“Thank you for being a gentleman and walking me to my door,” Moira said.

Shaw shrugged away her words. She laughed and, one heel still acting as a doorstop, she raised herself slightly on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek.

The light touch of skin against skin instantly aroused him, placing Shaw on automatic pilot before he quite realized what was happening.

She drew her head back and looked up at him, her eyes staring into his soul. Had he been thinking clearly, he would have taken the opportunity to leave.

But he wasn’t.

He didn’t.

Instead, he took her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers as if it had been written somewhere that he should. As if it had been scripted….

Cavanaugh’s Woman
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To

Nancy Parodi Neubert

and

a friendship that goes back to

elementary school

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and twenty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

MEET THE CAVANAUGHS…

Detective Shaw Cavanaugh loves a good movie but when it comes to real life, there’s no room for actors. So when Moira decides to use him as research for her next film, he’s none too pleased. But then Shaw learns the hard way she’s more than a pretty face—she may just be the woman of his dreams!

Movie star Moira McCormick wants to shadow someone who won’t be starstruck and Shaw shows all evidence of fitting the bill. She likes his indifference to her and wonders if he’s hiding what she’s hiding—a lethal attraction.

Former police chief Andrew Cavanaugh loves his children and hides from them his secret quest to find his long-lost love. Fifteen years ago his wife disappeared and Andrew won’t give up hope that she’ll come home….

Rose “Claire” Cavanaugh went out for a drive fifteen years ago and found herself with a new identity and no recollection of her past. Can a kindly, handsome man who claims to be her husband bring her back to the fold?

Let’s not forget other members of the Cavanaugh brood:

Callie (Racing Against Time, IM#1249),

Clay (Crime and Passion, IM#1256),

Patrick (Internal Affair, Silhouette Books),

Rayne (Dangerous Games, IM#1274) and Teri (The Strong Silent Type, IM#1613).

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

The sound of the back door closing resounded through the morning air. The last of his offspring had gone off to work. Rising from the table, Andrew Cavanaugh struggled against the wall of loneliness that threatened to close on him.

Last night had been a surprise. He’d come home from the movies only to have Teri tell him that she was getting married. To her partner on the force—one Detective Jack Hawkins.

Of course, he had to admit that he’d seen it coming. Seen the way the young man had gazed at his middle daughter when he thought no one else was looking.

Probably just the same way he had looked at his Rose once. Right up until the day she’d vanished from his life more than fifteen years ago.

Andrew sighed as he gathered up the last of the breakfast dishes from the table. The others had already left to begin their day on the Aurora police force. The way he once had, before he retired.

Retirement was highly overrated.

Maybe he should start thinking about taking on consulting jobs, Andrew mused. At least that would keep him busy.

That made four now, he thought, stacking the dishes on the counter beside the sink. Four out of his five children were getting married soon, not to mention that Patrick, one of his four nephews, had suddenly decided to settle down, as well. All out of the blue, just like that. One minute they were too busy to draw two breaths together, much less get serious about someone; the next, they were making plans, making commitments. Moving on with their lives to the next level.

About time. He was thrilled for them.

Andrew paused, looking around the cheery kitchen. With the silence, he thought of how empty the house was going to seem soon.

It made him miss Rose all the more.

Maybe he should go back up there, he decided, to that little diner his youngest, daughter, Rayne, had discovered while working on one of her cases. The same diner where Rose had surfaced after all these years.

Except that it wasn’t Rose, at least not in her mind. The woman he had gone to see, to reclaim, didn’t remember who she was, didn’t remember the family they’d created. She’d stared at him blankly when he’d turned up at her garden apartment, armed with a book of photographs and the knowledge that she really was his long-lost wife. He covertly got a sample of her fingerprints and had them run against the ones found on her favorite book. That had given him that final tangible proof. She could wear any name tag she wanted pinned to the front of her pink-and-white uniform, call herself anything she pleased, but she was still his Rose.

As gently as he could, he’d tried to convince her of that. It frustrated him that all he’d managed to do was make her sunny smile disappear. She’d withdrawn into herself right before his eyes and become upset. So, while everything within him had begged him to stay until he could convince her she was who he said she was, Andrew had retreated. He’d left the mother of his children with the novel, a copy of Gone with the Wind, and his phone number in case things began coming back to her.

He’d hoped that she would have called him by now, but she hadn’t. Maybe if he went, tried to persuade her a little, that might do the trick….

Something caught his attention. Andrew stopped and cocked his head.

Was that the doorbell?

Telling himself he was probably hearing things, he nonetheless stopped rinsing the dishes before stacking them in the dishwasher and shut off the tap water. He walked a little closer to the front of the house.

The soft peal of the doorbell again disturbed the atmosphere. He grabbed a towel and dried his hands as he made his way to the front door. Slinging the towel over his right shoulder, Andrew reached for the doorknob and swung the door open. “What did you forget?”

The words hung in the air, mocking him, as he looked into the face of the woman who called herself Claire—the woman his heart knew was Rose.

The soft-spoken blonde on his doorstep looked nervous, vulnerable and more than a little wary. It took her a moment before she responded.

“Everything, apparently.”

It took Andrew longer to recover. He’d lived the last fifteen years imagining this very scenario from every possible angle. He’d envisioned Rose tired, jubilant, even contrite, but he’d never once thought there would be a vacant, confused look in her eyes.

He heard himself whisper the words in grateful awe. “You came.”

“I had to,” she confessed. When he went to take her arm to usher her in, Claire shrank back a little, then offered him a rueful look as she walked into the house unassisted. She hadn’t meant to flinch. Reflexes were responsible for that, reflexes that had been there when she’d woken up, not knowing who or where she was. “I had to see if there was some truth to this story you told me. If I really was this Rose Gallagher Cavanaugh you said I was.”

Even as she said the name, it meant nothing to her, created no spark, shed no light. Evoked no feeling of a connection, however distant, existing between her and this woman she was supposed to have been.

But there was something about this man’s eyes, something about the way he looked at her, that stirred a faraway, vague feeling, like a breeze blowing along a feather, moving it, but letting it remain where it was.

She wanted—no, needed—the feather to become airborne. She was tired of not knowing. Tired of being afraid.

“Not was,” Andrew corrected gently. “Are.”

Claire nodded, though not in agreement. She nodded in acknowledgment of his words. A sigh escaped her lips before she could stop it. For just the slightest moment, her guard was down.

“I’m so tired of not knowing.”

Andrew’s mind began to race, making plans. “Can you stay the day?”

He didn’t dare hope for more. But even in that short amount of time, he could gather the clan together. Maybe seeing them in person, hearing their voices, might jar something loose for her, might make her start to remember. He knew nothing about amnesia except for what he’d read on the subject in the past few days. This was all virgin territory for him, but he meant to conquer it. Meant to have his Rose back in mind, not just in body.

“I can stay longer than that.”

Claire looked around slowly, taking in everything, searching for a memory that wasn’t there. From what she could see, it was a comfortable house, warm, inviting, so much larger than what she was accustomed to.

But there was no feeling of homecoming, no subtle suggestion to her subconscious that this was the journey’s end. That her questions were finally going to have answers she could accept.

Nothing.

She looked at him again, this man with his blue-gray, hopeful eyes. “I told Lucy I’m taking that vacation I was always putting off,” she said, referring to the woman who was both her boss and her best friend, the woman who had given her shelter when she’d wandered in off the road, frightened and lost, all those years ago. “She told me to take as long as I liked, seeing as how I had over two months coming to me.”

Two months. He had two months, Andrew thought. That should be enough time to make her remember. He’d make it be enough time.

“You can stay in Callie’s old room,” he told her, pointing out the way.

Claire merely nodded and followed him.

“You have any idea what this is about?” Detective Shaw Cavanaugh asked his partner Detective Steven Reese as they walked to the office of the chief of detectives.

A half head shorter than his partner, Reese ran a hand along the two-day-old stubble on his chin. It never ceased to amaze Shaw that Reese always seemed to be sporting two days’ worth of stubble—no more, no less. Reese claimed it was sexy. Shaw saw it as an excuse not to shave on a regular basis.

Reese’s broad shoulders rose and fell beneath a jacket that was a tad less than fashionable. “Hey, Chief Cavanaugh’s your uncle, not mine.”

Shaw shook his head. If this was remotely personal, Uncle Brian would have called him up at home, or even dropped by his apartment. In his family, they all enjoyed that kind of an easy relationship with one another, feeling free to pop up on each other’s doorstep whenever the need arose. This was something different, something work related.

“I don’t think his being my uncle has anything to do with this.”

At the precinct, personal family structure was forgotten. They were all brothers and sisters under the uniform. The fact that nine of them, not counting the chief, were related by blood just made them a shade closer, that was all. But at the moment, their closeness didn’t help shed any light for Shaw on what was going on.

“Maybe the chief is going to ask how come you haven’t succumbed to Cupid’s arrows like the rest of your family.” Reese smirked. “And he’s invited me along to throw your suspicions off.”

Shaw rolled his eyes even though he knew that scenario wasn’t even remotely possible. “Shut up. I get enough of that from my father.”

It was all well-meaning, Shaw knew. His father worried about him. Worried that while Callie, Teri and Rayne, not to mention Clay, had all found their soul mates, Shaw’s own love life had been on the low-key.

So low-key that at times it didn’t even register a pulse. But then, he’d always been the serious one in his family. He didn’t believe in partying, or in wasting someone’s time if he had no intentions of becoming serious with that person. And he had no intentions of ever getting serious because being a policeman meant maintaining a tenuous partnership with death. It rode in your squad car with you every day and could claim you at any time, without warning. Coming to terms with one’s mortality was hard enough; asking someone else to accept it was out of the question. He didn’t want a wife to make that sacrifice with him.

His uncle Mike had died while on the job and he’d seen his best friend killed in the line of duty. To make matters worse, his best friend had been engaged to his sister Callie at the time a bullet had cut him down. Shaw had watched, unable to help his sister work her way through the almost paralyzing heartache and grief that followed.

Shaw had sworn never to put anyone he cared about in a position to grieve over him. The only way to avoid this was by not getting involved in the first place. As far as he was concerned, he was doing fine. He just had to convince everyone else of that.

Shaw looked at his partner sharply, replaying part of the man’s last words. Reese talked as if he knew that his brother and sisters were committed to marching down the aisle and plighting their everlasting love. At last count, Teri hadn’t been among that group. That was this morning’s news.

His eyes narrowed to two bright blue slits. “How did you know?” They’d been partners for three years and in that time, Shaw felt as if Reese had learned to read him better than most husbands could read their wives. But this went beyond the norm.

“About Teri?” Reese offered him a gleaming white, toothy grin. “Haven’t you heard? Word travels fast around here.” He shook his head in wonder. “Gotta admit, though, it was one of the first times I’ve ever seen Hawk grin. Kinda scary.”

Shaw laughed shortly. “That’s because Teri hasn’t cooked for him yet.”

Reese’s laugh echoed his partner’s. “Like your father would ever let her get close to the stove. He’ll just set another place at the table,” he predicted. A small note of longing entered his voice. “You Cavanaughs don’t know how lucky you’ve got it. Only thing my old man knew how to make was TV dinners—and he usually burned them.”

The lament bore no weight with Shaw. “Hey, you know you’ve got a standing invitation to the house, day or night. Nothing my dad likes better than feeding a fellow cop.”

Before he’d retired, Andrew Cavanaugh had worked his way up through the ranks to become chief of the entire Aurora Police Department. It was a known fact that he thought of all the officers on the force as members of his extended family. His door was always open and his table was always available.

Reese paused. They were standing right in front of the chief’s door. Sobering somewhat, he glanced at his taller, handsomer partner.

“You sure you didn’t do anything that would get us called out on the carpet?”

Shaw’s eyes met his. There was barely a hint of amusement in them as he said, “Other than have you for a partner, no.”

Never one to hesitate, Shaw knocked on the door once, then opened it. He didn’t bother waiting for an invitation.

Shaw was fortunate that the man wasn’t in the middle of talking, or else he might have been in danger of swallowing his tongue.

Or, at the very least, gagging on it.

His uncle Brian was not alone.

Rather than sitting at his desk, surrounded by piles of papers, Brian Cavanaugh, considered more than passingly handsome and a great deal younger-looking than his fifty years of age, stood on the far side of his desk, talking to a striking-looking blonde, who sat opposite him.

Even as Shaw took in the scene, the blonde turned and looked directly at him with the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

The second before he collected himself, Shaw felt as if a four-hundred-pound linebacker had just jumped on his chest before grabbing the game-winning football away from him.

The woman wore a light blue, two-piece suit. Powder-blue, he thought it was called by people, such as his sisters, who had more than six colors within their mental repertoire. Whatever the color was called, it appeared that most of the material had been used up making the jacket because there was precious little left over for the skirt.

Not that he would have registered a complaint with anyone. The less skirt there was, the more leg was visible. And he had to admit that the woman had the longest, shapeliest legs he’d ever seen.

Belatedly, Shaw realized that his saliva had completely disappeared. Which made up for the fact, he supposed, that Reese stood beside him, almost visibly drooling.

A vague feeling buzzed around in his slightly disoriented brain that he recognized the woman from somewhere, although for the life of him, Shaw couldn’t have said where. He supposed if it mattered, his uncle would fill him in. If it didn’t matter, he didn’t need to be wasting time trying to remember.

Like a five-star general who finally saw the key members of his army come into view, Brian Cavanaugh clapped his hands together.

“And here they are now,” the chief said, although it was obvious that while he said “they,” he was looking at only one of them. He was looking at Shaw.

Shaw nodded a respectful greeting toward his uncle, then let his eyes move back toward the woman.

Was this a personal case his uncle wanted to be handled discreetly?

It didn’t seem very likely, but stranger things had turned out to be true. Since he and Reese were assigned to Vice and Narcotics, he wondered just what this woman’s connection was to the shady world that he was sometimes required to travel through. The mistress of an up-and-coming drug lord, ready to turn state’s evidence in exchange for immunity and a new identity?

Or was there a more personal connection?

He stopped speculating and decided to wait out his uncle, who was smiling wider than ever.

Shaw then became aware that his venerable partner, the man he relied on to guard his back and be the other set of eyes to sharply watch the mean streets, had stopped breathing. Reese had sucked in one long breath and then nothing.

Shaw turned to look at him and saw that Reese’s brown eyes were all but riveted to the blonde. Turning his back ever so slightly toward her, Shaw lowered both his head and his voice as he asked, “Reese, you okay?”

All Reese could manage was a slightly wooden nod. His eyes never left the woman’s face.

Shaw heard his uncle clear his throat and realized the man was doing it to hide a laugh. Brian was laid-back, but ordinarily all business during working hours.

Just what the hell was going on here?

He noted that the woman looked a little concerned, rather than amused, by the obvious effect she was having on Shaw’s partner. Maybe she wasn’t as accustomed to men becoming tongue-tied, drooling and breathless around her as he’d thought.

“Would you like some water?”

Her voice was lyrical.

He’d half expected her to have a grating voice. It would have been nature’s way of balancing things out. Someone as beautiful as this woman couldn’t possibly have the voice of an angel. But she did. An angel who originated from somewhere in the deep South if his ear served him right. There was just the smallest hint of a Georgia lilt to her tone.

Or maybe he was just hallucinating. What the hell had gotten into him today?

When his partner made no response to her question, she pulled her lips back in a quick grin. Shaw had seen lighthouse beacons that possessed less wattage.

And then, as if by some miracle, Reese came back from the dead. “Are you—? Are you—?”

Shaw snorted in abject disgust. His partner, known for his interrogation skills, couldn’t even complete a simple four-word sentence.

The green-eyed goddess-on-earth apparently understood his garbled attempt at communication. She smiled again and said, “Yes, I am.”

Well, that cleared up nothing, Shaw thought, beginning to get annoyed.

He took police work very seriously. Every moment he was here, watching an episode of High School Confidential unfold was a moment he wasn’t sending the bad guys to jail.

Just what was it they were doing here? Shifting impatiently, Shaw looked to his uncle for a logical explanation.

“My nephew doesn’t get to the movies very much,” the chief told her.

What did going to the movies have to do with anything?

And then it hit him.

Shaw suddenly remembered where he’d seen the woman’s face before. Not in some covertly taken photograph of a drug lord with his high-priced mistress, but looking down at him from the giant screen of his local movie theater. Callie had dragged him there a little more than a month ago to view some romantic comedy whose name and plot escaped him at the moment.

Beside him Reese had returned from the land of the living zombies and rediscovered his tongue. His partner hit his shoulder with the back of his hand, as if that would make him return to his senses.

As if he’d been the one to leave them, Shaw thought, regain control over himself. She was a woman, a mortal woman, even if she did look like a goddess.

“Don’t you know who this is, Cavanaugh?” Reese demanded. “This is Moira McCormick.”

And that and two dollars, Shaw thought, singularly unimpressed, would get him a ride on the bus.

Chapter Two

He wasn’t impressed by her.

Good, Moira thought.

She didn’t want him to be impressed. While the reaction of the man standing next to the chief of detectives’ nephew was sweet and more than a little flattering, ultimately it would only get in the way of what she wanted. She needed to get inside her character, and to do that, she needed a clear, unobstructed view of what life was like for a member of the vice squad. Moira McCormick believed in doing her homework and this was homework. Homework was never effectively dealt with when you were busy having a good time.

She’d spent a good deal of her life focusing on becoming exactly what she was, a highly regarded film star who was, thankfully, in great demand. That wasn’t something that had come easily. She certainly hadn’t arrived at her present position in life by sitting around, allowing others to fawn on her while she lapped up well-meaning but, for the most part, empty compliments.

Making her dream a reality took work. She worked hard to make it all look easy, effortless. And she had a feeling that it was going to take a lot of effort to make this unsmiling detective with the piercing blue eyes come around to her side of the table.

“You haven’t heard of me,” she concluded.

“I’ve heard of you.” In the last seven years, he’d seen maybe five movies. He believed in other forms of diversion. If he needed to knock off some steam, he turned to sports. He loved basketball and baseball the most, but almost any sport, other than golf, would do. To him, playing golf seemed too much like standing on the sidelines. Maybe that was why movies seemed such a waste of time to him. Plunking down money for a two-hour vicarious experience had never really sat right with him.

But he knew who she was. He would have had to be living in a cave not to.

Still, if she was expecting him to turn into a puddle of pulsating semisolid flesh, the way Reese apparently had, she was in for a disappointment.

Moira nodded. The detective’s reply had an air of finality to it. Which meant he wasn’t going to gush.

Which meant he was perfect.

She still had doubts about his partner, though, but that could be handled. Worst-case scenario, she could get Chief Cavanaugh to reassign the shorter detective to another partner for the time being.

She wanted the stubborn one. In her gut, she knew he’d be the one to show her the ropes, the one who wouldn’t sugarcoat things. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Flashing another brilliant smile, Moira turned toward the chief of detectives. “You’re right. He’s perfect.”

Shaw didn’t like the sound of this. Wary, feeling like someone who’d just been blindfolded and pushed out onto a very thin tightrope, he looked from the movie star to his uncle.

“Perfect for what? What’s going on here, Chief?” For the first time he saw that the woman had a small, thick spiral notebook on the desk in front of her. She was making notations in it. “Why’s she doing that?”

“Ms. McCormick is about to make a movie dealing with an inner-city vice squad,” Brian said cautiously.

“Good for her,” Shaw bit off.

His uncle looked at him sharply and Shaw inclined his head by way of a minor apology. It was just that he didn’t see the point of making movies about the kinds of thing he and Reese dealt with on a daily basis. At best, his work could be described as long spates of monotony interrupted by pockets of adrenaline-rushing moments comprised of sheer danger and terror. If portrayed accurately, no one would come to see the movie because the kind of life they led was boring ninety-seven percent of the time. If not portrayed accurately, why bother making the movie at all? In his experience, movies such as the one his uncle was describing were just excuses to blow up a lot of things.

He had no use for that kind of so-called entertainment.

Shaw turned his attention back to the woman who was watching him so intently. Was she expecting him to perform tricks? He wasn’t about to be anyone’s trained monkey or stooge.

“You know, I’m a huge fan,” his partner was saying, taking Moira’s small hand in his and shaking it again. “I’ve seen all your movies.”

Very carefully, she managed to extricate her hand without giving offense. That, too, was training from way back when.

“So you’re the one.” She laughed.

Reese looked at her, his face a mask of confusion. Moira McCormick’s movies broke records. There was even talk of there being an Oscar nomination for her last role as a turn-of-the-century Irish freedom fighter. How could she downplay attendance?

“What? Oh, that’s a joke?” And then Reese laughed as if he’d just caught the humor of it. He looked up at her much like a puppy looked at its master.

Shaw struggled not to scowl. He’d never seen Reese like this. Just showed you never really knew a person. His impatience began to break through.

“So you want to do what? Ask us questions? Pick our brains?” He glanced at his partner. “Such as they are,” he added.

Moira exchanged looks with the chief. It was clear that she wanted to take the lead here. “Actually, I’d like to do more than that.”

He really didn’t like the sound of this. He especially didn’t like the fact that his uncle had obviously yielded center stage to this Hollywood bit of fluff.

“More?” he echoed. “More as in how?”

“As in riding along with you for the next week or so.” She uttered every word as if it were a sane request.

If granted at all, ride-alongs were usually conducted by patrol officers along routes they knew ahead of time were going to be safe, or as safe as could be hoped for. He and Reese did not patrol fantasyland. They went where the action was.

This time, he scowled darkly at her. “During work hours?”

Moira had a feeling she was being challenged. Nothing made her feel more alive. It reminded her of the old days. “That would be the point.”

“Oh, no, no. Sorry, out of the question. We don’t do taxi service.”

Brian took a step forward, his message clear. Shaw was to toe the line.

“Shaw—” Brian began, then looked surprised as Moira held up her hand, unconsciously silencing him. Ever since she could remember, she was accustomed to fighting every battle for herself. She’d come here looking for resistance, because only a real, dedicated detective was going to be of use to her.

“You wouldn’t be driving me around. I’d be an observer. You wouldn’t even know I was there,” Moira assured him.

The way she looked at him made Shaw feel as if there was no one else in the room. He supposed that was part of her attraction. And her weapon. He shook himself mentally free.

“I highly doubt that.”

A man would have to be dead three days to be oblivious to her. He saw amusement play along her lips. Shaw deliberately shifted his eyes toward his uncle, who seemed rather amused by the whole exchange. Had everyone gone crazy? Shaw shifted, his body language asking for a private audience with his uncle.

“With all due respect, sir, wouldn’t she be better off observing another woman?” He thought of his sister. Now there was someone who wouldn’t mind serving as tour guide. She had the patience, the temperament for it. “Callie, for instance—”

Brian shook his head. “None of the female detectives are in Vice and Vice is what Ms. McCormick wants to observe.”

“Then team her up with another pair of detectives,” he suggested firmly.

Reese made a strange, protesting noise that sounded like the gurgle of a castaway going down for the third time.

Moira hardly heard the other man. Her attention was focused on Shaw. It was this man or no one.

“I don’t want another pair of detectives,” she told him, rising to her feet and looking up into his eyes. She wasn’t a short woman, but he made her feel like one. Was he protesting because this arrangement would make his girlfriend jealous? “I want this pair.”

“No offense, ma’am,” he said evenly, “but what you want really doesn’t concern me.”

Ma’am, she thought. If she tried hard, she could almost see him tipping the brim of an off-white Stetson. Because this man was off-white, not the pure hero type, not quite the black-hearted loner he made himself out to be.

It’s going to be fun, getting under your skin, Detective Cavanaugh, she thought. And fun was part of the reason she was in this business. The money was the other, because without money, she wouldn’t be able to take care of those who needed caring for.

“It does this time, Detective,” Brian told his nephew sternly. “Ms. McCormick requested a detective who wasn’t going to get bowled over by the fact that she earns her living making films.” He looked at Reese. “I’m assuming that you’ll be able to pull yourself together and do the department proud by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Moira repeated. She was clearly disappointed. At least that was something, Shaw thought. “I was hoping we could get started today.”

Brian shook his head. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by being unreasonable. “I think Detective Cavanaugh would appreciate a day’s head start to prepare for this ‘role’ himself. Wouldn’t you, Detective?”

“At least,” Shaw muttered. That gave him a little less than twenty-four hours to come up with an excuse, he thought.

Moira had learned long ago to take disappointment well. It was in her nature to roll with any punch that was thrown. A nomadic life with a con-artist father who was always one step in front of the law had taught her that.

She nodded, glancing at her perfect candidate’s partner. She knew if it was up to Detective Reese, they would get started this moment. But Detective Cavanaugh was the one who piqued her interest.

“Fine. Bright and early tomorrow morning, then?” she asked Shaw.

“Bright and early,” Shaw responded. The words squeezed themselves out through teeth that were tightly clenched.

Damn it. Why him? Why, of all the available candidates in the precinct, had he been the one to have gotten the short straw? He hadn’t even picked it, it had been thrust into his hand. Any one of the others would have been happy about having this motivation-seeking pain-in-the-butt riding around with them. His uncle had only to look around to know that.

For the remainder of the day, from what Shaw could see, Moira McCormick stayed at the precinct, initially getting a grand tour from his uncle, then being handed off to another beaming detective, Ed Rafferty. The latter, usually the personification of grumpiness, was beaming from ear to ear as he took her from one department to the other. Ordinarily, Rafferty spent his time behind a desk since a bullet had found him one dreary twilight, giving him a permanent limp and an overwhelming desire to remain among the living.

From the sound of it, Moira McCormick had an unending supply of questions. Great. Just what he needed, Shaw thought miserably.

Shaw steered clear of the traveling circus with its growing audience. For most of the day, he wasn’t even in the precinct. A snitch known to him only as Barlow had called offering up for sale a tiny piece of the current puzzle he and Reese were pondering. Shaw had bought the information from him, telling Barlow to secure more. He and Reese were following up on what had started out as a simple prostitution bust and was turning out to be a rather intricate sex-for-hire ring that dealt with underage prostitutes.

There were days when the good guys won and days when the bad guys did. This, Shaw thought, stretching out his legs before him as he sank into his chair, was one for the bad guys.

Maybe it would be better tomorrow.

And then he remembered. Tomorrow Miss Hollywood would be in his car. Tomorrow would definitely not be better. The only thing he could hope for was that she would quickly tire of playing the role of researcher. He’d given one more try at talking his way into a reprieve, but his uncle wasn’t about to grant it.

“Look, it’s for the good of the city,” Brian had said. “They’re going to be filming a lot of the outdoor shots here. That’s going to bring in a great deal of money, Shaw. Money’s good for the local economy, good for the force. Salaries don’t come from the tooth fairy.”

The discussion, Shaw knew, had been doomed from the get-go.

Contemplating tomorrow, his mood hadn’t been the best. It got decidedly worse in the afternoon when he’d walked into the precinct and saw her standing in the middle of a wide circle of his fellow officers. She signed autographs and behaved like a benevolent queen bestowing favors on her subjects.

As he’d gone toward his cubicle, Moira McCormick had turned her head in his direction and their eyes had met over the heads of the officers around her. She smiled at him, directly at him, and something had stirred inside his gut.

Probably the chili he’d grabbed for lunch.

He had to get something better than lunch wagon fare, Shaw told himself as he’d sunk into his chair.

Reese, he noted, stayed behind with the throng around Moira.

There had to be a way to get out of this.

But even as he thought about it, Shaw knew it wasn’t possible. Once his uncle made up his mind, that was it. Brian Cavanaugh didn’t say things just to hear himself talk. And there was the matter of the extra revenue to the city coffers. Times were tough. No one was going to turn his back on money.

A week. It would be over in a week. He had to keep telling himself that.

“Hey, Shaw, I just heard about your new assignment.”

He didn’t have to look up to know that the gleeful voice belonged to his brother. Clay dropped into the chair beside his desk, grinning broadly.

“Always said that Uncle Brian liked you best.” Clay glanced over his shoulder toward the movie star and the ever-increasing crowd around her. “Just never thought you’d hit the jackpot like this.”

He didn’t bother asking where Clay had gotten his information about the ride-along. Rumors flew around the precinct faster than a hummingbird gathering breakfast and there had been over eight hours for the news to get out. If he didn’t miss his guess, it had probably been all over the precinct within the first ten minutes.

“No jackpot,” he told Clay evenly. “It’s just a damn annoying baby-sitting assignment.”

“Some baby.” Clay hooted with the proper amount of appreciation. “Moira McCormick can play at being my baby anytime.”

Before Clay had settled down and lost his heart to Ilene, he’d been involved with more women than could be found in the population of any given Alaskan town. Now that he thought of it, this kind of assignment was definitely more up his brother’s alley than his, Shaw decided, but he knew there was no use in suggesting it to his uncle.

Picking up a paper clip from a caddy on his desk, Shaw began to straighten it out. “I’m sure Ilene will be thrilled to hear that.”

At the mention of his fiancée’s name, Clay sobered ever so slightly. Shaw knew that there was no way his brother would jeopardize what he had for something as insignificant as a fling with a movie star, or anyone else, no matter how tempting—and this woman gave the word temptation a whole new, deeper meaning. However, Clay’s wild-oat-sowing days were now behind him.

Unlike him, Shaw thought. Wild-oat sowing had never been in his makeup. He vaguely wondered if he was missing something, then dismissed the thought.

“Hey,” Clay protested, “don’t get me wrong—”

Shaw laughed, tossing aside the wavy paper clip. “Easy, stop sweating. I’m not going to tell Ilene you became a drooling moron like Reese, at least not until there’s something in it for me.”

He flashed his brother a grin, then looked over toward where Moira was still holding court. The crowd around her just kept getting larger and nosier. He knew that some of the men had called their wives, who promptly put in an appearance. So far, Moira was taking it all with good grace, but then, wasn’t that what movie stars liked? Adulation?

Shaw blew out a breath. “Look, what’s the big deal? So she’s beautiful, so what? Beauty is only skin deep. Take that away and what do you have?”

Clay looked over his shoulder again and sighed. When he looked back at Shaw, there was a slightly lopsided smile curving his lips. “A damn sexy skeleton, I’m willing to bet.”

“Any way you can ask Brian for this assignment?”

Clay vehemently shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s all I need—to tell Ilene I’m going to be riding around in my car with Moira McCormick at my elbow.”

He thought of his brother’s fiancée. “Why should that be a problem? Ilene’s a gorgeous woman.”

“No argument, but she’s not a movie star.”

Shaw laughed shortly, picking up another paper clip and going to work on it. “Thank God.”

“You know what I mean.” The sound of Moira’s laughter floated back to them, somehow managing to rise above the din. Shaw’s frown only deepened as Clay said, “There’s an aura around them.”

“They’re people, same as you and me. Two hands, two feet, one head, a torso in between. Same parts.”

“But they look better.”

If he didn’t know better, he would have said that Clay was smitten with the paper person at the other end of the room.

“That’s lighting, nothing more. And without it, they fall apart. Actors tend to be illusions. You want to know why the good ones are so good at what they do, why they can take on other roles so easily?” Warming to his subject, Shaw leaned forward. “Because they have no substance of their own, nothing to rework. They’re shape-shifters, Clay, as interesting as the parts they play—nothing more.” He paused. A strange look flashed across Clay’s face, half amusement, half unease. “What’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

And then he felt a hand on his shoulder and knew the reason for Clay’s odd expression before he ever heard her say a thing. “Not a ghost. A shape-shifter, I think you called me.”

Shaw slowly turned his chair around. Moira McCormick was standing behind his desk. The entourage that had been hovering around her had melted into the background, watching the exchange like an audience in search of entertainment.

By the looks on their faces, he’d delivered, big-time.

“I was talking in general terms,” Shaw said.

“I think it was an apt description,” she replied cheerfully. “Shape-shifter.” Moira rolled the word on her tongue, as if testing how it felt. “I like it.” She lowered her voice as she nodded toward the others behind her. “And I like the fact that you didn’t join in back there.”

“I’m not a joiner.”

“I sensed that.” She made herself comfortable on the edge of his desk. “A rebel, right?”

“No, just an average Joe, out to earn a living.”

“That’s not what your uncle said.” Brian Cavanaugh had nothing but glowing words for the man he’d coupled her with. There were a number of good things to be said about Steven Reese, as well, but to an extent, the latter had negated it with his clear case of adoration.

“The chief says a lot of things.” Shaw rose, taking care not to brush against her as he did. For once, he was going home early. He couldn’t get anything done here, not with these hyenas hovering about, ready to burst out laughing. “Good night.”

“Good night.” As she watched him leave, she couldn’t help thinking that the man she’d selected had a very nice posterior. She was going to enjoy watching him walk away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Shaw said nothing. It was a prophecy he really wished he could avert.

As he left the room, he heard Moira saying something to his brother. Clay began to laugh in response.

It was going to be a long week.

Chapter Three

If he had any intention of dwelling on the scene he’d just left, or on the woman who was going to be disrupting his life for the next week, Shaw found he had no time. His cell phone was ringing before he reached his car in the lot.

Digging it out of his pocket, he flipped open the lid. “Cavanaugh.”

“Shaw, I need you to come home.”

Twilight began to whisper along the fringes of the tree-lined parking lot. Shaw stopped walking, stopped thinking about how much Moira McCormick was going to impede his current investigation. His father was on the other end of the call and there was definitely something wrong. His father rarely, if ever, called during working hours.

Shaw couldn’t begin to fathom his tone. He could usually read his father like a well-loved book. Concern nudged at the edges of his mind. “Dad, is there something wrong?”

There was a pause, but no explanation followed. “Just come home. Now.”

Shaw didn’t waste time asking any more questions. He knew his father wasn’t given to drama. Whatever was going on, it was important.

“I’ll be right there,” he promised. Shutting his cell, Shaw was in his car and on the open road in less time than it took to think through the process.

He wouldn’t allow his mind to explore possibilities. The closest his father had ever come to sounding so urgent was when Uncle Mike had been fatally shot.

But no one at the precinct had said anything. If there was an officer down, much less a member of his own family, word would have gotten to him by now. Uncle Brian would have called him into his office immediately.

The more Shaw thought, the more he realized that the only other time his father had sounded so somber was when he’d gathered the family together to tell them that their mother’s car had been found at the bottom of the river. His father had gone on to say that there was every hope in the world that she had somehow managed to survive the accident.

That was his father, an optimist to the end even though he wasn’t usually vocal about it.

Even as the years went by and no clue of Rose Cavanaugh’s survival came to light, his father had never, ever given up hope that someday she would come walking through the front door to take back her place in their lives.

Waiting at a stoplight, Shaw scrubbed his hand over his face. Hell of a man, his father. Shaw didn’t know how he would have handled losing his wife that way and being left to raise five kids to boot. Shaw smiled to himself. He had to hand it to the old man—they didn’t make ’em like that anymore.

He wondered if Andrew Cavanaugh knew that he was his kids’ hero. Probably not.

As he approached his father’s house, Shaw saw that other cars were ahead of him. A quick scan told him that Callie, Rayne and Teri had gotten there ahead of him. One glance in his rearview mirror indicated Clay’s vehicle was right behind him.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have disturbed him. His father used any excuse to get them all together beyond the call to breakfast that he issued every day. Like as not, most mornings would find him making a pit stop at the family house, not so much for the food, which was always good, as for the company. Granted, he and his siblings all went their separate ways—his father encouraged that. But something always pulled them together no matter how independent they were.

His father had taught them that roots were by far the most important things in life. If you had deep enough roots, you could withstand any kind of storm that came your way.

Shaw couldn’t help wondering if there was a storm coming, or if it had already arrived.

After parking beside the mailbox, just behind Callie’s vehicle, Shaw got out of his car just as Clay pulled up behind him.

His brother was quick to climb out, slamming the door in his wake. One look at his brother’s face told him that Clay was as puzzled as he was for this sudden summons to return home.

“You have any idea what this is all about?” Clay asked.

Shaw shook his head. “Only that Dad said to come home.”

“Not like him to be so dramatic,” Clay speculated, frowning and falling into place beside him.

Because he was the oldest and the others looked to him to set the tone, Shaw remained deliberately low-keyed. “Maybe Teri’s changed her mind about Hawk,” he deadpanned, then nodded toward the door. “Only one way to find out.”

Neither one of them bothered to knock. They all had their keys, something their father insisted on. This had been their first home and it would remain their home no matter how far away they went. For Andrew, it was as simple as that.

“Okay, Dad, what’s the big mystery?” Clay called out, following Shaw into the living room.

Clay stopped dead right behind his brother.

His sisters were already in the room along with their father. They all sat on the sofa, smiling but looking far more subdued than Shaw ever remembered seeing them. The reason was seated rigidly on the recliner their father favored.

A ghost from the past.

The polite but strained conversation stopped the moment he and Clay entered the room.

For a single second, Shaw’s heart stopped beating as he was thrown back in time, then pushed forward to the present again. Hardly daring to breathe, he looked from the woman to his father, who nodded.

He wasn’t a police detective anymore, he was a son. A son whose missing mother had turned up in his living room.

They were already aware that Rose Cavanaugh was alive. His father had told them of Rayne’s discovery, of going up and seeing for himself the woman who answered to the name of Claire. He had wanted to persuade her to come home with him. Shaw also knew that the woman claimed not to have any memory of them.

Shaw could see a great deal of unresolved emotion in his father’s eyes. He could also see that while she was looking straight ahead at them, trying to smile, the woman who didn’t appear to know she was his mother was digging her fingertips into the leather armrests.

“And these are your sons, Shaw and Clay,” Andrew told her.

The woman inclined her head, rising slightly from her seat, and succeeded in smiling at them. At him. Smiling at him with his mother’s smile.

Shaw had no idea what to feel, what to think.

And then she shook her head, sorrow in her eyes as she turned them toward his father. Her apology throbbed with emotion, with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember them, either.”

Andrew nodded, resigned but ever hopeful. “You will,” he promised. “It’ll take time but you will.” He didn’t have a single strain of doubt in his voice. Andrew looked at his sons. There was triumph in his expression. “Boys, Claire has agreed to stay here with us for a while.”

Shaw raised his eyes toward his father, waiting for an explanation. Questions began to form in his mind.

“Claire?” he echoed.

“It’s my name,” the woman told him quietly. “At least, that’s the only name I’ve known for the past fifteen years.”

Her voice was soft, like his mother’s voice. Shaw felt an ache take hold. There was nothing he could do to fix this except ride it out. Compassion welled up within him. He sincerely felt for his father.

Unable to hold back any longer, Rayne was on her feet, standing in front of Claire. “That’s because you disappeared fifteen years ago,” she insisted. “You are our mother, you are his wife. Why can’t you see that?”

Her voice broke even as Shaw crossed to her. Ever protective of his siblings, especially of Rayne, who’d always been the most troubled and the most tormented by all this, he put his arm around his sister.

“This is why we never let you become a psychiatrist,” he teased, trying to lighten the moment if only a fraction. He kissed the top of her head, then he gave her a quick, heartfelt squeeze. Rayne had been the one the most vocal in her suffering when her mother had disappeared after the accident. The youngest, she’d been the most attached. “It’s going to be all right, Rayne,” Shaw promised. He looked at his mother. “It’s just going to take time, but we’ll all be there for you. For each other.”

Claire seemed filled with remorse that she didn’t know them. “I’m so sorry I can’t—”

On his feet, Andrew cut her short. “That’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“Now here’s something you should remember.” Taking her cue from the others, Teri tried to keep the conversation on a light, upbeat path. “Dad always has a corny saying to reinforce his points.”

Claire smiled bravely at these strangers around her. She’d been alone for so long, both physically and mentally. Alone, yet haunted by memories that refused to form beyond specters. To believe that there was a family waiting for her, ready to accept her with open arms, was more like a fantasy than reality.

But even so, she couldn’t make the wall keeping her from her past come down, couldn’t even chip away at it until there was the slightest clink in the mortar. Couldn’t access anything beyond the time she regained consciousness, found herself dripping wet and walking along a highway.

Going from nowhere to nowhere.

Andrew looked at the faces of his children. “Okay.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s eat.”

Shaw laughed and shook his head. Food was his father’s solution to almost any dilemma. He maintained that if you had a pleasantly full stomach, problems didn’t loom as large.

Shaw had a feeling they were going to have to consume a mountain of food before this was all finally resolved to their satisfaction.

The alarm went off.

Reluctantly, Shaw rolled over on his side and stared at the blue digital numbers. It was early.

He’d always been an early riser. This morning, however, he entertained the idea of succumbing to the unfamiliar desire to remain in bed a little longer. He wanted sleep to anesthetize him.

Didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t work that way for him; it never had. Once he was awake, he was awake. And the next moment, like marauding soldiers, thoughts came crowding into his head.

Thoughts of last night with his mother.

It had been one strange evening. He felt as if he’d experienced it on two very different levels, both at the same time. Part of him had wanted to throw his arms around the delicate woman, to tell her how much he’d missed her, to tell her everything that had happened in the past fifteen years. The other part had stood off, afraid of getting hurt. Even so, he’d attempted to get to know this woman who hadn’t been a part of their lives for such a long time. She was both their mother and a stranger at the same time.

It was surreal.

So was getting up, knowing that he was going to be riding around with a movie star in the back of his car, he grumbled to himself.

Shaw threw off the covers. The less he thought about that, the better.

What he needed was a cold shower to bring him around. That, and maybe shooting a few hoops at the local park. Getting physical always helped him cope better.

Shaw wondered if Clay was up yet and if he could be persuaded to meet him at the park. Probably not. His brother was a slug. When they were growing up, more than once Clay had offered him money just to grasp five extra minutes in bed. But maybe he could rouse Clay before it was time to get to work.

Looking at the phone, Shaw tried to remember Clay’s new number now that he’d moved in with Ilene. He drew a blank.

He’d look for it after his shower, he decided.

A gentle, cool breeze pushed its way into the bedroom. Shaw glanced toward the window, remembering that he’d left it open last night. The breeze stirred the drapes he’d drawn before getting undressed.

Shaw stretched, the muscles of his taut, tanned naked body rippling and moving like an awakening panther.

He decided to leave the window open and walked into his small bathroom.

He had just stepped into the stall when he heard the ringing. At first, he thought it might be his cell phone or his landline, but then he realized that it was the doorbell.

Muttering under his breath, he turned the water off, grabbed a towel to secure around his middle and padded out to the front door. Because there was a threat made against his life—nothing out of the ordinary in his line of work and certainly nothing he was about to share with any of the members of his family—Shaw paused to pick up his second weapon. He took the safety off before approaching the front door.

The towel slid a little and he secured it again before turning his attention back to his unexpected, uninvited guest.

“Who is it?”

“Your shadow.” The woman’s voice on the other side of the door was flippant.

Shaw lowered his gun. He didn’t need any more identification than that. Half expecting one of his siblings to turn up on his doorstep after what had gone down last night, he still knew it wasn’t one of his sisters who was standing there now. It was her.

Biting off a curse, he yanked open the door and glared at Moira McCormick. God, but he hated being right sometimes.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Swallowing my tongue at the moment, she thought.

Wow.

It was the only word that even began to cover what her eyes took in. Magnificent was a close second.

The jacket Cavanaugh had worn yesterday had given her the impression of wide shoulders, but like as not, coming from the land of illusion the way she did, she knew the silhouette could have been just as much a credit to the tailor who had fashioned the article of clothing as it could have been to time spent in the gym, working out.

Seeing drops of water gleaming on his smooth, muscular chest and more droplets sliding invitingly down to the towel he had haphazardly draped around his waist—a towel that looked as if it were ready to break away at the very next large breath he took in—Moira was hard-pressed to come up with a time when she’d seen a better specimen of manhood.

“Absorbing you,” she finally murmured in response to the question he’d snapped at her.

She looked incredibly casual, he thought. Gone were the four-inch heels and the miniskirt, along with the carefully styled hair. She wore jeans, a baggy shirt that still wasn’t baggy enough to hide the fact that the lady was well endowed, and on her feet she had on a pair of comfortable sneakers. Her hair was needle straight and loose about her shoulders, a wayward blond cloud.

Looking at her made his body tighten, as if he were on the alert to spring into action at any second. With effort, he exercised as much control over himself as he was able.

“What?” he asked, confused.

Moira tossed her hair back over her shoulder and cleared her throat before she laughed.

“Sorry, I’m not used to having almost naked men opening the door for me.” She tried to force her mind onto other things and found that it didn’t want to leave. “I came because I wanted to be there from the beginning of your day to the end of it.”

He blew out a breath as he closed the door behind her. “And that’s going to help you how?”

She decided that maybe it would be better if she observed her surroundings rather than his attributes. The man kept a messy apartment. There were no female touches anywhere. Which meant that he lived alone. That was good. She didn’t want to be walking in on a man in a relationship. She had no desire to make waves for Cavanaugh, just pick his brain.

“Subtle nuances,” she told him, still looking around, “things to keep in mind—you’d be surprised.”

Shaw was already surprised. Nobody had said anything about the woman showing up on his doorstep at the crack of dawn. “Look, I didn’t sign on for this.”

He didn’t bother adding that he hadn’t signed on for any of it, that he would have rather spent three weeks undercover in a sewer without benefit of a shower than to have to dance attendance to some gorgeous, overpaid, spoiled Hollywood airhead who was accustomed to having her every whim catered to.

Cavanaugh was still resisting, which was good, but she didn’t want it to be a major issue. She needed to get the research under her belt. She’d already sped-read her way through several books on the subject, but nothing took the place of feeling the action firsthand. She wanted this week to be eye-opening for her. Every movie she made, she was determined that it would be better than the last one. This movie was no exception.

Wandering over to the bookcase that stood to the right of his twenty-seven-inch television set, she scanned the titles quickly. The space was shared by CDs, books and a handful of videos. None of her movies were among them. Instead, she noticed that each one was a rendition of a Shakespeare movie brought to the screen. Now that was a surprise. The Hunk Who Liked Shakespeare. Might make a good title for a mystery, she mused.

“Just go about your business.” She turned around to look at him, her eyes sweeping over his torso in full appreciation. He’d lowered his weapon. Other things remained at attention. A smile spread across her lips. “Feel free to put away your gun. Pretend like I’m not here.”

As if he could. Shaw looked at her, feeling as if he’d just been dared.

“Okay.”

He placed his secondary weapon beside his service revolver on the shelf just above her head. As he reached up, he was so close to her, their bodies all but touched. Then, stepping back, he pulled his towel free of the knot that held it precariously in place. He had the satisfaction of seeing the pupils of her eyes dilate as her mouth fell open.

Shaw turned on his heel and started to walk back to the bathroom, his towel in his hand.

The inside of her mouth had turned to sawdust at the same time that her pulse sped up. The man looked incredible, coming and going. She had to remind herself to breathe.

“What—” Moira cleared her throat, trying to find the slightest evidence of saliva. There was none. The rest of her words dragged themselves along a bone-dry tongue. “What are you doing?” she finally managed to get out.

He glanced over his shoulder before walking into the bathroom. His voice might have been innocent, but his expression wasn’t.

“Doing what you told me. Pretending like you’re not here.”

“Oh.”

The moment she heard the bathroom door close, Moira spun on her heel and headed for his kitchen. She needed a glass of water.

Badly.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.