Becoming a Cavanaugh
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Copyright

Marie Ferrarella has written more than one hundred and fifty books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

To Jaren Sterkel Hope you like this one

Chapter 1

Too much.

It was just too damn much to handle at the same time, Detective Kyle O’Brien thought as he walked out of his lieutenant’s office.

His late mother used to be fond of saying that God never gave you more than you could handle. Obviously, this had to be the new, improved God heaping all this on him. Either that, or his mother wasn’t really as close to the Man upstairs as she thought. All this was more than he could put up with at one time.

It had been hard enough dealing with his mother’s recent death without finding out that she had lied to him, to his brother and to his sister for the last twenty-five years.

All of their lives.

Their father hadn’t been a Marine who had died overseas for his country. Their biological father had actually been the late, malcontented Mike Cavanaugh, a police detective who had never married their mother because he already had a wife and family. From what Kyle had managed to gather, unlike his older brother Andrew and his younger brother Brian—both high-ranking officials on the Aurora police force—Mike Cavanaugh selfishly preferred the company of a bottle to that of anyone around him.

The revelation, made by his mother on her deathbed, had hit Kyle like the full swing of a sledgehammer right to his gut. What made it even worse was that they were the last words his mother uttered.

Angry at the immediate world and feeling deprived of his mother and the illusion of the father he’d thought he had and his very identity, Kyle had gone storming over to Andrew Cavanaugh’s house to confront the former chief of police with this information.

At the time, Kyle had believed that everyone else in the vast Cavanaugh clan had known about Mike’s indiscretions. As it turned out, Andrew Cavanaugh and the rest of the family were just as stunned by this latest twist as he and his siblings were.

None of the Cavanaughs were angered by this information, and he, Ethan and Greer suddenly found themselves welcomed into the family with open arms.

Well, almost everyone. It had taken Mike Cavanaugh’s son, Patrick, a little while to come around. But eventually—thanks to his wife and his sister—he had. The whole of the Cavanaughs had come around a great deal faster than he, Ethan and Greer had. Barely two months later, Greer was still a little in shock but coping. As for Ethan, he seemed to be acclimating to the reality of who his father was.

Funny, when you’re part of triplets, you expect the other two-thirds to feel exactly the same way as you do. He supposed he couldn’t fault them and in a way, he envied Ethan and Greer the peace that seemed to be coming into their lives.

But here he was, still trying to work through his hurt, his anger and his confusion, not to mention his grief. And if that wasn’t enough on his plate, his partner up and quit the force.

Oh, he hadn’t called it quitting. Eric Castle called what he was doing retiring, saying something about wanting to enjoy his life before his luck ran out. Whatever the hell he chose to call it, it felt like desertion.

Castle had been his first and only partner and he’d worked out a system with the older detective. One that served him pretty well. Now he was supposed to just skip off happily into some other partnership? With a Cheshire cat?

That was apparently what the lieutenant thought when he’d called him into his office.

Kyle sighed. He should have known something was up when he walked in and saw the woman sitting there in front of Lieutenant Barone’s desk. A petite, pretty blonde, with lively blue eyes and a mouth that kept pulling into a smile as easily as she drew breath. Also as often. At first glance, he’d just assumed she was a friend of the lieutenant’s. Maybe even his daughter, given the age spread.

The last thing she could be was his new partner. But then, he hadn’t noticed the telltale bulge of her weapon.

His new partner.

The words stuck in his throat the first time he tried to repeat them. Finally, he managed to ask, his voice low, the words coming out almost on a growl, “You’re replacing Castle?”

By the tolerant smile on the lieutenant’s face, it was obvious that he’d expected resistance and had decided to be amused by it rather than annoyed. “Well, given that the man’s on his way to Lake Arrowhead…” The indulgent smile widened as the lieutenant cocked his head, as if he was trying to read him. “Did you miss Castle’s retirement party? Wasn’t that you I saw giving the toast?” he prodded.

Kyle blew out an angry breath, but kept his expression blank. “Yeah, I know he’s retired. I just thought you were going to let me go it alone for a while.”

“I was,” the lieutenant replied. “I believe my exact words were, ‘You can go it alone until I can find you another partner.’ And I did.” He gestured toward the young woman in the other chair. “Detective Rosetti,” he emphasized.

Kyle kept his unfathomable eyes on the lieutenant. “It’s only been a week.”

Barone inclined his head. “So it has. I didn’t want you to get too used to being on your own. You need someone to watch your back.” There was no arguing with the lieutenant’s tone. “Rosetti’s a transfer from the Oakland PD. As luck would have it, she’s from the homicide division, so there won’t be a breaking-in period.” He ended with a smile aimed at the young woman.

“As luck would have it,” Kyle murmured under his breath.

Right now, he wasn’t feeling particularly lucky. Just the opposite. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to babysit a novice, no matter what Barone claimed. The woman couldn’t possibly be a seasoned detective. Not with that face.

A glimmer of Barone’s temper surfaced. He tolerated a little stubbornness, but only for so long. “Look, it’s not as if we’re some bed-and-breakfast township where arguments are resolved by going, rock, paper, scissors. People have hot tempers here and they kill each other. We need all the good men—and women,” Barone amended, nodding his head at the new detective by way of a semi-apology for his near oversight, “we can get. Am I right?” he asked Kyle.

He knew there was no fighting this. “Yes, sir, you’re always right.”

Barone nodded his head. “Good of you to remember that. All right, I’ll leave it up to you to show Detective Rosetti her desk and introduce her around to the others.” Barone was already turning his attention to the next matter on his desk.

“Right.” Kyle eyed his superior. “Is that all, sir?”

There was humor in the brown eyes when they looked up at Kyle. “For now,” the lieutenant allowed.

Kyle turned on his heel and walked out. By the rustling noise behind him, he knew that his new albatross was shadowing his tracks.

“It’s Jaren,” he heard her call after him.

Kyle stopped, and turned around. The woman stopped an inch short of colliding into him. “What’s Jaren?”

“My first name,” she told him cheerfully. “You didn’t ask.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Because he didn’t care. He’d been working with Castle for three months before he learned the man’s first name. Things like that weren’t necessary to do a good job. He wasn’t looking for a relationship or a friendship, he was just looking to execute his job to the best of his abilities. Knowing her first name didn’t figure into that.

Looking just a little at a loss as to how to read him, Jaren said, “So, now you know.”

“Now I know,” he echoed, his voice utterly emotionless.

Her eyes met his. He could swear he saw a bevy of questions forming and multiplying. It was like looking into a kaleidoscope as it rolled down a hill. “Can I know yours?”

Several retorts came to his lips and then slipped away. It wasn’t her fault that he’d been saddled with her, he argued. Wasn’t her fault that his mother had lied to him, and then chosen not to go to her grave with the secret that he and his siblings were bastards, fathered by a man who didn’t care enough to form any sort of relationship with them, or their mother. Wasn’t even her fault that his partner had left the force, leaving him exposed for just this sort of thing.

But damn, the perky little blonde was the only one here and he had no place else at the moment to discharge his temper.

“It’s Kyle,” he finally said. “Look—Rosetti is it?” Her eyes still holding his, she nodded. “You’d better know this up front. I’ve got my own way of getting things done.”

Her smile was more amused than anything else. Why did that annoy him?

“I kind of figured that out. Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way, Kyle,” she promised, her voice so cheerful it instantly grated on his nerves. “I’m just here to do my job, same as you.”

He sincerely doubted that. Rosetti didn’t suddenly have a name to live up to, didn’t have to prove that she was every bit as good as the others who legitimately bore the name of Cavanaugh. He was no one’s poor relation and the only way he could show his newfound family that he was just as good as they were was by being faster, better, smarter than all of them.

Hell of a tall order considering that the other Cavanaughs on the force—practically an army of them—were all top-notch cops, every last one of them. Still, he swore in his heart he was more than up to the challenge.

He and his brother and sister were up to the challenge, Kyle amended. Sometimes he tended to forget that he didn’t need to feel as if he was the leader of the group. Just because he’d been born a full five minutes first didn’t mean that he was the big brother. He’d always felt as if he was the protective one, the one who had to take care of everything for his siblings and his widowed mother.

Widowed. What a crock, he silently jeered, his heart hurting even as he did so.

Why the hell didn’t you trust us enough to tell us the truth when we were kids, Ma? Why build up a legend for a man who never even existed? Was it to make us feel better? Or did you make up those lies to make yourself feel better?

He had no answer, only anger.

Kyle realized that his so-called new partner was looking at him as if she was waiting for an answer to something.

“What?” he snapped out impatiently.

They were out in the squad room and without thinking, he’d walked over to his own desk. Castle’s had faced his. The surface was wiped clean. Hadn’t been that clean since the first day he’d walked into this room.

“Is this my desk?” Jaren asked. There was no sign of impatience in her voice.

What was she, a robot? Just what he needed, someone who was always sunny. “That was Castle’s desk,” he answered.

“Your old partner.”

It wasn’t a guess. Jaren had done her homework. She always did. As bright and chipper as a cartoon character, she knew that people tended to underestimate her, and initially assumed that she probably had the IQ of a freshly laundered pink sock. Not wanting to surrender her natural personality and force herself to appear more somber than she was, she worked hard to negate that impression in other ways.

One of those ways was to be a walking encyclopedia on a great many subjects. The other was to be the best damn detective she could. This included being up on almost everything, including weapon proficiency. She mentioned none of this, preferring to surprise her detractors with displays when they were called for. It usually put them in their place after the first couple of times or so.

O’Brien, she decided, was going to take a bit of work.

“Yeah,” Kyle answered grudgingly. “My old partner.”

It wasn’t that he felt lost without the older man, who’d been a decent mentor. It was just that Castle understood that he liked to keep his own counsel unless he had something important to say. Silence was a great part of their working relationship.

This one struck him as someone who only stopped talking if her head was held under water. And maybe not even then.

She nodded her head, curly, dark blond hair bobbing. “Then I guess that makes it mine.”

“For now,” he qualified. Despite what he’d said to the lieutenant, he was still very far from committed to this so-called partnership.

Her smile made him think of a mother indulging her child’s fantasy. But only so far.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she informed him pleasantly. “Unless, of course, they decide to move us. En masse”

He grunted in response as he took his seat. Hitting a few keys, he appeared absorbed by what he saw on his monitor. His question took her by surprise, especially since she didn’t think he asked questions, not of the people he worked with. She’d heard he was a pretty terrific detective, though, and she was hoping to learn something from him.

“Why’d you leave Oakland?”

“Personal reasons.” When he merely nodded at her answer, Jaren asked, “Don’t you want to know what they were?”

His eyes answered her before his words did. “Not particularly. Someone says something’s personal, I figure they want to keep it that way.”

She shook her head, allowing a small laugh to escape. It almost sounded lyrical. She would have a melodic laugh, he thought darkly. They’d hooked him up with a wood nymph.

“No, I was just labeling them. Personal as opposed to professional.” Then, before he could cut her off, she filled him in—whether or not he wanted her to, she thought. “I left because my father died, and there was suddenly nothing left for me in Oakland. I have no family,” she confided. “So, I sold my house and applied for a job down here.”

I’ve got too much family, he thought. Want some of mine? Out loud he asked, “You’re kind of young to be a detective, aren’t you?”

She all but radiated pride as she answered. “Youngest to make the grade in Oakland,” she confirmed. “The Chief of Ds said I was an eager beaver.”

“Terrific.”

Jaren waited for a moment. When her unwilling new partner said nothing further, she took the initiative. “So, what would you like me to do?”

“Stop talking, for one,” Kyle answered without skipping a beat, or looking up from the folder he’d opened on his desk.

Rather than back away, she asked another question. “I take it you’re the strong, silent type?”

He made a mental note to stop at the hardware store and buy a roll of duct tape. The clear kind so people wouldn’t immediately notice that Rosetti’s mouth was taped over.

“Something like that.”

He heard her laugh softly to herself. “I’ve run into that before.”

“I bet you have.”

Jaren leaned over her empty new desk in order to get closer to him. “Don’t worry, O’Brien, you’ll find that working with me won’t be such a bad thing.”

Abandoning what he was trying to read, Kyle finally raised his head. He gave her a long, penetrating look. Had he met her off the job and a year ago, when he thought he knew who and what he was, and when the world was still recognizable to him, he might have even been attracted to her—once she learned not to talk so much. But now, well, now he had a feeling he would count himself lucky if he didn’t strangle her by the end of the day.

“We’ll see,” he said, his voice showing no glimmer of hope in that direction.

Suddenly, his new partner was on her feet again like a Pop-Tart escaping a toaster. “I’m going for coffee,” she told him. “Can I get you any?”

“No, thanks.” She took five steps before she stopped and turned around again. He had a feeling that she would. “What?”

“Where is the coffee machine?” she asked, her demeanor so sunny it just blackened his mood.

Kyle sighed and began to point in the general direction where the machines were located, then remembered that they had been moved last week. If he were still a churchgoer, he would have thought of this woman as penance.

Reluctantly, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He didn’t think it was humanly possible for her to brighten, but she did. “Thank you, that’s very nice of you.”

“No, it’s not,” he denied, walking out of the squad room and into the hallway. “For the record, it’s called selfpreservation. If you’re drinking, you won’t be talking.”

His sarcastic remark earned him yet another grin. “I’ll try to keep it down,” she promised.

“If only,” Kyle murmured to himself under his breath. He had a feeling she heard him because she slanted an amused look in his direction.

The vending machines’ new location wasn’t that far away from the elevators. They were almost there when he heard a woman call out his name. They both turned around, Kyle almost unwillingly, and Jaren with the bright enthusiasm of a newcomer who was eager to absorb her surroundings as quickly as she could.

He found himself facing Riley McIntyre, newly attached to the Cavanaugh clan herself, as were her two brothers, Zack and Frank, and her older sister, Taylor.

At this rate, the Cavanaughs were going to be able to populate their own small city, he thought cynically.

He saw her giving the woman beside him a quick, scrutinizing look. This almost constant sharing of his life was new to him and he didn’t much like it. “Heard you got a new partner, Kyle. This her?”

She obviously waited for an introduction, but was never one to stand on ceremony. “Hi, I’m Jaren Rosetti,” Jaren said, extending her hand to the woman.

Riley wrapped her fingers around Jaren’s hand. “I’m Riley McIntyre, Kyle’s stepcousin.” Riley’s eyes danced as she made the introduction.

Okay, that was a new one, Jaren thought. She looked from the blonde to Kyle. If any explanation was coming, Riley would do the honors. Getting words out of Kyle O’Brien was like pulling teeth. Very strong teeth.

“Stepcousin?” Jaren repeated.

Riley nodded. “My mother recently married Brian Cavanaugh. He’s the chief of detectives here. And Kyle’s his nephew. That makes me his stepcousin. There’re four of us on the force—stepcousins,” Riley qualified, flashing a grin at the younger woman. “Don’t worry, it gets easier as time goes on,” she said.

“Not hardly,” Kyle muttered to himself. Looking for a way to garner a few seconds of peace and quiet, he decided to do what he ordinarily never did—ask for a favor. “Riley, can you show her where the coffee machine is?”

Riley shrugged. “No problem. I was on my way there myself.”

And the next minute, Jaren found herself being taken under the wing of a Cavanaugh by marriage. Any misgivings she might have entertained about transferring to Aurora’s police department quickly faded away in the face of Riley’s sunny disposition and easy manner.

She was going to like it here, Jaren decided.

Chapter 2

“I brought you some coffee.”

She was back, Kyle thought. So much for peace and quiet.

He glanced up from the report he was finishing. He hated the paperwork that went along with the job, and it was hard enough tackling it when he was in a good frame of mind. This was going to take him all day.

His new partner, Mary Sunshine, stood there, holding in each hand a container of what passed for coffee at the precinct.

“I don’t remember asking you to,” he said, making no attempt to take either container from her.

“You didn’t,” she answered, keeping a smile on her face. “I just thought you might like to have a cup. Newest studies say that three cups of coffee a day help keep your memory sharp.”

Part of him knew he was being unreasonable and ornery, but he just didn’t feel friendly at the moment. And for her own good, Rosetti had better understand his moodiness early on.

“And just why would you think that you have to appoint yourself the guardian of my memory?” he asked.

Jaren placed the container she’d brought back for him on his desk, then sat down at hers. She studied him for a moment.

“You know, I’d say that you got up on the wrong side of the bed today, but I’ve got a feeling that today, there wouldn’t have been a right side.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee, then asked, “Or is that just a given?”

Kyle didn’t bother giving her an answer. Instead, he just looked back at the paperwork on his desk.

She sighed, but refused to give up. “Look, I’m trying to make nice here.”

He raised his eyes, meeting hers for a fleeting second. “Don’t.”

There was no such thing as don’t in her language. Jaren tried again, relying on logic, something she felt probably appealed to him. “Until one of us transfers or dies or they rearrange the room, we’re going to be stuck facing each other like this five days a week. Don’t you think it would make things a little easier on both of us if you stopped acting as if I’m the devil incarnate?”

“Nope.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I think you should know I don’t give up easy.”

She wished he didn’t look so damn sexy as he raised his eyes again and said, “You do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do.”

She had no idea if she was being warned, put on notice or dismissed. But she wasn’t about to put up with any of that.

Before she could think of something to say in return, she saw the lieutenant walking toward them. Barone held a slip of paper with writing on it in his hand.

“Dispatch called to say a hysterical receptionist just got in to the office to find the doctor she worked for—a Richard Barrett—dead.” The lieutenant held out the slip of paper that contained pertinent information, including the address. “You two are up.”

Mentally, Kyle winced. He wasn’t ready to work a case with Little Miss Perky, but there was apparently nothing he could do about it. Resigned, Kyle pushed himself away from his desk. But by the time he got to his feet, Jaren had taken the slip of paper from Barone.

“We’re on it,” she assured Barone as she slid her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.

Frowning, Kyle confiscated the slip of paper from her and glanced at the address. He spared the lieutenant a look as he shoved the paper into his pocket. “Pricey part of town.”

“Rich people get killed, too,” Barone replied. “The details are a little freaky, so get back to me on this as soon as possible.”

“What do you mean by freaky?” Jaren asked before Kyle could voice the same question.

The woman had a mouth set in fast-forward, he thought darkly.

“You’ll see,” was all Barone promised.

“Freaky doesn’t begin to cover this one,” Kyle commented under his breath as he looked down at the slain doctor. Parts of the expensive Persian rug he lay on was discolored. Blood oozed from the man’s chest.

Dr. Richard Barrett was a respected, well-known neurosurgeon whose skill was only equaled by his ego. Said to be almost a miracle worker, his services were sought from all over the country. Consequently, he had an incredibly long waiting list.

According to what Barrett’s receptionist told them in whispered confidence, as if the dead surgeon could still somehow hear her, he’d had the bedside manner of Attila the Hun.

“Care to be more specific about that?” Kyle prodded the nervous young woman.

“He always made you feel as if you were beneath him,” Carole Jenkins told them. She averted her eyes from the slain figure on the floor. The sight of him had made her turn a very unbecoming shade of green. “To be honest, I think Dr. Barrett even felt he was above God.”

Jaren glanced down at the man’s face, frozen in horror. That kind of an attitude would have won the neurosurgeon no friends.

“So, you’re saying that Dr. Barrett had a lot of enemies?” Jaren asked.

The receptionist backpedaled a little, as if she didn’t want to speak ill of the dead. “He had a lot of grateful patients,” she assured them hastily, and then relented, “but yes, he did have a lot of people who didn’t like him. I don’t know if you’d call them enemies, but he had a tendency to rub everyone the wrong way. But I never thought…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the body on the floor and then shivered.

Kyle squatted down beside the body, his attention focused on the large wooden stake protruding from the man’s chest.

“Death by wooden stake. Don’t think I’ve ever come across that before,” he said more to himself than to his partner. “This does seem to be a little extreme.”

“I’ll—I’ll be in the next room if you need me,” Carole stammered, already backing away from them—and the corpse. “I—I just can’t—”

Giving her a comforting smile, Jaren took the woman’s arm and escorted her out of the doctor’s study.

“You just sit down at your desk and we’ll get back to you if we have any more questions,” she said kindly. Turning around, she appraised the slain surgeon. The stake had been driven into the middle of his chest. Deeply. “Think it’s a statement?”

Kyle glanced at her over his shoulder. “That someone hated him?”

She was going for something a bit more colorful. “That someone thought of him as a vampire.”

Kyle stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Come again?”

“Are you baiting me?” she asked. A frown was the only answer she received. Humoring the man, she went into detail. “Everyone knows that the only way to kill a vampire is to drive a stake through his heart.”

It didn’t make any sense to him. They weren’t living in the Middle Ages, they were living in an enlightened society. “So, someone was calling Barrett a vampire?”

“Blood sucker, most likely. Maybe they were protesting his fee. Or a surgery that went wrong,” she suddenly guessed. In her opinion, those could have all been viable reasons for murder, given the right person.

Kyle wasn’t ready to grant that she’d had an interesting theory just yet. “Don’t you think that’s a little off the wall?” he scoffed.

“To you and me, yes,” she agreed. “But maybe not to the killer.” And it was the killer’s mind they were attempting to assess.

Jaren had pulled on a pair of rubber gloves the minute they’d gotten off the elevator on the third floor. As Kyle examined the doctor more closely, she went through the surgeon’s things on his desk and shelves, looking for a lead.

When she came to a black-bound, hardcover book, she paused. There it was, in plain sight on the shelf behind his desk.

“Well, how about that.”

The bemused note in her voice caught his attention. Though he wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard her, something about the woman was hard to ignore.

“What?”

Jaren turned from the shelves, holding a thick volume in her hands. “The good doctor’s reading material might have given our killer the idea.”

Damn but he missed his old partner’s monotone, straightforward voice. When Castle talked, it wasn’t in circles. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Jaren held up the book she’d found.

“The Vampire Diaries” Kyle read and then scoffed. “Who reads trash like that?”

His reaction to the book didn’t surprise her. “Apparently, enough people to put this on the New York Times bestseller list for several weeks.”

Few things caught him off guard, but she’d scored a point. “You’re kidding me.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to kid you,” she added when he eyed her curiously. “But to answer your question, no, I’m not kidding. The Vampire Diaries has been on the list for close to five weeks now.” She flipped some of the pages. “Not a bad story, as far as things like that go.”

Kyle stared at her as if she’d just announced that she was an extra terrestrial, sent down to conquer Earth. “You read it?”

If he was trying to embarrass her, he was going to have to do a lot better than that, Jaren thought wickedly. “Yes, I did. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I like leaving myself open to new experiences—like getting along with a partner who acts as if he’s constantly got a bur under his saddle.”

Kyle didn’t appear to hear her, or, if he did, he was ignoring her comment and focusing on what she’d said before that. He circled the dead man, taking the body in at all angles.

“Vampires, huh?”

Jaren shrugged. “Some women find fantasizing about vampires romantic.”

He laughed shortly, letting her know what he thought of that. “Some women marry prisoners who have no chance of getting out.”

“Takes all kinds,” she agreed. “Besides,” Jaren quipped, “the woman who marries a lifer always knows where he is at night.” He looked at her. “And before you ask, yes, I’m kidding.”

“You guys mind taking this to the next room?” asked a tall, gangly man wearing what looked like paper scrubs over his regular clothing. He was one of three crime-scene investigators who had been sent to go over the doctor’s office, preserving it just as it had been when the receptionist found Barrett.

“No problem. We need to ask Carole for a list of the doctor’s most recent patients,” Jaren told the investigator agreeably. She leaned over and extended her hand. “I’m Jaren Rosetti, by the way.”

“Hank Elder,” the investigator responded, shaking her hand.

“Carole?” Kyle asked as they exited the doctor’s study.

“The receptionist,” she told him.

He stopped short of the woman’s desk. “I don’t recall her giving us her name.”

“That’s because she didn’t,” Jaren told him. “She’s wearing a name tag.”

He’d been too interested in the weapon used to kill the surgeon to notice all that much about the woman who had called the murder in.

“I tend not to look at a woman’s chest area,” he said. “Avoids problems.”

“It’s okay, that’s what you’ve got me for.”

Kyle suppressed another sigh. “Knew there was a reason.”

Carole obliged them with an extensive list of the names of the neurosurgeon’s patients in the last six months.

“When did this man sleep?” Jaren wondered out loud as she scanned the names.

“I don’t think he did,” Carole confided. “According to what I heard, the doctor was burning the candle at both ends.”

Kyle took the list from Jaren and folded it, putting it into his pocket. “Was he married?”

The receptionist pushed her glasses up on her nose before she shook her head. “Divorced. Twice.”

Kyle nodded as if he’d expected to hear something like that. “We’ll need his ex-wives’ addresses, as well,” he told the receptionist.

Carole caught her lower lip between her teeth. She was obviously thinking.

“I’d have to get in touch with one of his colleagues at the hospital to get those for you. Dr. Barrett doesn’t have that kind of information accessible on his computer.” Her expression was apologetic. “He is—was—extremely private that way.”

Jaren looked toward the study. The three crime-scene investigators had left the door open. They were combing the area but all she could see was the body on the rug.

“Could be a crime of passion,” she speculated. She turned back to Carole. “You wouldn’t know if Barrett had any current girlfriends, would you?”

Carole’s short brown hair swung from side to side as she shook her head. “Like I said, Dr. Barrett was very private.”

“That’s okay, we’ll ask around. And if you can think of anything else—” Jaren reached into her pocket to give the young woman her card, then stopped. She flashed an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I don’t have any cards printed up with my cell number on them yet.” She turned toward her partner. “O’Brien?”

“Yeah, I got one.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out a card and handed it to the receptionist. Despite the gruesome scene in the other room, Carole smiled up at him. For a moment, she seemed to forget about the circumstances that had brought them together.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Guess I’m due for a hearing test,” Kyle commented as they walked out of the office several minutes later.

“Excuse me?” Jaren asked.

“Well, I’m obviously not hearing as well as I should be.” Reaching the elevator bank, he pressed the down button. “Because if I were, I would have heard Barone say that you were primary on this.”

The elevator arrived. She stepped inside and turned toward the front. They were the only two people in the car. “Sorry. I tend to be a little enthusiastic.”

He laughed as the doors closed again. “Is that what you call it?”

She knew she was going to hate herself for this. “What would you call it?”

“Being a pain in the butt.”

The best way to deal with things was through humor. She reverted to it now. “Potato, po-ta-to,” she replied with a quick shrug of her shoulders. She saw him taking the list that Carole had given them out of his pocket. She nodded at it. “So, how do you want to do this?”

What he wanted to say was alone, but he knew that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. She apparently had the sticking power of super glue. Still, he decided to give it one try. “We could divide the list between us.”

“I’m still new here,” she reminded him. “I would have thought that, since you’re primary on this,” she deliberately emphasized, “you’d want to question these people together—to make sure I don’t mess up.”

He wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. “Rosetti, I don’t want to do anything together,” he told her, “but it looks like I have no choice.”

The elevator came to a stop and they got out on the ground floor. She followed him out of the building. “Tell me, is it just me who sets you off, or is it having a partner in general?”

“Yes.”

The single word hung in the air. Jaren took a breath. This had the makings of one hell of a long day. “Okay,” she declared, as if she knew where she stood.

And she did. Barefoot in hell. But she’d survived worse and she was going to survive this. She made herself a solemn vow that she would.

Their next stop was the hospital where Richard Barrett performed his mini miracles—skillfully reattaching nerve endings against defying odds. Everyone they spoke to on the floor attested to the fact that the surgeon had no equal. On a scale of one to ten, he was a twelve.

But when it came to being human, that number dropped to a two.

The woman in the administration office was able to provide them with the names and addresses of both the former Mrs. Barretts.

Armed with both the list of patients and the addresses of his ex-wives, Kyle made the decision to interview the latter first. Sixty percent of the time, whenever a homicide victim was married or estranged, the search for the killer had to go no further than that person’s spouse or former lover.

As it turned out, spouse number one was immediately dismissed. According to the doorman at the apartment building where she lived, Wanda Barrett had become Wanda Davenport a little over a week ago and was currently in Spain on her honeymoon with her brand-new husband. The doorman said he’d never seen the woman look so happy. For the time being, they believed him.

Spouse number two wasn’t out of the country, she was in her apartment. Once Kyle identified himself and his partner and told the woman the reason they were there, Alison Barrett, a slightly overweight brunette with scarlet nails and a mouth that formed a wide frown, became livid.

‘That bastard!” she shrieked. With a swing of her hand, she knocked over a statue of Cupid that had been perched on a pedestal. It hit the marble floor, shattering. In her fury, she appeared not to notice. “He finally found a way to get around paying me alimony.”

Jaren glanced at Kyle to see his reaction to this display of unbridled temper. “With all due respect, Mrs. Barrett,” she said, “I don’t think that death by wooden stake would have been his first choice to avoid making payments to you.”

“You didn’t know Richard,” she fumed, pacing. “Life with him was hell and I thought that now, at long last, I’d be compensated for it.” Her eyes flashed with unsuppressed fury. “But he found a way to wiggle out of it.”

“Your grief is touching,” Kyle commented.

Her eyes blazed. “You want grief, Detective? Grief was being married to him and being treated as if I was some sub-intelligent species. He thought he was God and should have been worshipped accordingly.”

“If you felt that way about him, why did you marry him in the first place?” Jaren wanted to know.

Alison sighed, frustrated. “Because Richard could be very charming when he wanted. The problem was, once we were married, he didn’t want to be. He was out all day, out all night. Like some damn werewolf.”

Jaren’s eyes met Kyle’s. The exchange was not missed by the victim’s ex-wife. She quickly backpedaled.

“Not that I thought he was one,” she assured them. “Or a vampire,” she added for good measure. “What he was—and everyone who knew him knew this—was a self-centered bastard.”

That made the opinion unanimous, Kyle thought. He had a feeling that they were going to have their hands full with suspects.

“Just for the record, Mrs. Barrett, where were you this afternoon?”

“Where I am every afternoon,” she replied haughtily. “Shopping. It’s one of my few pleasures.”

“Anyone see you shopping?”

She blew out an angry breath, as if this was a huge inconvenience. “I went with friends. I have receipts,” she volunteered. “I didn’t want to see him dead, Detective. I wanted to have him pay through the nose.”

“Thank you for your time,” Kyle told the woman once she produced the time-stamped sales receipts to back her up. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

As they left the opulent apartment, they could hear Alison Barrett heaping curses on her ex-husband’s dead head.

“Woman makes a good case for the single life,” Kyle commented more to himself than to Jaren as they closed the door behind them.

So do you, Jaren thought, but she decided to keep her observation to herself.

Chapter 3

Kyle glanced at his watch after he buckled his seat belt. He’d more or less promised to be somewhere. His exact words, when he’d received the invitation, were, “We’ll see.” The look on Andrew Cavanaugh’s face had told him that he was going to wind up coming. He supposed it wouldn’t do any harm to give this family thing a try.

“It’s after five,” Kyle announced, addressing his words more to the windshield than to the woman next to him. “Why don’t we call it a day and get a fresh start in the morning?”

The suggestion surprised her. She would have thought that O’Brien would have wanted to push both of them to the point of exhaustion—probably just to see what she was made of.

She was relieved to find out that she was wrong. “Sounds good to me.”

Like all first days on the job, this one had felt endless, going on much longer than eight hours. It would feel good to go home and unwind, she thought, even though home right now was an apartment filled with boxes waiting to be unpacked. Towers of boxes that made maneuvering around the premises a challenge.

But at least she’d get the chance to chill out for a few hours.

Despite a minor traffic snarl due to a two-car collision on the next block, they got back to the precinct in a fairly short amount of time. Getting out on her side, Jaren paused. The ride back had consisted of her talking in between the silences. O’Brien’s contributions to the conversation had been limited to occasional grunts, and even those she had to prod out of him.

Still, Jaren thought it might be worth a try to ask. The worst that could happen would be another grunt. “You know anywhere around here where I could get a decent meal? I’d prefer take-out, but if I have to sit at a restaurant, that’s okay, too.”

Kyle peered at her over the top of the car for a long moment, debating. And then, because he knew he hadn’t been a joy to work with and the days that were ahead probably wouldn’t be any better, he made an impulsive decision, something he didn’t ordinarily do.

“Yeah,” he finally said, “I do.”

Maybe he got more human at the end of the day, she thought. “Really?”

Kyle frowned. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, I guess I am,” she confessed. What surprised her even more was that he seemed to actually be willing to tell her about the place. She’d half expected him to snap out a no.

“If you didn’t think I knew of a place, why did you ask?”

One slim shoulder rose and fell in a gesture that he found, if he were being honest, oddly appealing. Kyle forced himself to focus on her face instead.

“There was always an outside chance,” Jaren replied. “And to be honest, after dragging almost every word out of you today, what I’m really surprised about is that you’re willing to share the information.”

He didn’t make it an outright invitation. Instead, what he said was, “Best meals in town are at Andrew Cavanaugh’s house.”

“Andrew Cavanaugh,” Jaren repeated, processing the name. It seemed to her that every third law enforcement officer at the precinct was named Cavanaugh. It took her a second to place this one. “Isn’t that the name of the old chief of police?”

To her delight, she heard Kyle laugh. It was a short, quick sound, but it was a laugh nonetheless. “Don’t let him catch you calling him old.”

“I didn’t mean old as in old,” she explained quickly. “I meant old as in former. Anyway, he’s a person, I’m looking for a restaurant.”

He knew Andrew’s philosophy. The more, the merrier. He’d thought it was a myth—before he ever had a blood connection to the man—that Cavanaugh had what amounted to a bottomless refrigerator. The myth was that Andrew never ran out of food no matter how many people showed up at his table. Now that he’d been witness to it several times, Kyle knew this was actually a fact, as incredible as it seemed.

Having Rosetti come along with him would provide no hardship for Cavanaugh. The opposite would probably be true. “I thought maybe you were looking for a memorable meal.”

At this point, she’d settle for something that didn’t repeat endlessly on her throughout the night. “Well, yes, but—”

His voice had a disinterested ring to it as he told her, “Doesn’t get any better than what Andrew Cavanaugh can whip up. Even his throwaways are better than most restaurants’ featured specials of the day.”

He really did think she was pushy, didn’t he? “That might be, but even if I did know where the man lived, I couldn’t just go barging in and show up for dinner.” He surprised her by laughing in response. She looked at him in confusion. Was he pulling her leg? “Did I say something funny?”

“From what I’ve gathered—and I’ve only interacted with the man a handful of times—that’s exactly what you can do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The chief likes to cook and he really seems to like having his family around him. In his opinion, the best way he can get them to keep coming back is to keep feeding them.”

O’Brien had missed one very important point, she thought. “I’m not family.”

The glimmer of a smile intrigued her. Or was that a sneer? With him it was hard to tell.

“You are if you’re a cop,” he told her.

He had no idea why he was extending the invitation or saying any of this to her. The entire day, all he could think about was getting into his car and going home—to silence. At the very most, maybe he’d call Ethan or Greer to see how their day went. He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to show up at Andrew’s tonight for the party.

But for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he’d changed his mind. He knew that the former chief of police felt personally guilty for the way Kyle and his siblings had been physically and emotionally abandoned by the man responsible for bringing them into the world in the first place.

Ordinarily, someone else’s guilt was none of Kyle’s concern, but Cavanaugh had tried to do right by them. He supposed that not showing up tonight would be an insult. It’d be tantamount to throwing the man’s hospitality in his face.

That he felt a certain obligation to go was understandable. The real mystery was why he was asking Rosetti to come with him.

Maybe it was as simple as just feeling sorry for her.

And then again, maybe not.

“I was thinking of dropping over there tonight. He’s having some kind of gathering,” Kyle explained vaguely. “If you wanted to tag along…” He left the rest unsaid.

There was silence for exactly two seconds.

“Sure. Yes. That would be very nice.” Eagerness increased with every word she uttered. And then she shook her head. “You know, O’Brien, you’re a damn hard man to figure out.”

Kyle had a perfect solution for that. “Then don’t try.”

“Now that sounds more like you,” Jaren responded, grinning. “Look, I just have to get my car. I’ll follow you over to the house.”

He took out his worn notebook, vaguely realizing that there were only three empty sheets left. Kyle turned to a fresh one and wrote something down, then tore it out and held it out to her.

“Here’s the chief’s address. In case you get lost,” he added when she raised a quizzical brow.

There was no chance of that, he thought as he drove to the chief’s house. Jaren Rosetti followed closer than a heartbeat, leaving hardly enough room between his car and hers for a thin mint.

When he pulled up to the curb, she was right there behind him, matching movement for movement. “You know,” he said as he got out of his car, “if there’d been an eager cop around, you could have gotten a ticket for tailgating.”

“Lucky there was no eager cop around,” she countered, amused. They both knew that uniforms didn’t issue tickets to detectives unless gross misconduct was involved. Jaren examined the house number they’d parked in front of and turned to him. “This isn’t the address you gave me.”

“That’s because there’s no space left to park in front of the chief’s house.” He nodded toward the middle of the street. “It’s one of their birthdays and he’s throwing a party. Everyone was supposed to come.”

That stopped her dead. “Birthday?” Jaren echoed. She suddenly felt awkward, not to mention emptyhanded. “But I don’t have anything to give.”

“Why should you? You don’t even know Callie.” Callie was the chief’s oldest daughter, married to the judge whose kidnapped daughter she’d helped rescue.

He had a point, but he was missing the main one. “But if I don’t even know her, why am I—?”

“You hungry or not?” he demanded.

“Hungry,” she confirmed. Hungrier for company than she was for anything that could be served on a plate, she added silently. While she was comfortable enough in her own skin, she had to admit that she did like the sound of people’s voices and she really enjoyed interacting with them.

“Then stop arguing and come on,” he ordered.

Jaren hurried to catch up as he walked quickly down the block.

He was right. The entire way from where they parked to the front of Andrew’s house was jammed with cars, all going nose to tailpipe. She didn’t envy the owners when they attempted to free their rides in order to go home.

Music greeted them before they ever reached the house, as did the sound of laughter. Andrew Cavanaugh’s house seemed to exude warmth.

Walking up to the front door, Kyle didn’t bother ringing the bell. Instead, he knocked on the door. Hard.

When there was no response, he tried the doorknob and found it wasn’t locked.

“He leaves his door unlocked?” she asked, stunned. The neighborhood where she’d lived with her father had slowly gone downhill. By the time she’d sold the place, the front door had been outfitted with double locks coupled with a chain.

Kyle glanced at her over his shoulder just as he opened the door. “If you were a thief, would you walk into this?”

This was practically a wall of people, mostly detectives with their spouses and children. There was also a smattering of uniformed officers who’d come straight from work.

“Not unless I had a death wish,” she agreed. It looked as if half the precinct had gathered here. There wasn’t a solemn face in the lot.

This was it, Jaren realized. This was exactly what she’d longed for all of her life. Enough family stuffed into a house to make the very walls groan and bow. As far back as she could remember, there’d only been her parents and her. And, from the time she turned twelve—when her mother had decided that she’d just had enough and walked out, never to be heard from again—there’d been only her and her father.

Officer Joseph Rosetti had been a handsome man, quick to smile, quick to tell a joke and quick to raise a glass in a toast—even if he was the only one in the room. Most of her childhood had been spent either taking care of her father, or searching the local bars for his whereabouts in order to bring him home. Despite his shortcomings, Jaren loved him dearly and she knew that, in his own way, her father had loved her, too.

Just not enough to conquer the grip that alcohol had on him.

More than once when she was growing up, she’d found herself wishing that there was someone she could turn to—an aunt, an uncle, a sibling or grandparent—just someone with a few good words to cheer her on and buoy her up. But the only family she had was a man who seemed intent on pickling his liver one bottle at a time.

Eventually, he had. Liver failure claimed him, taking him, in her opinion, years before his time.

Lost in thought and wishful thinking as she scanned the large group of people, she suddenly felt a large hand on her shoulder. Turning, she saw a tall, smiling man with the kindest blue eyes she’d ever seen. He’d placed himself between her and her new partner.

Instinctively, she knew this had to be Andrew Cavanaugh.

“You came!” he exclaimed, his booming voice echoing with both pleasure and surprise. He turned approving eyes toward the young woman with his brother’s son. “And you brought someone with you.”

Kyle nodded. “This is my new partner, Andrew. She’s new to Aurora and she asked me if I knew anyplace that served really good food.”

“And you brought her to me,” Andrew concluded, pleased. “Well, young lady, I hope you don’t come away disappointed. By the way, Kyle forgot to introduce us. I’m Andrew Cavanaugh.”

“Yes, I know,” Jaren said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm and warm. She noted that he didn’t insult her by weakening his grip in deference to her softer gender. She liked that. Nothing worse than a limp-wristed handshake. “My name is Jaren. Jaren Rosetti.”

“Rosetti,” Andrew repeated. His eyebrows drew together as he thought for a moment. “I used to know a Joe Rosetti. He was on the Oakland police force. Had an occasion to work with him early on. Great guy. Any relation?”

A spark of pride ignited. Until the end came when he had to be hospitalized, her father had somehow managed to be a functioning alcoholic, never drinking on the job, just continually from the moment he was off duty. He’d fooled a lot of people, she remembered.

“He was my father.”

“Was?” The concern in Andrew’s eyes was genuine. She liked him immediately.

Jaren nodded. “He died a couple of months ago.” It was still hard for her to say that. Harder still to imagine a world without Joe Rosetti.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Jaren. Your father was a good cop.” Somewhere in the distance, a timer went off, but Andrew continued talking to the young woman his nephew had brought into his house. “He must have been proud to see you follow in his footsteps.”

By the time she’d made it to the rank of detective, her father had retired from the force and been too wound up in his daily ritual of emptying wine bottles with Black Russian chasers to take much notice of anything.

Jaren knew that her smile was just a wee bit tight as she said, “I’d like to think so.” Was it her imagination, or had the chief’s eyes softened just a shade, as if he understood what wasn’t being said?

Andrew turned toward his nephew. “Why don’t you introduce Jaren around, Kyle? By the way, in case you’re wondering, your brother and sister are already here. You were the last holdout,” Andrew said with a soft laugh, as if he’d known all along that it would just be a matter of time before he was won over by the family. He clapped Kyle on the shoulder and said warmly, “Glad to see that you decided to make it. Wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

Kyle looked back into the house. The living room, the family room and parts beyond, including the backyard, were teeming with people.

“And how would you have noticed?” he asked dryly.

“Trust me,” Andrew assured him, “I would have noticed.” The timer sounded a second time. Andrew checked his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to see to the main course.”

“He really does cook, then?” Jaren asked.

Kyle laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

She had never really mastered the kitchen. The best she could do was work with things that came in boxes and had the word helper in the title. Cooking for its own sake was a foreign concept to her. She’d been too busy juggling school, jobs—part-time and full—and caring for her delinquent father to spend any real time in the kitchen beyond cleaning up.

“He seems like a very nice man,” she observed as she watched the former chief retreat into his state-of-the-art kitchen.

“Yeah.” No matter how he felt—or didn’t feel—about becoming part of this close-knit clan, there was no denying the fact that Andrew Cavanaugh had done his damnedest to make the transition easy on all three of them. But he still wasn’t completely convinced that he wanted in.

He became aware that his new partner was studying him. When he glanced over at her, she asked, “And you’re actually related to him?”

He could see how she might doubt that, given their natures. “Yeah.”

“How?” The single word had launched itself out of her mouth before she could think to stop it.

He blew out a breath. “Do you ever stop asking questions?”

“Sure. Once I get the answers.”

Just because—in a moment of weakness he was beginning to regret—he’d felt sorry for her and brought her to this gathering, didn’t mean that he was going to bare his soul to her.

“If you get all the answers,” he told her, “then there’s nothing to look forward to.”

“Sure, there is,” she contradicted. “More questions—and answers.”

He wasn’t about to be cornered into a game of truth or dare with this woman. “Don’t make me regret bringing you here.”

Jaren knew when to back off. “I’ll do my best,” she promised.

They stood in the doorway of the living room for perhaps ten seconds before they were approached by another one of the Cavanaughs. This time, it was Patience, the only Cavanaugh besides Janelle who wasn’t a law-enforcement agent. Patience’s vocation lay with curing animals. Her involvement with the police department, other than through her sibling, cousins and uncles, was by being the official vet for the K-9 unit. Which was how she’d met her husband.

She was also Mike’s daughter and thus Kyle’s half sister, a connection she more than readily embraced. As she came toward them now, there was the same mixture of pleasure and surprise evident in her face that her uncle had displayed.

She brushed her lips against Kyle’s cheek, catching him off guard. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” she confessed. Her eyes darted to Jaren’s face, then back to her newly discovered half brother. “And you brought a date?” It was more of a question than an assertion.

“I brought my partner,” Kyle corrected. “She was hungry and it’s a known fact that Andrew’s the best cook in town, so I just thought—”

Why was he even explaining himself? Kyle wondered. Maybe he shouldn’t have shown up at all. More than that, a part of him regretted pushing for recognition as Mike Cavanaugh’s son. He wasn’t even completely certain why he’d pushed the way he had. What had he hoped to accomplish? It wasn’t as if the man was still around to acknowledge the connection.

When he’d undertaken this little mission, he’d been prepared for fierce opposition. Just the opposite had occurred. He’d had dealings with the Cavanaughs before. Anyone who was on the force had had dealings with a member of the clan at one time or another. He’d always thought that they were a decent bunch of people. But even so, he’d expected them to be hostile to the idea that he and his siblings cast a shadow on Mike Cavanaugh’s name by turning up and claiming to be his offspring.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. He still didn’t quite understand why.

Patience hooked her arm through Jaren’s. “So, his new partner, huh? This should be interesting,” she prophesized. “By the way, I’m Patience, Kyle’s half sister. We shared a father,” she said matter-of-factly. “Let me take you around and introduce you, Jaren.”

Jaren felt her mouth curving, reflecting the smile she felt inside. “Works for me.”

Her smile didn’t even fade as she heard Kyle instruct Patience, “Take your time. There’s no hurry.”

“He takes getting used to,” Patience confided with a comforting smile. “But in the long run, we figure he’s worth it.”

“I’ve kind of figured that out myself,” Jaren told her.

Patience looked at her for a long moment, her smile warm and welcoming. “My money’s on you, Jaren.”

“Nice to know,” Jaren replied, the sentiment warming her heart.

Chapter 4

“C’mon, Callie, tell us. How old are you?” Riley McIntyre teased as they all gathered around the birthday celebrant and the huge, three-tiered cake Andrew had baked, the last strains of an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” fading away. “You’ve got to be older than one.”

One large white candle, a pink rose winding around its thick base, was all that stood atop the third tier. Callie had made her wish and blown it out to the sound of cheers, applause and laughter.

“Older than you,” Callie responded with a toss of her head. Her eyes shone as she added, “That’s all you need to know.”

“My wife is ageless,” Brent Montgomery informed Riley and anyone else who cared to make inquiries about Callie’s chronological age. “Like fine wine, she just gets better with time.”

Slipping her arm around Brent’s waist, Callie inclined her head, resting it against his shoulder as she gave him a quick squeeze. “Knew there was a reason why I married this man.”

“Yeah, ‘cause he was the only one who wasn’t fast enough to run for the hills,” Clay, her younger brother and Teri’s twin, chimed in. It earned him a swat to the back of his head from his wife, Ilene.

“I suggest we begin cutting the cake before someone gets tempted to start throwing it instead,” Andrew told the gathering. He placed one of his prized knives in Callie’s hand, moving the plates closer to her.

“You heard the man,” Callie said to the rest of her family and friends. She made the first cut. “Line up if you don’t want to be left out.”

No one had to be told twice. Riley was first in line, but rather than take a plate and walk away, she began to pass out the slices as Callie cut them and placed them on the plates.

“Are they always like this?” Jaren asked. She was standing off to the side with Kyle, waiting for the crowd to thin down a little.

Kyle shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. I’m new to this.”

She slanted a knowing look in his direction. “That would explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“Why you didn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ when everyone else did.” She’d been standing right next to him and had wondered why he hadn’t joined in with the rest.

“I sang,” he protested tersely.

“No, you moved your lips,” she corrected. “But no sound came out of your mouth.” She grinned at Kyle. “So, what we had was video, but no audio.”

He was one of those people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and he knew it. He didn’t particularly like calling attention to the fact.

“Maybe that was because I figured you’d take care of the audio all by yourself,” he retorted.

She was a guest here and since he was the one who’d brought her, she wasn’t about to get embroiled in an argument, no matter how innocuous it was. So she nodded. “Glad to pitch in.”

Riley handed him a plate. He, in turn, passed the slice of vanilla fudge cake to Jaren. “I’ve got a question for you,” he said.

That surprised her. He seemed more inclined not to ask any questions, and she was certain that he was given to the philosophy: the less you know about a person, the less likely you are to get close to that person.

“Okay,” she responded, drawing the single word out.

Accepting the slice that Riley handed him, Kyle moved over to the side. Seeming to devote his attention to the cake on his plate, he asked, “Are you always this cheerful?”

There were times when a sadness threatened to overwhelm her, but she always fought it off. She’d seen what an innate sadness could do. It had eventually destroyed her father.

“I do my best.”

“Well, stop it,” Kyle ordered just before he took a bite of cake.

She glanced in his direction. There was a tolerant smile on her face that he found annoying and yet, still oddly attractive. Whatever else her faults were, she had an aura of sorts.

“You don’t mean that,” she replied. “You might think you do, but you don’t.”

“Oh, so now you think that you’re a psychiatrist?” he scoffed.

“No, but I did take a few psych courses in college,” she answered glibly. “Everyone is better off thinking positive than dwelling on the negative.”

“I don’t dwell on the negative,” he corrected her tersely, “I accept reality for what it is.”

“Or what you make it out to be,” she countered.

“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know,” Kyle told her darkly and with that, he turned away and put distance between them. Her cheerfulness was really starting to get under his skin.

Feeling awkward was not something she ever allowed herself to experience for long. Left alone, Jaren made her way over to Andrew. The latter stood with his wife, Rose, as well as Callie, her husband and their children.

Callie smiled at her, then, excusing herself, she ushered her family away.

“What can I do for you, Jaren?” Andrew asked.

That he remembered her name amid all these other people, even if they were his family, told her the kind of man he was. She wondered if his family appreciated him.

“Chief, I just wanted to tell you that this has to be the best cake I’ve ever had.”

Andrew allowed himself a moment to bask in the compliment. He knew exactly what he was capable of and had the utmost confidence in his abilities. But every once in a while, he relished hearing someone say it. His own family had become so accustomed to having their taste buds romanced. For the most part, the Cavanaughs took their meals here for granted.

“Thank you, Jaren. And it’s Andrew,” he corrected. “It hasn’t been Chief for a very long time.”

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d still like to call you Chief. You’re my dad’s age and it just doesn’t seem respectful for me to call you by your first name.”

He was nothing if not flexible. Raising five children single-handedly while searching for his missing wife had gone a long way in teaching him how to bend. “Then Chief it is,” Andrew allowed kindly. As he spoke, he refilled her plate with another slice. “So, tell me, how long have you been in Aurora?”

It began simply enough, with her answering his question. That led to another question and another after that. Before she realized what was happening, Jaren found herself pouring out her heart to this man who had once known her father.

By the time she finished, Jaren confided to Andrew that his was a family that most people dreamed of having.

Andrew grinned broadly, surveying the room. “Yes, they did turn out pretty well, didn’t they? And the most amazing part was that every last one of them found soul mates who blended well into this mix.” He thought of the events of the last few months. “And just recently, the family expanded again when we gained Brian’s four stepchildren, plus my late brother’s trio.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the room where he spent a good deal of his time each day—the kitchen. “We’ve had to expand the basic table that’s in the kitchen. Again,” he added with a soft chuckle.

“Not to mention that the kitchen’s been expanded twice,” Rose Cavanaugh told her, then confided, “You’d think with all that extra room, the man would let me in once in a while to experiment.”

Andrew kissed the top of Rose’s head, the deep affection he had for her evident in his eyes. “Experiment’s the word for it all right,” he agreed, humor curving the sides of his mouth. “I love you with all my heart, Rose, you know that, but you have to face the fact that you really can’t boil water.”

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