Finn’s shoulders sagged even as he bowed his head.
Yeah. She had him beat.
Without a word, he motioned toward the desk and simply gave up. There had to be other rental places in town, right? And if not, he’d call for another Uber and do…something. There was a row of chairs against the wall and he walked over and sat down. He found this place by searching on his phone, so he’d just have to do it again and hope he’d find another one.
Scrolling…scrolling…scrolling…
The rustling of wet satin had him looking up. Grace was two feet away and still staring at him hostilely. “Problem?” he asked, letting his own annoyance come through.
“Listen, it seems to me we’ve both had a crappy day and…well…I’m heading across country too. So, if you want to share the car…”
He was instantly on his feet. “Seriously?” Then he got suspicious. “Why? Why would you even offer? You know nothing about me, and for that matter, I know nothing about you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Both Carl and Tammy mentioned there not being another rental place nearby. The closest one is about twenty miles from here and is closed for the day. Your only other option is the airport and…”
“I’m not flying!” he snapped and immediately regretted his reaction. “I mean…I don’t really like flying so…”
“No, I mean there are car rental places there you can try, but it’s still a bit of a drive to get there too.” She paused and fidgeted, and Finn figured her dress had to be a bit of a pain to move around in–even more so now that it was wet. “Nothing today has gone as planned and I’m not looking forward to driving across the country alone.”
“I get that, but still…how do you know you can trust me?”
“Honestly? I don’t. But Carl and Tammy have your license and would know I was leaving with you, so if anything happened to me, you’d be the guy everyone would go after.” Then she paused, and her gaze narrowed. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t trust you?”
“What? I mean, no! There’s no reason,” he stammered.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said before turning to the curious agents. “You guys listen in on this too. You’re witnesses.”
“Witnesses? That’s just…”
“I’m just trying to be practical, Quinn,” she said.
“It’s Finn,” he corrected and then cleared his throat. “I’m Finn Kavanagh and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. I was born and raised in East Islip, New York, and moved to Atlanta when I was eighteen. I’m thirty years old and I own my own auto repair shop, Kavanagh’s. You can look it up online. We have a website and a Facebook page,” he added.
“Tammy, can you check on that please?” Grace called over her shoulder, not breaking eye contact with Finn.
Finn glanced toward the counter and saw both agents typing and nodding, and when Grace looked over at them, they both gave her a thumbs up.
It was ridiculous for him to sag with relief, but he almost did.
“Anything else?” she asked. “What about your family? You married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No!” he shouted a little too defensively.
“Any siblings other than the car-stealing brother?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Just Dave.”
“Why’d he steal your car?”
“It’s a long story…”
And for the first time since he’d met her, Grace gave a small smile. “Good thing we’ve got a long drive ahead of us and you can tell me all about it.”
This is crazy, he thought. There was no way he was going to drive cross-country with a complete stranger. He didn’t do things like this! He was fairly practical and cautious, and this had disaster written all over it.
Grace walked back over to the counter and Finn followed. “My turn,” he said.
“For what?”
“Tell me about yourself.”
She leaned against the counter and looked at him with mild annoyance. “Why? It seems to me I’m the one at greater risk here.”
He gave her a bland look, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited.
With a sigh, she said, “Fine. Grace Mackie, career coach, age twenty-eight. Recently ran out on my wedding. I was engaged to the cheating jackass for six months and we dated for a year before that. I have two brothers and one sister, who are all happily married to non-cheating jackasses.”
“A career coach?”
She nodded. “I too have a website and Facebook page,” she turned to Tammy. “Executive Career Services by Grace out of Raleigh, North Carolina. You can Google it.” They waited all of two minutes before Carl and Tammy gave another thumbs up.
“Looks like we’re both who we say we are,” Grace said, her smile growing a little.
“Looks that way,” he agreed. “The only problem is you’re going to North Carolina and I’m going to Atlanta. How’s that going to work?”
She considered him for a moment. “I’d be more than willing to go to Atlanta with you and fly home from there. Unlike you, I’m not in a rush. The longer this trip takes, the better.”
Finn didn’t take that as a particularly good sign, but he wasn’t going to question it right now. Hell, if she wanted to camp out in Atlanta once they got there, who was he to argue?
Still, he wasn’t so sure this was going to work.
“Are you willing to split the driving?” he asked.
Grace let out a mirthless laugh. “Dude, I was planning on doing all the driving a few minutes ago. If there were more than one car here, I would be doing all the driving. So the fact that now I don’t have to? Um…yeah. I’d say I’d be willing to split it.”
Okay, so she was snarky, but he was going to blame it on the fact that she’d had a bad day.
For now.
“We each pay our own way, right? We’ll split the cost of gas, but other than that, you’re on your own for the things you need.”
She rolled her eyes before shaking her head.
