Navy SEAL Rescuer Read Online Free PDF

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    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?”
    “If you want.” He shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against
Catherine’s. She wanted to lean away, but that would only call attention to her
discomfort.
    “What about your parents? They still in South Carolina?”
    “My father has never been in the picture. My mother passed away
eighteen years ago.”
    “Sorry to hear that, son. It’s hard to lose a parent. Catherine
knows all about that, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    Eileen elbowed her, but Catherine didn’t plan to offer
details.
    “Catherine was five when her parents passed. How about you,
Darius?”
    “I was fourteen.”
    “That makes you what? Thirty-two or -three?”
    “Eileen, stop.”
    “He’s our neighbor. I’m trying to get to know him.”
    “You’re giving him the third degree, and I want you to cut it
out.”
    “I don’t mind. Like your grandmother said, we’re neighbors,”
Darius cut into the argument. Neither woman looked like she was up to a verbal
dispute. Eileen’s sallow complexion and frailty tugged at his heart, reminding
him of the way his mother had looked at the end of her illness, but Catherine
worried him more. Pale skin, pale lips, dark circles beneath her eyes, she
looked worn and overwhelmed.
    “She still shouldn’t be giving you the third degree,” Catherine
muttered, and Eileen huffed.
    “I’ll do what I want to do. At my age, I’ve earned the
right.”
    “Fine. Do what you want. Just leave me out of your matchmaking
schemes.”
    Catherine’s bluntness made Darius smile. Melody had always been
sweet and ingratiating, almost too eager to agree with other people. He frowned,
not sure why he was thinking about his ex-fiancée. She was four years in the
past, and he’d stopped mourning what they might have had a long time ago.
    “You can’t blame your old gran for wanting to see you with
someone before she dies.”
    “Don’t talk like that, Eileen.” Catherine sighed, patting her
grandmother’s knee.
    “You don’t want to talk about that, then let’s talk about you
and those bruises you have on your face and neck.”
    “I told you—”
    “We’d talk at home, but you know what’s going to happen when we
get home. Same thing that happens every time I have chemo. I’m going to climb in
bed, and I’m going to sleep for the rest of the day. You’re hoping by the time I
wake up, I’ll have forgotten, and maybe I will have, so let’s talk about it
now.”
    “Eileen—”
    “You know, don’t you, Darius Osborne?” Eileen turned her
attention to Darius, and he felt like a kid in the principal’s office.
    “It’s Catherine’s story to tell, Miz Eileen.”
    “Well, she’s not telling, so you may as well.”
    “I wasn’t telling because it’s not a big deal, but if you’re
going to keep pushing, then I guess I don’t