Watching Jeth, she jacked a round into the chamber, drew back the hammer. On the floor Allyn slid her arm gently underneath her body, ready to use it for leverage.
Jeth swore—as much at Allyn as at Jeri. Blasted woman was going to get herself killed, and if she did, he was lost. “No, don’t, damn it. I’ll tell you where he was the last time I saw him.”
Jeri didn’t uncock the weapon, but she lifted it off Allyn. “Talk.”
Jeth opened his mouth, but before he had a chance to say a word, the small plane engine he’d heard before came back. Only this time it didn’t fade into the distance, but buzzed the shack twice and throttled to come in for a landing. From the anticipation on the fed’s and Jeri’s faces, the new arrival was expected.
“Just in time,” the fed said.
“Pay dirt,” Jeri agreed. She motioned him toward the door. “I’ll handle things here. You bring ’em in. Tell him we’re about to get the information.”
The fed left. Jeri uncocked the Browning, pointed it in the air and unbalanced her stance enough to stick out her hip to rest her elbow there.
“Here’s somebody’ll want to hear—” she began, and turned, startled, unbalancing herself further at the sudden eruption of gunfire outside.
On the floor, Allyn rolled with the first shot, snaked out a hand and yanked Jeri’s feet out from under her. Jeri’s head cracked the counter, the Browning went flying, hit the wall and discharged a bullet into the doorframe, tumbled through the air and into Allyn’s waiting hands.
“Softball,” she told Jeth, who blistered her ears with nothing that remotely resembled a question that softball would be the answer to. Eyes on Jeri, she teetered to her feet, chambering a round just in case the way Jeth had taught her. “Center field.”
“I don’t care where you learned to catch a gun on the fly,” Jeth snapped. “Either find a key or shoot these freaking things off me. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a little more trouble.”
“Trouble?” Russ asked, coming through the door. “Where?” He looked at Allyn. “Judas Priest, what happened to you? Where’s Guy?”
Allyn viewed him with obvious distress. “You didn’t see the truck when you flew over? We had a blowout—I think she might have shot out a tire, because that’s where she picked me up. He’s hurt.”
“You don’t look too healthy yourself.”
“I’ll live.” She sagged suddenly. “Although some sleep might be nice.”
“Would someone get these things off me and tell me what the devil is going on?” Jeth demanded.
Chapter 17
By the time Russ found a handcuff key and released Jeth, reinforcements were starting to arrive.
Jeth couldn’t reach Allyn quickly enough, caught her on her way to the floor in the midst of another wave of dizziness. He smoothed loose wisps of hair from her face.
“What the hell were you thinking?” A demand, fierce and unrelenting—gentle as a kiss. “What would I do if you were killed?”
“Funny.” Allyn offered him a fuzzy smile. “I thought the same thing about you.”
Then there was no more time to talk because chaos broke out.
Guy had been located by one of the units in the area and had been taken to the hospital in Kingman for treatment. The muscles in his upper arm were damaged and would require a long healing process, but the doctors were hopeful. Allyn was treated for a concussion and kept in the hospital for two days of X rays and observation. Jeth received treatment for his arm, although it was only precautionary, in case anything had torn when he’d been banged around. As soon as he was released, he headed for Allyn’s bedside and stayed there, letting Russ update him on Guy’s condition.
Both his office in Tucson and the FBI offered him citations for exposing the corruption within; he turned the commendations down. The expense had been too high, he informed his superiors, and he hadn’t been told enough to prevent much of what had happened. If he’d known his undercover operation was meant in part to expose internal corruption, had any idea how deep the corruption went or understood any sooner that it was Jeri’s greed for power and money that drove her to manipulate her agents and underlings…
But he knew better than to head down that street again. He was young. He’d learned. He would learn—starting now—by leaving the prosecutor’s team and seeking a position closer to home, with the BIA or tribal police or the local sheriff, if they would have him.
The Baltimore sting concluded with an unprecedented number of arrests—not only among the Colombians, but the Russian Mafia, as well, and most notably Sasha’s genetic father—and the removal of an arsenal of weapons and several tons of heroin and cocaine from the streets.
Gabriel arrived on the scene too late to do anything but observe and assure himself that Allyn was all right. He also advised his stepdaughter in no uncertain terms to call her mother and her sister. Which Allyn did.
In fact, while Jeth cradled her in his arms in a comfy chair in her hospital room and kissed her hair and neck and fingers, she talked with Becky for a long time. The gist of their conversation revealed that Becky planned to stick with Michael because she loved him. Loving him didn’t solve all the problems she saw with her life, but it helped. And the fact that he loved her to distraction and enough to help her explore new avenues and outlets for her energies went a long way toward taking care of things. Communication, she told Allyn complacently, that was the key. And Allyn agreed, watching Jeth’s face as she said it, communication was paramount.
With a little help from Gabriel, Tucson, the BIA and a contrite Bureau, Sasha’s existence somehow got lost in the shuffle, and a new birth certificate mysteriously appeared for a blond, blue-eyed foster member of Jeth’s family. The child was to be left temporarily in the custody of Mabel Levoie while Jeth and Allyn recuperated, sorted out their relationship and answered questions and until such time as an in-tribe adoption could be arranged.
Which meant that all that was left to do was for Allyn and Jeth to dissolve a fake marriage and part company.
Yeah, right. As though it were that easy.
In the pink light of dawn they stood together on the balcony of the hotel room Jeth had rented in Kingman and studied each other, not knowing what to say. Down the hall in another room, Gabriel waited—despite Allyn’s protests that he go away, she was fine—to take her home.
Home.
She looked at the man opposite her and knew that home was not in Michigan; it hadn’t been for seven years. But home was also not Boston, nor Miami, nor any of the dozen posts she’d been offered in Hawaii, California, Maine, North Carolina and so on. Home had midnight blue eyes, bronze skin, black hair and a tush to die for.
Home’s name was Jeth, with a dollop of Sasha.
Now if only the man in question would realize it.
But he only watched her without saying a word, until she looked at her hand and slowly took off her rings, offered them to him. When he didn’t take them, she lifted his left hand and folded them into his palm, reached up to kiss his cheek and turned to go.
“Lyn.”
Her name only, a single word filled with ache. She looked at him.
“I know you’re afraid that what happened could happen again,” she said quietly, “but I’m not. You’re done with undercover, you said so. You won’t let anyone use you again. I won’t let anyone use me. Sasha’s safe. So ask me to stay. See what happens.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that. Even if everything else is true, keeping you here would be selfish. You just got your doctorate. You’re a marine biologist. There’s nothing here for you.”
She faced him. “Let me make that choice. Ask me to stay.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not going back to Tucson, but I got no guarantees, no definite prospects, no way to even consider you, let alone Sasha—”
She moved toward him, steady, purposeful. “You drove by, you made me a part of us before there was an us, now you ask me to stay.”
“Lyn—”
She stopped, drew herself up fiercely proud and tall. “Ask me, damn you. I want Sasha, too, but this is between you and me. I won’t beg again.”
He looked at the rings in his hand, the one that remained on his finger, and something tugged at the muscles around his mouth. He raised his head, looked her in the eye, held out the rings and said matter-of-factly, “Keep these. Wear them. Stay.” Then he opened his arms and said it again, “God, Lynnie, save me from myself. Stay. Please. Help me figure it out.”
And she took the two steps to him without looking back, wound her arms around his neck and grumbled, “What took you so long, you big dope? What did you want me to do, say I love you first? Don’t you know that’s against the rules?”
He nuzzled her cheek, feeling whole and at peace for the first time in years. “It might’ve helped. Now are you going to put my rings on and marry me for real or what?”
She put his rings on, married him for real and what.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1805-5
A DRIVE-BY WEDDING
Copyright © 2000 by Terese daly Ramin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
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Table of Contents
Letter to Reader
Books by Terese Ramin
About the Author
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Copyright
A Drive-By Wedding Page 23