Only for You (33 page)

“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.

“Ms. Harris,” Kildrake greeted. “I’ll be escorting you back to Los Angeles.”

“Gee, thanks,” Gia muttered under her breath, avoiding Seth’s stare. It seemed to burn her.

“Well, we should probably get going,” Deputy Kildrake said, waving in the direction of the transport bus that would take them to the airport.

“I’m ready,” Gia said, swallowing back the lump in her throat while Seth remained silent. She hated this. He was clearly furious at her for what she’d done, but she wasn’t going to apologize for keeping herself safe from the pain of some dramatic good-bye.

Now they would part with a bad taste in their mouths.
Poorly done, Gia
, a voice in her head said reproachfully. But why did Seth have to be so stubborn and prove a point like this? She wasn’t in any physical danger.

Just the emotional variety.

She and Jim started to walk toward the van, Kildrake bringing up the rear.

“Gia.”

Her heart leapt at the sound of his deep voice. She spun around, breathless. Hopeful.

“Take off that red sweater,” Seth said. “You already attract the attention of every eye within a hundred feet of you. It’s stupid to throw a spotlight on a beacon.”

As he got into the SUV and slammed the door, she stood motionless, mad at him for having the last word . . .

Missing him already.

*   *   *

By the time Seth returned to the house in the woods, he was drained and chilled, wiped out after the adrenaline rush. The immediacy and alarm of chasing Gia had made him forget what was about to happen. Now, reality fisted him in the gut.

The house felt as empty as he did when he went inside and locked the door behind him. Gia had shut him down about talking things out last night. He’d assumed he would have another chance during their car ride together to St. Louis. She’d eliminated that possibility too.

For a few seconds, he just stood in the high-ceilinged living room. Gia’s reading chair and ottoman were still drawn up to the fireplace, but the hearth was cold. He approached the coffee table and stared down at dozens of sketches of Gia’s face. Not just her face. The two nudes he’d done lay on the top. He suddenly dropped down heavily on the couch, his fingers pressed against his eyelids.

He never had been able to capture the magic of her. Maybe his mistake all along had been trying.

*   *   *

Several days later, Seth still hadn’t left the woods. It wasn’t as if he had planned it that way. He just didn’t seem to have the will to undertake the long road trip across the country. The idea of traveling alone in that SUV, of seeing familiar landmarks, of being plagued by memories . . . well, it froze him temporarily. The memories were here in the house too—in spades. It was masochistic of him to stay. He’d go and put all of this behind him.

Soon.

He knew from Charles that Gia had returned to Los Angeles safely and had moved into the studio’s Bunker Hill condo downtown. He was relieved to hear that her mother had arrived to stay with her and offer support during the trial. If he hadn’t known from Charles that Gia was whole and safe in L.A., he would have known from the nightly news. Gia’s return had refueled the simmering, smoking media fire to a full-out inferno once again. On Wednesday, he saw the same clip of her walking up the steps of the criminal justice building on a dozen different news shows. He hungrily ate up the image of her each time. She wore sunglasses and her face was pale, but she looked calm and resolute in the face of shouting reporters and microphones shoved rudely in her face. The rabid fervor and callousness of the press’s attitude toward her sickened him. He watched as she ignored the chaos around her, listening and nodding at something the plainclothes police escort said quietly near her ear.

I’m not one of your vulnerable, fragile actresses.

She wasn’t even remotely in the same category.

The trial began.

It was being televised on several stations. Various news programs speculated that Gia could take the stand as early as Friday. Privately via an e-mail to Seth, Charles confirmed there was a remote possibility of it, although the following Monday seemed more likely. “Gia’s holding up well under all the pressure, although she seems strained,” Charles wrote. “She asked me this morning if you’d returned yet, and then seemed a little put out with me when I said I wasn’t sure.”

Charles’s enigmatic message galvanized Seth for some reason. It wasn’t rational. Gia’s query, and Charles’s mention of it in the e-mail were random details. Still, it didn’t stop him from starting a major housecleaning and packing. He made another trip to the grocery store to stock up the pantry and freezer for John and Jennifer, replacing any items he and Gia had used during their stay. On Friday, he was in the midst of his manic attempt to get the house back in its original pristine condition when the perimeter security alarm began to beep.

A few seconds later, he opened the front door and walked out into a cool, sunny day.

“What the hell?” he asked, both stunned and pleased to see his niece, Joy, getting out of the passenger side of a sedan. Her hair had completely grown out now after several rounds of chemotherapy. The chestnut strands fell around her shoulders and midback, gleaming in the bright sunlight. “What happened to Mexico?” he asked Everett Hughes, Joy’s husband, as he uncoiled his tall body from the driver’s seat. He wore a billed Greek fishing cap and a wool sweater that looked like it had fed a few moths some decent meals. Everett always wore hats to cover his signature streaked blond hair and to cast his iconic face in shadow.

“Mexico? Perfect weather and sunshine every day. So overrated,” Everett said.

Seth laughed, confused by their presence, but too pleased to see Joy’s beautiful, smiling face and outstretched arms to worry at the moment. He gave his niece a big bear hug and peered down at her for a moment. She looked radiant from good health and her vacation tan. Still, he saw the edge of concern in her hazel eyes as she studied him back.

“You okay?” she asked him quietly before he had a chance to ask her the same.

“Oh. So Katie’s been talking,” he said, understanding dawning. Katie had obviously observed some of the chemistry and conflict occurring between Gia and him. The sparks between them during and after that kiss were sort of hard to disguise.

Katie had called him three times since Gia had left. Seth had thought he’d explained the circumstances of Gia’s sudden absence calmly, but had heard the worry in Katie’s reaction to the news. Katie’s response had been to suggest that Seth come down to dinner or that they could come up to see him. When he’d refused, saying he needed some quiet time to work, Katie’s concern had obviously only grown. Given the anxious look in Joy’s eyes right at the moment, Katie had called in Joy for reinforcements.

“Talking is Katie’s specialty, haven’t you figured that out by now?” Everett joked, coming around the front of the car. He and Seth exchanged a handshake and a half hug.

“Yeah, I’ll be talking to your sister about that,” Seth told Everett darkly. “What does she think I am, a hysterical teenager or something?”

“It wasn’t Katie’s fault. She was worried about you,” Joy insisted, giving first Seth and then Everett a repressive look. His wife’s remonstrance didn’t dent Everett’s easy confidence in the slightest. He looped his arm around Joy’s waist and pulled her against him. “When I heard about my
half brother
,” Joy told Seth, resting her cheek against Everett’s chest, “I thought a trip to Vulture’s Canyon might be called for.”

Alarm went through him. “Katie
didn’t
blab about that and then not tell you the rest of—”

“She told me
all
about Gia Harris,” Joy said. “She didn’t consider her promise not to tell me about it until I came back to be binding once the secret of Gia’s true identity was out and she had returned to L.A. She knows Everett and I aren’t going to say anything about Gia being here with you . . . or about her leaving. And like I said, Katie was worried about you being up here all alone. I’m
glad
she told me.”

Seth rolled his eyes.

“I can’t believe you cut off your vacation,” he said in a stiff tone. Everett’s shrug seemed to say it all.
You can’t stop family from worrying.

Knowing it was a done deal at this point, Seth led them into the house. He entered several steps ahead of them and immediately went to the coffee table, where the sketches still lay. For the past few days, he’d found himself adding small nuances to Gia’s expression.

Never satisfied.

Missing the real flesh-and-blood woman like hell.

He gathered up the nudes quickly and hid them away in his leather portfolio before Everett or Joy could see them. Given their expressions, they had noticed his haste, but didn’t comment.

Both of them stared down at the remaining sketches on the table though. He saw Joy’s mouth fall open in amazement as she moved aside the sheets, studying the multiple sketches with an artist’s empathy and skilled eye.

She looked up, meeting Seth’s stare. She smiled tremulously.

“We did the right thing to come,” she said.

“Well, it’s great to see you,” Seth sidestepped.

“That’s not what I meant,” Joy said. “We need to talk.”

Everett cleared his throat. “I have a sudden urge to be in the . . .
kitchen
?” Everett asked Seth, pointing, clearly unsure as to where he suddenly needed to be.

Seth gave a tired nod.

“No, Everett. You stay. Seth needs to hear from you as much as he does me.”