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Allyn’s obvious giddiness over the unexpected addition of the engagement ring not only dumbfounded Jeth—who wanted to ask her about it then and there, but managed to refrain—but seemed to tickle the salesclerk, who mouthed, genuinely pleased for them, “Nice,” at Jeth over Allyn’s head, then offered them both congratulations and best wishes, and told them the rings would be waiting for them at the service desk when they were through shopping.
In the checkout line it appeared to be all Allyn could do to wait to get her hands on the rings once again—especially the sapphire—and Jeth could only watch her animated face and hope that maybe this trip he’d inadvertently arranged for them wouldn’t be complete hell after all.
When the cashier rang up nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise, he paid without any reluctance whatever.
Allyn couldn’t believe he’d thought of adding in the sapphire on his own.
More than that, she couldn’t believe she’d kissed him over a darned ring. For God’s sake, the man had stolen her, scared her, made her angry and ruined her vacation plans barely a couple of hours ago, and she’d kissed him?
His cheek was warm and bristly beneath her lips, with a slightly salty aftertaste—the result of his jog, she guessed. She’d liked the feel of it.
She’d also liked the feel of him when she’d leaned into him, stretched against him to kiss his cheek. That visceral recognition she’d experienced when she’d first seen him running at the side of the road was there in the flesh, enticing, hot.
And more than a little electrifying. And she knew all this because of one small, oval-cut sapphire circlet that now perched snugly on the third finger of her left hand.
She couldn’t help it. For reasons she could neither fathom nor have expected, Allyn saw Jeth differently than she had earlier. Perhaps that was normal. They’d spent a little time together. They’d shared an argument or two. They shared a single goal in the life of a lost child. But none of that really accounted for this.
When she’d paused at rings and considered the silver ones, she’d done so because silver wasn’t as expensive as gold, the idea of having matching rings had a practical side, she’d always loved playacting, and this little car jacking of Jeth’s was turning into her idea of theater of the finest kind. Also, her mother’s stories of how she had met Gabriel and forged a life with him had taught Allyn that sometimes desperate people did scary things for the right reasons. And although Allyn found herself having difficulty imagining Jeth’s alleged pursuing dangers as reality, she was having a grand time with everything else.
Of course, if Jeth had turned out to be a really badly dangerous guy…well, she was up hell’s creek. But at the moment she was going to fully enjoy the first ring any man—or even any boy—had ever chosen and given her. She’d cross hell’s creek when she came to it.
Now if only Sasha was all right.
She’d wanted to find a doctor for him first, but had settled for the shopping spree instead because, as she’d suggested to Jeth, if Sasha was cleaned up and they looked like a normal family on vacation, then they could visit any pediatrician and be found unremarkable in the extreme.
Unless, as Jeth pointed out darkly, the little boy was suffering from some extreme illness, or drugging, or abuse other than malnutrition that neither of them could see.
Which made it Allyn’s turn to point out that Jeth reminded her of her aunt Edith, the family disaster-monger. With Jeth’s black hair and looks and her brown hair and obvious Irish ancestry, it was quite apparent Sasha hadn’t actually been born to either of them. In which case he had to be adopted, recently and directly out of Russia.
Which meant, in Jeth’s estimation, that any doctor they saw in a small town in Maryland was sure to remember them clearly.
Unless, Allyn argued, they only told the story if they had to.
Since Jeth was equally as concerned about Sasha as she was, he conceded the round—reluctantly. Then he elicited a promise from her that if it began to look like they were going to have to tell a story, she would follow his lead, just in case he came up with something a whole lot less memorable on the spur of the moment. Because he, after all, was the one who’d come up with the rest of this…whatever this was on the spur of the moment and look how well it had worked so far.
His self-congratulatory tone made Allyn snort inelegantly, but keep her peace when he eyed her a dark admonishment of yeah, yeah, get over it and don’t remind me.
After a quick stop to pick up traveling grocery staples, they started searching for a doctor. Since it was Sunday, a doctor was difficult to find.
“Why don’t we ask someone?” Allyn said finally.
“Ask?” Jeth countered, teasing, continuing to drive. “For directions?”
“Cut the guy comedy,” Allyn told him firmly. “You don’t know where you’re going, and it’s for the good of the baby. Besides, we have to stop somewhere anyway so I can wash Sasha up and change his clothes so he looks like somebody cares about him.”
The moment the words were out, she wanted to take them back; Jeth looked unaccountably stung. “I care,” he muttered.
“I didn’t mean you,” she told him truthfully. “Or at least not since you let me buy all that stuff for him—and you.”
Ah, there it was, Jeth reflected ruefully. One of the benefits of shopping with a woman like there was no tomorrow: guys didn’t do it unless they cared.
Allyn returned full swing to her original conversational path. “Not only could Sasha use a bath, but a little soap and water wouldn’t hurt you, either. Fear and jogging don’t mix very well in a small car. Which means if we stop, everybody gets clean, you and I get some breakfast and coffee, you ask for directions…”
“Or you can ask for directions.”
“I don’t have any problem asking for directions,” Allyn said. “You’re the one who’s afraid I’ll tell someone you kidnapped the baby and me at gunpoint and they’ll call the police and it’ll all be over.”
“You won’t tell anyone anything,” Jeth said flatly. “You’ve decided you don’t mind being in this situation because it’s exciting and not your ordinary life, whatever that is, and you don’t believe anything could really happen to any of us, that this is some great fluke of an adventure that’ll work out just fine for all of us. I just hope you’re right.”
Allyn swallowed and stared at him. It was okay for her to take him by surprise, but not for him to have figured her out so easily. Heck, she couldn’t even usually figure herself out that easily. If she’d thought about it, the sense of familiarity between them, the idea of feeling comfortable with him after so short a time and under such circumstances would have scared her a lot more than the gun he’d pressed against her ribs earlier.
“Say you’re right,” she said carefully. “Then what?”
Something in the way she asked made him smile. “Then we stop at a fast food place for a quick cleanup and some breakfast and you ask for directions.”
Allyn viewed him suspiciously. “Does that mean you’ve decided to trust me or that you’re keeping your ego intact?”
Jeth merely grinned at her and drove.
After changing, breakfasting and asking for directions, they found what they were looking for in a twenty-four-hour ambulatory emergency care center.
Though still pale and groggy, Sasha looked like a different child, one who had someone looking after him.
Even half out of it as he was, he clung to Allyn’s neck and sobbed when the nurse and physician on duty tried to look at him, so neither thought to question her maternity; it was clear to whom Sasha belonged. While Jeth stood in the background, out of the way, Allyn rubbed the youngster’s back and held him gently so the doctor could look in his ears, at his throat and nose and probe his neck, abdomen and listen to his breathing.
“How long has he been like this?” the doctor asked, motioning for Allyn to hold Sasha up so he could use the stethoscope against the whimpering child’s back.
“A couple of days,” Jeth said, before Allyn could think of a response. “We’re on vacation, and he came down with a fever. We stopped at a clinic in Maine. Even though they gave him some medication and us a prescription for him, he’s been like this ever since. We’re on our way home, but we’ve still got a ways to go, and he’s not improving.”
The doctor nodded. “Probably a combination of a high fever, some dehydration and something in the other prescription he was allergic to. Do you have it with you?”
“No,” Allyn said quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it.”
The doctor made a sound of disapproval. “Hard to prescribe something new for him if I don’t know what he’s already got in his system.”
“He hasn’t had any medication since yesterday morning,” Jeth said positively. The look he turned on Allyn said, I know this for a fact, I watched him. “Does that help?”
“Should. Anything he had is probably pretty much out of his system by now.” He probed Sasha’s ribs and stomach. “Has he been eating?”
Jeth shook his head. “Not much. Hard to get anything into him.”
Allyn looked at her make-believe husband with approval. For a guy who didn’t seem to know anything about kids, he spun a pretty good story.
“We’ve tried Popsicles, ice cream, anything we can think of,” she said, “He just shoves it away.”
“Well,” the doctor said, “we should be able to take care of that. The nurse will give him a little something that should perk up his appetite, but you’ve got to get fluids into him or your next stop will be a hospital to get him IVs. You folks have insurance?”
Again Jeth shook his head regretfully. “Not yet. Headed into a new job. Old insurance cut out, new one hasn’t picked up yet.”
The doctor nodded, wound his stethoscope and put it in his pocket. “I’ll give you some samples of the medication I want you to give your son for the next few days. Don’t worry, I think he’ll be fine, but have him checked by your own physician when you get him home.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Allyn said gratefully.
“No sweat. Go ahead and get him dressed. The nurse will be right in with his shot.”
Jeth and Allyn waited until he left before giving vent to sighs of relief.
“He’ll be okay,” she said, hugging Sasha.
Watching her, Jeth understood for the first time that morning how fortunate he’d been. Somehow, some way, and pushing aside all Allyn’s stubborn oppositeness, he’d been guided to car jack the right person to help him help Sasha. “He might not have been if we hadn’t stopped.”
She looked at Jeth, a simple glance with eloquent thoughts behind it. “But we did.” Impulsively she held out her newly beringed hand to him; he hesitated, but when she didn’t drop it, allowed himself to cover her hand with his. “Thank you,” she said.
Inside Jeth’s chest, something tightened and made it hard to breathe. What kind of woman thanked the man who’d car jacked her—even if he had done so for real, if unthought out, reasons?
“I—” He paused, uncomfortable. “After the morning I’ve given you, I don’t know what to say to that.”
She laughed, the sound warm and rich, wholesome and unbelievably intimate within the confines of the examining room. For the second time that day she reached up and planted a kiss in the vicinity of his chin. “Say you’re welcome,” she advised. “It’s all the response you’ve got.”
Her mouth hovered dangerously, easily close to his. Sliding his arm around her waist, hauling her into him suddenly seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. “You’re welcome,” he whispered—and dragged himself from the brink of sure disaster only at the sound of the examining room door sliding into the wall and the nurse stepping into the room.
“Sorry,” the nurse said, clearly amused.
“Not necessary,” Jeth said quickly. He stepped to the door. “How ’bout I go settle up out front while you finish in here?”
He didn’t wait for Allyn’s response before he left.
“Big baby,” Allyn said affectionately for the nurse’s benefit as well as to cover her own confusion. Gee, holy crikey. She’d kissed him again. She’d practically invited him to kiss her. What on earth was going on inside her today? “Can’t stand the sight of needles near his son.”
The nurse grinned. “It’s always the strongest-looking dads who go weak when their kids get sick.”
“Weak is not quite the way I’d describe him,” Allyn managed to mutter before her attention was switched irrevocably to Sasha, who started to scream at the sight of the needle.
It wasn’t the first time Allyn discovered exactly how strong short humans could be—especially short humans who were only half-awake. She’d been so fortunate as to help Becky take her toddlers to the pediatrician on more than one occasion. She hadn’t been crazy about the results then, but this was the first time she’d ever really felt the child’s fear on a personal level. Nails on a blackboard didn’t begin to describe a toddler’s shrieks on the willies-down-the-spine scale.
Maybe it helped if you weren’t their primary caretaker.
Still, she survived, and so did Sasha. As a matter of fact, although he was still sobbing, sniffling and clinging to Allyn for dear life, by the time they left he was also awake enough to accept a red sucker from Jeth who’d managed to find a basketful at the admitting desk. Jeth had a purple sucker tucked into the corner of his mouth. The one he offered Allyn was green. She crooked an incredulous brow at him.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re supposed to be on the run from everybody in the world, but you stop for a sucker?”
He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and shrugged. “Got a sweet tooth, what can I say?” He waggled the candy at Sasha. “Whaddya think, huh, kiddo? Good, huh?”
Sasha buried his face in Allyn’s neck and drooled red into the fabric of her shirt. She rolled her eyes at Jeth and gave him an exaggerated, “Thank you sooo much.”
Jeth grinned and swept her a bow. “My pleasure,” he drawled, and it really was. Because for all that Sasha clung to her, it was Jeth who’d found the youngster something he’d eat.
Chapter 4
They didn’t discuss the almost-for-real kiss that hadn’t taken place in the examining room. They looked at each other when they thought it was safe to do so and wondered what if, but they didn’t talk about it. The possibilities were far too idiotic even to contemplate.
Instead they exchanged minor information about themselves, worried over Sasha, praised him when he accepted not only a couple of animal crackers but also some water after he finished the sucker—or rather, sort of finished it. Allyn allowed him only to lick it until she heard the first slight crunch before relieving him of it—much to his fury—so he wouldn’t choke on any big chunks of hard candy. By the time he’d opened his mouth on extended protest, however, she’d popped several animal crackers into his hand and he had to stop yelling in order to see what she’d given him. When he found it edible, blessed silence reigned briefly once more.
They’d gotten only six miles farther down the Pike when Jeth spotted what he thought was a tail.
He glanced over his shoulder at Allyn, sitting in the rear seat beside Sasha, holding a straw in a bottle of Pedialyte while the little boy greedily drank.
“I think we’ve got company,” he told her grimly.
She let her head snap around to look out the window before she could stop herself. “Which car?”
“Black Mercedes on our left, three cars back.”
Rational thought returned, prompted by the fact that she didn’t believe anyone knew he hadn’t just gotten on a bus and left town that way. “How do you know it’s tailing us, Jeth?” His name slipped easily off her tongue, as though she’d known him a lot longer than one interminable morning and most of an afternoon. “How would they know my car? How would they even know you’re with me? A lot of people take the Pike.”
“I don’t know, Allyn.” The first time he’d actually used her name, Jeth realized. It felt strangely…right…rolling around in his mouth. Allyn. Lynnie. Lyn. Al-lyn. The whole thing and all its diminutives settled in his head and flowed without thought to his lips. “Call it paranoia. I’ve got a feeling. It’s been with us awhile. I think it was with us when we left the grocery store, and again after the emergency center. My belly’s crawlin’ on this one.”
“If you’re right?”
“Keep driving. See if they maintain distance. Only stop in populated areas for gas. Try and lose ’em.”
Allyn moistened her mouth. She’d been working with him as much as possible to this point for Sasha’s sake, but she really couldn’t fathom how anyone might possibly have found Jeth in her car so quickly—especially since they’d had no connection before this morning. She swallowed. What if he was just plain crazy—paranoid, as he had suggested? What if him taking, having Sasha was everything she’d first thought and she’d simply gobbled up the lines of a chemically imbalanced, albeit somewhat believable and charming hotty because he’d managed to play into her own secret, though probably momentary, fantasy of living Becky’s normal family life? She really couldn’t let him jeopardize any of them on some sort of paranoid, out-of-control whim.
“I’m not crazy,” he said quietly, reading her mind. “And I’m not out of control. Someone from the neighborhood could have seen you draw down on me in that school yard this morning. They could have called the police. Reports go out. Other agencies pick ’em up. Word gets around. Coincidences happen. I’m not taking any chances—with you or Sasha.”
Guiltily she glanced up, met his gaze in the mirror. The midnight eyes were steady and unwavering. She looked at Sasha.
“I’m sorry,” she said, equally softly, “but I don’t know you, and I can’t accept at face value that you might be right. I read a lot, but I don’t live like this. The most exciting thing I’ve done recently is go down in a shark cage with a research team to do some filming. I just held the fish to feed the sharks—”
Startled, Jeth looked over his shoulder at her and nearly swerved into a car in the next lane. Good grief, no wonder she’d taken to this business with him so easily. Far as he was concerned, anyone who swam with sharks willingly—even protected by a steel cage—was crazier than he’d ever considered being.
“—but that’s nothing like this.”
“Nothing like—” Flabbergasted as he was, words failed him. “Geez-oh-pete, woman, you swim with sharks? What the hell do you do?”
She grimaced. “Marine biologist. Doctor. Graduated this past Tuesday. Sharks are only one of the species I’ve worked with.” She made a face and shrugged self-deprecatingly. “I’ve studied a lot of underwater things up close and personal. Sharks are pretty predictable compared to this—to you.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly. “I think.”
“You’re welcome,” she responded, equally wry. “I think.”
They were silent for a moment. Then:
“So,” Allyn said, poking Jeth verbally a smidge. “Are you going to try to force their cover or something? Speed up or slow down or get off 70 or something and see what they do?”
Jeth cleared something akin to laughter from his throat. “You that anxious to know?”
“Aren’t you?” she countered. “I mean, don’t you think it’s better the devil you know?”
