A noise from the kitchen caught his attention and the chief glanced in that direction. “Well, I should be getting back to my kitchen. Contrary to what some of the younger generation seem to think, food does not cook itself. But I’ll leave you in Morgan’s capable hands,” Andrew told her. “He’ll be your guide. That means he’ll show you where all the entrées, appetizers and desserts are around here, plus he can introduce you to everyone.” Andrew smiled as he looked at his nephew. “You have finally learned everyone’s names, haven’t you, Morgan?”
“Just about,” Morgan said with a straight face. He glanced toward Krys, who was looking at him with a quizzical expression on her face. “It’s not as easy as you might think.”
They had moved into the expanded family room now, and Krys looked around at all the various relatives, large, medium and small, who were already there. And from all indications, she assumed that there were more of them coming.
“Oh, trust me, I don’t think it’s easy at all,” she assured Morgan, then asked, “Shouldn’t you people come with name tags or something?”
Morgan laughed. She hadn’t given voice to a sentiment that hadn’t been shared by a lot of other people the first time they found themselves encountering the family en masse.
“Oh, we’ve thought about it, but where’s the challenge in that?” he asked with a wink.
“I don’t want to be challenged,” she told him quite honestly. “I want to be right.”
And that, Morgan thought, was the key to Krys’s personality. “We’ll work on that,” he promised. “In the meantime, let’s get you something to eat. After that, the introductions will begin. Don’t worry,” Morgan assured her as he brought Krys over to the patio, “it’s painless.”
Painless, huh? “Is that before or after my head explodes?”
It occurred to Krys that she hadn’t seen this many people milling about outside of a convention center since she had traveled through some areas in Indonesia when she had been gathering background data for a series she was doing at the time on human trafficking.
“It won’t explode,” he assured Krys. “It’ll only feel like it’s exploding.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You don’t have this comforting thing down pat yet, do you?” she asked him. Making her way to one of the side tables, she picked up a paper plate that resembled a plate made out of actual china. Holding it in her hand, she placed a couple of appetizers on it.
“I’m a work in progress,” Morgan confided in reference to her observation. He nodded at her plate. “And you do know that you can take more than that, right?” He assumed that she was being polite and trying not to deplete his uncle’s supply. “You wouldn’t believe how much food Uncle Andrew makes for one of these gatherings.”
She shook her head as he started to offer her another appetizer. “That’s okay. I’m not sure I can hold anything down yet.” When he looked at her in confusion, she explained, “My stomach’s been in a knot ever since you told me that we lost my likeliest stalker suspect when you found out that it was Claire’s former boyfriend who murdered her.”
Morgan moved in closer and lowered his voice. He felt fairly confident that Krys wouldn’t appreciate his sharing this piece of information with the people in the immediate area, at least, not until she felt comfortable with all the members of his family. He was well aware that as much as he loved them, they did take some getting use to.
“I promise I’m not going to leave you until we get this stalker and permanently lock him up in prison.” Morgan looked into her eyes, hoping to erase the anxiety he saw there. “Feel better?”
“Oddly enough, I do,” she told him. She was not the type to play the damsel in distress, nor the type to take solace in promises. Not usually. She was usually the type who insisted on tilting at her own windmills and fighting her own battles.
But something had changed for her since she had lost her mentor and, in a way, lost her sister as well, even though Nik had just gotten married and not left her permanently. But even so, it felt as if the parameters of her world had shifted, making her feel vulnerable. It wasn’t a feeling that she relished.
Vulnerable. The same could be said for the way she had responded to Morgan.
This certainly hadn’t been her first experience in making love. But somehow, this experience had been different. It had left her with a very different feeling. One she wasn’t used to.
“Earth to Krys.”
Krys blinked as Morgan’s voice penetrated her consciousness. She realized that for a moment, she had gotten lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard what he had said to her.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to zone out like that.”
“That’s okay. I just want to make sure you’re all right,” Morgan told her. He motioned toward a gazebo that was set apart from the tables scattered around the rather large backyard and patio area. “We can sit over there,” he told her, thinking she might want some time to get used to having all these family members around.
“No,” she said, turning down his offer. “If it’s all the same to you, I think it’s time I started meeting more of these people here,” she told him, indicating the various clusters of family members in the immediate area.
Morgan grinned, happy to act as a tour guide. “Sure, it’ll be my pleasure,” he told her, and she felt that he really meant that.
* * *
Krys approached the next few hours as if she were on assignment, or at least she did initially. When she was on assignment, she carefully put her own feelings and thoughts on the back burner and concentrated on learning about the people she was meeting for the first time and interacting with. That was her own way of making the people she was writing about come alive for her readers as well as for the editor who would eventually be reviewing her work.
But somewhere along the line in that first hour and a half, Krys unconsciously stopped being a reporter, stopped working the groups of people as if they were her assignment and started seeing them for what they were. Morgan’s family.
A family that, despite his teasing comments to the contrary, he was very much attached to—and, she discovered, with good reason. Because the love that radiated from these people and between these people was simply impossible to miss.
It made her realize how stark her own upbringing had been in comparison. And how much worse it would have been if it hadn’t been for her sister and her father, even though her father had to be absent from her life a great deal out of necessity.
Over the course of those few hours, Morgan saw the slow, subtle shift in Krys, saw the transformation in her demeanor as it was happening.
Even so, Morgan held his breath for a little bit, worried that she might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in the house. But gradually, he realized that he was worrying for no reason. Krys seemed every bit up to this challenge of holding her own in the company of his cousins and siblings.
Not that he felt they might run right over her, but he knew they expected and wanted the best for one of their own—just as he would if the tables had been turned and he was judging a companion who had come with one of his sisters.
Cavanaughs were nothing if not protective, he thought. But they were also fair and prone to giving someone another chance if they felt that person was deserving and had accidentally made a misstep they were eager to rectify.
* * *
Over the course of the day, Morgan never left Krys’s side, even after he felt that she was more than capable of holding her own and growing very comfortable in the company of the people around her.
As the afternoon wound its way into evening, it was like watching a rare flower bloom and open up in the night air.
Finally, he felt she had put in enough time for one day. “Ready to go home?”
She had just finished talking to Brian, Andrew’s younger brother and the ch
ief of detectives. Morgan’s question had caught her by surprise. “Is it time to leave already?” she asked him, stunned.
Morgan found the word “already” very telling. “No, not really. We don’t have to leave,” he assured her. “But I just thought that you’d want to. I mean, after having put in your time and all...” His voice trailed off, allowing her to fill in the implied meaning.
“You make it sound like penance,” she remarked. She didn’t see it that way at all and implied as much. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay a little longer.”
“Sure,” he agreed, doing his best not to let her see how pleased her decision had made him. While he couldn’t see anyone not warming up to his family, there was always the outside chance that harmony wouldn’t be the end result here. “We can definitely stay,” he assured her. “Uncle Andrew has had people who stayed for an entire weekend—and longer—after one of his parties. He has only one ground rule for his guests.”
“What’s that?” Krys asked.
“That the person or persons honestly enjoy themselves.”
Krys grinned. “Then I guess I meet the criterion. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this to you,” she confided, “but this is really like living out a fantasy for me.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that,” Morgan said.
This wasn’t something she talked about often, or for that matter, at all. But she had been the one to start this, so she said, “After my mother ran off, my dad, sister and I moved around a lot when I was a kid. Looking back on it now, I think the reason we did was that my father was trying to find my mother without actually admitting as much to us. I think he didn’t want to disappoint us if he couldn’t locate her—which, as it turned out, he didn’t.
“Because we moved around so much, Nik and I were always on the outside looking in when it came to school. This,” she nodded around at her surroundings, “was the way I always imagined it would be like to belong to a large, loving family.” She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. “Thanks for letting me live out my fantasy for the space of a night.”
He wanted to tell her that the fantasy didn’t have to end tonight, or for that matter, soon, but he didn’t want to risk scaring Krys off. A woman who had been as independent as Krys had been for as long as she had been could very well balk at having someone rein her in or appear to give her boundaries, even if he did it for the best of reasons. She might feel that she had to insist on being free. He definitely didn’t want her feeling that she had to back off.
But Morgan really wanted her to get used to having these boundaries around her. So for now he said nothing. He only savored the small victories he had made, savored the tiny steps forward that he had managed to gain.
And he promised himself that there would be more coming soon.
* * *
As it turned out, Morgan and Krys wound up being very close to the last people to leave the family gathering that night.
Krys’s eyes were all but closing by the time they said their goodbyes and made their way to the front door.
Even so, she wouldn’t just slip away the way Morgan had suggested when he saw how her eyes were drooping. Krys wanted to be sure to take proper leave of the people who had thrown this gathering as well as the ones who were still left in attendance.
“I can’t thank you enough for inviting me, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
“Oh please,” Andrew told her, “Call me Chief. My wife does,” he added with a mischievous wink.
Standing beside her husband as she did at the end of each of these gatherings, Rose Cavanaugh slipped her arm around her husband’s waist.
“You wish,” she said with an old, familiar laugh. “You can call him Chief, or Uncle Andrew, the way everyone else here does. But you can’t call him ‘honey,’” she told Krys. “That label belongs strictly just to me.”
“As do I,” Andrew assured Rose, pressing a kiss to his wife’s temple.
The simple, sweet gesture spoke volumes, Krys thought.
Andrew turned toward Krys. “And thank you for coming and for putting up with all of us. I know, despite everything, that it couldn’t have been easy for you, seeing what you’re going through.”
Krys nodded, acknowledging his words. She should have guessed he would know all about the fact that she was being stalked as well as how the likeliest candidate had just been eliminated.
“Morgan told me that you have your finger on the pulse of everything that goes on in Aurora.”
“Morgan exaggerates,” Andrew told her. “But I am very protective of my family,” he readily admitted. Then, in case there was any lingering doubt in her mind, the patriarch added, “And you are part of the family.” Andrew turned toward Morgan and shook his nephew’s hand heartily, bidding the young man goodbye. “Now see that you get home safely.”
Andrew’s words were directed toward both of them.
Chapter 21
Feeling beyond exhausted, Krys was really relieved to see her house coming into view some twenty minutes later.
“You know,” she said as she breathed a major sigh of relief, “I really like your family.”
“Yeah, I think they wound up tolerating you pretty well, too,” Morgan deadpanned, pulling his car into her driveway.
“Very funny,” she answered. Growing serious, Krys said honestly, “My sister is very lucky to have all of you. I guess I can finally stop worrying about her.”
“You were worried about her?” This was news to him, Morgan thought as he got out of the vehicle on the driver’s side.
“Well yes, sure.” From her point of view, that only made sense. “I’d be gone for months at a time and she was back here, by herself. I mean, she had friends she could turn to if something was wrong, but that’s just not the same thing as having family to depend on,” Krys stressed. She was very protective of her twin sister. She always had been.
He thought about that for a moment. “True,” Morgan agreed as he opened her door for her. “But,” he went on to point out, “not all families are the kind you can depend on.”
“I guess it’s lucky for my sister that yours turned out to be the kind that is.” She walked up to her front door.
She thought she noticed the patrolman Morgan had posted sitting across the street in his vehicle. She was still being watched even though Morgan was acting like her own personal bodyguard. It made her realize that he really did think she was still in danger.
“Well, like it or not, you’re part of that family now, too,” Morgan told her.
Her brows drew together over the bridge of her nose. “You mentioned that before,” she recalled, “but I thought that really only happened if you married a member of the family.”
He did his best to keep a straight face as he told her, “I’ll have to look at the bylaws about that, but I think there is some leeway in the rules.”
Krys’s frown deepened as she put her key into the door and unlocked it. “You’re laughing at me,” she accused Morgan.
“No, I’m laughing with you,” he told Krys, unable to keep a wide grin from curving the corners of his mouth.
“There’s only one problem with your defense—I’m not laughing,” she pointed out.
Morgan turned the doorknob and pushed the door open for her, then stepped to the side to allow her to enter first. “Let’s go inside and I’ll remedy that.”
Suddenly, Krys thought as she went inside and felt Morgan’s arms slip around her, she wasn’t nearly as sleepy as she thought she was.
* * *
“I don’t believe it,” Krys cried as she got off the phone with the online editor who had been overseeing this latest controversial project of hers. The editor had initially okayed the assignment even when everyone else had been inclined to shut it down or advised her to walk away from it.
Krys had gone into the precinct with Morgan today so th
at he could continue working with his team. They were still searching for what had happened to the mystery woman who had apparently vanished from the hospital after the infamous killer had been pronounced dead. So far, no one in the police department had been able to locate her.
Working her own sources, Krys had just terminated her call and was looking far from pleased, although Morgan thought he picked up a note of momentary victory in her voice—but he just might have been reading into it.
Looking up from what he was doing, Morgan asked, “What don’t you believe?”
She was still shaking her head, stunned. “After all the time I put in, all the people I interviewed, trying to get enough evidence to get Weatherly Pharmaceuticals to pull that so-called ‘miracle’ drug of theirs off the market because it just seemed to be too good to be true, Jacobs himself,” she emphasized, “just issued a statement that said, due to certain abnormalities that came to light in this very last round of testing—completed late yesterday, mind you—the company has decided to pull the drug off the market until such time as they can determine whether or not this drug is actually as beneficial to the patients as it was originally thought to be.” Her brows narrowed. “In other words, they’re willing to admit that the drug was misrepresented.”
Morgan looked at her. Why did she look so angry? He didn’t understand.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” he asked. “That was what you wanted, right? It was what your gut had you believing all along, right?” he pressed. He would have thought it was a win-win situation in her eyes, not something to be upset about, which she clearly seemed to be.
“Right,” she answered, snapping out the word.
Okay, something was definitely wrong, Morgan thought. He had gotten to know her well enough to be able to pick up on that.
“But?” he asked when she didn’t continue. She raised a brow in his direction. “I hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”
She didn’t know if she felt like kicking something, or ultimately celebrating. “Jacobs just issued the statement ten minutes ago,” she informed the detective grudgingly.
Cavanaugh In Plain Sight (Cavanaugh Justice Book 42) Page 19