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.”
But until then, he had some plans to make.
…
Libby woke later than usual the next morning and lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling fan for a long time, debating whether she should get up. She turned her head on the pillow and looked at the alarm clock. Nearly noon. Really, what was the point? She could hear rain drumming against the roof, so it wasn’t as if she could go outside and soak in some sun.
Boy, she missed the sun.
But she missed her family even more.
“Ugh. Can someone say pity party?” Disgusted with herself, she shoved off the blankets and headed toward the bathroom for a shower. So she was missing her family’s barbeque tonight. At least doing so ensured that she’d be around for next year’s festivities. Better to spend one holiday lonely than spend the rest of her holidays in a grave.
She showered quickly, wrestled her damp hair into a ponytail, and tossed on an oversize T-shirt and cotton shorts. No sense in putting on anything else. She wasn’t going any—
Stepping into the hallway, she stopped in surprise at the delicious scents from the kitchen. Jude stood at the counter, reading the directions on the back of a refrigerated piecrust tin. He was in his favorite basketball shorts, shirtless, his back turned toward her, and that old curiosity about his tattoo pulled her forward. Dammit, why’d she leave her glasses in the bedroom?