Four days readying herself to say a final goodbye to Eileen.
Four days that Catherine was very happy to be finished with.
“You remember the rules, right?” Darius asked as he escorted her from the funeral home and into his truck. She hadn’t bothered with a limo. There’d been no need. She was the only family Eileen had, and riding in Darius’s truck was much more practical than sitting in a limousine.
Eileen would have approved.
She’d been more practical than showy.
“You’ve been drilling the rules into my head for four days.”
“I know. But do you remember them?” he pressed, spearing her with a look that made her squirm.
“I remember them.”
“And you’re going to follow them?”
“Yes.” She sighed, because they’d been over this a thousand times, and she had a feeling Darius could fit in a thousand more warnings before they made it to the cemetery.
A line of cars followed them away from the funeral home, the small contingent of mourners hand-picked by Eileen. Church members who had come to her aid while Catherine was in prison. People that Catherine was only just getting to know. She’d be saying goodbye soon. To them. To the town. To her past. Knowing that should have made her happy, but she felt hollow and empty inside.
“You’re tense,” Darius said, his presence filling the truck. She wanted to lean her head against his shoulder, pretend that they were going anywhere but Eileen’s grave site, but pretending couldn’t change the truth, and leaning on Darius would mean not leaning on herself.
She was strong.
Had always been strong.
Eileen’s death hadn’t changed that. Losing the house and everything in it hadn’t changed it. She wouldn’t let knowing Darius change it, either.
“I wish the police had a suspect in custody. Things have been too quiet the past few days,” she responded, afraid of sharing more than that.
“You’ve had twenty-four-hour guard. That’s probably deterred the perp.”
“I hope it’s deterred him for good.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. He’s come after you three times. Whatever his motivation, it hasn’t changed just because you have protection.”
“Logan says they’ve cleared the family members of the murder victims. They all have alibis and none of them seem to have a motive. I don’t know who else would be holding a grudge against me. I can’t think of anyone at all who would want me dead.”
“We need to dig deeper,” he said, stopping short of saying what they needed to dig into.
Catherine knew, but she’d been holding the name Gerald Kensington close to the cuff, trying to decide if she wanted to search for answers. With Eileen’s funeral looming and grief clouding her thoughts, she hadn’t been able to make up her mind. She still couldn’t.
“I need to think about it before I dig any further.”
“Think about it too long, and you may run out of time.”
“I don’t like to be pushed into things.”
“And I don’t like having my hands tied. I have all the tools at my disposal. All I need is your go-ahead, and I can have a team of people searching for Kensington.”
“I told you, I’ll search for him myself. When the time is right.”
“Which would be when?”
“I don’t know.”
“Catherine, I haven’t wanted to push you, because you’re mourning Eileen, but you have to move on this. Soon.” He pulled up behind the hearse that carried Eileen’s remains and shifted so they were face-to-face.
“I’m going to look for him. I’m just not ready yet.”
“Then get ready, because once the funeral is over, we’re going to do a little research on Gerald Kensington. There has to be a connection between your family and him, and I want to know if that has anything to do with the attacks against you.”
“You’re grasping at straws.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” he said, his voice gruff, his hand gentle as he touched her cheek.
He hadn’t touched her since the day Eileen passed. As a matter of fact, he’d kept a respectful distance, always near, but never in her space.
She realized now how much she’d wanted him there. Her heart beat hard with the knowledge, and she shifted away.
“We need to go,” she said.
“I’m waiting for Tango and the rest of the team to give me the all clear,” he responded, but he looked like he was waiting for her, waiting for some response that she couldn’t find it in herself to give. A signal, a sign, something that told him he could act on the desire she saw in his eyes.
“Do you really think someone would be foolish enough to attack me here?”
“I think that it pays to be cautious.” He glanced past her. “Looks like we’re clear. Ready?”
“No.” But she didn’t have a choice. The time had come. The casket was being lifted from the hearse, six members of Eileen’s church doing what family should have been.
It had been just the two of them for so long that Catherine hadn’t cared that she had no siblings, no cousins, no uncles or aunts. She cared now. She wanted someone else to share her memories with. Wanted there to be one other person who had lived what she’d lived, felt what she’d felt.
Instead, she was alone, getting out of the truck, taking one step after another toward the final goodbye that she had no desire to say.
They should have had more time.
The thought pulsed behind her eyes as she listened to the pastor speak about eternal life and hope in Christ. She knew those things intellectually, believed them just as she’d always believed that God existed. She just wasn’t sure how they applied to her. Eileen had seemed so at peace with her life, so content even in the midst of pain and suffering. This was why. Faith. The thing Catherine had shut off and closed out when she’d gone to prison. She wanted it back, but she didn’t know how to take hold of it.
She’d come out of prison wanting to pick up where she’d left off, wanting to go about her business feeling young and alive and unstoppable. But prison had changed her.
She hadn’t had time to share that with Eileen, tell her how much she wanted things to go back to the way they were and how helpless she was to make it happen. There’d been too much going on with Eileen’s health, so many doctor’s appointments and treatments that there hadn’t seemed to be time for anything else.
She wished she’d made time.
She wished she’d sat down and looked into Eileen’s eyes and told her how much she had missed her while she was in prison, how badly she’d wanted to sit across the kitchen table from her and talk about nothing and everything like they had when Catherine was young. She wished for another day, another hour, even another minute, because she wanted to say I love you one more time and make sure that Eileen knew how true it was. Wanted to say Thank you and I’ll miss you and You made my life better, but all she could do was stand there and listen as the pastor bestowed his final blessing.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, her chest so tight that she wasn’t sure she could take another breath. Stars danced in front of her eyes as she struggled to inhale and exhale again.
Darius wrapped her in his arms, his hand smoothing down her back. She inhaled his scent, felt it fill the empty place in her heart.
“It’s not goodbye forever,” he murmured, and she burrowed closer, her arms tight around his waist, her head against his chest. His hea
rt beat beneath her ear, strong and vibrant, and she could feel the place where each of his fingers touched, feel his breath ruffling her hair. It felt so good, so right, and it terrified her, but she couldn’t make herself move away.
Catherine’s tears soaked Darius’s shirt, and he could feel her trembling, her soft sobs tugging at his heart. Good thing he’d asked for extra security during the service, because his focus was on Catherine, not on the landscape or potential threats.
She pulled back as the pastor finished his final prayer, looking up into Darius’s eyes. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, her nose was pink from crying, and she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He brushed hair from her cheek, and she tried to smile.
“I’m okay now,” she said.
“I know.” But he kept his hand on her waist as they approached the casket, and she leaned into him as she whispered goodbye and placed an orange rose on the smooth wood. For a moment, he was in the past, performing the same ritual, saying the same tough goodbye. The hurt still lingered in the depth of his soul, but it wasn’t fresh or terrible anymore. One day, it would be the same for Catherine. For now, she needed time to grieve in private. He motioned for Tango, eying the news vans that were parked a few hundred yards away. A police barricade had prevented them from coming closer, but there was no doubt that they’d try to move in once Catherine was home. Reporters had been calling his place nonstop, begging for interviews that they weren’t going to get. If Darius had anything to do with it, they weren’t even going to get photos of Catherine mourning at her grandmother’s grave.
He kept his body between her and them as Tango approached.
“You two ready?” he asked, a look of true concern on his face as he eyed Catherine. She looked fragile, breakable, maybe even broken, her simple black dress clinging to slender curves, her arms wrapped tight around her waist as if she were trying to hold in her emotions and keep herself from falling apart.
“Is the safe house ready?” he responded, knowing exactly what was going to happen next. Catherine stiffened.
“I thought your house was the safe house.” She frowned, her eyes flashing.
“It’s not that safe when everyone knows you’re there. We’ve got a new location, and everything is ready for you. Taryn is locked into the mainframe, and the security system is online,” Tango responded before Darius could.
“Who’s Taryn?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
“I’d rather you explain now,” she responded.
Darius ignored her.
He didn’t have much of a choice. A small army of elderly women had converged on them, offering condolences and wrapping Catherine in hugs that she accepted with a stiff smile. In the distance, news reporters had exited their vans and were aiming cameras.
“Ladies, I don’t want to cut things short, but Catherine is exhausted.”
“Of course she is. Things haven’t been easy these past few months, but they’ll get better, my dear. You’ll see.” A round, kind-faced woman patted Catherine’s cheek, her grandmotherly approach eliciting a small smile.
“Thank you, Ms—”
“Maggie Stanfield. Your grandmother and I were good friends. I’ll miss her terribly.” Her voice broke, and Catherine patted her shoulder.
“Your friendship meant the world to her, and I’m so glad she had you and the rest of her church group while I was in prison.”
“We are, too, my dear. Now, I’d better let you go before your young man gets impatient.”
“Darius doesn’t have an impatient bone in his body,” Catherine responded.
She was wrong.
He had plenty of impatience, and all of it was about to show, because the reporters were trying to edge past the police, hoping for that one shot that they could splash across the front page of the newspaper. He wanted Catherine out of their line of sight and out of the open before that or something worse happened.
Like Catherine had said, things had been too quiet the past few days, and he didn’t expect them to stay that way forever. Whoever had tried to kill Catherine wasn’t going to give up because her grandmother had died.
“Actually, I am an impatient person. If you’ll excuse us, ma’am. We really do need to get out of here,” he said, taking Catherine’s arm and offering a quick goodbye. The rest of the church contingent parted as he hurried Catherine to his truck. They were hosting a get-together at the church after the funeral, and they expected Catherine to be there.
Catherine expected to be there.
But, then, so did the press and, probably, the person who wanted Catherine dead.
Which meant that Catherine was not going to show.
“I’ll follow you, Osborne,” Tango said as Darius helped Catherine into the cab.
“Expect trouble.”
“I do.” He walked away, and Darius hopped into the truck.
“You don’t really expect trouble, do you?” Catherine asked, as he pulled away from the grave site.
“Yes, and that’s what’s going to keep us both alive.”
“Maybe you don’t have to worry about keeping both of us alive. Maybe whoever wanted me dead has decided that losing my grandmother was punishment enough.” Her voice broke on the words, and he patted her thigh, feeling taut muscle and warm skin beneath her cotton dress. His stomach clenched in response, his entire body tuning in to her. Every breath, every subtle movement, all of it stoking the fire that burned low in his gut.
“I’m going to keep worrying until the person who attacked you is behind bars.” His tone was gruffer than he intended, his body throbbing with need. He hadn’t expected to fall for Catherine, but he couldn’t deny that it was happening. Everything about her appealed to him. Her strength, her determination, even the faith that she clung to despite her doubts, despite her struggles.
“I don’t want you to worry about me, Darius.”
“Too late.”
She fell silent, and he knew that she couldn’t deny what she felt any more than he could.
From the very first day, from their very first meeting, they had been heading toward this moment, this time when they both acknowledged that something bigger than circumstances had brought them together.
Some things were just meant to be.
Darius was beginning to think that he and Catherine were one of them.
“Where are we headed?” she asked, her gaze on the landscape that zoomed by, the tension in the truck so thick that Darius felt it with every heartbeat.
“To the coast.”
“What?” She straightened, her gaze hot and steady on him.
“We’re going to the coast. Personal Securities has a safe house on a private beach there. It’s not being used, so Ryder gave the go-ahead to bring you there.”
“Great, except I didn’t give the go-ahead to be brought.”
“You said that’s where you wanted to be. In a little cottage on the coast, listening to the waves and taking time to figure out where you wanted to go with your life.”
“I know, but I didn’t expect to be there with you.” She sounded appalled.
“Taryn is going to be with us, Catherine. It’s not like we’re going on a romantic getaway.”
“Let me guess. Taryn is some big, buff security specialist who will stomp anyone who comes within two hundred yards of the safe house.”
He laughed at her description.
“What’s so funny?”
“Taryn is five-two and about as far from buff as you are. She’s not going to stomp on anyone, but she is a crack shot and a judo expert. She can take down a man twice her size if she has to.”
“I still don’t think we should be going off to the coast together.”
“We’re going to a safe house together. To keep you safe. That’s the goal. Nothing else.”
“I still—”
“Don’t like it. Yeah. I got that part. What I don’t get is why you’re so afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“And now you’re lying.”
“I’m not...” She sighed. “Okay. I am. You’re something special, Darius, and I’m just...me. Hurt and hard and not ready for anything but a little peace.”
“I’m not asking anything of you.”
“That’s the problem. If you were, it would be easy to deny you, but you never ask anything. You’re just...there, and I need you to be, and that scares me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with needing someone else.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I loved Peter. He was everything to me, because I let him be everything. He filled up an empty place in my heart and made me feel like I mattered. I thought he felt the same way about me, but it was all just a lie. As soon as things got tough, he turned his back on me.”
He’d done more than that.
He’d betrayed her. Darius had seen the newspaper articles, read the quotes. Peter had thrown Catherine to the wolves, and he’d basked in the attention while he did it.
“He wasn’t worth your heartache, Catherine. He still isn’t.”
“I know that.”
“Then, maybe what you need to learn is that he’s not worth giving up your dreams for.”
“I haven’t.”
“Sure you have. You’ve been hurt, and you’re afraid you’re going to be hurt again. You’d rather be safe than risk being sorry.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There is if you miss out on something great because of it.”
Navy SEAL Rescuer Page 14