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He shook his head, giving the apartment one final glance. “Let’s go home.”
They made the five-hour journey back to the Navajo reservation, winding through the Tonto National Forest. The day was beautiful—sunny and warm, cooling to jacket weather as they climbed into the Colorado Plateau.
One hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on Gia’s denim-clad thigh, Caleb drove while she dozed in the passenger seat. Her hand covered his, thumb grazing his knuckles in a slow rhythm.
By the time they reached Window Rock and continued north, the sun had dipped beneath layers of golden haze, the clouds ablaze with orange fire.
Tomorrow would be busy—he’d arranged a meeting with his grandfather while Gia met with the medical clinic’s director. Then visits to Zach and Jennie.
He reached Gia’s home and parked the rental behind her old SUV.
Gia smiled. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
The first time she’d said those words, she’d been self-conscious. Now her voice held something different.
Peace. Belonging.
Home.
He liked the sound of it.
Inside, everything was as they’d left it a few days ago—the worn brown sofa, the colorful rugs, the dark wood dining table. Gia’s scent lingered strongest here, that desert floral note that clung to her skin and hair.
She stood in her living room, gaze drifting over the space. “I keep thinking this is a dream. That I’ll wake up and Vincente will still be hunting me.”
She turned, the ghostly remnants of fear clinging to the edges of her expression. “And you were just a fantasy I made up to survive.”
Caleb stepped in close, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “If itisa dream, don’t wake me up.”
He kissed her—not so much in hunger, but in release. The moment built slowly, like trust.
When they pulled apart, the shadows of fear had faded, but worry still lingered in Gia’s eyes.
“What if I don’t have a job anymore?”
He tugged her into his arms, kissed the top of her head. “You do.”
She pressed her face to his chest. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
He trusted his grandfather. And he knew Gia was too valuable to lose. She’d had a long, emotionally draining couple of days. Her mind was spiraling, reaching for worst-case scenarios.
He had just the distraction in mind.
His lips brushed the shell of her ear. Tasted her skin.
She shivered, and his body tightened, the need to mark her as his a primal call in his blood.
“Are you hungry?” she murmured. “I know we had a late lunch on the road but—”
Her voice broke off as he kissed her throat. His hands slid up from her waist to cup her breasts. “Not for food.”
Last night he’d held her while an FBI agent slept in the next room, his need to feel her fall apart beneath him, scream his name, kept on a tight leash.
She was alive. Safe. Her tormenter on a metal slab in the morgue.
Tonight, he’d show Gia exactly what she meant to him.