What?
“See anything?” Logan Randal crouched beside him.
“Maybe. Do you have a light?” He took the flashlight Logan offered, shone it on the tree trunk, his pulse jumping as the strange shadow came into full focus.
Wires.
Explosives.
Set on a timer? A remote?
“Back off. Now!” he ordered, but Logan was already moving, jumping back from the bomb, words spilling out as he called into his radio.
“What is it?” Catherine moved forward, heading in exactly the direction she shouldn’t be. Darius snagged her waist, hauled her up and away, her body stiff and unyielding, her skin soft and pliant.
“Put me down!” She panted, fighting his hold as if he were a stranger taking her to certain doom rather than a neighbor trying to keep her from it.
“Gladly,” he responded as he crossed the threshold into the house, set her down in the foyer, his hands sliding along the smooth skin of her abdomen, heat spearing through him.
“Go get your grandmother. We need to get out of here.”
“What did you see? What was it?”
“Enough explosives to blow that tree down and take half this house down with it. Get Eileen, or I’ll do it.” He started down the dark hall, knowing the way to Eileen’s room, and ready to carry both women out the back door if necessary.
Catherine could fight him all she wanted, but he’d have his way in this.
They were going to his place until the police cleared the explosive.
Maybe for longer.
Obviously, a security system hadn’t deterred Catherine’s attacker.
“I’ll get her. If you walk in there, she’ll be mortified.” Catherine brushed by, her body sliding along his. He felt every touch, every sigh of breath, every trembling muscle.
And he knew he was in trouble. Knew he was being pulled deeper than he wanted to go.
He’d come to Pine Bluff to settle in and settle down, and that was all he wanted. Not a relationship. Certainly not a relationship with someone like Catherine. Someone who had trouble seeping from every pore.
She walked into Eileen’s room, her gentle whisper carrying through the silent house. Outside, men and women shouted warnings and directions, but here, in the dark old farmhouse, time seemed to stand still, the scent of illness and cigarette hanging in the hot air.
He’d give the women ten seconds, and then he was going in.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
“It’s not going to matter that your hair is a mess if you’re dead, Eileen.” Catherine’s words carried clearly this time, her exasperation obvious.
Six.
Five.
“We need to go. Now. Not in a minute.”
Four.
Three.
Bed sheets rustled. Footsteps padded across wood flooring.
Finally, the two women appeared, Eileen tottering a little, drowning in an oversize night dress, Catherine a step behind her.
“So, the hunky hero has returned to take us to safety, huh?” Eileen put a hand on his arm, her skin cool and dry, her fingers trembling.
“I’m not sure hero is an accurate description. I’m just a neighbor trying to help out,” he responded, moving as quickly as her frailty would allow them to. Down the hall, into the gutted kitchen and out onto the back deck.
It took too long to get her down the deck stairs. He wanted to pick her up and carry her, but she swatted his hands away. Finally, they were down, and she paused for breath, her narrow shoulders heaving as she shivered in the moonlight. He pulled off his jacket, wrapping it around her, expecting Catherine to be right beside them.
Or maybe he didn’t.
Because, he didn’t feel at all surprised when he looked and she wasn’t there.
“Is anyone else in the house, sir?” a uniformed officer called out as she rounded the side of the house.
“One person. I’ll get her.” He jogged back up the stairs, his leg nearly giving out, pain shooting from the stump to his hip.
It hurt, and that pissed him off.
Catherine pissed him off, because she didn’t seem to understand the kind of danger she was in.
Or didn’t want to understand.
Or, maybe just didn’t care.
He ran into the house, ignoring the officer’s command to wait. He’d find Catherine and drag her outside if he had to.
Because, as irritated as he was, he couldn’t leave her behind.
FIVE
Catherine grabbed several bottles of medicine from the top of the small fridge that stood in the corner of Eileen’s room. Outside, men shouted, their muffled cries carrying through the poorly insulated walls. Her pulse raced in response.
Were they dismantling the bomb?
What if they failed? Would the tree topple onto the house? Would the house collapse with the force of the explosion?
Would she still be in it?
Stupid to come back for the medicine, but Eileen needed it, and Catherine needed Eileen.
“One, two, three, four, five,” she counted, dropping the bottles into the folded-up hem of her tank. A thousand dollars worth of pills, but maybe not worth risking her life over. After all, if she was gone who would take care of Eileen?
She ran into the dark hall, bounced off a broad firm chest.
Terror speared through her, and she screamed, throwing a punch as medicine tumbled to the floor.
Someone snagged her wrist, held it tight when she tried to tug away.
“I’m not in the mood for a broken nose, Cat.”
Darius.
Of course.
Running to the rescue again.
“Come on. We need to get out of here.”
“In a second.” She yanked away, stooping to pick up the bottles.
“Cat! We don’t have time for this,” he said, but he grabbed the last bottles and thrust it into her hands. “There. Now, let’s go.”
They were moving before she could think, running through the hallway and into the kitchen, then out into chilly night air and across the yard.
Moonlight splashed on dried-up grass that had been lush and green four years ago. Catherine had labored over the yard as a teen, cleaning it up, planting rose bushes, throwing down grass seed and watering it so that it looked more like her friends’ yards and less like a dump.
She’d had so many dreams then, so many possibilities stretching out before her. She didn’t know how it had all gone so wrong. How every possibility had become the reality she was living. Dreams dead. Eileen dying.
Catherine almost wished the bomb would explode and take out the house and the yard and all the reminders of what used to be.
Good and bad and in between.
Of course, wiping the homestead off the face of the earth couldn’t change the past or make it more palatable. Eventually she’d get the fresh start she craved, but the price she would pay for it was one she couldn’t stomach.
“Catherine! Thank goodness you’re okay! What were you thinking, girl, going back in there like that?” Eileen shuffled forward as Catherine and Darius reached the edge of the yard. Her knobby knees pale, her nightgown hanging loose around her gaunt frame, she looked nothing like the strong feisty woman who had raised Catherine.
“I wanted to get your medicine.” She held up the bottles, then shoved them into her shorts pockets.
“Did prison scra
mble your brains? What if the bomb had exploded and the house had come down? Do you think that medicine would matter?” Eileen asked, grabbing her wrist with cold, hard fingers.
“The house didn’t explode, and if it does, I’ve saved us a thousand dollars.”
“Do you think I care about that?”
“I know you don’t, but I do. Your health is as important to me as mine is to you, and this medicine is a necessity.” Catherine slid an arm around Eileen’s narrow waist, her heart sinking as she felt knobby bones.
“We can buy more medicine. We can’t buy another you.”
“I know, but I’m fine, and that’s all that matters.”
“Just don’t do anything like that ever again, okay? My old heart can’t take the stress,” Eileen joked, but Catherine worried that there might be a measure of truth to the words.
How much would be too much for a woman with metastasized liver cancer?
Catherine didn’t want to find out.
“How about we go sit in the Buick?” she suggested. “You can rest while the bomb squad works.”
“It’s better if we all stay here, ma’am,” a female officer said, sidling close, her face very familiar.
Had she interviewed Catherine after the Good Samaritan murders?
Probably.
And she’d probably been as convinced as everyone else of Catherine’s guilt.
“I wouldn’t go sit in the Buick while all this excitement is going on, anyway. When a woman’s nearing the end of her life, she doesn’t want to miss a moment of it.”
“Eileen—”
“Why don’t you have a seat over here, Miz Eileen? You’ll have the perfect view,” Darius cut in, taking Eileen’s arm and leading her to a grassy area beneath an old apple tree.
She didn’t even protest.
Either she was exhausted or infatuated.
Neither seemed like a good thing to Catherine. She hated to think that her grandmother needed to sit after only a few minutes of standing. She also hated to think that Eileen was putting hopes and dreams into Darius. Catherine knew Eileen wanted her settled and happy before she died, but she would be happier and more settled alone.
If only she could convince Eileen of that.
Voices carried on the still air, shouted commands rumbling through the night. Whatever was going on, Catherine hoped it would be finished quickly, and she hoped no one would get hurt in the process.
“You okay?” Darius appeared beside her, six feet of lean hard muscles, but his voice held the gentle cadence of the mourning doves that had roosted in the eaves of the prison. Peaceful and quiet and unassuming.
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks,” she responded, because she’d forgotten the art of easy conversation.
“Maybe I should rephrase that. You look beautiful and exhausted and a little undone.”
“I’m tired. That’s all.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“All clear!” someone cried, and Catherine latched onto the excuse to move away from Darius.
“Eileen, it looks like we can go back inside. Why don’t I help you back to bed?”
“You’ll have to wait until the bomb squad clears the house.” The female officer’s pronouncement didn’t seem to bother Eileen, but Catherine was anxious to retreat and hide herself away for a while.
“Clear the house? Why? No one was in there but us.”
“It’s procedure, ma’am.”
“But—”
“There’s no sense fighting procedure,” Darius interrupted before she could continue the argument.
“Once they clear the house, we’ll be bringing in evidence teams. Since your grandmother is so sick, it might be best if you arrange for a friend to come pick her up and let her stay the night,” the officer added.
A friend?
Catherine couldn’t think of one.
“Is there someone you can stay with, Eileen?” she asked, bracing herself for what she knew was coming.
“Why would I stay with someone? I’ve got an entire house right here just waiting for me to get back into it, and that’s where I plan to stay.”
“You heard what the officer said. It could be hours before we can go back inside.”
“Then I guess I’ll sit here for hours and wait.”
“Be reasonable—”
“Why don’t I call one of my coworkers and have you taken to my place, Miz Eileen? You’ll be more comfortable there. Once everything is cleared up here, I’ll escort you back,” Darius said, and Eileen smiled.
“Escort me, huh?”
“Of course.”
“I suppose that would be okay. I’ve been wanting to see what you’re doing at the Morris’s place. Old Man Morris wasn’t so good at keeping up on the old farmhouse. Not that I’m one to talk. I’ve been slacking lately, too.”
“This is your lucky night, then. You can explore my place to your heart’s content.” Darius pulled out a cell phone and took a few steps away, taking charge and arranging things without bothering to check with Catherine. If she hadn’t been so anxious to get Eileen settled somewhere, she might have protested. It was her job to take care of Eileen, after all. Not Darius’s. But Eileen needed to be warm and comfortable, and Darius was offering her that. Catherine would be a fool to argue.
The lights in the house went on room by room, shadowy figures passing in front of windows. A dog barked, but other than that the night had fallen silent.
The worst seemed to be over, the bomb disarmed and the perimeter of the house swept, but the taste of fear lingered, hot and metallic as Catherine waited.
Light appeared in the attic window. Just a few more minutes and the house would be cleared. Maybe Eileen could go home after all, sleep in the hospital bed with her well-loved books on the shelves nearby.
“Yo! Osborne! You out here?” a man called out as he rounded the corner of the house and started across the backyard.
“Over here, Lancaster.”
“Looks like you’ve got a lot going on for a guy who’s on vacation.” He shook Darius’s hand. Average height, with close-cropped dark hair, he had a sharply angled jaw and high cheekbones. His eyes might have been blue or green, but even in the darkness, Catherine could tell they were light with thick dark lashes.
“Ashton Lancaster, this is Catherine Miller. Catherine, Ashton.” Darius offered a brief introduction, and Ashton focused all his attention on Catherine, his expression intense and curious.
He knew who she was.
Most people in the area did, but he kept any thoughts about it well hidden.
“Nice to meet you, Catherine. Darius explained the situation, and I’ll take good care of your grandmother.”
“I’ll take good care of myself, young man. So, how about we get on with things. Fact is, I’m gettin’ a little tired of sitting here.” Eileen tried to get to her feet, but her spindly legs and arms were too weak.
Catherine took her hand, but Eileen swatted her away. “Let one of the two boys help me. You’re too puny.”
“I’ve been helping you for two months and haven’t had any problem.” She moved aside, letting Eileen have her way.
Darius helped Eileen to her feet. “There you are.”
“Thank you. You sure that you don’t have a problem with me snooping around your place? Because if these old legs can hold me, that’s what I
’m planning to do once we get there.”
“Eileen!” Catherine wanted to slap a hand over her grandmother’s mouth, keep anything else from popping out of it, but Darius laughed.
“Snoop as much as you want, but don’t wear yourself out. I’m trying to stay on Catherine’s good side, and she won’t be happy if you make yourself sick wandering around my house.”
“Her good side? Don’t bother. It’s not possible,” Eileen responded.
“That’s not true.” Not really. Catherine was cautious and careful about her friendships, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people that she trusted and respected. Ryder Malone, for example. His fiancée, Shelby. They’d been responsible for her exoneration and release from prison, and she trusted them completely even if they weren’t part of her daily life.
“If you’re ready, ma’am, I’ll take you over to Osborne’s place so that you can get started on that snooping.” Ashton slid an arm around Eileen’s waist and led her away. She looked tiny and fragile next to his strong, sturdy frame, and Catherine wanted to run after them, slide her arm around Eileen and help escort her to Darius’s house.
She’d been in prison for four years, and when she’d found out she was going to be released, her one thought had been Eileen. She knew she’d be given a nice monetary settlement, compensation for the time she’d served and the emotional trauma she’d experienced. She’d planned to spend it fixing up Eileen’s home, making sure her grandmother was comfortable and happy. Then, she’d planned to leave town and never look back.
Things hadn’t worked out that way.
Seconds after she’d walked into Eileen’s house, she’d known that her plans would have to change and that things weren’t going to be anything like she’d imagined them. All her years spent working as a nurse’s aide and then as a registered nurse had kicked in as she’d looked into Eileen’s jaundiced eyes.
Sick, she’d thought. Really, really sick.
She’d been right.
“You’re deep in thought,” Darius said.
Navy SEAL Rescuer Page 5