“Daddy, please. You’re overreacting.”
With the tip of his gun, he pulled her front door shut. “Is this overreacting?”
“Shit,” Jude said from behind her.
Heart in her throat, she stared at the streaks of dark red splattered over the door. Here, too? No, not here. Not at her home, her sanctuary from the world. “Is that…?”
“Paint,” her father said. “Now come inside out of the open.”
“Oh.” Relief shook her to the bone. Her legs didn’t seem to want to move. “Paint. Right. Just…paint.”
“Wilde.”
“Yes, sir,” Jude said, and suddenly her feet were no longer touching the ground. She wanted to tell him to put her down, that she could walk herself, thank you very much, but her vocal cords had also stopped cooperating. Jude carried her into the house.
How ironic, she thought. Here he was, finally carrying her over the threshold after all these years. Tears threatened, and she focused on blinking them back. She must be an emotional wreck right now if something as ridiculous as an old romantic fantasy brought on the waterworks.
“Plan B,” her father said.
“I didn’t know we had one,” Jude responded and set her down on her favorite overstuffed leather recliner.
“We do now.” Her father tucked a chenille throw around her shoulders, and she clutched it, welcoming the warmth. “You have to take her away from the city. Hide her somewhere, keep her safe until the trial.”
“How far are you thinking?” Jude asked.
“I own a hunting cabin in the mountains in Vermont—”
“No.” Jude moved away from her, over to one of the three front windows. He nudged the curtain aside and peeked out as if he expected her stalker to be across the street, watching…waiting…
Oh God.
Libby buried her face in her hands.
“Why the hell not?” her father demanded. “The cabin’s defensible, remote. A perfect place to hide.”
“Yeah, until a storm blows in and strands us up there with a psycho killer. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie?” When her father said nothing in response, Jude let the curtain fall and turned back to them. “You don’t want her trapped someplace all alone. Sure, she might be harder to find, but once she’s found, she has no way of getting help fast. You want her someplace well populated, someplace where the locals see new faces every day and don’t question it.”
“And you have such a place in mind?”
“One or two,” Jude said, and the undercurrent of laughter in his voice finally snapped Libby out of her fog.
Wait. They wanted to take her out of the city?
“Stop.” She shook off the blanket and stood. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
“No,” they said at the same time, and in that moment, the similarities between the two men struck her speechless—except one meant everything to her and the other she wanted nothing to do with.
She turned to the only one who mattered. “I’m not going anywhere, Dad.”
His expression softened, and he soothed down a flyaway strand of her hair. “You don’t have a choice, sweet pea. Whoever this is knows where you live. I won’t take a chance with my only daughter’s life.”
“And I understand that, but you can’t just ship me off somewhere. I’ll get a hotel.”
“Not good enough. You need protection.”
All right. If that was how he wanted to play it, she could be stubborn, too. She was her father’s daughter after all. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “Then hire someone else because I’m not going anywhere with him.”
Her father looked at Jude for a long moment, then back at her. “He saved your life tonight.”
“Yes.” And did that mean she owed him something? Because she really didn’t want to be indebted to Jude Wilde in any way. She could only imagine his version of a repayment plan. “But I can’t stand him. He’s selfish, hedonistic, reckless, and…and I don’t want to be near him.”
Jude grinned. “You’re full of compliments.”
She propped a hand on her hip and held her other out as if to say, see what I mean?
“Yes, he is all those things,” her father agreed with a long-suffering sigh. “And he can’t take an order for shit, but he’s also good at what he does, the best I’ve ever had the misfortune to train. He’ll keep you safe for me.”
Oh no, this couldn’t be happening. Frantic, she searched for another excuse. “I can’t leave my job.”
“I already talked to your boss. He said you have plenty of vacation time coming and agrees that you should take it. Please, Elizabeth,” he added softly. “Please. For me.”
She studied his face, noted the new lines around his weary eyes. “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”