sada told her gently but firmly. “We hide yours. Don’t be a mule like Jeth. My husband is up top working, but we will be fine. Mabel will take Sasha where he won’t be noticed, and that will make you less noticed.” She held out a hand. “Hey, we make this pact now, woman to woman, before he wakes. Men don’t know how to do this. Grandmothers know how to protect the children. The mother leaves the wife to mend the man.”

  It was wisdom Allyn found difficult to argue with—especially since it was largely the same as that passed down within her own family. Of course, there being so many women in her family, they might have been slightly prejudiced as to which gender knew how to do what better, but hey, you learned what you learned, filtered the rest and hoped for the best.

  “Okay.” She put her hand in Sada’s. “But I want to see him every day.”

  Eyes somewhere just this side of sober and that side of innocence, but features revealing nothing, Sada nodded, and Allyn knew instantly where Jeth came by his ability to shave the truth without telling a lie. “You will see him. And we will all keep watch for men who don’t belong in our canyon.”

  Night wore on, seeming darker than Allyn was used to.

  Familiar evening songs blended with regional noises she couldn’t readily identify. She ate because Kaze came by to hang a new IV for Jeth and made her. She braided her hair because Guy stopped in and teased and goaded her into doing so.

  By darkness she packed up the supplies of diapers, toddler snacks and the individually packaged macaroni and cheese meals that were Sasha’s favorites and sent them to wherever with Russ when he poked his head in the door to make sure things were all right. They weren’t, of course, not with Sasha gone and Jeth in the shape he was in, but since there was nothing life-threatening immediately in the works, all right was relative.

  Two days passed in which Jeth drifted in and out of consciousness. Each waking found him a little more lucid and aware of his surroundings, made Allyn relax further. He also left her somewhat breathless when, each time he opened his eyes, his first waking act was to find and reach for her, inspect her mouth with weak but gentle fingers and find her ring hand to kiss before he asked about Sasha, let her help him take care of necessities and rode sleep out again. And with each waking Allyn found loving him harder to resist, ridiculous to deny.

  The third morning she woke to him stroking her hair where she slept sitting in the rocking chair and slumped over the bed beside him. She raised her head to look at him; his eyes were clear and aware, blue as midnight.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He touched her cheek. “Hi.” His voice was rich with sleep, rough from disuse.

  She turned her face to kiss his searching fingertips. “You going to stay with me for a while?”

  “Long as you’ll let me.” He felt her bottom lip. “Stitches are out.”

  She nodded. “Yesterday.”

  “Sasha?”

  “Black-haired and black-browed. He’d look like a negative of himself if Kaze hadn’t found that sunless tanning stuff that almost looks natural. ’Course he sort of looks more orange than copper, but she thinks a heavy sunscreen and slow exposure to real sun should help that.”

  Jeth’s mouth twisted with wry humor. “Shoulda known I couldn’t bring you here without them finding some way to get involved.”

  “Can’t say hello to people without affecting them or involving them in your life to some degree, Jeth.”

  “Or law in the family and tons of questions, depending who you are,” Jeth muttered sotto voce.

  Allyn cleared a laugh from her throat. “Or that,” she agreed straight-faced.

  Jeth made an attempt to grab her that she dodged easily, sank weakly into the pillows on a hiss of pain when his injured shoulder protested the movement. “You dissin’ a wounded man, woman?”

  Allyn patted his cheek. “Only when he deserves it.” She batted her eyes at him and backed out of the room laughing freely for the first time in days, leaving Jeth to his own devices.

  A week went by.

  Kaze discontinued the IV and recommended Jeth take it slow. Allyn might have told her to save her breath. Jeth’s agenda didn’t allow for stealthy healing.

  He wanted to be operational, needed to be, to get back into the role he’d created for himself and away from the family who didn’t ask for or require explanations for the past three years of his life, but to whom he was strongly inclined to give them. Seeing his parents, brothers, sister, cousins again reminded him that not only had his family lost Marcy a little over thirty-six months ago, they’d lost him, too. But unlike his baby sister, he’d chosen to remove himself from the picture, to add ache to pain and broken heart because he’d convinced himself he couldn’t face them when the person he really couldn’t face was himself.

  And the thing that was almost worse than anything else was the way they took him back, offering wordless forgiveness for his uncommunicative absence and joyful welcome and no resentment whatever.

  If it hadn’t been for Allyn, Jeth wasn’t sure how he’d have coped with himself. But she made him forget what he blamed himself for, busted him when his knitting shoulder made him a thoroughly rotten patient, dealt with his night sweats and nightmares, his self-directed curses and one-handed ineptitude. And when he was healed enough that he could no longer stand having her near but not near enough, she pressed him back into the pillows and took him inside her and made love to him until there was nothing left of him alone; until he looked at the demon in the abyss and banished it with her name on his lips; until he knew who he was because she held his reflection in her eyes.

  Until he wrapped his good arm tightly around her and held her to his chest while his body pumped and pulsed and spilled deep inside her and the awesome, terrifying and extraordinary need for her was written indelibly on his soul.

  Until he slept, deep and contented and wondrously exhausted; slumbered peacefully for the first time in years without dreaming.

  Another week went by.

  It was enough time for them to slip naturally into village life, tranquil enough to make Jeth uneasy but unwilling to rock the status quo. He’d begun to want to make promises to Allyn, elicit some from her, but was afraid of making vows before he could keep them. So he took the time with her he had and endured his brothers’ gibes about feigning injury in order to bar the cabin door and keep Allyn to himself instead of getting out of bed to do an honest day’s work with them.

  Somewhere in plain sight but just out of reach, safe from contact that might jeopardize him, Sasha continued to flourish. Jeth and Allyn went out of their way to spot him as often as possible, to assure themselves of his well-being without appearing overeager about it.

  Though easily tired and often weak, Jeth continued to recover. To regain his strength, he walked as much as possible, early in the morning and later in the evening when the waning sun cooled the canyon. Allyn went with him, at first simply to be with him and make sure he didn’t overdo, and then because the beauty of the place rocked her and struck her dumb. The more she learned of it, the more rooted but contrarily restless she felt.

  She also walked because she understood Jeth well enough by now to recognize what his frequent jaunts were really about. Every move he made he scanned the canyon’s rim, watched for anything or anyone out of place. When he began to carry a rifle wi
th him even before he could properly hold it with two hands, then handed her his Browning to keep with her, she protested—to deaf ears. In this more primitive country, he told her, a weapon was a tool and occasionally a necessity.

  Not to mention that what had happened in Flagstaff made him want to be sure Allyn knew how to do more than point a gun convincingly. Sort of like being prepared by carrying a speargun when she went diving.

  She didn’t use a speargun, she snapped, still adamantly opposed to the idea. Study, not killing, was the point when she went diving.

  Then she sighed and amended the statement for the sake of honesty. Well, at least she didn’t carry a speargun often.

  And Jeth smiled crookedly and kissed her hotly behind the ear, then pulled reluctantly away and went to solicit his younger brother’s help to set up some targets for practice.

  Allyn hated it. She didn’t like the Browning’s kick, she abhorred the noise in this place she’d mistakenly come to think of as some private Eden, and she loathed even the idea of firing at pieces of paper with silhouettes of men on them. Still, after a few false starts and some grim getting used to simply squeezing the trigger, then learning—with some hands-on guidance from Jeth—how to compensate for the weapon’s kick, she proved to be the natural she’d looked the first time she’d held Jeth’s gun on him.

  When she’d managed to shred the kill zone a couple of dozen times she gave him a tight-lipped, jaw-working glare of okay?

  “Shooting targets isn’t the same as shooting at people,” Jeth said to the wordless question.

  “I should hope not,” Allyn told him tartly. “I hope it’s a hell of a lot harder and that I’d think five or six times at least before I’d do it.”

  Jeth cupped her face with one hand, stooped to peer into it. “If things don’t work out you might not have time to even think once. Will you shoot if you have to, to protect yourself or Sasha?”

  “Or you.”

  His hand tightened along the side of her neck; a muscle ticked in his cheek. “I don’t want you anywhere near a line of fire for me.”

  “Too late,” she said softly.

  Jeth nodded grimly. “I suppose it is. Will you? Can you?”

  She looked at his mouth, his eyes, his shoulder, his eyes. “I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “But I didn’t know I could really drive like I did the day you picked me up, either. I imagine if I have to I’ll muddle through somehow.”

  “Don’t joke, Lyn.” Savage. “I have to know you’ll do what you have to, do you understand? I have to know.”

  She studied him in silence for a moment, then leaned forward into his intensity and kissed him long and hard, melting him. “I don’t know what I’m capable of, Jeth. But Becky would kill to protect her kids or husband in a heartbeat, and the rest of the women in my family would do the same for theirs. I’d say it’s pretty safe to assume I’ll do whatever needs to be done to defend what’s mine, too.”

  Then she ejected the empty clip, slid a fresh one home, snapped on the safety and handed the gun to Jeth. Turned and picked her way along the turquoise creek and disappeared into the trees that screened Jeth’s place from the village.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the set of her back, the length of her legs or sway of her hips until the last glimpse of her denim-covered derriere was lost to view. Then he sucked in his cheeks, looked at the gun and let himself be rocked by the implication she’d left of exactly who she considered hers.

  Grinning, and whistling something jaunty, he followed her home.

  Another two days went by. Jeth’s shoulder ached and itched like crazy, and his restlessness grew.

  He was not a man used to sitting still and waiting for trouble to come to him. If there was going to be trouble, he generally preferred to go out, find and eliminate it. But this wasn’t one of those times when he could simply go look for trouble then try to force his opponent’s hand. No, this was one time when sitting tight and waiting it out was the only way to win. And win he must.

  Knowing that didn’t make things easier, however. The holding pattern that appeared to have developed around them seemed to go on forever—it felt unreal, a vacation that couldn’t possibly last and that would somehow only make matters worse when real life returned because they’d taken the time off when and where they couldn’t afford it.

  The longer the idyll lasted, the more impatient Allyn grew about wanting to call her family to reassure them she was fine and the more careless she became about visiting Sasha. Jeth understood her impatience, her need to see the little boy who’d brought them together, but it also made him afraid that when the day arrived that he could least afford to, he would let down his guard and lose his edge.

  So he did what he could to make himself fit and keep himself busy—and make amends to his family for his absence without also making explanations he knew were only excuses.

  Allyn turned brown and more beautiful in the sun, continued to amaze him at every turn. But even she couldn’t tame his encroaching disquietude, the gut instinct that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and told him that the thing whose arrival he awaited was already here, watching them. That he would see it plainly if only he turned quickly enough to catch it when it passed the periphery of his vision.

  Try as he might to guard against it, it snuck up and took him unaware.

  It was Russ who brought him the news that the body had been found and identified in Flagstaff. He stepped onto the porch where Allyn sat shucking peas into a bowl and stopped in front of Jeth, who was doing a frustrated job of trying to help her.

  “Talk to you, little brother?”

  Warned by the tone in his voice, Jeth glanced at him. “Talk.”

  Russ looked meaningly at Allyn. She gazed calmly back and didn’t move. Russ sighed, said to Jeth, “You might want to hear this alone.”

  “No,” Allyn said before Jeth could respond and in a voice that advised them both she meant it. “He doesn’t.”

  Jeth swallowed a grin. Never had to wonder what the woman thought in any given situation, no, sirree, Bob. “I guess not,” he told his brother.

  Russ’s mouth thinned. “Seriously, bro.”

  Jeth gave him a clipped nod. “Seriously. It involves me, it involves her. I haven’t done anything recently she doesn’t know about. Talk.”

  Russ sucked in a breath, blew it out on an oath. “Fine. Here it is. Bureau of Indian Affairs office just got this in from D.C. via Tucson. You’re wanted for the abduction of a two-year-old in Baltimore and the murder of a federal witness in Flagstaff.” He looked at Allyn. “Jeth’s also wanted for questioning in the possible car jacking of a woman in Baltimore. I’m guessing that would be you and that the child is our Sasha.”

  He swung to Jeth. “BIA asked Guy if we knew where you were. Said we’d heard from you once in the last three years. They figured if you were in Flagstaff you might come here. If we see you we’re to bring you in as peacefully as possible or they’ll find someone to bring you in any way possible.” His mouth thinned, features hardened. “That sounds like a threat to me, so I’m here. You were in a jam once before and didn’t come to us about it, it didn’t work out for Marcy. Doesn’t matter none of us could have done anything more than you to stop it. Benefit of the doubt runs out soon, baby bro, so don’t tank it by lying to me now.”

  Jeth mouthed his single favorite curse and turned to Allyn, who looked the way he felt: gut shot. They hadn’t figured it to go quite this way, either of them.

  He hadn’t really stopped long enough to figure it at all, and that was the problem.

  Numbed to the bone, Allyn whispered his word out loud. “Judas.”

  Russ nodded. “Yeah.”

  “But he didn’t—I mean we didn’t—I mean— Ah, hell.” Without thought she reached for Jeth.

  Equally oblivious of the automatic action, he reached and squeezed her hand. “A federal witness?” he asked guardedly. “Since when and says who?”

  “What do you mean, say
s who?” Russ asked. “The fact you’re wanted for something like this at all should stand you on your ear. Why doesn’t it?” He eyed Allyn. “Doesn’t seem to’ve knocked the wind out of you as much as it should, either. What the hell have you two done?”

  Surprise of surprises, Allyn was for bringing Russ into it, Jeth wasn’t.

  No matter how stinging his brother’s comment about Marcy had been.

  When she thought about it later, she was astonished at the amount, accuracy and clarity of the wordless communication they shared, second only to the levels of unspoken exchanges she’d experienced with Becky. At the moment, however, she was too intent on their silent battle of wills and in foisting some sense onto Jeth in six words or less to notice that they simply stared at each other and spoke hardly at all. The contest was over in moments.

  Jeth didn’t win.

  Of course, he didn’t quite lose, either, but it was definitely no draw. Allyn used her six words to inform him quite emphatically that his way hadn’t exactly kept them out of trouble so far—not to mention that he was in no shape to handle protecting Sasha on his own at the moment—and since neither had hers, this time they were trying Russ’s.

  Sort of.

  With limitations as to the amount of information he was given.

  For instance, they didn’t tell him that Allyn might be likened to the Patty Hearst of the piece, a woman who, for whatever reason, had wound up taking up her captor’s cause. In fact, they didn’t bother to tell him about the car jacking at all. They let their sham marriage stand as real, because they were both strangely loath to call it off. They did fill Russ in on a modified version of Jeth’s assignment and Sasha’s history, including where Jeth had found him, but left out the part where he wasn’t really Allyn’s son, either. Russ knew they weren’t telling him everything, but let them convince him that Sasha’s safety was all that mattered.

  Then it was his turn to convince Jeth to let him and Guy take their brother and Allyn into Kingman for questioning.