“I guess having a bodyguard as a neighbor is going to pay off for you, today, Catherine,” Logan commented as he snapped several pictures of the porch and the red paint.
“Bodyguard?” Catherine shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d guessed Darius to be police or FBI. A bodyguard seemed an extension of those things. Somehow, she was surprised, though. She couldn’t imagine him escorting high-profile clients to high-profile events.
Or maybe she could.
Dress him in tux, slick back his hair and he’d easily pass for someone with money and looks to spare.
“Security contractor,” he corrected, and then turned to Logan. “You’ve got my cell phone number, Randal. Give me a call if the K-9 unit sniffs anything out.”
“I don’t recall you being part of this case, Osborne.”
“Catherine is my neighbor, so I’m making myself part of it,” Darius responded easily as a police K-9 unit pulled into the driveway.
“How about I decide who is going to be part of the case and who isn’t after Eileen is home?” Catherine tried to put some force into the words, but they sounded weak and shaky.
“You’re right. We’re wasting time. Call me, Randal.” Darius tossed the words over his shoulder as he hurried Catherine to the dirt road that she’d run along less than an hour before. Terror had fueled her then. Now, she felt nothing but tired. She’d known that returning to Pine Bluff after she’d been released from prison wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be so difficult. She’d thought she could hide away in the farmhouse, tend to Eileen and ignore the people who whispered and pointed, but the townspeople didn’t seem willing to let her alone. Some of them simply wanted the story of her time in prison. Others were still convinced she was a murderer.
Apparently, one of them wanted her gone.
She touched her neck, then let her hand drop away. She didn’t want Darius to know how shaken she was. She didn’t want anyone to know it. Keep things close to the cuff. That’s what her grandmother had taught her, and it’s what she’d always done. There’d been a time in her life when she’d thought things might be different, that she could let down her guard, trust someone else with her emotions, but her arrest had proven just how foolish that had been. That was something else she kept close to the cuff...how much it had hurt to see her fiancé on local and national news programs saying he wasn’t surprised that Catherine had been arrested, that her compassion for the dying must have caused her to snap.
She shoved the memories away. For Eileen’s sake, she tried to live in the present and let the past go. That was easier on some days than on others.
Several officers stood near the curve in the road, crime scene tape marking off the area they were searching. They didn’t meet her eyes as she passed, but she hadn’t expected them to. The Spokane County sheriff’s department had issued an apology for the four years she’d spent in prison for crimes she hadn’t committed. She’d been paid a lump sum for the trauma and time the criminal justice system had cost her, but that couldn’t buy back her life or the time she might have spent with Eileen. They knew it.
Still, if anyone from the sheriff’s department had asked, she would have said that she didn’t place the blame with them. Didn’t really place blame with anyone.
“I tracked your attacker from the road, through the field and back to your place. He could have been waiting in the house when you got there, waiting anywhere along this road. The weeds and overgrowth are so dense you wouldn’t have seen him until he was on you. You realize that, right?” Darius said quietly, his hand resting on her elbow as he steered her onto his driveway.
“The police had already arrived. You were out with a gun looking for the guy who’d attacked me. Why would he stick around?”
“For the same reason he attacked you.”
“Because he’s a stupid kid who gets his kick out of scaring people? Kids have been coming around here since the day I got out of prison.”
“You think that’s what this was about?” He touched her throbbing jaw.
She flinched away, the movement as unconscious as breathing, and his eyes narrowed as he studied her face.
She kept her expression neutral, tried not to let him see her fear and anxiety. They were tools he might use against her one day, and she held them close, kept them hidden the way she had for years.
“I really need to get to the hospital,” she said, because she felt his gaze more than she should have, felt it settling deep, demanding more.
“Right.” He opened the door of an old Ford pickup. Repainted dark blue, everything shiny and new, it was probably as old as her grandmother’s car, but Catherine knew the engine would start and that it would probably purr like a kitten.
Darius seemed like the kind of guy who had all his ducks in a row, everything shipshape and in order.
He helped her into the truck’s cab, his hand on her back, then her shoulder, then her arm. Everything so easy and smooth, she barely realized it was happening. Gentling a colt. Only she wasn’t a colt, and she didn’t need to be gentled. She needed to be left alone.
She started to close the door, but he covered her hand, his gaze so intense she wanted to look away.
“Just so you know, we’re not done with our conversation. The person who did this meant business, and we need to find out exactly what that business was.”
He ran a finger across the welts on her neck, and she shivered.
“I told you, kids have been—”
“This wasn’t done by a kid who got carried away. He meant business, Cat.” His eyes had gone soft and gentle, his words quiet, and she felt herself falling into that gentleness. Allowing herself to believe that it was real.
“My name is Catherine,” she said, shoving everything else away and concentrating on that one thing.
No one called her Cat.
Not anymore.
“Yeah? I’ll keep that in mind.” He closed the door and rounded the truck, and she scooted to the very end of the leather bucket seat. The seat belt was an old-fashioned lap belt, and she buckled it as Darius got into the truck, trying to slow her heart rate and pull herself together.
She’d have to explain the bruises to Eileen, but Catherine wouldn’t let her see how terrified and shaken she was.
“Where are we headed?”
“Sacred Heart.”
“I know it. Downtown Spokane, right?”
“That’s right.” The hospital was twenty minutes away, a long time to sit in a truck with a man she didn’t know. She fidgeted in her seat, wishing she’d taken Logan up on his offer to have a police officer drive her to the hospital. So what if people saw her in a police cruiser and talked? They were already talking.
“Has your grandmother been ill for long?”
“I don’t know.” She felt his sideways glance, but didn’t offer more information.
“It must be tough on both of you.”
“It is.” Especially because Catherine felt responsible. If she hadn’t gone to prison, if she’d been around, maybe she would have noticed Eileen’s decline, forced her to go to the doctor sooner, given her a chance of surviving the cancer that was eating her liver.
“She’s pretty frail, your grandmother?” he asked casually, but Catherine doubted there was anything casual about Darius.
“Yes. Why?”
“You two live at the end of a dirt road, Catherine. The doors on your house are flimsy. The windows are single pane. It’s not safe.”
“It always has been before.”
“It wasn’t safe this morning.”
He had a point. With Eileen’s health failing and the juvenile pranks escalating, maybe security was something Catherine needed to look into.
“I’ll have a security company come out and install a system.”
“I can help you with that. I work for one of the largest security contractors in the country.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Tell you what. I’ll have someone go out and assess things. He’ll have an estimate for you when we get back. You don’t have to commit to anything.”
“Thanks, but—”
“Is there some reason why you don’t want my help?”
“I don’t want anyone’s help. My grandmother and I have been doing fine on our own for a long time, and we’re going to keep doing fine,” she said. It was the truth, but there was a deeper truth. She didn’t want help from a guy who looked tough as nails but who had gentleness in his eyes and his voice.
“We all need help sometimes.”
“I know, but I want to make sure that—” She couldn’t say what she was thinking. That she didn’t want help from someone like him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Good, because me making a phone call isn’t a big deal. It’s just a favor to a neighbor, okay?”
“Okay.” What else could she say? She needed a security system. Darius could get her one quickly. If the price was right, she couldn’t say no.
She had a feeling that she should, though, because she had a feeling that Darius would complicate her life if she let him.
“Great.” He patted her knee, the casual touch reminding her of the sweetness of being with someone who was comfortable and comforting and wonderfully familiar.
She’d had that a long time ago.
She’d lost it.
Her heart had finally healed, and she wasn’t in the market to have it broken again.
She shifted away from Darius, staring out the side window, watching the landscape speed by as he made his phone call.
THREE
Somehow, in the four hours since Catherine had dropped her grandmother off at the hospital, Eileen had faded, her bright orange hair muted, her skin sallow and yellowed. Head back against the waiting-room chair, eyes closed, mouth slack, she looked almost skeletal.
Catherine hurried across the room, touching her grandmother’s cool dry wrist, relieved to feel blood pulsing beneath the skin. “Eileen?”
“’Bout time you showed up.” Eileen’s eyes flew open, her sharp green gaze unchanged by her illness, her eyebrows and lashes sparse from chemotherapy. Looking into her face made Catherine sick with grief and fear. She didn’t let it show.
“I’m ten minutes early.”
“Then, why have I been waiting for a quarter of an hour?”
“You must have finished early.”
“Can’t see how that could have happened. I get the same amount of treatment every time. Unless they shorted me some this go-round. Maybe I need to track the nurse down and ask.”
“You know they wouldn’t do that,” Catherine said wearily.
“I suppose that I do, but chemo always makes me grumpy and waiting makes me grumpier. Let’s get out of here.” Eileen put a hand on both arms of the chair and pushed herself to standing. Upright, she looked even frailer, faded jeans hanging from narrow hips, her clavicle protruding from a sagging T-shirt. She started walking toward the exit, wobbling a little with every step, but Catherine didn’t bother to offer assistance. Eileen wouldn’t accept it.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Eileen,” she said, resisting the urge to put a hand on Eileen’s elbow and hold her steady.
“Yeah? So, spit it out.”
“I had some trouble with the car. I had to ask a neighbor for a ride.” She braced herself, knowing exactly what Eileen’s reaction would be.
“We don’t have a neighbor.”
“Sure we do. He bought the Morris property, remember?”
“Yeah. I remember, but I’ve never seen him, so I was wondering if he actually lived there. Is he cute?”
“Eileen, you are so predictable.”
“Well? Is he?”
“No.” He wasn’t cute. He was drop-dead gorgeous.
“Then why are your cheeks pink? And...what’s this?” Eileen touched the bruise on Catherine’s jaw, her eyes narrowing.
“We can talk about it at home. Darius is waiting at his truck, and I’m sure he has better things to do with his day than sit in a hospital parking lot.”
“I may be sick, but I’m not senile. You’re avoiding my question.”
“Just putting off the answer for a while.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t want you to worry.
Because I’m afraid stress will accelerate the course of your disease.
“Because this isn’t the place to discuss it. Half the people here know me, and I don’t want them going to the press.”
“They’re idiots, and all the press hounds are idiots, too.” Eileen scowled, shooting a hard glare at the guy who held the door open for them. A total stranger, but Eileen wasn’t picky about who she blamed for Catherine’s troubles.
The press.
The community.
The police.
The only people she didn’t blame were her church friends.
Blazing sun reflected off black asphalt as Catherine helped Eileen down the curb and into the parking lot. Darius stood a few yards away, leaning against his truck, a phone pressed to his ear. He smiled as they approached, shoving the phone into his pocket and offering Eileen his hand.
“You must be Eileen. I’m Darius Osborne.”
“Nice to meet you, Darius Osborne. I hear you gave my granddaughter some help this afternoon. Thank you for that.” Eileen clasped his hand and smiled sweetly.
Very un-Eileen like, but, then, Eileen had been on a matchmaking mission since Catherine’s release from prison.
“I was happy to help, Miz Eileen.” Darius opened the truck door, but Eileen held back.
“Doesn’t look like this truck has a backseat.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
“Then, Catherine can get in first. I’ll get carsick if I don’t have a window seat.”
“Since when do you get carsick?” Catherine asked.
“Since I started getting chemo. Now, how about we stop discussing it and get out of here. I’m getting tired and feeling sick.” She knew how to get her way. Catherine would give her that.
“Fine.” Catherine climbed into the truck, ignoring a fancy sports car that slowly rolled by. Gawkers. She dealt with them every time she came to town.
“Give me a hand, will you? I’m not as spry as I used to be.” Eileen reached out, and Catherine clasped her hand as the sports car U-turned and headed back toward them.
She wanted to yank Eileen into the car, but was afraid she’d break brittle bone or tear tight tendons.
“Let me help.” Darius lifted Eileen easily, helping her into the seat and closing the door, sealing them in as he turned to face the approaching vehicle.
“Strong guy,” Eileen said.
Catherine ignored her, watching as the car slowed and a blond teenager stuck his head out the window.
“Murderer!” he shouted, his buddy laughing in the seat beside him.
This was why
she hated coming to town, the staring, the whispers, the constant reminder of what people had said about her in the weeks and months following her arrest. What people were still saying.
“Go back to prison, witch!” he called again, and Darius shifted, pulling back his jacket and revealing a shoulder holster and gun. The teen’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widening as he jerked back, closed his window.
“That’s one way to get rid of them,” Eileen commented gleefully, but Catherine hadn’t enjoyed the show.
She’d been taunted before, targeted before, but she’d never felt as afraid as she did now. If she let herself, she could still feel hands around her throat, squeezing and choking.
She shivered.
“Ready?” Darius asked as he got behind the wheel.
“Whenever you are, doll,” Eileen responded, and Darius smiled.
“You’re my kind of gal, Miz Eileen.”
“If only I were four decades younger.” She sighed, and his laughter filled the truck, rumbling through Catherine as she sat tense and stiff between the two.
She wanted to relax. She really did, but she was pressed leg to leg, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder with a guy who carried a gun and looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine.
“Where are you from, Darius? You didn’t just suddenly appear in the old Morris place, I know that.” Eileen leaned past Catherine to study Darius more thoroughly. Probably sizing him up as grandson-in-law material.
“Born and raised in South Carolina, ma’am.”
“You’re far from home.”
“I did a stint in the navy. Came back stateside a few years ago. My job brought me here.”
“You with the police?”
“I’m a security contractor.”
“A bodyguard?”
Navy SEAL Rescuer Page 3