Navy SEAL Rescuer (19 page)

NINETEEN

I
t came for them twenty minutes into their
drive. A dark car pulling out from a side road, blocking both lanes. Darius
braked hard, turning the wheel, tires squealing, Catherine screaming beside him,
Taryn yelling into her cell phone, calling for help.

Behind them, another car appeared, slipping off a side road the
same way as the other. A trap, and they’d driven right into it. The truck slid
to a stop, nose against an oversize pine tree.

“Get down,” he yelled, pushing Catherine’s head down as the
driver of the black car hopped out, a gun drawn.

The first bullet flew, slamming into the windshield, the glass
bowing with the impact.

“Osborne, you sure know how to find trouble.” Taryn opened the
door, fired several shots at the car behind them. “This isn’t going to hold them
off for long.”

“I’ll keep them distracted. Take Catherine and disappear.”

“You have your radio, so we can find each other?”

“Yes. Now go!” He fired three shots in rapid succession, taking
out the gunman and turning his attention to the other vehicle.

No movement there. Had Taryn taken out the driver?

He fired a round at the car as Taryn dragged Catherine from the
truck and shoved her into deep foliage. He caught a glimpse of pale skin and
dark freckles, blue eyes filled with fear, and he wanted to tell her everything
would be okay.

Only he wasn’t sure it would be.

Two cars, and he didn’t know if more were coming.

In the distance, sirens blared, the sound splitting the sudden
silence. The black car’s engine revved, and it backed onto the road it had come
from, disappearing from view as quickly as it had arrived.

He pulled his radio, his gun still trained on the place where
the car had been. “Taryn? It’s Osborne. Copy.”

“I copy. Over.”

“The car and driver retreated. Stay away from any roads.”

“Will do. You want us back there?”

“Not until the police arrive. Stay away and stay hidden until
then. Over.”

“Will—”

Her words were cut off by a loud pop, and Darius’s blood went
cold. He knew the sound, knew what it meant.

“Taryn? You still there?”

Nothing.

Not a buzz or a hum. Not a hint that the radio was on.

A police car sped into view, but Darius didn’t have time to
wait for the officer to get out. He plunged into the woods.

* * *

Catherine knelt beside Taryn as she tried to staunch the
flow of blood that poured from Taryn’s temple.

Dear God, please don’t let her be
dead
.

She pressed a finger to her neck, felt the pulse pounding
there.

Alive.

For now.

She had to get her out of the woods, get her to help.

Quickly.

“Don’t move.” Something pressed against the back of her neck,
cold and hard and terrifying. She didn’t dare look, didn’t dare breathe.

“We’re going to walk away from your friend and get in my car,
and if you give me any trouble, I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and he yanked her to her feet, shoved her
forward. She stumbled, landing on her knees on thorny brambles. She didn’t feel
the pain. Felt nothing but terror.

“Get up and walk!” He yanked her upright, and this time she saw
his face.

Mitch!

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, desperate to stall him, to
keep him from doing whatever he planned.

“Because it’s what I’m being paid to do.”

“You’re being paid to commit murder?”

“I’m being paid to retrieve some information for my boss. Hand
it over and you won’t have to die.”

Liar.

She wanted to shout the word into his face.

“You already shot someone. It’s too late to take that
back.”

“Some people are expendable. Be glad you’re not one of them.”
He shoved her out of the woods and onto a dirt road where a black Cadillac
idled.

“Get in.” He opened the door, pushed her hard enough to send
her flying into the door frame. Her head slammed into metal, and she saw stars,
felt the world spinning away.

No!

She needed to act.

Needed to fight.

But the door closed, and she was inside, the engine revving,
the car shooting forward. She slammed into the dashboard, her shoulder jamming
beneath hard plastic.

“Get up. Tell me where we’re going.” Mitch grabbed the back of
her hair, yanking her up by the head, pointing the gun straight at her face as
he sped down a dirt road.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I want the check. The original. We’re going to get it. If you
cooperate, that’s all we’re going to do. If you don’t, we’re going to take a
ride, and you’re going to take a short trip off a very high cliff. I doubt your
body will ever be found.” He smiled, his eyes cold and hard and empty. Blue
eyes. Eyes she’d seen before. She glanced at the hand that clutched the gun,
imagined it on her neck, choking the life from her.

She knew him.

Why hadn’t she realized it before?

“It’s at the safe house,” she lied, because telling him that it
was on the way to the police was a surefire way to get herself killed.

“You’re lying!” He rounded a curve in the road, the ocean
crashing a hundred feet below, the car nearly skimming the guardrail. At the
rate he was going, he’d kill them both.

“It’s true. I was at a safe house. I brought the check with
me.”

“Then you’d better tell me where the safe house is
quickly.”

“I don’t know where it is or how to get to it.”

He cursed under his breath. “You’d better find out, lady,
because I can make your life very, very uncomfortable if you don’t.”

“I need to call—” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket,
and he knocked it out of her hand, the barrel of the gun slamming into her
wrist. Pain shot up her arm, and her fingers went numb.

Please, God, help me.

“You’re not calling anyone.”

Be tough. Don’t let anyone push you
around, Kitty-cat.

The words whispered out of the past, Eileen’s wrinkled,
tough-as-nails face flashing through Catherine’s mind. No way would Eileen allow
herself to be taken without a fight.

But fighting didn’t always mean fists.

“If I don’t call, you’re not going to get the check. My friend
knows where the check is. If you kill me, he’ll bring it to the police, and your
boss will go to jail.”

“The senator won’t end up in jail, Catherine, but you may very
well end up dead.” He cocked the gun, and her blood ran cold.

“Let me call my friend’s boss. He’ll give me directions to the
safe house if I ask.”

Mitch swore again, then gestured with the gun.

“Call. Tell him you got separated and you need directions to
the safe house.”

“I’ll need to call information first. I don’t know Ryder’s
number.”

“Five minutes. That’s what I’m giving you, because I’m running
out of patience. You don’t get it in that amount of time, and you’re dead.” He
glanced in the rearview mirror, and Catherine thought he was also worried about
running out of time.

Sirens screamed, the sound distant.

Rescue close, but not close enough.

Had Darius found Taryn?

Was she still alive?

Would Catherine be in an hour?

She lifted the phone, wincing as Mitch pressed the gun against
her cheek. “Don’t do anything stupid, Catherine. I really would hate to kill
you. After all, we are related.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sorry. I’ve got it pretty good with the senator, and I don’t
want to mess things up. You want to know the truth, you’ll have to get it from
the old man.”

“Are you his son?”

“Like I said, you’ll have to get it from him. Make your call.”
The landscape flew by, greens and browns and ocean blues, all of it sliding
together in swirls of sickening color.

Were the police following?

Was Darius?

“Make your call!” Mitch jabbed the gun into her cheekbone, the
pain making her reel.

Her fingers shook as she used her phone to find the number for
Personal Securities Incorporated. The phone rang several times, and a woman’s
voice filled her ear.

“Personal Securities Incorporated, Rac—”

Mitch shoved the gun back into the holster and snatched the
phone.

“Let me speak with your boss. I have one of his clients, and if
he wants to keep his company’s reputation as one of the best in the business,
he’d better get on the phone,” he said, his gun tantalizingly close.

If she tried, could she reach it?

If she didn’t, would she live?

He planned to kill her eventually. She knew that. Would it
happen as soon as he realized that he couldn’t win this fight, that the police
and Darius and Ryder’s team were going to hunt him down before the check was
ever in his hands?

Or would it happen the minute he found out where the safe house
was?

She imagined him pulling the gun again. Imagined him aiming it
at her head, pulling the trigger. If she didn’t do something, her life would end
before she had the second chance she’d been longing for, before she knew what it
was like to spend every day looking into Darius’s eyes, seeing his smile,
hearing him call her the name she’d hated and now loved, because he was the one
who’d given it to her again.

Be tough. Don’t let anyone push you
around, Kitty-cat.

Eileen.

Feisty, tough, take-no-prisoners Eileen.

She wouldn’t sit in a car and wait to be shot.

Catherine lunged, grabbing the handle of the gun, pulling it
from the holster.

Mitch slammed the phone into her arm, yanked her wrist
sideways, the gun clattering to the floor. His hand pressed against her neck,
cutting off air as the car swerved, bounced, the world spinning in a rainbow of
bleeding colors.

Sky.

Water.

Waves.

Rocks.

All of it the same as the car tumbled and fell toward the ocean
below.

TWENTY

D
arius’s heart stopped as the black
Cadillac flipped over the guardrail and plunged fifteen feet down an embankment
that sloped sharply toward the ocean. Thank God they hadn’t been farther up the
road. He jumped out of the truck as Taryn struggled with her seat belt, dazed,
blood still seeping from a deep gouge in her temple. Another centimeter and the
bullet would have gone through her skull and killed her.

“Stay in the truck. You won’t do me any good in the condition
you’re in,” he barked, worried for her. More worried for Catherine.

Police cars screamed to a halt behind him, and an officer
shouted for him to stop.

Darius ignored him.

Ignored everything but the pulsing need to get to
Catherine.

He jumped the crushed guardrail, his leg nearly giving out.
Down a steep slope, following the slide of rock and sand. The Cadillac upside
down, the driver’s door opening.

Darius dove as a bullet slammed into the ground by his
feet.

“Back off, Osborne. Unless you want your client’s blood spilled
all over the sand.” Mitch crawled out of the car, his arm hooked around
Catherine’s neck.

Cheek bruised, eyes wide with fear, she met his gaze. “Shoot
him, Darius. He’s going to kill me anyway.”

“Sure. Shoot me.” Mitch swung Catherine around, pressed her
close, her body shielding his.

“Let her go, Mitch. You can’t win, and you don’t want to go
down for murder.”

“I’m not going anywhere but the airport. That’s the great thing
about having the senator around. He makes things easy. Now, back off.” He jabbed
his gun into Catherine’s neck, and Darius tensed.

Should he risk the shot?

Try to take the guy down and hope that Mitch didn’t get a shot
off before he fell?

Police were calling warnings from the top of the ridge, boots
crunching and sliding on loose rock.

Mitch glanced toward them, and Catherine stared straight into
Darius’s eyes, mouthed,
I love you.

And, he knew before she moved what she was planning, knew she
was going to risk it all.

“Don—”

But she was already moving, shoving her elbow into Mitch’s
stomach, slamming her body backward into his, knocking them both off
balance.

Just a second of opportunity as they fell and Mitch’s gun arm
fell, too.

Now.

Now!

Darius fired.

* * *

The world exploded.

Catherine felt it to her core, everything in her shaking and
shivering and falling apart.

Had Mitch fired?

Darius?

She didn’t know.

Thoughts scattered.

Body scattered, a hundred pieces floating in the wind.

Pain.

In her arm. Her shoulder.

A heavy weight pressed on her chest.

Warm. Solid.

Mitch!

She tried to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come, and she
shoved at his dead weight, frantic to free herself.

Trapped.

Then, not.

Air filled her lungs, touched her face, bathed her in freedom,
and she closed her eyes.

“Cat, can you hear me?” Gentle hands cupped her face, and she
looked into Darius’s eyes, saw his fear and concern.

“It would be hard not to since you’re shouting.”

“Sorry. Are you okay?” He smoothed hands down her arms, her
legs, brushed hair from her forehead, probed her bruised cheek.

“I think so, but Taryn—”

“She’s in my truck and conscious.”

“Thank God,” she breathed, something in her side catching and
aching with the sigh.

Police flowed toward them, a stream of uniformed officers
racing across the rocky beach. Two knelt beside Mitch, feeling for a pulse,
calling into their radios.

“Is he dead?” Catherine asked as she tried to stand, wanting to
walk up the slope, put some distance between herself and the man who had almost
killed her.

“I hope not. I want some answers.”

“He said we were related.”

“You and Mitch?” Darius helped her to her feet, his arm firm
around her waist as he led her away from the car.

“Yes.”

“He’s the senator’s son?”

“He wouldn’t say. He just said it was the senator’s story to
tell and that he had it too good to mess things up.” She glanced at Mitch, saw
his leg move.

Alive.

As long as he didn’t have a gun in his hand, she was glad. She
wanted answers, too.

Pain speared through her side as she tried to hurry up the
steep slope that the car had rolled down. She wrapped an arm around her waist,
tried to still the pulsing throb.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Darius stopped, scanning her face,
his gaze dropping to her arm.

“I think so.”

“That’s not the same as ‘yes.’”

“I might have broken a rib.”

“Sit down,” he commanded, but the worry in his eyes belied his
gruff tone.

“How about we just keep moving?” she answered gently, because
he cared and having someone care so deeply was the best gift she’d ever been
given.

I love you.

The words echoed in her head.

I love you.

She’d said the words.

She didn’t regret them.

She felt the truth of them in the secret lonely place in her
heart.

Darius had filled it.

She hadn’t wanted to die without letting him know.

No matter what happened. No matter where the future brought
her, she would have no regrets.

They crested the rise, the pain in her side growing more
intense, her breathing shallow and moist.

Not good.

Maybe she wasn’t quite as okay as she’d thought.

“Sit,” Darius said again. This time more gently. She didn’t
have the energy to protest, just let him help as she lowered herself to the
ground.

EMTs swarmed around her. Blood pressure cuff. Oxygen monitor. A
few whispered words as she coughed blood into her hand.

A punctured lung.

She knew the symptoms.

Knew the treatment. Knew the risks for complications.

But she wasn’t afraid. She’d been given a second chance and now
a third, and she wouldn’t waste them. She would grab them with both hands, live
the best way she could, be the person God had always intended her to be.

“Ma’am, we’re going to transfer you to the hospital. Is there
anyone you want us to call?”

A week ago, she would have mourned that there was no one. Now,
she looked at Darius, stared deep into his clear green eyes. “He already
knows.”

She was lifted onto a gurney, wheeled toward the ambulance,
Darius jogging beside her, holding her hand. There for her. As he had been from
the moment they’d met.

“Sorry, sir. We’re transporting both patients, and we don’t
have room for a passenger. You’ll have to follow,” an EMT said.

“Will you be okay?” Darius leaned close, his breath fanning her
cheek, his gaze steady.

“Yes,” she said, gasping for air that didn’t seem to want to
fill her drowning lung.

“You’re sure?”

“She won’t be if you don’t let us both get to the hospital,”
Taryn called from inside the ambulance, and Darius smiled.

“Obviously,
she’s
going to be just
fine.”

“So will I. I’ll see you there, okay?” She touched his cheek,
her heart swelling with love.

“Right. And, Cat?” His lips touched her ear, his breath warm
and sweet. “I love you, too.”

And then she was being lifted into the ambulance and the door
was closing, and he was gone.

Her side ached, her breath heaved, but she could still feel his
breath on her ear. Still see the tenderness in his eyes.

Hear his words.

“I love you.”

Said without caveat or condition, given because he wanted to
give them.

She held them close as the ambulance sped away, as her lungs
filled, her breath wheezing out, darkness edging in.

“Better not die, Catherine. Darius won’t be able to go on
without you.” Taryn grabbed her hand, squeezing hard, and Catherine squeezed
back because she didn’t have the breath to speak.

“You’re lucky to have him. You know that? I had someone like
him once. Loved him with everything, and then God just up and took him away.
Gone just like that.” Taryn sounded as woozy as Catherine felt, her words
slurring.

“You okay?” Catherine managed to gasp, but Taryn didn’t
respond, and her heart jumped, the heart rate monitor jumping with it.

“Your friend is fine, ma’am. She’s going to have a headache for
a few days, but she’ll recover. Now, just relax. You need to breathe slow and
steady.” An EMT patted her shoulder, but Catherine could barely breathe at all,
and the panic of it filled her, made her even more desperate for air.

I love you.
Darius’s words echoed
in her mind, his tender gaze just a thought away. She held on to it as the miles
passed and her breathing grew more desperate. Clung to it until she could cling
to nothing and the darkness carried her away.