A Drive-By Wedding. Terese Ramin

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ