Little minx had not only shut down the security alarm on the house, but she’d played it extra safe by requesting that her accomplice not come up the drive.
The man took her suitcase from her and put it in the trunk. Gia walked toward the passenger door. She froze when she saw him storming toward her.
“Get in the car, Jim,” he thought he heard her say tensely. She lunged to open the car door, eyeing Seth’s approach warily. The man—who must be her driver from L.A.—hurried into the car and slammed his door shut. He revved the engine. Gia started to sit.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Seth demanded, still hastening to reach her.
She ignored him, getting in the car and slamming her door shut. Seth thought he heard the click of the automatic lock. The car started to pull away.
“Gia!” he roared.
Her mouth moved. The car came to an abrupt halt. Gia’s face looked anguished through the window. The glass lowered.
“Don’t come any closer, Seth, or I won’t explain. I’ll just tell Jim to go.”
He gritted his teeth in mounting helplessness and anger. He came to a halt with thirty feet or so still separating them.
“Jim is going to take me to the airport. I called him yesterday afternoon, and he took a flight to St. Louis last night. I called Sherona, too, and asked her for directions for Jim to get here. There’s no reason that you should have to take me to the airport. You’ve done enough.”
He goggled at her in disbelief. “Gia, get the hell out of that car. You’re my responsibility until I hand you off to Deputy Kildrake. I’m not just your fucking lift to the airport.”
“Well I’m not a parcel you’re supposed to deliver,” she snapped, sounding irritated. Overwhelmed. “I’m out of disguise mode, Seth. It’s time to go back and do what I have to do. Jim is my driver. This is all perfectly normal. I’ve just asked him to pick me up here instead of in Los Angeles when I land. I left you a note in the kitchen to explain how I’d gotten to the airport and that I was safe. Please don’t make more of this than is necessary.” She started to say something and hesitated, her anxious expression killing him a little. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. It’s over, Seth,” she said, her voice cracking. She turned away. Seth recognized that proud tilt to her chin despite her obvious anguish.
The window started to close. He didn’t pause to watch the car accelerate down the road. He was already sprinting toward the SUV.
* * *
Gia was fighting nausea by the time her driver, Jim, pulled in to the return section of the car-rental facility. In the distance, she saw the familiar SUV she’d taken across the country with Seth come to a halt just outside the car-rental office. Seth immediately got out, his tall, tense body and dark expression striking her as intimidating.
He’d followed them all the way to the airport in St. Louis. Jim had tried several times to lose him, but Seth had followed effortlessly, never crowding their car or creating a potentially dangerous situation, but always keeping her within his sight. Now that they were on the grounds of the airport, Gia was a giant coiled band of tension and anxiety. Somehow, she sensed Seth’s simmering anger and eerie focus behind her the entire trip, like a laser pointer on the back of her neck.
“I’m sorry, Gia,” Jim said. “He was like a leech. I just couldn’t shake him.”
“It’s okay,” she assured, lowering her phone. She’d finally told Jim to stop trying to elude Seth’s tail. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Besides, Seth had called while he was in pursuit and left a message. She’d just listened to it. At least she knew his plan wasn’t to throw her over his shoulder and haul her back to the house.
Although that imaginary plan held its appeal, she was fighting against that annoying, unwanted reaction.
Willing down her queasiness, she got out of the car while Jim took care of the bill with the rental-car agent. After she shut the trunk, she glanced around to see Seth standing on the curb in the distance, his muscular arms crossed over his chest.
Waiting.
It was much too cool and cloudy out today for him to be outside in only the training shorts and short-sleeved T-shirt he wore, Gia realized guiltily. Of course he hadn’t had time to change clothes before he’d jumped in the SUV and followed her in hot pursuit. Although in truth, he looked too steamed at the moment to even notice the chill in the air.
How in the hell had he noticed she’d gone? She knew well by this time that his exercise routines lasted for almost two hours.
She sighed. May as well get the confrontation over with.
She grimly started to walk toward him. In that moment, Seth was the kind of superstorm there was no hope of avoiding. Jim followed behind her. The closer she got to him, she felt herself cringing a little beneath his white-hot stare. As she drew within speaking distance, a tall man in his thirties approached Seth where he stood on the sidewalk. Seth’s wrathful stare on her fractured as he looked at the man.
“Hightower?” the man asked him.
Seth nodded. “Josh Kildrake?”
“That’s me,” the man said, reaching Seth at about the same time Gia and Jim did. She paused with her hand on her suitcase handle.
“Identification, please,” Seth said, extending his hand expectantly. He studied the badge and identification Kildrake handed over with a stony expression. Gia saw the badge. She’d seen enough of them, given all the police protection she’d had in the past. Seth had obviously been in contact with the police escort while he’d pursued them relentlessly. It was just her luck that Kildrake had arrived in St. Louis a few hours before her flight. Seth scrutinized Kildrake’s face narrowly before he handed back the badge.
“Here she is,” Seth said soberly, nodding in Gia’s direction.