Shotgun Honeymoon

by Terese Ramin

  “No!” Russ snapped—hardly an answer, but an order.

  “What?” Janina pulled back, shocked. “What did you just say to me?”

  Russ grimaced and bit his tongue. Damn. Not what he’d meant to say, do, be. Autocratic, chauvinistic ass. He pulled into the Bloated Boar’s parking lot and tried again. “U” Uh, what? I’ve got a bad feeling about something but I can’t tell you what? Uh, I just don’t think you should go by your apartment tonight alone, trust me? Uh, what? What? “Naked,” his mouth said, independent of his brain. “You won’t need clothes ’cuz you’re gonna be naked the minute I get you through the bedroom door.”

  “Ah.” Janina eyed him, believing what he said but knowing him better than he realized. “Naked, huh?”

  He swallowed, gave her a lopsided, mostly lascivious grin and nodded.

  “Sure it’s not your spider sense?” Janina asked idly. Too idly.

  Too knowingly.

  Startled, Russ put the car in park, dropped his wrists over the steering wheel and looked across his shoulder at her.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t hang around with your brothers for nothing. My favorite subject was you.”

  “They don’t know everything, Janie. They don’t know half.”

  “But the spider-sense thing, that’s real, isn’t it? That’s what’s just made you sound like you were ordering me around like some husband who thinks now he’s got my name on the license he can control me however he wants?” She touched his face, forced him to look directly at her. “Because you can’t, Russ. I won’t let you. But if it’s the spider sense, if there’s a reason, even if it’s one you can’t explain. I can go along. I can trust you—”

  Russ reached for her, cutting off whatever else she might have said with a kiss that was deep and cherishing, thankful and worshipping, all at once. Janina wound her arms around his neck on a sigh and took the kiss as it was meant—a yes, pure and simple, a benediction for having read her man exactly right the first time he needed her to.

  She pulled him as far into the kiss as she dared in the busy saloon parking lot by way of congratulating herself on a virgin effort well managed, and a prayer that future efforts would go as easily. Her desire for him lay beyond want or need, seemed to come from some biological imperative to be part of him as often as possible. To mate with him, create with him.

  Impossible, given her body’s proclivity for killing off seeds before they could be planted, but still…

  The urge was there: basic, primal.

  Insistent.

  She wanted Russ’s babies above anything. Her whole being knew him as her perfect match, perfect mate—the perfect father for the children she’d learned during her time with Buddy she would be unable to conceive naturally.

  But intellectual knowledge didn’t stop her body from quickening, preparing for him. Didn’t stop that pleading murmur from climbing the back of her throat and encouraging him further.

  She’d stopped being a thinking adult the minute she’d walked into the Bloated Boar and Russ had called her Janie. Because people warned women about guys like Buddy, but nobody warned anyone about bright, upstanding, solid-citizen, marrying-kind, heroic guys like Russ who could lead a woman straight down the garden path to hell, embarrassment, intense public mortification and possibleache, and never bring her back.

  Except for Russ himself. And as far as Janina was concerned, Russ warning her about himself didn’t count, mostly because she hadn’t listened.

  Hadn’t wanted to, and so hadn’t bothered to.

  The double whoop-whoop of a police cruiser’s siren broke them apart. Almost violently disoriented, Russ nevertheless instinctively covered Janina’s body with his own, hiding her thoroughly disheveled hair and disarranged clothing, when he raised his head to get his bearings. The fact that she now straddled his lap in the passenger seat and that the windows were steamed beyond redemption didn’t help, but he shifted her sideways into the seat, away from the possibility of prying eyes, and did his best.

  “Russ?” Janina reached to draw him back.

  Russ let her pull him only so far back into her kiss, into the moment, before once more pulling away, far enough to touch his forehead to hers and whisper roughly, “Don’t we have a room for this somewhere?”

  She laughed softly. “That would mean getting into separate cars and driving there.”

  “It would also mean not getting rousted by the cops.”

  Her pride showed. “You outrank most of the cops in the area.” She was pretty sure it was Russ and not his uniform that had first attracted her, but every time he’d earned a promotion, she’d stolen his meal check and taken care of it herself. “You can tell them to get lost.”

  If only, his libido said regretfully. Sanity sang a different, far more practical tune. “I’m out of uniform. And we’ve got a cop outside right now waitin’ on us.”

  “What?”

  She tried to bolt upright. Russ judiciously held her down with one hand while he pulled her dress into place over her exposed left breast with the other.

  “Hang on. You’re not dressed for meet and greet.”

  Janina couldn’t help it. She turned her face into his arm and grinned, reaching between them to make sure she hadn’t undone his pants as she’d intended. “You are?”

  He grunted, eased away from her fingers to arrange his own clothing. “Let me talk to patrol and then let’s get out of here.”

  Janina maneuvered so she could plant her mouth against his ear and breathe hotly, “Be quick about it.”

  Russ groaned, and put the lure of temptation away from him with a heroic effort. “I’ll be right back.”

  He got out of the car. Jonah left the cruiser and crossed to meet him halfway.

  Russ glanced back at the Chevy wagon, eyed his much shorter baby brother. “Make it good,” he advised.

  “She found you,” Jonah observed.

  Russ said nothing.

  Jonah nodded. “Buddy’s been released. Tobi said he’s been into the diner and around the apartment, making threats.needs to take out a restraining order. You need to watch your back. Man’s got no balls and that’s where he’ll shoot you, if he gets half a chance.”

  Jaw clenched, Russ glanced again at Janina’s car, nodded once. “What else?”

  Jonah didn’t need clarification to know Russ meant Maddie. “Chief wants your hide. Maddie’s your case, Russ, your “special.” She’s terrified with anyone else around. Somethin’s not right an’ she’s not sayin’, I’d stake money on it. Her girlfriend Jess is climbin’ the walls, not used to no privacy and enforced claustrophobia. It’s a problem.” He tipped his head toward Janina, who was exiting the station wagon. “Unfortunately for you, chief’s makin’ it your problem. Exclusively.”

  Russ studied his brother for a moment. “With Buddy after my skin?” He cast a telling glance toward Janina, who slipped up beside him. He slid an at once possessive and protective arm about her, collecting her tight. “And hers.” His voice was almost neutral. His eyes were not.

  “Russ?” Janina asked.

  Jonah nodded at the obvious relationship between his brother and the Fat Cat waitress. “Whatever this is, it didn’t exist a week ago, Russ. No one knew. No one knows. You humiliated Buddy in front of his pals, end of story. He wants revenge. You got worse problems than a half-baked bully in search of face.”

  Russ glanced at Janina who gazed back, eyes full of questions. He tightened his mouth at her, shook his head slightly and offered her a single drop-shouldered shrug of “Can’t explain here.” To which she responded with an equally silent, huffed-breath, “We’ll see about that.” He gave her a one-brow grin and turned back to Jonah.

  “She’s not goin’ home tonight. Stay with her, make sure she’s all right till I get there.”

  “Damn it, Russ.” Worry and exhaustion made Jonah explode. “I’ve had your vehicle staked out for forty-eight hours and I’m not up to watch doggin’ anybody. You’re gonna have to lay this off on
someone else.” To Janina, “Sorry, Janie.”

  She tipped her head, acknowledging the apology without accepting it, or anything else he said. He was screwed and he knew it.

  Russ eyed his baby brother mildly for a moment before crossing to his Jimmy, opening the back and plucking out a sleeping bag. He turned and shot it across the lot the way he might a basketball, hitting Jonah squarely in the chest with it.

  “Three points,” Janina murmured to no one in particular.

  Jonah glared at her.

  “Take that,” Russ said succinctly, crossing the parking lot as he spoke and ignoring them both, “turn in your cruiser, get changed, go with her and sleep across the doorway until I get there. Don’t shoot me when I come in.” He poked Jonah in the chest. “Got it?”

  Jonah gave him baleful. “You are so goin’ down one of these days.”

  “Bring it on, boy,” Russ shot back.

  Janina rolled her eyes and stepped between them. “Idiots,” she said forcefully, shoving them apart. It didn’t take much of a push. “Get over the stupid macho posturing and grow up.”

  “I will if he will,” Jonah said magnanimously.

  Russ grinned wolfishly. “Ever wonder why there’s never been two Levoies in the same law enforcement agency before, Janie?”

  She shook her head. The brothers worked together often enough, it had never before occurred to her to wonder. But now that he mentioned it…

  “Jonah hasn’t figured it out yet, either. You’ll be happier when you do, baby brother, trust m—”

  The sudden, steadily encroaching wail of a siren cut him off. A pair of squad cars followed by Guy’s truck skidded off the highway and toward the Boar’s entrance. Russ knew without having to be told that this, not Jonah’s announcement about Buddy alone, was what his spider sense had been warning him about.

  Without thinking, he thrust Janina toward his brother. “Get her out of here.” To Janina when she might have protested he said softly, “Call me Spidey.”

  She studied him a moment, then nodded unhappily and turned toward her car. He caught her arm.

  “No. Leave it and the keys. I’ll have somebody bring it. Go with Jonah. You’ll be safer.”

  “Russ, don’t be silly. He’ll be right—”

  He folded, put his mouth to her ear. “Shh. Humor me once.”

  “Once?” Janina gave him doubtful.

  He gave her back serious. “I’ll feel better.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed. Lifted a hand to let her fingers drift down his cheek. And without another word put her car keys in his shirt pocket and crossed the lot to get into Jonah’s cruiser.

  Jonah eyed her left hand as she buckled her seat belt. “Nice ring. Looks like one of Russ’s.”

  Janina canted a sideways glance at him, surprised herself by saying, “It’s new and it’s private, Jones. I want to keep it that way awhile.”

  He nodded, understanding where she wasn’t sure she did herself. “Got it.” He hesitated then asked, “Does that include everybody?”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “Tobi. She’s worried about you.”

  Janina winced. “Damn. No. I’ll talk to Tobi.”

  “Good.” He turned over the ignition. “I’ll make sure I’m out of range when you do.”

  “Funny.” The retort was automatic, Janina’s thoughts were on the two police officers exiting their squad cars, on Guy leaping from the driver’s-side door of his truck and dashing around to the passenger side.

  And on Maddie, obviously in deep emotional distress, hurtling to the ground before Russ reached her, stumbling, falling, picking herself up and dashing straight to him.

  Jumping up to throw herself into his arms and hanging on for dear life while he swept her up tight.

  The little green edge of worry crept up to frame Janina’s vision. She tried to push it back, shake it away; it refused to go. She’d believed him when he’d told her there was nothing between him and Maddie, that people were wrong about them. But he’d been looking down at her when he’d said it and her insecurities hadn’t been frail with him standing right there in front of her. Touching her.

  I do, she thought, trust him. I do I do I do.

  She swallowed hard. The exact words she’d spoken when she’d married him.

  It didn’t matter. She twisted around beneath her seat belt and watched him as long as she could until Jonah pulled his police cruiser onto the highway and her tall husband faded from sight in the invading twilight.

  Russ’s attention was torn between watching his wife leave with his youngest and most volatile brother, calming the hysterical woman he’d called best friend since he was six, and staying out of reach of his normally good-natured brother Guy, who seemed intent on laying him flat while the two officers who’d arrived attempted to intervene and add their own two cents to the mix.

  Guy’s rant had something to do with—if Russ interpreted his snarl correctly through whatever Maddie was tearfully babbling at him about her Jess—Guy’s wife, Hazel, being too damn pregnant to be left to her own devices while Russ took off to hell knew where when there was one of Russ’s serial lunatic-killer-rapist-psychopaths on the loose. Which meant it had to be serious and then some because Guy didn’t swear or lose it unless provoked beyond sense.

  Russ could only guess at what his local officers had to tell him. “Your whore’s back in town. L.T. Chief wants you to do somethin’ about that quick before the press gets outta line with it again.”

  And hell, what would it do to Janina if the press got hold of the current story, pulled up the old files—and wrong gossip, damn it—found out he’d married Janina and decided to talk to her about Maddie?

  God blast it, he shouldn’t have done this to her. Should have been thinking. Should have been aware, at least, of what stories would circulate around him in the department. No matter what respect you gained through the years, the old rumors remained.

  Timing was all in the wrist, and his stunk.

  With effort he forced himself out of his one-track state of “I’d rather be in bed enjoying and getting to know my wife a whole lot better for another week” and placed himself back in reality central: police lieutenant in a situation he’d not only thrown himself smack-dab into the middle of thirteen years ago as a cop, but a lot longer ago than that as a friend. Not happy about where he found himself, he gathered breath.

  And loosed it in his best riot-control voice, which was fairly awe-inspiring since he’d learned it from his father—a man who’d sired six children and raised five—and had been using it on his brothers since kom. “Hey, dial it down, separate it and give it to me one at a time.” He glared at Guy, who appeared set to act physically on the invitation without further ado. Younger by a year and shorter by an inch, his normally good-natured and deceptively laid-back sibling nevertheless outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. If he was ready to brawl there’d be a good reason, but it would get messy. “Spoken grievances only.”

  He swung Maddie into his arms and carried her to the nearest squad car, jerking his head open it at the patrol officer, who hastened to comply. “Hush, it’s all right, Maddie, I’ve got you. Shh. Take your time then tell me. Shh.”

  A little at a time she relaxed, her hysteria subsided, hiccupped away. Babble turned coherent, coherence led directly to anger born of fear and she smacked him in the shoulder with a closed fist. “Where the hell have you been? Jess can’t do confined, and your trailer…not only too cramped but too much you in it and—”

  She stopped suddenly and shoved away from him, out of his lap to stalk a circle in front of him. “And she climbed the walls, and she claimed, she said, where you’re concerned I was going hetero on her, which is just stupid because I don’t want you, I want her. I love her. And then the walls started closing in on her and she started screaming at me and she ran and—”

  Her face crumbled, she buried it in her hands, collapsed into a grief-stricken pile at his knee. “I think Charlie took her.”<
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  Chapter 7

  “What?” Russ straightened, sent a sharp glance at Guy for confirmation.

  His brother nodded. “We got an anonymous call yesterday at your place. Somebody calling himself the ‘Good Samaritan’ said Jess is safe for the moment but she’s been ‘taken out of play’—I’m quoting. He said he hopes he doesn’t have to ‘delete anyone else from the equation,’ unquote, end of call.”

  Russ opened his mouth, shut it so he wouldn’t simply repeat what Guy had just said with a capital What and an expletive on the end of it.

  “I don’t make these things up,” Guy said flatly. “So I’m goin’ home. Make sure Hazel ’n Emily aren’t people who have to be deleted from the equation. Don’t know why they would be, but it seems where one of us Levoies tangles these days, the rest of us get tied up, and you’ll pardon me if I’m not takin’ the unborn into this psycho’s neighborhood. Em’s already seen too much and I won’t put Hazel through the possibility of her gettin’ anywhere near Maddie’s father, if you hear what I’m sayin’?”

  Russ went still. His eyes hardened, jaw worked. He knew Charlie’s handiwork far too well, too up close, to disregard Guy’s concerns. Russ was the only Levoie who’d ever personally gotten in Charlie’s way, either when the Thorns ran a campground down in the canyon or since they’d left, but if for some reason Charlie Thorn went anywhere near Guy’s wife and teenage daughter, neither the world nor the judicial system would be big enough to protect him. He nodded. “Go. You want someone to tag?”

  Guy shook his head. “I’ll call.”

  “Do.” Not an offer, an order.

  “Five days, no word, now you say that?”

  The long-ingrained eldest brother’s sense of responsibility and its attendant guilt threatened to surface. Russ tamped it down. He would not regret a single moment that had brought Janina to him, or that he’d so far spent with her, taken with her.