“Handcuffs,” Pruitt groaned, still flat on his back several feet away. “Key’s in his pocket. Get these off me and on him.”
Libby knelt to go through the unconscious man’s pockets and spared Jude a quick, worried glance. “Did he shoot you?”
Jude lifted himself to his hands and knees, shook away the cobwebs in his mind and ran through a mental checklist. He hurt, but in a general, not-moving-for-a-week kind of way, the pain originating from nowhere specific. Even the nausea from the ball busting was starting to fade.
“Nah. I’m good.” He sat up on his knees and surveyed the scene as she unhooked the cuffs from her father’s wrists and snapped them around Burke’s like an old pro. Slivers of glass sparkled in puddles of water on the tile floor. “What the fuck did you hit him with?”
“A vase.”
Pruitt stared at her in horror. “A what?”
Jude laughed, and pain spiked through his ribs. A vase. After all that, a fucking vase ended it. It was almost too funny—but then it wasn’t, because something colorful lay limp under Burke’s head, a splash of pink that didn’t belong.
Holding his breath, he reached out and extracted a flower from under Burke’s cheek.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You kept it.”
“What?” Libby stopped worrying over her father and followed Jude’s gaze to the limp flower he held between his fingers. “Oh. So now you notice.”
“You even put it in a vase,” Jude said in amazement. He lifted his head and stared at her. “You kept it.”
That expression. God, she wished she had a camera because the mix of surprise and excitement on his face was picture worthy.
“I couldn’t throw it away,” she admitted and let her heart go all soft and melty at his smile, which started as a slow upward tilt of his lips and blossomed into a grin as beautiful as the flower had once been.
“You couldn’t throw it away,” he said as if savoring each word, then gave a whoop. Ignoring the glass on the floor, he leaped to his feet, closed the distance between them, and scooped her up into his arms. The kiss was soft but persistent, and she wound her arms around his neck, held on to him with everything she had as outside, police sirens screamed to a stop in front of the house.
Over. It was finally over. Which was a good thing, she told herself. No more stalker, no more threats, no more hiding.
So why had a lump lodged hard and hot halfway up her throat? And why were her eyes stinging?
Across the room, her father cleared his throat, and Jude abruptly set her back on her feet. His entire body hardened under her hands, his muscles going steely, jaw tightening, suppressed hostility humming through every vein and tendon. She glanced back and forth between the two of them. What had Kenneth meant when he spoke of the bad blood?
She opened her mouth to ask, but her father took hold of her elbow and pulled her away from Jude. “It’s time for us to go home.”
Yes, she supposed it was, but she didn’t want to. The realization hit her full force in that moment as she watched Jude all but steam with rage, his hands opening and closing into fists at his sides. That’s why she wanted to cry. No more hiding equaled no more Jude, and she wasn’t ready to say good-bye again. Not yet. Not when he was finally starting to show his true colors after all these years.
As gently as she could, she extracted herself from her father’s grasp and turned to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Dad, you know I love you, and I will do most anything for you, but I’m not going home yet.” She felt Jude’s surprise at her back as keenly as she saw the ripple of shock over her father’s face. To drive the point home, she backed up until Jude’s arms encircle her. “I have ten days of vacation time left, and I’m entitled to take them.”
“Here?” her father demanded.
“Maybe. I like it here. I like the company.”
Jude didn’t make a sound, but with her back pressed against his chest, she felt him exhale with something a lot like relief. Her father, on the other hand, looked like he was going to blow his top. His teeth clenched so hard she heard the grind of them from across the room.
“Sweet pea,” he said in the same let’s-be-reasonable tone he’d used on her when she was a teenager. “That’s not a good decision.”
“I’m an adult,” she reminded him. “I think it’s time I start making my own decisions, good or bad.” Then she gentled her voice. “Go home to Mom. I’m sure she’s worried sick about you. Tell her I’m fine and I’ll be home in a couple weeks.”
A long, stubborn moment passed.
“All right. We’ll have a talk when you get home.” With that, her father spun on his heel and marched out to meet the cops, barking orders at them as if they were his men.
“Holy shit,” Jude muttered. “He actually listened to you.”
“I didn’t give him a choice.” She turned in his arms to smile up at him. “Like I said, I’m an adult. It’s past time he realizes that. I’ve indulged his need to hang on to his little girl long enough.”