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
