Page 53 of Wilde Nights in Paradise

More silence. Then, “Whoa. You care about her.”

“And you call yourself a detective? That should have been obvious from the start.”

“Yeah, I knew you cared—at one time. But I had no idea you’re still in l—”

“We’re not leaving,” Jude interrupted. “There’s nowhere safer for her than Seth’s house. This place is a fortress. Top of the line security, better than anything we have in our arsenal of tricks. Can’t Vaughn lay the cyber trail back to D.C. or even to the cabin in Vermont? Make it look like we left?”

Cam exhaled hard. “Vaughn’s good, but he’s not Reece. If K-Bar, or whoever, had the technology to track you to Key West in the first place, there’s a good chance he’ll see through it. I still think you should exfil. Greer’s gonna have a fit that you’re refusing.”

No doubt about it, and Jude was extremely glad he wouldn’t be around to receive the brunt of Greer’s temper this time. “Believe me, Cam, I want her safe as much as anyone. If I didn’t think she was safe here anymore, I’d be the first to say so, but there’s no place on Earth better to hide than in this house. You know how paranoid Seth got after everything he went through.”

“Then you need to utilize every safety measure he has in place,” Cam said. “We lay that trail, you’ll have to stay inside the house. No more jaunts to the beach in your underwear. No more paddle boarding trips. No Duval Street. No grocery shopping. Everything will be delivered to the front door by men I’ll personally pick. You’re not even walking out to the curb for the newspaper, got me?”

Jude thought back on the day. So perfect in every way until he spotted that car tailing them and now Libby would never remember anything but the fear of running from someone who may not have even been chasing them. This threat to her was a boogeyman—intangible, but scary enough to make you check under the bed twice before going to sleep.

And, like he’d told her in the car, he was done taking chances.

“Yeah, I got you. We’ll stay inside the gate,” he said to Cam. “Call me as soon as you find out where the hell K-Bar’s hiding.”

…

Libby heard the patio door slide shut and stilled her hand on Sam’s back, feigning sleep. Jude’s footfalls came softly as he extinguished lights on the way to the bedroom, but he hesitated in the doorway, and she lifted one eyelid to watch him. He stood just inside the room, a pool of cool moonlight splashing around his feet from the sliding glass doors that led to the garden and pool. Simply standing there, staring at the bed. She felt his eyes sweep over her and despite the chill in the air, her skin heated in response with the memory of sun, water, and sex.

He finally moved around the end of the bed, stripping off his clothes and dropping them on the floor, kicking them out of the way when they landed in his path. She should tell him to pick them up and put them away like a normal adult, but she said nothing. There would be time for that tomorrow.

He slid underneath the covers and spooned up behind her. She should tell him to go back to the couch and leave her alone, but the idea of sleeping in this big bed alone tonight sent icy snakes of fear slithering down her spine. She didn’t want to be alone. All right, if she was perfectly honest with herself, it was more than a need for companionship. Not just anyone would do. It was all him. She didn’t want to be without him, specifically, tonight.

So instead of telling him off like she knew she should, she reveled in his tattooed arms encasing her in their strength, relaxed in the comfort of his long frame pressed chest-to-back against her, drifted in the tenderness of the moment as he buried his face in her hair.

“I will keep you safe,” he whispered.

She turned to him in the dark, unable to fake sleep any longer. She clasped his face between her palms and kissed him, a light back and forth brush of her lips across his. “I know.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The first week of July, a hurricane churning out near Cuba made the weather turn. Gone were the warm, sun-drenched spring days, replaced with muggy, overcast, and rainy afternoons that seemed endless. Jude was lucky if he got his swim in, but the punishing exercises he’d been putting himself through in the gym were no longer taking the edge off his restlessness and the lack of outside stimulation made him twitchy.

The weather took its toll on Libby, too. With each passing day, she seemed more morose, talking to him, joking with him, less and less. He tried to give her some space, but when he walked into the house from tinkering with Seth’s car in the garage and found her sitting on the couch with tears rolling down her face as she watched TV, that was the final straw. He set aside the rag he’d been wiping his greasy hands on and knelt down in front of her.

“Libs, what’s wrong?”

She sniffled and swiped away the tears with the fingers of one hand. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, I cry over nothing all the time.”

That got him a little smile as he’d hoped it would. “It’s stupid.”

“I’m good with stupid.”

She motioned to the TV with the remote in her hand. On screen, a hot dog commercial showed a happy-happy family passing heaping dishes of food around a packed picnic table. Jude watched until the commercial cut to the next, an advertisement for the local news talking about the possibility of cancelling tomorrow’s firework show.

“Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July,” she said and brushed away another tear. “I’ve never missed one with my family, but now I’m stuck here, and I won’t get to see my parents or any of my aunts, uncles, cousins. My grandparents. I miss them. I won’t be home to celebrate with them.”

Christ, he was a nitwit. Of course she’d been upset—it was a holiday, and she was homesick. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before now?

Holidays had been no big deal in the Wilde family since his parents died. Actually, this was the first year all of his brothers were in the same country for the holiday. Someone had always been overseas, and whoever else was available might get together in a bar for a beer or two, but that was the extent of it. He couldn’t remember having a real family dinner since he was nine…but he suddenly wanted one. With Libby.

He leaned in and gave her a light kiss. “This will be over soon enough. Once my brothers find K-Bar, he’s going back to prison for breaking his parole, and you’ll be safe to go home and see your folks.”

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