Shirlee McCoy - Navy SEAL Rescuer

ACCUSED OF MURDER

After four years in prison for crimes she didn’t commit, Catherine Miller just wants to lie low at her isolated farmhouse. But someone still thinks she’s guilty—and should pay the ultimate price. Someone angry enough to spray-paint murderer on her home and attack her in broad daylight. Her neighbor, former navy SEAL Darius Osborne, vows to hunt down her predator. The handsome security contractor has as harrowing a past as Catherine’s, and won’t let anyone get too close. Yet with a cold-blooded killer on her trail, they’ll get closer than either ever imagined.

Darius approached cautiously, his senses alert, his nerves alive with anticipation.

A red shoe print marred one whitewashed floorboard, and letters were painted across the width of the porch floor, covered with a thin layer of white paint.

Murderer.

Had the person who’d attacked Catherine vandalized the property first? He frowned, stepping into the foyer.

A small sound made the hair on his neck stand on end, and Darius paused, listening to footsteps on wood flooring. A floorboard on the stair creaked, and he eased back into the room.

A shadow moved across the open doorway, and he lunged, tackling the intruder. He slid his forearm across a soft throat, pressing just enough to stop his squirming, wiggling captive.

Red hair.

Pale face.

Dark blue eyes.

Catherine!

He backed away, panting hard, and offered a hand to pull her to her feet. “You’re supposed to be at my place,” he said. “Someone just tried to kill you.” He didn’t bother keeping exasperation from his voice.

Catherine frowned. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

SHIRLEE McCOY

has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroine—gutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and she began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later, she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of five, Shirlee is a homeschool mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in the Pacific Northwest and share their house with a dog, two cats and a bird. You can visit her website, www.shirleemccoy.com, or email her at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com.

Navy SEAL Rescuer

Shirlee McCoy

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Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue;

be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.

—Psalms 31:2

To my children.

There is nothing I enjoy more than being your mother!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

ONE

MURDERER!

Red letters dripped like blood down the front of the freshly painted house.

Smaller letters marched across the newly whitewashed porch floor.

Murderer.

The painted words seemed to taunt Catherine Miller as she trudged to the back of the old farmhouse and grabbed two nearly empty paint cans from the dilapidated shed. Hopefully, she had enough to cover the vandalism. She snagged a couple of paint pans, tucked paint rollers under her arm and carried everything to the porch. Ten minutes, and she’d be done.

Good. Eileen would be finished with chemo in an hour, and Catherine didn’t want her grandmother waiting. She was too sick, too exhausted, too frail to be left sitting in a crowded hospital waiting room. At sixty-seven, Eileen’s clock was running down, and Catherine wished desperately that she could wind it back up again. She couldn’t, so she’d purposed to spend every moment she could making sure Eileen’s last weeks and months were comfortable and pleasant.

That meant getting rid of the vandalism before Eileen got home.

She touched a finger to the dry red paint. Not even tacky. Whoever had vandalized the house had done it soon after Catherine and Eileen had left for the hospital. Some punk kid. She was sure that was what the sheriff would say if she called.

She wouldn’t.

She’d put her grandmother through enough already. She wouldn’t bring her home to vandalism or to police poring over the property. She’d cover the paint and keep what had happened locked safely away with all the other things she couldn’t share.

The sun blazed from the blue summer sky, the breezeless air hot and arid. Sweat trickled down her temple and neck as she poured dove-gray paint into a pan. Whoosh. One letter gone. Swish. Another disappeared. She should have felt satisfaction, but she felt nothing. Not anger. Not irritation. Not dismay, disgust, horror.

Nothing.

She covered another letter and wiped sweat from her upper lip, surveying the fresh paint. Not even a shadow of red peeked out from under the gray. Perfect. Eileen would never know what had happened, and that was the only thing Catherine cared about. She dipped the roller in gray again, sweeping it over the E and R, the silence of the old farmstead only broken by the swishing of paint on wood. Nothing moved. Not the tall grass and weeds that pressed up against the perimeter of the yard. Not the leaves on the trees.

The stillness ate at Catherine as she worked, nudging at the back of her mind. Four years in the state prison had insulated her from the world, but not from people and life. There had been little silence in her cell block and even less time alone. Here, in the small town where she’d grown up, she seemed to always be alone and silent. Even when she was in a crowd. Even when Eileen was close by.

She grabbed a fresh roller, poured white paint into a clean pan and slicked it over the red letters on the porch. Almost done. There’d be plenty of time for the floor to dry before she picked Eileen up from chemotherapy.

Something rustled to her left, the tall weeds that edged the property swaying. No breeze to blow them, but they moved again, twitching to the left and right as she watched.

“Who’s there?” she asked, sure a bird would fly out of the overgrowth. Instead, soft laughter drifted from the weeds, the sound chilling her blood.

“I said, ‘who’s there?’”

“Murderer!” The taunt whispered out, and Catherine stiffened.

She’d been out of prison for two months, and in that time, vandals had broken a window, slashed her car tires and egged the house. The sheriff had been out three times, but he hadn’t been able to track down the perpetrators. Kids with too much time on their hands. That’s what he’d said, and Catherine had believed him, because she hadn’t wanted to believe an adult was trying to chase her out of town.