Cavanaugh Judgement
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dear Reader

About the Author

Dedication

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

Copyright

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to the Cavanaugh Justice series. This time around, we have Greer O’Brien’s story. Greer and her two brothers are the illegitimate offspring of the late Mike Cavanaugh, Andrew and Brian’s malcontented brother. Like her brothers, Greer thought that her father was a fallen hero, not a man who refused to live up to his responsibilities. Her mother’s deathbed confession has actually hit her hard. It makes her resolve never to lose her heart to a male of the species, because men disappoint the women who love them.

But this is before she is given an assignment she would rather pass on: being the bodyguard for Judge Blake Kincannon, whose life is threatened by an escaped drug dealer. She and Blake have a history. Despite this, the two become aware of the strong attraction humming between them, an attraction neither one can continue to deny.

I hope you like this latest installment in the Cavanaugh saga and as always, I thank you for reading my book. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written almost two hundred novels, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Lily Sterkel.

Welcome to the world,

little one.

Chapter One

Eddie Munro was the kind of man who reminded narcotics detective Greer O’Brien of the Aurora police department why she’d joined the force in the first place. To put low-life scum like him away.

The least acrimonious way to describe Munro was to say that he was a career criminal with a rap sheet that was longer than he was tall and, at five feet eleven inches, that was saying a great deal. There apparently was no hint of remorse in the man’s heart, no well-buried twinge of guilt associated with any of the victims who he had harmed during his ambitious climb up the drug-dealing ladder. He was, and always had been, the most important person in his universe.

Greer could tell that simply by looking into the drug dealer’s eyes. They were flat, cold and calculating, and could have just as easily belonged to a reptile as to a flesh and blood human being. She saw it now, in the courtroom, and she’d seen it then, when the sting she’d been part of had gone down, successfully snaring Munro in its net. They were dead eyes, silently telling her that this arrest was merely a temporary aberration, an obstacle to be surmounted.

He looked, she thought, as if he had some secret guarantee that he would be out again soon, pushing his people to hook naïve, thoughtless teenagers in search of diversion on drugs, eventually turning large numbers of them into wraithlike creatures willing to sell what was left of their souls for the next fix.

Greer could see that same look in Munro’s eyes now, as she looked at him across the marginally populated courtroom. He was sitting at the defense table, dressed in a suit his attorney was hoping would transform him from a minor kingpin in the organization into a respectable-looking member of society.

But nothing could transform his eyes. They were looking at her and there was murderous contempt in the brown orbs.

Contempt and more than a small amount of anger that he was being inconvenienced this way.

It made Greer long—just for the tiniest of seconds—for the days of vigilante justice that had thrived in the Wild West before law and order had prevailed. Because vigilante justice would have disposed of worthless creeps like Munro without so much as a fleeting second thought.

There were no second chances with vigilante justice.

But even as she thought it, Greer knew in her heart that if such a thing as vigilante justice was alive and well, she would have been part of the first line of defense against it. It was inherently in her blood to uphold the law.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t find this whole tedious “due process” of crossing t’s and dotting i’s trying, she thought irritably.

Because it wasn’t enough to catch vermin like Eddie Munro in the act and arrest him. He had to be convicted, as well—and that was always tricky. Despite the fact that the man was as guilty as sin, conviction was never a foregone conclusion, because there were lawyers involved. Lawyers who earned their fees—and possibly a rush, as well—by digging through technicalities, searching for that one little “something” that had been overlooked, some obscure loophole that would somehow serve to set the Eddie Munros of the world back on the street to prey on the defenseless.

The need to present the case against him and prosecute Munro to the full measure of the law was why she was here, sitting in a place she avoided like the plague whenever possible. More than half an hour ago she had solemnly sworn to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me, God.” She would have willingly sworn to almost anything if it meant locking away one more evil vulture for as long as legally possible.

It wasn’t that courtrooms—or testifying—made her nervous. What they did was make her angry. Angry because, like it or not, all the hard work that she and the men and women she worked with in the narcotics division could be thrown out on one of those aforementioned technicalities. One overzealous movement by a wet-behind-the-ears rookie cop could jeopardize months of hard work.

But she knew that this was part of the game, part of the system, and she was determined to do everything she could to put that soulless pseudo Drug Czar of Magnolia Avenue, as Munro liked to refer to himself, away. She would have preferred putting him away for good, but ultimately, she would take what she could get. Every day Munro wasn’t on the street was another day someone else potentially avoided becoming addicted.

Greer was well aware that every victory counted, no matter how small.

The sound of a door sighing closed registered and she glanced toward the back of the courtroom, just in time to see the chief of detectives, Brian Cavanaugh, make his way down the far aisle and slip into one of the near-empty middle rows.

What was up?

Greer couldn’t help wondering if the well-respected chief was here because of the case in general, or because his daughter, Janelle Cavanaugh-Boone, was the assistant district attorney prosecuting this case.

Or if, by some remote chance, he was here to lend her his support. Brian Cavanaugh was, after all, her newfound uncle.

The thought would have coaxed an ironic smile to her lips if the overall situation hadn’t been so grave. And if she wasn’t currently on the stand, testifying and being relentlessly grilled by Munro’s defense attorney, Hayden Wells, an oily little man who, despite his posturing, was not all that good at his job.

The latter discovery—that Brian Cavanaugh was her uncle, that she, Kyle and Ethan were actually related to the numerous Cavanaughs who populated the police force—still boggled her mind a bit, as she was fairly certain it did her brothers. Triplets, they tended to feel more or less the same about the bigger issues that affected their lives and learning that they had been lied to by their mother all their lives was about as big an issue as there was.

It was only on their mother’s deathbed that the twenty-six-year-old triplets learned that the man they had believed was their late father, a war hero killed on foreign shores nobly defending freedom, never even existed. He had been created by Jane O’Brien in order to make her children feel wanted and normal. In truth, they were conceived during a brief liaison between Mike Cavanaugh, the sullen black sheep of an otherwise highly respected family, and their mother, a woman who had fallen hopelessly in love with the brooding policeman.

Angry, hurt, bewildered, the day after the funeral Kyle had marched up to Andrew Cavanaugh, the former chief of police and family patriarch, and dropped the bombshell that there were three more Cavanaughs than initially accounted for on the man’s doorstep.

Rather than rejection and scorn, which was what she knew Kyle was expecting, she and her brothers had found acceptance. Not wholesale, at least, not at first, but rather swiftly down the line, all things considered.

Taken in by the family, that left Greer and her brothers to work out their own feelings regarding the tsunamic shift that their lives had suddenly experienced. To some extent, they were still wrestling. But at least the angst was gone.

Pacing before the witness stand as he addressed her, Munro’s defense attorney paused. The slight involuntary twitch of his lips indicated that he wasn’t satisfied with the way his round of questioning was going. At the outset, it seemed as if he was winning, but now that conclusion was no longer cast in stone. The balding attorney’s voice rose as his confidence decreased.

The momentary lull allowed Greer to shift her eyes to the side row again. She was surprised to make eye contact with the chief of detectives. And even more surprised to see the smile of approval that rose to his lips.

He mouthed, “Good job,” and at first, she assumed that Brian had intended the commendation for his daughter’s efforts. But Janelle had her back to the rear of the courtroom—and her father.

The approval was intended for her.

Greer realized that a smile was slowly spreading across her own lips. She’d always told herself that, like her brothers, she was her own person and that approval didn’t matter.

But it did.

She could feel the warmth that approval created spreading through her, taking hold. Ever so slightly, she nodded her head in acknowledgment of her superior. Of her uncle.

The next moment, she heard the judge’s gavel come down on her right. Her attention returned to the immediate proceedings.

Alert, Greer waited to hear what the judge had to say, trying not to dwell on the fact that she was sitting far closer than was comfortable to Judge Blake Kincannon.

It wasn’t that she had anything against Kincannon—she didn’t. In her opinion, Aurora’s youngest judge on the bench was everything that a model judge was supposed to be. Fair, impartial, compassionate—but not a bleeding heart—he was the kind of judge who actually made her believe that maybe, just maybe, the system could actually work. At least some of the time.

Added to that, Blake Kincannon even looked like the picture of a model judge. Tall, imposing, with chiseled features, piercing blue eyes and hair blacker than the inside of a harden criminal’s heart, Kincannon was considered to be outstandingly handsome and quite a catch for those who were in the “catching” business.

No, Greer’s discomfort arose for an entirely different reason.

She was certain that whenever Judge Blake Kincannon looked at her, he remembered. Remembered that she was the patrol officer who had been first on the scene of the car accident two years ago. Remembered that she was the one who had tried, unsuccessfully, to administer CPR to his wife as she lay dying. And remembered that she was the one who, when he regained consciousness at the hospital after the doctors had stabilized him, broke the news to him that his wife was dead.

Not exactly something a man readily put out of his mind, she’d thought when Detective Jeff Carson, her partner for the past year, had told her who the presiding judge on the case was going to be.

She’d been dreading walking into the courtroom for months. And now, hopefully, it was almost over.

The sound of the gavel focused attention on the judge. All eyes were on him. Kincannon waited until the courtroom was quiet again.

“I think that this might be a good place to call a recess for lunch.” The judge’s deep voice rumbled like thunder over the parched plains of late summer. And then he glanced in her direction, his eyes only fleetingly touching hers. “You are dismissed, Detective. The court thanks you for your testimony.”

But I’m sure you would rather it had come from someone else, Greer couldn’t help thinking even as she inclined her head in acknowledgment.

She rose to her feet at the same time that Kincannon did.

And then the commotion erupted so quickly, it took Greer a while to piece it all together later that day.

One moment, the courtroom was buzzing with the semi-subdued rustle of spectators gathering themselves and their things together in order to leave the premises, the next, terrified screams and cries pierced the air.

And then there was the sound of a gun being discharged.

But the tiny half heartbeat in between the two occurrences was what actually counted.

Greer had immediately glanced away from Kincannon the moment their eyes made contact when the judge dismissed her. Which as it turned out, she later reflected, was exceedingly fortunate for the judge. Because if she hadn’t looked away, she wouldn’t have seen Munro leap up to his feet and simultaneously push the defense table over, sending the table and everything on it crashing to the floor. That created a diversion just long enough for Munro, in his respectable suit, to lunge at the approaching bailiff, drive a fist to the man’s gut and grab the doubled-over bailiff’s weapon.

“Gun!” Greer yelled and, in what felt like one swift, unending motion, she leaped up onto the witness stand chair where she had just been sitting a second ago, propelled herself onto the judge’s desk and hurled herself into the judge, sending the surprised Kincannon crashing down to the floor behind his desk.

Scrambling, she was quick to cover his body with her own.

The desk obstructing her view, Greer heard rather than saw what was going on next. There was the sound of terror, of people yelling and running and ducking for cover. And then there was the sound of a gun being discharged again—one round. Whether the gun belonged to the other bailiff or was the one that Munro had seized from the first bailiff she had no idea.

At this point, everything was registering somewhere on the outer perimeter of her consciousness.

What she was acutely aware of was that she was lying spread-eagle over the judge, that he was on his back and she was on his front. And that all the parts that counted were up close and personal.

The infusion of adrenaline sailing in triple time through her body had her heart racing so hard she was certain that some kind of a record was being set. Greer felt hot and cold and light-headed all at the same time, a reaction definitely not typical of her. She struggled to regain control over herself and her surroundings.

Her eyes met Kincannon’s. As if suddenly pulled into the belly of an industrial vacuum cleaner, all the noise and chaos surrounding them seemed to have faded into oblivion for just the slightest increment of a second.

And then she blinked.

“How long have you been under the illusion that you’re bulletproof, Detective O’Brien?” Kincannon asked her gruffly.

The question instantly pulled her back into the eye of the courtroom hurricane. “I’m not,” she heard herself answering.

“Then what are you doing on top of me?”

“Saving your life, Your Honor,” she snapped.

Her heart slowed down to a mere double time. There was a criminal to subdue. The thought telegraphed itself through her brain. Greer scrambled up to her feet. As did the judge.

“Stay down!” she ordered sharply, circumventing his desk.

Kincannon clearly had no intention of being ordered around or of staying down, cowering behind his desk. His court had just been disrespected. The judge stood directly behind her, his robe billowing out on the sides like some fantasy superhero’s cape.

“My courtroom,” Kincannon informed her, raising his voice above the din, “my rules.”

His courtroom, Greer noted as she swiftly scanned the area, taking everything in, was in utter chaos. It was also apparently missing one felon. The second gunshot that had rung out had come from the purloined weapon, and the bullet—whether intentionally or not—had hit the bailiff whose weapon had been stolen by Munro. The latter, on the job all of six months, was on the floor, clutching his shoulder. Blood was seeping out between his fingers.

Munro was nowhere to be seen.

Inside a secured courtroom with law enforcement officers throughout the building, Munro had done the impossible. The drug dealer had escaped.

A glance to the left told her the chief of detectives was missing, as well.

For one terrifying moment, an utterly unacceptable scenario suggested itself to her, but she dismissed it. Brian Cavanaugh was too much of a policeman to have ever allowed himself to be taken hostage. If Munro had even attempted it, she was certain the dealer would have been lying on the floor in several disjointed pieces.

The man would have instinctively known that avoiding the chief at all costs was the only way he was going to make it out of the courthouse alive.

Greer refused to believe that Munro had already gotten out of the building. Not enough time had gone by.

She ran through the double doors that led out of the courtroom into the hallway. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know Kincannon was right behind her. Did the man have a death wish? she wondered, annoyed.

There was more chaos beyond the leather padded doors. People, fleeing for their lives, were hiding in alcoves, pressed as far against the beige walls as humanly possible in an attempt to avoid the escaping criminal’s attention.

Damn it, things like this just don’t happen, Greer thought angrily.

Except that it just had.

She scanned the hallway again, hoping that she’d missed something. Hoping that Munro was trying to hide in plain sight. But he wasn’t.

At first glance, it appeared that Eddie Munro had turned out to be far cleverer than she’d initially thought. The drug dealer had managed to disappear.

She saw the chief. He was standing a few feet away and had taken charge of the bailiffs who had come running in response to the gunshot. On the phone, he’d already put in a call for reinforcements.

“I want everything shut down,” he ordered the uniformed men and women gathered around him. “Except for my people, nobody leaves, nobody comes in. Understand?”

Acquiescing murmurs responded to his words.

He looked at the bailiffs. “I want every courtroom, every office, every closet on every floor gone through.” His penetrating look swept over the collective. “Do it in teams. I don’t want anyone caught off guard. One damn surprise is enough for the day. You—” he singled out the closest bailiff “—call for an ambulance. I want that bailiff who got shot attended to.”

The man rushed off to place the call. As the other men and women he’d just addressed scattered, Brian turned his attention to Greer. His eyes swept over her, taking full measure. Looking for a wound. Finding none, he still asked, “Are you all right, Greer?”

Self-conscious at being singled out this way—did he think she couldn’t take care of herself?—Greer dismissed the concern she heard in her superior’s voice. “I’m fine, Chief.” And then she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “Why are you asking?”

He laughed shortly, shaking his head. “Well, for one thing,” he began wryly, “I saw you take that half-gainer over the judge’s desk—”

“She had a soft landing,” Kincannon told him as he came up to the chief.

Greer shifted slightly. “Not so soft,” she muttered under her breath. She’d been acutely aware of every single contour she’d come in contact with and soft was not the word that readily came to mind.

Calling out to Janelle, who he saw hurrying out of the courtroom and looking around, Brian didn’t appear to have heard Greer’s comment.

But the judge did.

Chapter Two

Greer turned around. The moment she did, her eyes met Kincannon’s.

He’d heard her. She was certain of it.

What she didn’t know was how he’d received the offhand comment that had just slipped out. Was that a hint of amusement she saw on his face, or was it something else? She’d never been around the man in one of his lighter moments—didn’t even know if he had lighter moments—so she couldn’t gauge what was going on in his head right now.

Talk about awkward, she thought. And it was of her own making. Someday, she was going to learn to think before she spoke, or at least that was what her brothers were always saying to her.

“Someday, that mouth of yours is going to get you in a whole lot of trouble,” Ethan had warned her more than once.

She could take that kind of a comment from Ethan far more easily than she could from Kyle. From Kyle, it sounded more like criticism. Besides, she was closer to Ethan than to Kyle, which was odd, given that the three of them had drawn their first breaths less than seven minutes apart. According to birth order, Kyle was technically the “oldest,” then her, then Ethan. “The baby,” their mother used to fondly call him.

Kyle had called him that, as well, until Ethan had given Kyle his first black eye. The word baby hadn’t come up again in approximately sixteen years.

None of that changed the fact that her brothers were both right. She had a tendency to let her thoughts reach her lips, completely bypassing her brain. Most of the time, it didn’t matter. But most of the time she didn’t find herself on top of a judge who had a rock-solid body hidden beneath his imposing black robes.

Raising her chin, Greer stoically waited to be upbraided for her comment regarding the judge’s body. Instead, without so much as uttering a word, Kincannon turned on his heel and made his way back into the courtroom.

Was she off the hook?

Or was he planning on denouncing her formally later on? Her experience with judges, as with lawyers, had not yielded a great deal of positive reinforcement.

“Greer.” The chief’s voice cut through the din in the hall. She turned around to face him, waiting to be dispatched where she could do the most good. Brian motioned toward the courtroom. “Stay with him,” he instructed.

Greer opened her mouth to protest that she would be more useful looking for the prisoner, but then she shut it again, for once keeping her words to herself. She knew better than to argue with authority, even with someone as genial and affable as the chief. She wasn’t about to abuse the fact that he was her uncle. Years ago in the school yard, she’d learned the wisdom of picking her battles judiciously.

“Yes, Chief.” The sound of numerous feet running toward them told her that the officers Brian had sent for had arrived. She’d already turned away and was hurrying back into the courtroom. Behind her, she heard Brian continue to organize the search for Munro.

Greer wouldn’t have wanted to be in the drug dealer’s shoes when Brian found him for any amount of money in the world.

Entering the courtroom, she noted that it was mostly empty. She glanced toward Kincannon’s desk.

He wasn’t there.

Before her adrenaline had the opportunity to ramp up, she spotted the judge on the floor. He was kneeling beside the wounded bailiff.

Coming closer, Greer saw that the bottom of the judge’s robe was torn and ragged. Though she hadn’t thought it was possible, Kincannon had somehow managed to tear a long strip off his robe and was now using it to form a tourniquet for the wounded bailiff. Moreover, he was doing it himself rather than instructing the other bailiff to do it.

Admiration stirred within her. Too often judges thought themselves above the people they interacted with. Nice to know that wasn’t a hard and fast rule.

“Lie flat, Tim,” Kincannon told the bailiff when the injured man tried to sit up.

So he knew him, she thought. From the job or from somewhere else?

To underscore his words, the judge put the flat of his hand against the young bailiff’s blood-soaked shirt and exerted just enough pressure to make the man remain down. In his weakened state, Tim could offer no real resistance.

Joining them, Greer squatted down beside the judge as she looked at the bailiff. “Better do as he says if you ever want to work in his courtroom again,” she advised with an encouraging smile.

Tim looked like a kid, she thought. She did her best to sound upbeat for the bailiff’s sake. He looked scared and he’d lost a lot of blood. She was rather surprised that Tim was still conscious, much less making an attempt to sit up.

“Nice work,” she said to Kincannon, nodding at the tourniquet he’d fashioned. She slanted a glance in his direction, forcing herself not to look away too quickly. “Let me guess, you earned a merit badge in first aid when you were a kid.”

Blake secured the ends of the strip as best he could. That should hold until the paramedics get here, he thought.

Sitting back on his heels, he continued to maintain eye contact with the frightened bailiff. He couldn’t remember ever being that young. It seemed to Blake that somehow, through a trick of fate, he’d been born old.

“Nothing wrong with being an Eagle Scout,” he responded.

“Wow, an Eagle Scout.” Somehow, she had envisioned Kincannon being more of a rebel. Not too much call for rebels in the Boy Scouts. When he looked at her quizzically, she explained, “My brother Kyle only lasted a month in the Cub Scouts.”

Kincannon continued looking at her. “Let me guess, he didn’t think the rules applied to him.”

Kyle never thought the rules applied to him. He made his own as he went along.

Of course, all that was going to change soon. Kyle had actually found his soul mate and was planning on getting married.

Who would have ever thought…?

Greer lifted a shoulder in a semi-shrug. “Something like that.”

“Family trait?” Kincannon mused.

Greer looked at him. To ask that, the judge would have had to be familiar with her family. Granted, she and her brothers were all detectives with the Aurora police department, but she was not so self-centered as to think that the world revolved around her family. Besides, she usually kept a low profile.

She wanted to know his reasoning. “Why would you say that?”

“I’m a fairly good judge of character, no pun intended.” He gave his handiwork a once-over to make sure it was secure. Satisfied, he nodded to himself. But rather than standing up, Kincannon looked at the woman beside him for a long moment. “Rather than duck out of range, the way everyone else in the courtroom did, you jumped on my desk, making yourself the most visible target in the room.”

Her eyes narrowed just a little, even as she told herself not to take offense. She hadn’t expected him to thank her profusely, but neither had she expected him to take her to task for it, either.

“With all due respect, Your Honor, I didn’t exactly break into a tap dance, searching for my fifteen seconds of fame. I jumped on the desk because it was the fastest way to get you out of harm’s way.”

“It’s fifteen minutes, not seconds,” he corrected mildly, “and at thirty-four, I’m perfectly capable of getting out of harm’s way on my own.”

Greer squared her shoulders. Infected with a little hubris, are we? It looked as if she might just have to revise her opinion of Kincannon. Again.

“I’m assuming, Your Honor, that at thirty-four, your eyesight is still twenty-twenty.”

Rather than answer in the affirmative, Kincannon’s eyes held hers as he rose to his feet. “What are you getting at?”

She was in no hurry to blurt out her answer. “That Munro discharged the weapon twice. The second bullet went into the bailiff you just bandaged.”

His eyes never left hers. Even so, there wasn’t even the slightest hint as to what was going on in his head. Was he taking offense, highly amused or just giving her enough rope in hopes that she’d hang herself?

Not today, Judge.

“You’re going to tell me about the first bullet, aren’t you?” he asked, his tone mild.

“Absolutely,” she said cheerfully. Greer marched over to Kincannon’s desk and rounded it, going directly to the wall behind it. He followed. She pointed to an area that was the exact same height as his throat was from the floor. Her meaning was clear. Had he been standing where he’d been a moment longer, he wouldn’t have been with them now. “You were his first target.”

Blake dismissed her conclusion with an indifferent shrug. “Coincidence.”

Greer suppressed an annoyed sigh. So he was thickheaded. Maybe the bullet wouldn’t have penetrated after all.

This wasn’t the time to get into an argument, she told herself silently. There was nothing to be gained by butting heads with this man. Her energy could be better spent otherwise.

But that still didn’t keep her from looking as if she was merely humoring him. She inclined her head like an acquiescing servant. “Have it your way.”

Rather than taking her tone as confrontational, he murmured, “I usually do.”

I just bet you do.

Greer pressed her lips together in a physical effort to keep a retort from making it out into the open. It wasn’t easy.

But before she could give in to the urge to break her silence, the doors to the courtroom were thrown open and two uniformed paramedics, pushing a gurney between them, hurried into the room.

“He’s over here,” Kincannon called out to the duo, beckoning the men over as he made his way over to the bailiff. They reached Tim at the same time. The wounded bailiff was no longer bleeding, thanks to the tourniquet, but he was exceedingly pale. “One shot to the chest,” Blake told them. “The bullet’s still inside. I just applied the tourniquet a couple of minutes ago.”

The paramedic closest to him nodded at the information as he appeared to make a quick assessment of the makeshift bandage.

“Nice job, Judge,” the man commented approvingly. His partner released the brakes that were holding the gurney upright. The mobile stretcher instantly collapsed like a fainting patient. “We’re going to shift you onto the gurney, sir,” the first paramedic told Tim. “It’s going to hurt a bit,” he warned.

Tim looked as if he was struggling to remain conscious. He moaned. His expression indicated that he had no idea where the sound was coming from.

“On three,” the first paramedic instructed. The other paramedic fumbled slightly, bumping Tim’s shoulders against the corner of the gurney. It earned him a black look from his partner. “Good help’s hard to find these days,” he commented, addressing his words to the judge.

Once Tim was on the gurney and strapped in, the two paramedics snapped the stretcher into its upright position again. “Let’s get that wound looked at,” the first paramedic said to Tim. With his partner, they began to maneuver the gurney back to the double doors.

“Judge,” Tim suddenly called out, his voice weak and cracking.

Three quick strides had Kincannon catching up to the gurney. He trotted to keep up alongside Tim. The paramedics never stopped, never even slowed down.

The wound was undoubtedly more serious than first anticipated, Blake thought. Looking down at the bailiff’s face, he asked, “What is it, Tim?”

Tim pressed his lips together. Were they trembling? Greer wondered as she followed beside Kincannon. And why was the bailiff looking at the paramedics as if he was terrified? Her next thought was that the young man was probably afraid. No one applied for the job thinking they’d get shot.

“I’m sorry,” Tim was saying, then repeated, “I’m sorry.”

Blake put his own interpretation to the apology. Tim was sorry that he hadn’t been able to stop the prisoner from escaping. Blake squeezed the wounded bailiff’s good hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Tim, we’ll get him. I promise.”

There wasn’t so much as a shred of doubt in the man’s voice, Greer thought. Either Kincannon had a hell of a lot more confidence in the system and in the department’s ability to track Munro down for a second time than she did, or he was just naïve.

Kincannon didn’t look like a naïve man.

But then, she thought, smart people were fooled all the time. Look at her and her brothers. They’d been unwittingly duped for twenty-six years by the one person they had all loved unconditionally. That kind of thing shook up your faith in the world and made you reassess all your existing values and views.

Offering the wounded man an encouraging smile, Kincannon slipped his hand out of Tim’s fingers. The judge dropped back as the two paramedics swiftly whisked the wounded bailiff through the double doors and out into the hall.

He walked like a man who owned his destiny and his surroundings, Greer thought, watching him cross back to her. Maybe he’d gotten over his wife’s death and moved on. For his sake, she certainly hoped so. The man she remembered encountering in the hospital had been all but broken.

“You probably saved his life,” Greer said as Kincannon came closer to her.

“You save some, you lose some.” The remark appeared to be directed more to himself than to her.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t over his wife. What else could his response mean? Did the judge blame her for not being able to save the woman? God knew she’d tried, doing compressions and breathing into the woman’s mouth until she thought she’d pass out herself.

Greer could feel words of protest rising to her lips. Again she pressed them together. This definitely wasn’t the time to get into that. Besides, the judge hadn’t actually come out and said anything to accuse her. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

As she was trying to decide whether or not she was overreacting, she saw Kincannon make his way over to Munro’s attorney. The small, slight man looked very shaken. His hands trembled as he attempted to pack up his briefcase. Twice papers slipped out of his hands, falling to the table and onto the floor like giant, dirty snowflakes.

“Until I’m persuaded otherwise, I’m holding you responsible for Munro’s escape, Mr. Wells,” Kincannon said to the man.

In response, Hayden Wells abandoned his briefcase and began stuttering, unraveling right in front of them.

“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” All but hyperventilating, Wells cleared his throat and tried again. “Your Honor, you can’t be serious.”

Greer saw the steely look that came into the judge’s eyes. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that, she thought.

“I can,” Kincannon informed him, “and I am.”

“But, Judge,” Wells squeaked, his voice cracking out of sheer fear, “I had no way of knowing that this was going to happen. No way,” he insisted. “I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Blake responded coldly.

Reining in his frustration, he set his jaw hard. This shouldn’t have happened, he thought. There were supposed to be safeguards in place. Were all the security measures just a sham?

Taking a deep breath, ignoring the babbling lawyer, Blake slowly looked around the empty courtroom.

Frustration ate away at him. He sincerely regretted his own ruling which had specifically forbidden any videotaping of proceedings. At the time his thinking had been that he didn’t want tapes to be leaked to the media, didn’t want cases to be compromised because some reporter wanted to break a story.

But in this case, if there had been a video camera on, it would have caught the events preceding Munro’s escape on tape and that would have been a godsend. Blake had a gut feeling that Munro hadn’t acted alone. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. The man had to have had help. A lot of help. Blake was willing to bet a year’s salary on it.

Wells was still sputtering that he was offended that someone of the judge’s caliber would actually think that he would lower himself to aid a criminal.

“I could be disbarred!” he declared dramatically.

Greer had a feeling the man was just warming up. She was about to tell him to keep quiet when Kincannon beat her to it.

“Please spare me your self-righteous protests, Mr. Wells. I am well aware of your record. No one enters my courtroom without my knowing his background,” he told the man. “Someone who loses as often as you do can’t possibly support himself in this line of work without having something else going on on the side.”

Wells’s dark eyebrows rose all the way up his very large forehead, all but meeting the semicircle of fringe that surrounded the back of his head. “Your Honor, I give you my word—”

Greer didn’t know how much more they could take. “That and two dollars will get you a ride on the bus,” she observed.

Damn, she’d done it again, Greer thought. That wasn’t supposed to have come out. Not because she didn’t mean it, but because she had no idea how Kincannon would react to her flippant attitude.

But when her eyes met his, if anything, Kincannon appeared to be somewhat amused. Or, at the very least, in agreement.

“My sentiments exactly,” he told her.

The din just beyond the double doors in the hallway suddenly increased, swelling to three times its original decibel level.

Hopefully, there was only one reason for that. “Maybe they found him,” Greer guessed, looking at Kincannon. With that, she decided to see for herself. Moving quickly, Greer hurried out the double doors to find out. She’d intended to report back.

She should have known better. Apparently Kincannon didn’t like to remain stationary.

“Maybe,” she heard him agree, then add, “You stay here.” Since she was all but out the door, he had to be addressing the order to Wells. “I want to have a few more words with you when I get back.”

Greer stopped dead the second she was out the doors.

There were two paramedics in the hallway. Two paramedics pushing a gurney.

A feeling of déjà vu slid over her. That and a great deal of uneasy confusion.

She wasn’t the only one experiencing it.

Even before Greer reached the paramedics, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was terribly off.

The lead paramedic looked only slightly friendlier than a rattlesnake.

“Look, we got the call and got here as fast as we could. MacArthur Boulevard’s a parking lot,” he bit off, his words directed at the chief. “Now, is there a patient or isn’t there? We’re short-handed and we don’t have any time for some damn game.”

Instead of answering the man, Brian put in a call to dispatch.

“Yeah, Hallie, it’s Chief Cavanaugh. How many ambulances did you send out?” He listened to the answer. “Okay, describe the paramedics.” He frowned. “What do you mean you can’t keep track?”

“Chief,” Greer interrupted, pushing her way through the crowd. “Let me send her a picture so she can identify them,” she suggested.

Brian paused. He looked at his cell phone uncertainly, then lifted his eyes to Greer’s. “Does this—?”

She nodded, knowing what he was going to ask, sparing him the embarrassment of having to put it into words. “Yes, it does,” she assured him. Taking his phone, she snapped a shot of the two disgruntled-looking paramedics. Done, she quickly forwarded it to the woman on the other end of the line, then handed the cell phone back to the chief.

Confirmation was almost immediate.

“You didn’t send another team?” Brian knew the answer before he even asked the question. His mouth was grim as he muttered, “Thanks.”

Flipping the phone closed, Brian regarded the officers gathered around him. The paramedics were all but forgotten. “Right under our noses,” he declared, his voice low and steely.

He made Greer think of a volcano that was trying not to erupt.

Chapter Three

Confused, Blake looked from the chief of detectives to the animated narcotics detective at his side. It was now a foregone conclusion that the first set of paramedics who’d whisked Timothy Kelly away had been bogus. However, the rest of it didn’t make sense to him.

“But why would they kidnap the bailiff? If they were in on the escape, wouldn’t they have found a way to make off with Munro?” he asked.

Who said they didn’t? Greer thought as she shook her head. “They didn’t kidnap the bailiff, the bailiff was part of it.”

Blake refused to believe it. He could remember Tim’s first day on the job. So obviously wet behind the ears, the young bailiff had been so eager to please, so eager to do a good job, it had almost been painful to watch. “But they almost killed him,” he protested.

Brian was clearly struggling to keep his temper under control. “Almost being the operative word,” the chief pointed out.

“No, you’re wrong,” Kincannon insisted. “I know the man. He’s shown me photographs of his wife, of his baby daughter. A man like that doesn’t suddenly get up one morning and decide to help a career felon escape out of a courtroom.”

He was having trouble with this, Greer realized. Rather than instantly become indignant because he’d been duped, Kincannon was searching for some elusive reason that would explain what happened and absolve the bailiff of any wrongdoing beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had to grudgingly admit she found that admirable. At the very least, that made the judge more of a human being than most who sat on the bench.

Reviewing the situation, she realized that there was possibly a plausible explanation that could be acceptable to both sides. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. She sincerely doubted that Kincannon could be easily deceived.

“Maybe he didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to help a hardened felon escape,” she suggested, her conviction growing stronger with each word. “Maybe Tim Kelly had no choice.”

Janelle had been quiet this entire time, remaining out of her father’s way as he took charge of the situation. But now she seemed compelled to point out the obvious flaw in her new cousin’s theory. “They weren’t holding a gun to his head, Greer,” she said, her tone of voice barely masking the frustration she clearly felt over the drug dealer’s escape.

Greer knew that Janelle had spent a great deal of time preparing this case and was almost certain she would have won. Now, it looked as if all that time she’d put in had been wasted.

“Maybe they were holding one to his family,” she countered, standing her ground against her indignant cousin.

The moment she made the suggestion, Greer could see that the explanation was more than acceptable to Kincannon. But his opinion wasn’t the one that counted here.

Greer shifted her eyes toward the chief, holding her breath. Waiting.

“Maybe,” Brian allowed slowly. “Makes sense,” he decided. The chief turned toward two of the officers he’d summoned. “Mahoney, Wong, find out the bailiff’s address. See if there’s anything going on at his house that shouldn’t be.”

“His name’s Tim Kelly,” Kincannon informed them to facilitate the search. “Human Resources can give you the rest of the information. Their office is located on the third floor. Three-seventeen,” the judge added for good measure. He wanted to clear the young man, wanted it not to be Tim’s fault. Otherwise, it would make him begin to doubt his own judgment, and that was a dark place he never wanted to revisit.

They had their instructions so the two officers took off.

Belatedly, Blake felt a surge of adrenaline kick in. He needed to be doing something. Blake looked at Brian. “Is there anything I can do to help? To move things along?” he wanted to know.

“Unless you can pull a felon out of a hat, Judge, I’d say go home. You’re free for the afternoon,” Brian added. Kincannon looked at him in surprise, forcing Brian to state the obvious. “I’m afraid that court’s adjourned for the day, Judge. Everyone’s court,” he clarified in case there was any question. “There’re a lot of places Munro could hide and it’s going to take a while to conduct a completely thorough search. The bastard’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Not necessarily.” All eyes turned to Greer. “Think about it. The fake ambulance has clearance to be on the grounds—and to leave. What’s to have stopped them from backing the vehicle up in front of one of the side exits? With all this commotion, even with all the backup you called in, the officers can’t be everywhere at once.” She spread her hands. “Munro ducks out where they’re not.”

It seemed like a very simple explanation—and very doable. Greer continued. “The fake paramedics come back, pushing a gurney with a wounded victim. They load it and the bailiff into the back of the vehicle.” She snapped her fingers. “One, two, three, they’re gone and we’re still hunting for Munro.”

Brian frowned. It made sense. And he didn’t like it.

“Let’s hope they’re not as bright as you are.” But even as he said it, it was obvious to those around him that the chief of detectives knew there was a good chance that Greer was right. He offered his niece a quick smile. “Just glad you’re on our side,” he told her. Turning back to his men, he directed the new groups to fan out everywhere and double-check the locations, including the basement—just in case.

With everything being done that could be done, Blake decided that he might as well do as the chief advised and go home. But first, he needed to take care of a few things of his own.

Returning to the courtroom again, Blake went directly to his administrative assistant, an older woman who wore sensible shoes and nondescript suits that never called attention to her. To the casual observer, Edith Fields looked like the very prototype of what had once been referred to as a mere secretary. Edith was that and so much more.

The moment she saw him, the grandmother of six—two of whom she was raising herself—was on her feet. “Any news, Your Honor?” she wanted to know. Blake knew it had never pleased her that the wheels of justice ground slowly. She wanted every criminal to be thrown into jail quickly, and left there for the duration of a maximum sentence.

“We’re being sent home, Edith.”

The news was not received well. The woman looked down at the compact laptop that sat on her desk, opened and at the ready. She read one of the entries on the judge’s heavy schedule. “I could reschedule the Brown case, Your Honor.”

Left on his own, he would have said yes, but the day belonged to Chief Cavanaugh and the latter called the shots. Blake shook his head.

“No point. We need to clear out of the courthouse.” He saw that Edith was far from jubilant about the turn of events. “Think of this as an enforced holiday. I’m sure Joe could use a hand with Emily and Ross,” he said, mentioning the names of the two grandchildren who lived with Edith and her husband of forty-one years.

The woman had made it known more than once that she thought she was indispensable to his court. She sighed now, a child being sent to her room for no good reason. “If you say so, Your Honor.”

“The chief of detectives says so, Edith,” Blake corrected. He glanced over his shoulder. Just as he thought, the detective was still there, like a shadow he couldn’t cast off without taking drastic measures. “If you feel uneasy about leaving the courthouse, Edith,” he told the older woman, “I can have Detective O’Brien take you home.”

Greer blinked. Had he just volunteered her services without consulting her? She wasn’t part of his team, to be ordered about, she thought, irritated at his cavalier manner.

She was about to protest, but as it turned out, she didn’t have to. His administrative assistant dismissed the offer with a haughty wave of her hand.

“I’m a big girl, Judge. I stopped being afraid of thugs like Munro when I was in grammar school. He doesn’t scare me.” Her things packed, Edith nodded at her employer. “See you in the morning, Judge.”

Blake barely nodded. A moment earlier, he’d crossed to his desk and was about initiate the procedure that would power down his computer when the big, bold letters that were written across the monitor’s screen caught his attention.

And then raised his ire.

When he made no answer in response to his assistant, a woman he obviously held in warm regard, Greer looked at the judge. She saw the angry look that had darkened his features.

Kincannon was a formidable-looking man, she couldn’t help thinking. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted to find herself on the receiving end of that look. But right now, she was more curious as to what had caused it. It couldn’t be the ongoing situation because he seemed to have calmed down about that—unlike her.

Maybe, instead of throwing herself on top of Kincannon, the situation would have been better served if she’d had the wherewithal to tackle Munro and keep him from fleeing. Growing up with her brothers as playmates and partners in crime had taught her to be fearless, reckless and unafraid of pain if enduring pain resulted in achieving a desired outcome. In this case, it would have been preventing that poor excuse for a human being from making good his escape.

Greer took a second look at Kincannon’s expression. Something was off.

“What’s wrong?” she wanted to know. Not waiting for an answer, she rounded Kincannon’s desk and came up next to him. Since he was staring at the computer screen, Greer looked at it, as well. For a second, the words seemed too absurd to be real.

And then they were all too real.

Back off or you and your father are going to die. Slowly and painfully.

She thought Kincannon was going to hurl the laptop across the room, but he restrained himself. She heard him mutter angrily, “Brazen son of a bitch.”

There was no question that this had come from Munro. “Obviously, he believes in the family plan,” she commented. The next moment, she was hurrying out of the courtroom again.

Turning away from the courtroom in an attempt to create a pocket of privacy, Blake quickly took out his cell phone and turned it on. One of his pet peeves was cell phones that rang during court, but right now he was glad he had forgotten to leave his cell phone in the top desk drawer in his chambers. It saved him precious seconds he didn’t know if he could afford to waste. He was not about to continue underestimating Munro.

“C’mon, answer,” he ordered, addressing a man who wasn’t there. The message he’d left on the answering machine at home was just kicking in when he glanced toward the double doors in the rear and saw O’Brien coming back—and she had the chief with her. “Pick up, Dad,” Blake instructed through clenched teeth. “Pick up!”

And then he heard the receiver being lifted on the other end.

Thank God.

“Bad day in court?” he heard his father ask. “The story’s all over the TV,” Alexander Kincannon, retired marine sergeant and practicing malcontent, grumbled. “It preempted my show. What the hell kind of security have you got down there? Can’t even hang on to one skinny criminal?” he demanded.

Blake was not in the mood to get drawn into a lengthy discussion about how lax current law enforcement had gotten. He needed for his father to listen to him. “Dad, I don’t want you answering the door.”

He heard his father blow out an irritated breath. “What am I, twelve?”

For a second, Blake lost patience. “You’re a hundred and seven, but I want you to make it to a hundred and eight, Dad. Don’t answer the door, do I make myself clear?”

“Why?” the gravelly voice demanded, sounding significantly less combative than it had just a moment earlier.

Reaching the judge and able to make out what the person on the other end was asking, Brian raised his voice so that the judge could hear him over the loud voice on the cell phone. “Tell him I’m sending a patrol car over. It’ll be there in a few minutes.” He made eye contact with Kincannon. “We’ll keep him safe.”

Blake nodded his thanks toward the chief. “Dad, they’re sending a—”

“I heard, I heard.” Alexander cut him off. “I’m not deaf yet, you know.” And then a degree of excitement entered his voice. “This have anything to do with that pusher who took a powder?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.” Although, he added silently, he was pretty certain that it was. Blake heard his father sigh dramatically and then abruptly terminate the connection. Closing his own phone, Blake slipped it back into the pocket of his robe. He looked at Brian, his gratitude rising to the foreground. “Thank you.”

“Least I can do,” Brian acknowledged, then he nodded toward his niece. “Greer alerted me to the message you received on your laptop.” He lowered his eyes to the state-of-the-art computer on the judge’s desk. “I’m going to have to take it, Your Honor. Maybe one of our people can trace where the e-mail originated.” He knew for a fact that Brenda, his son Dax’s wife, would all but make a computer sit up and beg. Maybe she could pull this miracle off, as well.

Ordinarily, Blake might have protested about protecting the privacy of his court cases, but in this case, there was no need. Brian Cavanaugh was a veritable pillar of ethics. So he nodded, turning the laptop around and handing it over to the chief.

“Whatever you need,” he told the older man.

Brian closed the lid, securing it in place. “Right now, it’s what you need that’s important,” he corrected. “It looks as if this Munro character feels he has a specific beef with you that goes beyond his own case. As I heard it, you sent several of his people away with the maximum sentence when they were convicted a couple of years ago.”

Blake wanted no credit for serving justice. It was what it was. “Just doing my job, Chief.”

“And now I’m doing mine,” Brian countered. “You need protection, Judge.”

Blake did not savor relinquishing his privacy, but there was his father to think of, so he nodded.

“A patrol car making the rounds every hour or so should do it,” he speculated.

“What about the other fifty-nine minutes?” Brian asked mildly.

Blake’s eyes narrowed as he tried to follow the chief’s reasoning. “Excuse me?”

“The way I see it, Judge, until this drug dealer is caught, you’re going to need twenty-four-hour protection, not just a patrol car passing by every now and then.”

Blake didn’t want to argue, but he definitely didn’t want to acquiesce, either. “Isn’t that a little extreme, Chief?”

“Death is extreme, Judge, everything else is a distant second,” Greer pointed out, feeling that the chief could use a little verbal backup right about now. She could understand the desire to remain independent. In the judge’s place, she’d feel the same way. But Munro would think nothing of putting a bullet right between the judge’s eyes. It would seem like a crime to disfigure that noble profile with a bullet.

In return for her support, Greer saw the chief smile at her. She returned the smile, not recognizing the expression for what it was. Had she been part of the family longer, she might have known that the smile that was curving his mouth was the one Brian wore when he was about to deliver a very salient point, and triumphantly drive it home.

“I’m glad you feel that way, Greer.”

She might not have been able to pick up on the chief’s expressions, but there was something in his tone of voice that softly warned her she was in big trouble. Not the disciplinary kind, but the kind that meant she was on the verge of something she would regard as less than pleasant happening.

“Why, sir?” she asked her superior quietly, never taking her eyes off Brian’s face.

Even as Greer asked for clarification, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she knew why Brian had just expressed his satisfaction at her agreement.

“Because I’m assigning you to be Judge Kincannon’s bodyguard.”

It was hard to say which of them was more averse to the news they’d just received, she or Kincannon.

“I’m not going into hiding,” Blake protested with feeling.

“Nobody said anything about hiding,” Brian told him. With enough effort, they could keep the judge safe and still presiding over his courtroom. But it would be tricky. Which was why he felt that Greer was the person for the job. She was a self-starter who thought outside the box.

“Look, Chief Cavanaugh,” Blake began again, picking his words slowly, “I’m very grateful that you’re sending a car to watch over my father, but I’m not a helpless old man—”

He could just hear his father’s reaction to that description. At seventy-three, the former gunnery sergeant was still fit, still capable of pummeling someone to the ground with his fists as long as that someone didn’t tower more than six inches over him. There was nothing “ex” about this marine.

“A bullet is a great equalizer.”

Had that come out of her mouth? Greer thought suddenly. Even suppressing annoyance at the confining assignment she’d just been handed, she found herself still performing like a good little soldier. Pressing her lips together, she caught herself longing for the days that she’d been a rebel. A rebel wasn’t in danger of going comatose standing guard over someone. Being a bodyguard was only marginally better than being forced to sit in a car, maintaining surveillance on a suspect. She hated both assignments with a passion. Inactivity was not in her DNA.

But it looked like, judging by the chief’s expression, she was stuck.

Maybe so, she thought the next moment, but she wasn’t about to go down without a fight—or without going on record that she was less than thrilled with the assignment.

“That’s right, it is,” Brian agreed with Greer’s succinct assessment. He smiled at his niece, clearly appreciating the backup. “Now,” the chief continued, “until we finally catch this Munro character, you’re assigned to the judge.”

Finally. She didn’t know if she had as much faith in the wheels of justice as he apparently did. Finally could mean days, or, more likely, it could mean weeks. She didn’t want to spend weeks babysitting, even if the person she was watching over was an incredibly good-looking specimen of manhood.

She was a good detective. She belonged in the field, damn it, not hovering over the judge like some misguided shadow.

“Chief, could I have a word with you?” she requested as he began to walk away.

Rather than answer verbally, Brian beckoned her to follow him as he walked out of the courtroom. With the judge’s laptop tucked under his arm.

Chapter Four

Greer stared at the chief of detectives’ back as she followed him into the hallway. Considering the stress and pressure he was always under, the man exuded strength and energy.

There was a lot to live up to being a Cavanaugh, she thought. People expected you to be at the top of your game, sharp and in good physical condition at the same time. It just went with the territory.

For the most part, the commotion in the hallway had died down. The area was relatively empty now. People had been taken aside for questioning and the rest of the police who’d been summoned were scattered throughout the building, conducting an intense room-to-room search.

But her mind wasn’t on the hallway or what was happening beyond it. Greer’s mind was on what she was going to say to the chief and how she was going to say it in order to hopefully get him to see things her way.

She really didn’t want to take on this assignment and her primary reason didn’t even have anything to do with her staunch dislike of inactivity. It went far deeper than that.

It was times like these that she really wished she had Ethan’s golden tongue and his effortless ability to phrase things just right. But she didn’t. All she could do was state her case as best as possible and cross her fingers that it was good enough. Cross her fingers that the chief would understand and see things from her point of view.

Putting her request in the form of a plea wouldn’t carry any weight, she knew that. Even if it did, she didn’t think she was capable of resorting to begging. Begging wasn’t in her inherent makeup. She’d always taken her medicine and stoically faced up to her responsibilities, no matter what.

But in this case, it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to have to be the judge’s bodyguard. She was more than fairly certain that Kincannon wouldn’t want her hovering around him 24/7, or whatever ratio of time the chief decided that she had to put in. If the judge was forced to put up with a bodyguard—and from where she stood, she could see why it would be necessary—she was sure that she wouldn’t be the man’s first choice. Not by a long shot.

Brian abruptly stopped several feet beyond the courtroom’s double doors. Preoccupied, searching for the proper wording, Greer almost walked right into him. Catching herself, she stopped approximately an inch shy of colliding with her superior.

Sucking in her breath, she quickly backed up so that there was a decent amount of space between them. Under no circumstances did she want to appear to be crowding the man.

“Now, what is it you want to talk to me about?” Brian asked her genially.

By his tone and expression, the topic of conversation could have involved something personal and inconsequential. But Greer kept her guard up. He might be her uncle, but here, on the job, he was the man who was ultimately in charge. Family ties didn’t enter into it.

She reminded herself that, like the judge, Brian was tough, but fair. At best, she had a fifty-fifty chance. She’d had worse odds.

Greer forged ahead. “With all due respect, Chief, I’d rather you assigned someone else to be the judge’s bodyguard.”

“And why is that?” he asked her, his voice mild.

She cleared her throat, trying her best not to make this sound as if she was asking for preferential treatment, because she wasn’t.

“The judge and I…” She stumbled, then tried again. “We have some history.”

His expression never changed. “Were you lovers?”

Some of the air seemed to vanish from her lungs. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “No! No,” she repeated, doing her best to sound calm this time. “I…That is, he…”

It was not in his nature to make his people uncomfortable. That went double for family. Brian raised his hand, interrupting the halting flow of words. “If you’re about to refer to what I think you’re going to refer to, I’m well aware of your ‘history’ with the judge, Greer,” he told her.

She stared at him, stunned and at the same time, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to relive the ordeal by rendering a blow-by-blow description for him. “You are?”

The nod was almost imperceptible. “I made it a point to familiarize myself with your files—yours and your brothers’,” he clarified, not wanting her to think that he had singled her out for some reason. She was fairly new in this position and second-guessing was part of the process. He didn’t want to add a strong case of paranoia. “I like to know things about my family—and the people who ultimately work under me,” he explained, answering questions he knew she had to be thinking.

Greer took a breath. This had been easier than she thought. “So then you understand why I think it would be better if someone else was assigned to the judge?”

“No.”

The one word answer came out of nowhere and hit her like a detonating bomb. “No?” she echoed, hoping she’d heard wrong.

“No,” Brian repeated. His tone was mild, but there was no mistaking the firm undertone. “You are the most qualified to handle the job right now. You know the judge and, more importantly, you’re familiar with Munro, with the way he thinks, the way he acts.” That, he indicated, was of paramount importance. “That puts you several steps ahead of anyone else I’d assign to the detail,” he told her. “It only makes sense that I put you in charge.”

It might make sense to him, she thought, but that still didn’t make her comfortable with it. “Chief.” The single word packed all the appeal into it that she could muster.

The chief looked at her for a long moment, his gaze drying up whatever words she was planning to use. Drying up the words and her saliva, as well. It felt as if she had a mouthful of sand.

“You’re not asking me to give you special consideration, are you, Greer?” he finally asked.

God, she didn’t want him to think that. She shook her head with feeling. His tone had been low. Hers wasn’t. “No, sir.”

Brian’s smile was easy, pleasant. “Good, I didn’t think so.” About to turn away, he realized that he hadn’t finished yet. “How long will it take you to go home and pack some things?”

Somewhere distant in her head, she heard a door slamming. The door had bars on it. She was stuck. She was just going to have to make the best of it. “I’ve got a change of clothes in the car.”

The information had Brian’s smile widening. “You’re a Cavanaugh, all right. Always prepared.”

His compliment reminded her of something. Greer shifted slightly. “About that, sir?” she began, letting her voice trail off a little.

Brian waited.

There were seven of them, seven “new” members of the family. There were the four who belonged to his bride of a little more than a year, and then there were the three who none of them had been prepared for. Triplets who comprised his late brother Mike’s secret other family. Lila’s children, all adults and all on the force, went by her first husband’s surname while Greer and her brothers had her late mother’s. All seven were told that they were welcomed to change their names to Cavanaugh if they wanted to.

Name change or not, that was what they were. Cavanaughs. But the decision strictly belonged to the seven individuals involved. He’d heard that it was going to be an “all-or-nothing” deal. The “jury” was still out on which way they would ultimately lean.

Or maybe the jury was ready to come in, he thought, looking down at the young woman who reminded him so much of Mike’s daughter, Patience.

“Yes?” he prodded.

She pressed her lips together. “For my part, I’ve decided yes.”

“Yes?” he echoed, unclear if it was “yes” she’d change her surname to Cavanaugh or “yes,” she’d keep the one she already had.

“Yes,” she repeated. “If it were only up to me, I’d like to change my last name to Cavanaugh. It’d be an honor.”

“We’d all like that,” he assured her. “Especially Andrew. And the honor goes both ways,” he added. “Anything else?”

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