When Scarlett spoke, he was startled from his world of security by the beautiful woman sitting beside him. “Would you be tired after finding out you’re a target for kidnapping, watching your former boyfriend pummel an intruder in your home, and then being told you were going to Island Park, Idaho, for who knows how long with only a T-shirt and skirt on? How cold is it in Island Park, anyway?” She gave an exaggerated shiver.
Griff almost smiled. Luckily, he caught himself. He’d forgotten how … cute she was. Maybe cute wasn’t the right word—most men considered her the epitome of sex appeal—but she still had an air of innocence about her. He’d seen a video clip where a fellow actor had said with disgust in his voice, “Scarlett Lily would rather go to church than to bed.” It had made Griff irrationally happy to know she was still committed to waiting for marriage like she had been back in college, and he’d wanted to thump the guy for trying to get her into bed.
Griff could understand why she’d be irresistible to a lot of men. He tried not to think about that much, but he had to focus on a man who was willing to pay a million dollars to kidnap Scarlett, try to get inside the guy’s mindset so Griff could protect her. He imagined what would’ve happened if Sutton hadn’t discovered the intel and sent him straight to Scarlett tonight. That man … waiting in her bedroom. Griff’s shoulders tightened.
Scarlett reached over and massaged at the furrow in his brow. Griff yanked on the steering wheel, almost taking out the minivan in the next lane.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Scarlett pulled her hand back quickly. “You looked so upset. I was just trying to help you relax.”
“Well, don’t help me relax while I’m driving down the freeway.”
“Can I help you relax another time?” she asked.
He glanced at her. Her clear green eyes reminded him of why he’d fallen so hard for her in college. She was more beautiful inside than outside. The kindness and sincerity that emanated from her used to take his breath away. Scarlett had loved him so completely that he’d known, even back in college, that he wasn’t worthy of her ardor and devotion. Yet he’d allowed himself to bask in it, to bask in time spent with her. It was weak of him. He knew his path would be military and that he needed to go save the world. He pushed a hand through his short hair. That had turned out to be naïve of him. Sometimes he wondered if he’d hurt more innocent people than he’d helped. He’d lost the woman he loved, by his own choice. Now he had nothing but his focus of saving lives through Sutton, maybe someday gaining the redemption he yearned for. He couldn’t “relax.”
“No,” he said shortly. Checking his rearview, he didn’t see any vehicles that had consistently trailed behind him. He slowed down to change the flow around him.
“When did you become so—abrupt?”
Griff laughed. She was too kind to even tell him what a jerk he was. “I’ve spoken more today than I have the past month.” And truthfully, he was softer with her than he was with anyone, besides his mama and his nephew, Tate.
Her lips curved. “Really? So you’re saying I bring out the best in you?”
He shook his head, not ready or willing to play this game. “I’m saying you should try to rest. It’s almost sixteen hours’ drive time.”
“You’re kidding.” She straightened in her seat. “I’m going to be stuck in this car for sixteen hours?”
“With me as your travel buddy.” He pumped his eyebrows at her, feeling more playful than he had in … ten years, to be exact.
She held up her hands. “You got me. I’ll try to sleep.” She eyed him. “How are we going to keep those lovely baby blues of yours propped open?”
Griff was afraid his cheeks were going to hurt from these smiling episodes. She’d always loved his bright blue eyes. How was he going to stay focused on who he was and his purpose if this op lasted very long? “Don’t worry about me, Jane.”
She’d told him earlier not to call her Jane, but she didn’t protest again. “Because you’re some big military man who’s too tough for sleep.” She made her voice all gruff and low.
“Fools mock, but they shall mourn.”
“You’re quoting the Bible?”
The playfulness fizzled. He focused on the road, changing lanes as the transfer to I-15 came up. “Won’t happen again,” he said.
She arched her eyebrows but didn’t question his agnostic comment. “Why didn’t we fly?”
“Lots of reasons,” he grunted.
“Such as?”
Griff glanced at her. Was she just trying to fill the silence, or was she ticked that a princess like her had to be stuck in a vehicle for sixteen hours with the likes of him? He started ticking off the reasons: “Sutton’s jets were both deployed elsewhere when we needed to leave. Flying commercially or even chartering a jet, there’s the risk of someone seeing you and leaking it. And if we have to bug out of our safe location, I want the Escalade with bulletproof windows and every gadget to protect us.”
Scarlett arched an eyebrow. “Did that wear you out?”
“What?”
“Talking for so long?”
Griff rolled his eyes, even though her sarcasm was kind of cute. “Get some rest.”
“Whatever you say, bossy.”
They drove in silence for a while, and he hoped she’d drifted off. When he glanced over at her, her head was facing him, her cheek leaning against the seat. She was much too beautiful. Her eyes fluttered open. He quickly averted his gaze and sped up again to dodge around some traffic and see if they had a tail. He hadn’t seen anything yet, and he knew Sutton would have different vehicles following him through the phone he now carried for the next few hours to make certain nobody was on to them.
Scarlett laid her hand on his forearm, and he cursed and pulled away from her soft fingers. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I need to focus on driving, and your touch—” He bit his tongue. He’d dug himself into a hole on this one.
“Drives you to distraction?” She grinned, much too full of herself. He supposed that was inevitable with the attention she always received.
“Something like that,” he muttered.
“What happened to you in the military, Griff?”
He sucked in a breath and almost cursed again. His mama would not be happy with him right now. “We’re not going there, Jane.”
The only sound was the rumbling of the road and the occasional horn or squeal of tires. Maybe he should turn on the radio. He didn’t care much about music, but at least she wouldn’t think they needed to talk to fill the silence. Long minutes passed, and she didn’t speak.
“So this is us now.” She broke the silence, right when he was thinking this talking episode was over. Why did she do that?
“Excuse me?” he asked. What did she mean, “us”? He used to dream of an “us” with her, but he was far removed from it now. He had to be.
“You and I. We’ve been reduced to tiptoeing around the truth and not trusting each other. That’s us now?”
He swallowed hard and made sure his voice was even harder. “There is no us, Scarlett. The sooner you realize that, the easier the next few weeks will go.”
He heard her suck in a breath and felt her stiffen beside him. It had been a jerk thing to say, but that’s who he was and he made no apologies about it to anyone. Why did Scarlett make him feel like he should grovel and be soft like one of his sappy brothers would be? He grimaced and focused on the road and the thick traffic around him. Ignoring Scarlett suddenly became his highest priority.
Chapter Five
Scarlett couldn’t sleep, and the hours of staring out the window at the dark night and the traffic flowing with them stretched on and on. She snuck glances at Griff occasionally, but he’d made it crystal clear that she shouldn’t talk to him. She’d questioned many times why she’d fallen in love with such a hard man, but part of his appeal was how tough and real he was. There was no posturing with Griff; there were no hal
f-truths. You got all of him, and he was as manly as they came. He’d always treated her with respect—he was too much of a gentleman to ever physically hurt a lady—but emotionally, he could devastate her within seconds.
There is no us played through her head. Maybe he’d killed their relationship in his mind, but she never had. If she truly had to spend the next few weeks with him, she might go insane with longing and frustration. In college, he’d been soft for her. What if that man had been transformed by the harshness of the military and never returned to her? She rolled her eyes at herself, knowing she was making this into a movie. Griff would laugh at her if he knew. He used to tease that her living in fantasy land was really cute, asking her to tell Peter Pan and the tooth fairy hello as they flew by. He hadn’t laughed at all tonight. Would she ever hear his laughter again?
They cleared the lights and traffic of Vegas and continued north. Scarlett needed to use the restroom, her throat was scratchy from no water, and her rear was killing her from sitting for so long. She wasn’t used to inactivity.
“You okay?” Griff asked.
He hadn’t spoken to her in hours, and she appreciated that he was trying to take care of her needs, though his voice wasn’t soft by any means. “I could use a restroom,” she admitted.
He nodded. “Can you make St. George?”
She wanted to ask how far. She knew St. George was in southern Utah. It couldn’t be too much farther. She didn’t want to be a wimp around him, but she’d gotten used to her every need being met as the superstar. She tried to never demand, but if she made a soft request, people came running. “Sure,” she said.
“We’ll stay the night there.”
Stretching out in a bed sounded nice. Being alone in a hotel room with Griff Quinn? Her stomach heated up, and she had to look out the window again. There wasn’t much to see, as they were going through a stretch of desert in the middle of the night and the traffic was intermittent. The clock on the dash said 12:34 a.m.
Scarlett crossed her legs, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. She caught Griff looking at her.
“You’ll be okay?” His voice was a little bit softer than before.
“I play an action hero. I’m tough.”
He chuckled softly. Scarlett hadn’t heard him laugh for so many years. Her heart cracked wide open at the sound. She loved his deep laugh.
“You may look tough on the screen, but you’re a princess,” he said.
Scarlett’s jaw dropped and she poked him in the side. He used to always tease her about being a princess. “You take that back.”
His laughter deepened. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll tickle you.” Griff had been a pretty serious guy even before the military, but even he had vulnerabilities. If she feathered her fingertips along his abdomen, he’d laugh.
“Don’t you dare.” His voice had become steel, but Scarlett sensed an underlying humor in it. He remembered the fun they used to have just like she did.
“Oh, I dare.” She made to reach for his stomach, and he immediately blocked her with his forearm. She veered her hand back and trailed her fingertips down his side.
Griff let out a blast of laughter that filled the entire vehicle. “Stop,” he said, but crazily enough, he didn’t reach for her hand or attempt to stop her.
Emboldened, Scarlett feathered her fingers down his side and along his abs. She’d always loved Griff’s build, but she was pretty certain he hadn’t had this many grooved muscles back in college. Griff’s laughter changed to a low moan that caught her off guard. She flattened her hand on his abdomen and simply savored the connection to him. His body was perfect, but it was the thrill of touching him, of him letting her touch him, that had fire racing through her.
Griff grabbed her hand and pushed it away, abruptly stopping her wanton thoughts. He pushed her hand back to her side of the vehicle. She was pretty sure he meant to simply keep her from touching him, but as he placed her hand down, the back of his hand grazed her bare knee. He released her hand, and slowly his fingers danced along her leg until his large palm covered her knee.
Silence settled within the vehicle, loaded with tension she didn’t know how to deal with. Griff kept his hand on her knee, and as she battled her growing thirst for him, he said quietly, “You always had the most perfect legs.”
“Th-thank you,” she squeaked out from a very dry throat.
His hand caressed her knee for the briefest of seconds, and the vehicle could have exploded with the heat she felt. Griff abruptly pulled away and clamped both palms onto the steering wheel.
They drove without speaking for much too long. Scarlett wanted to demand to know how he could touch her like that if there was “no us,” but she didn’t want him to withdraw from her for another ten years. Yet it seemed he already was shutting down.
“I apologize,” he finally muttered.
“For?” No! Don’t apologize, you heartless jerk.
“I would never become involved with a client.”
The fire from minutes before turned to ice. “I’m not paying you, so I’m not your client,” she threw at him.
“We’ll bill you later.” He actually smiled.
“You do that.”
He reached over and squeezed her leg before returning his hands to the steering wheel. Scarlett had never been so confused in her life. She had to somehow get through this with her sanity intact. Griff Quinn was messing with her heart and mind, but sadly, that was nothing new.
When the signs for St. George exits appeared, Scarlett gave a little cheer. “Finally!”
Griff could not stop himself from smiling. What was she doing to him? Six hours since he’d first seen her again and he was touching her leg, laughing while she tickled him, and smiling like an idiotic sap. He might as well call his brother Kaleb and ask him to compose a love song for him. Pathetic.
“Longer than I wanted,” he admitted, “but if I’d stopped in Vegas or Mesquite and carried you barefoot through a casino, someone might’ve recognized you.”
“I don’t mind you carrying me.”
Griff clung to the steering wheel and refused to respond to that. When he’d carried her through that parking lot to the SUV earlier tonight, it had stirred far too much inside of him. He wouldn’t mind carrying her a long, long way, but thankfully they’d been able to avoid Las Vegas.
He parked in a stall that wasn’t under a direct parking lot light, but it still gave him a clear line of sight through the glass doors and windows of the hotel’s lobby to the check-in desk. “Stay here,” he instructed. “I’ll check in. I don’t want anyone seeing you.”
“You don’t want all this sparkle and shine noticed?” She winked at him.
Griff focused on her beautiful face for a few seconds. His shoulders dropped and he had the insane urge to cup her cheek with his palm. “No, I don’t.” He hurried to jump out of the vehicle, then shut the door and clicked the lock button.
The young man checking him in was much too slow for Griff’s liking. He kept glancing back to check on Scarlett, but it was after two a.m., so the parking lot and lobby were quiet.
“Everything okay, sir?”
Griff glanced at the clerk. He looked barely old enough to shave. “Fine.”
The kid finally found them a room and ran one of the many credit cards Griff had for jobs like this, but then he took another full minute to program keys. As Griff took the keys, he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.
He spun, and his stomach churned. A man was standing in front of the Escalade, staring at Scarlett. No! Griff ran through the lobby and slipped between the slowly-opening automatic doors. The man didn’t even turn as Griff approached, so focused was he on Scarlett. Griff plowed into him and tackled him onto the cement.
The man cried out in surprise, then put his hands over his head. “Don’t hurt me,” he begged.
“Who are you?” Griff demanded as he flipped the man over onto his stomach, pressed one knee into his back, and ripped h
is arms behind him.
“J-john Wilcox,” he squeaked out, his face digging into the cement walkway.
Griff almost smacked him in the head, but he restrained. “Not your name. Why are you here?”
“The, uh, banking convention.”
“The truth!” Griff roared. His heart raced. Had another hit man found Scarlett? The guy was in a rumpled suit but was otherwise clean-cut, balding, and looked like a banker. He seemed truly terrified, but even hardened criminals got terrified when Griff zeroed in on them.
Scarlett’s door opened, but Griff yelled at her, “Stay back!”
“Should I call the police?” The question came from the other direction. It was the desk clerk.
“Not yet,” Griff said. “Get back inside.”
The kid looked terrified. “I meant to help him.” He pointed at the man under Griff’s power.
Griff growled. “I’m private security. I’ll show you my badge later.” He had all manner of badges to fit different circumstances. “Get back inside!”
The kid scurried away. Griff hoped he wouldn’t call the police until he was certain what kind of a threat this man was, who had sent him, and that Scarlett was hidden away in the hotel room. Then he would have no issue turning the guy over to the authorities. Sutton always made sure they worked within the parameters of the law, and they were respected by the authorities and treated them with respect also.
The man under his knee whimpered, drawing Griff’s attention. “I was just looking at Scarlett Lily. I’m sorry.”
Scarlett hadn’t obeyed him about staying in the vehicle. She slowly approached them and touched Griff’s arm. Her touch had the crazy effect of soothing him. He didn’t want to be soothed right now. He wanted to beat the truth out of this guy.
“I don’t think he’s after me,” she said quietly. “I think he was just shocked to see someone famous.”
The guy craned his neck to look at her again. “I loved you in False Identity,” he said with a voice full of worship. “My wife and I are your biggest fans.”
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