“Emily, how are you doing, sweetheart?” Affection filled her father’s voice as it came over the line. “Are you busy?”
“Not hardly,” she answered, pushing back her regret that she wasn’t. Hell, it was Friday, she should have a date at least.
“Can you make time for your old man then?” His voice was too serious; the normal good humor and gentle teasing were absent.
Emily frowned. “Are you going to yell at me?”
She hated it when he succumbed to frustration and actually yelled at her. Not that it happened often, but it had happened enough times for her to dread it.
“No yelling,” he promised quietly. “I’m about five minutes from the house. I’m bringing some friends with me. I’ll see you then.”
Friends. That meant bodyguards and more than the one that normally traveled with him.
Emily breathed in carefully. “Are you okay, Daddy?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart.” But her heart clenched at the gentling of his voice. “Just be watching for us. We’ll be there soon.”
Emily disconnected the phone seconds later, staring down at it with a frown as she bit at her lower lip. Thoughts of bad boys and arousal dissipated as worry began to fill her. Her father was worried, worried enough that he wasn’t hiding it from her.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
Five minutes later, barely enough time to change from the slouchy clothes into a pair of white Capris and a dove-gray cotton tank, Emily heard a vehicle pulling into the front drive. Pushing her feet into comfortable sandals, she moved to the door, checking the peephole quickly before opening it for her father.
“Hi, Daddy.” Moving back, she watched as he entered and gave her a quick hug.
He was followed by three tall, hard-bodied men, handsome enough to make a girl pant if she hadn’t been distracted by the fierce frown on her father’s face.
She glanced over the three quickly before closing the door and moving slowly into the living room behind them.
One of the men moved to her sliding door and whipped the heavy shades closed over it before moving to the windows and closing the plastic-backed curtains over them as well.
“Why is he closing my curtains?” She stared at his back. A very fine back. Broad and heavily muscled beneath the white cotton shirt he wore. The broad back tapered to snug jeans. Jeans that did nothing to hide a luscious butt.
“I’m sorry, baby,” her father said softly as she turned to him, seeing the heavy lines in his face, the concern in his light blue eyes.
At fifty-five her father was still a fit, handsome man. He had never remarried after her mother’s death nearly twenty years before, though she was aware he had certain “friendships.”
“What’s wrong?” She kept her attention on him as the other three men began moving through the house. “Look, I know Dyson is pissed. And I know you probably are too. But it was just a little research—”
“Emily, this isn’t about the strip club.” He shook his head, but she could see the flat line of his mouth, and knew she had disappointed him again.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” she said. “Dyson just gets really intense over things, ya know?”
“Men have a way of doing that.” He nodded. “Speeding. Flirting your way out of a ticket while he sat beside you. The strip club, the attempted attack at that dance club a few weeks ago. Sweetheart, I have gray hairs from the report Dyson sent me before I landed.”
And why had she ever imagined Dyson wouldn’t do it? They all did it when they finally managed to cave to their fear.
“I was safe.” She shrugged. “The bodyguards are like ticks. They suck the fun out of everything.”
She heard a snort of laughter from one of the men behind her but didn’t turn away from her father to glare at whichever one it was.
“Emily. Sit down with me.” He took one of her hands and led her to the couch while her heart began to race in terror.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t yelling at her. And that was scary. He had the same expression on his face that he’d had the night he awakened her to tell her that her mother wasn’t coming back home. That she would never come home again.
“What’s wrong?” She pushed back the instinctive aggression she felt whenever she knew something she didn’t like was about to happen. She knew this expression, knew the look in his eyes.
He sat beside her. “Emily,” he said. “Fuentes is back, sweetheart, and the information we’ve received is that he’s going to attempt to kidnap you again.”