A Cavanaugh Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

Since she hadn’t shouted the comment, she just assumed he hadn’t heard her, which was just as well since it’d been cryptic and somewhat derogatory. But one look at the grin on his face told her that Tom had heard her. How, she had no idea.

  “Give yourself time,” he counseled. But his words fell on near-deaf ears—and it wasn’t by her choice.

  Kait shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t heard him. “What?”

  Leaning in closer still, the side of his arm brushed against hers as he repeated his advice. This time he said it directly into her ear.

  Kait heard the words, but that was secondary to the fact that feeling his warm breath along the side of her face and neck sent one hell of a hot ripple through her body, surging from the point of contact until it touched every part of her and made her far warmer than any heater set on high could have possibly done.

  She caught her breath and looked at him, aware that her pulse had accelerated and now went at a rather dangerous, frantic tempo. Even when she’d been threatened with punishment—or worse—as a child, she couldn’t remember it ever having reached this wild level.

  What was happening here?

  He saw the color rising up in her face. Concerned, he asked, “Are you all right?” not realizing that the very act of bringing his lips practically up against her ear was the actual cause of the change in her complexion.

  Unsettled, Kait pulled her head back and pressed her lips together. Belatedly, she nodded.

  “Yeah. Fine. I’m fine. It’s just a little hot in here,” she added.

  “That’s because of all the bodies in here,” he guessed. “They generate a lot of heat.”

  She nodded. It was as good an excuse as any, although he probably didn’t believe what he was saying. Not that it wasn’t plausible, but the man seemed to have an annoying knack of seeing right into her head, at which point he knew that the temperature of the room had nothing to do with why her own body temperature had gone up.

  Still, she went along with what he said, absently raising her shoulders in a careless shrug. “Yeah, that’s it, I guess.”

  “You know,” he said after what seemed like a long moment had gone by, “in order for that to do you any good, you actually have to eat it instead of just having it sit on a plate in front of you all evening.”

  He was referring to her cheeseburger. He’d already finished half of his. The fries that had come with his order were long gone while hers were still sitting on her plate, untouched.

  “I don’t like wolfing down my food,” she answered defensively.

  It occurred to her then that the detective with the magnetic blue eyes was watching her lips when she spoke. So that was why he could “hear” her while she was having such trouble hearing him, she thought, annoyed with herself for having missed such a simple explanation.

  “I get that,” he told her. “But you really should eat it before the turn of the next century.”

  “Very funny.”

  In defiance—and to keep from engaging in any more conversation—Kait picked up the cheeseburger and began to eat. It was then when she discovered that, considering it was bar food, the meal in her hands tasted exceptionally good.

  Or was she just really hungry?

  The latter explanation would mean that Tom was right in his assessment. His penchant for that was getting really annoying, she thought grudgingly.

  “Is he driving you crazy yet?”

  She heard the question clear as a bell and looked up from her meal to see a petite blonde wearing an unzipped white parka and a tailored, navy blue two-piece suit with a light, pearl-pink shirt peeking out standing beside her.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” Tom told his sister accusingly. “You’ve made Kaitlyn swallow her tongue instead of her meal.”

  “I didn’t swallow my tongue,” Kait protested with feeling, glaring at him. “I was just surprised I could hear her voice so clearly.”

  Needing no invitation, the other woman pulled over a free chair and turned it around so that it butted up against their tiny table. As she made herself comfortable, her eyes sparkled with a warm greeting.

  “Hi, I’m Bridget—one of Thomas’s unfortunate sisters,” she clarified as an afterthought. “I hear you’re Tom’s new partner.”

  “Temporary partner,” Kait corrected with more than a little emphasis.

  “She’s just here until we catch the guy she tracked to our fair city,” Tom told his sister. He looked at Bridget pointedly. “Here’s a thought. Why don’t you pull up a chair and stay awhile?” he suggested, sarcasm masking the deep vein of affection with which he regarded Bridget and all the other members of his immediate family. Unlike some of his friends, he’d never gone through that stage where everyone in his family was both an annoyance and an embarrassment to him.

  Bridget’s tone was playful. “Thanks, but I can’t stay,” she said despite the fact that she remained sitting in the chair. “I just wanted to see how our friend from New Mexico was holding up after being subjected to you nonstop.” She leaned in closer to Kait’s ear. “If you find yourself in need of some embarrassing stories from Thomas’s childhood to use as ammunition against him, just let me know.” She grinned. “The supply is wide and varied,” she promised.

  “There aren’t any embarrassing stories,” Tom said with alacrity. “I was perfect.”

  Bridget laughed. It was a rich, full-bodied sound that embraced and warmed anyone within earshot. “You keep telling yourself that, big brother,” she told Tom. Stealing a French fry off Kait’s plate as she rose, Bridget popped it into her mouth, then frowned as it momentarily captured her attention. “These are cold. I’d go and complain if I were you. They’ll give you a fresh, warm batch.”

  “That’s Bridget’s specialty,” he told Kait. “Complaining. She’d complain to God if she got it into her head that he hadn’t distributed enough stars in the sky on a particular night.”

  “Don’t listen to a thing he says,” Bridget advised the newcomer. “Around the house when we were growing up, we used to call him Pinocchio. He exaggerated and embellished on everything.” Her grin widened even though, from where Kait was sitting, that didn’t seem possible. Didn’t her lips hurt? “See you around, Thomas.” And then she winked at Kait just before she left. “Don’t let him boss you around. Once he knows he can do that, there’s no stopping him.”

  “Sorry about that,” he apologized to Kait once Bridget had woven her way across the floor. The noise swelled again, forcing him to move in even closer to her and repeat what he’d just said.

  Kait barely heard him, but it didn’t matter. Her mind was otherwise preoccupied. “You’re lucky,” she said with a touch of wistfulness.

  Tom tried to understand why she would say that. “Because I have a sister who likes to embarrass me in front of people?” he asked, bemused.

  He wasn’t fooling anyone, Kait thought. “I don’t think she embarrassed you, and it’s obvious that the two of you watch out for each other.”

  He shrugged carelessly. “In a manner of speaking, I guess,” he admitted, then added, “it’s a survival tactic. I never know when one of my sisters—or brothers—is going to come swooping in. I definitely never know what’s going to come out of their mouths. Watching out for them keeps me on my toes.”

  Yeah, right. He still wasn’t fooling her. While she didn’t doubt that he and his siblings probably had their fights, there was no missing the way he felt about them. She would have given anything to have had that kind of an upbringing instead of the one she’d had. Even after Ronald and his wife had adopted her, there were still times when she felt lonely. Back then she would have given anything to have had a sibling, someone she could have shared thoughts and fears with.

  “What’s it like?” she asked.

  “What’s what like?”

  “Being part of a big family?”

  Tom paused and looked around the pub for a moment before answering her question.

  “In a way it’s kind of li
ke this, I guess. A lot of noise, a lot of pushing and jockeying for position. Wondering if that last piece of pie you’ve been daydreaming about all through math class will still be there when you get home.”

  “There was never any pie to wonder about when I was growing up,” she told him. “Not until—” Abruptly, Kait stopped talking.

  He looked at her, waiting. When she didn’t continue, Tom asked, “Until what?”

  But Kait just shook her head, more amazed than annoyed. How did this keep happening? “You did it again.”

  He cocked his head, his eyes on her lips. “Did what again?”

  “You got me to talk about myself when I never, ever do that,” she insisted.

  Tom held his hands up, protesting his innocence. “My hands never left my wrists, so I couldn’t have twisted your arm. Every word out of your mouth was voluntary,” he concluded. And then his eyes held hers in that way that she found far too intimate to suit her. “Ever think that you secretly want to open up about things that happened when you were a kid?”

  How she hated being analyzed. “I don’t keep secrets from myself.”

  But he knew better. “Kaitlyn, we all keep secrets from ourselves. It helps us maintain a good self-image, which in turn allows us to go on. What are you doing?” he asked abruptly. She’d taken a napkin out of the dispenser and was wrapping up the remainder of her cheeseburger and fries.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she challenged through teeth that were all but clenched. “I’m getting this to go.”

  His own plate was empty and he pushed it aside. “I take it you want to go with it?”

  “You take it right.” She’d told this man far too much about herself, and it made her feel vulnerable and exposed. Moreover, she had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the end of it. And she wasn’t thinking just of inadvertently telling him things from her past. The man had a way of getting to her. A way that she was afraid might escalate, and she was no longer as confident that she could keep him at arm’s length if that happened.

  Her reaction to him just now, when she’d felt his breath along her skin, had been too intense. It was a matter of better safe than sorry.

  “Look, maybe I’d better get a hotel room for the duration that I’m out here—” she began to propose.

  “We can talk about that when we get home,” Tom promised.

  He was just humoring her, she thought. And anyway, what was there to “talk” about? The decision, one way or another, was hers to make. Hers alone.

  She debated digging in, but the truth of the matter was that she still felt pretty tired and the prospect of having to trudge to some hotel—after she actually located an acceptable one—was not exactly something she looked forward to.

  Okay, tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she’d find a hotel and check in. For now she supposed she could put up with being around the cocky detective with the bedroom eyes for one more night.

  She could resist him for one more night. It was an order.

  Absorbed in thought, Kait didn’t see the tall, handsome silver-haired man until she’d all but walked on top of him.

  Startled, she immediately took a step back, an apology instantly rising to her lips. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention where I was—”

  She got no further. The stranger was smiling at her. The smile, she realized with a jolt, was reminiscent of the one she used to see on Ronald’s lips. It had the same kind of kindly understanding behind it.

  It brought back memories. And instantly softened her toward this stranger whose foot she realized she’d stepped on.

  “I’m sure you didn’t. The fault’s all mine,” Andrew Cavanaugh told her, absolving her of any blame. “I was so intent on getting to Tom here before the two of you left that I just got in your way.”

  “You were looking for me, Chief?” Tom asked, surprised. While Malone’s was a favorite hangout for the police department, the former chief of police didn’t come by very often. He preferred having the men on the force drop by his home where he could feed them while they visited. His meals, as well as his parties, were legendary.

  “Please,” Andrew protested, “I haven’t been ‘Chief’ in a hundred years.” Or so it felt, anyway, although he had always been the first to maintain that while you could take the cop out of the uniform, you couldn’t take the uniform out of the cop. “Just call me Uncle Andrew,” he urged. “Or, if that feels too heavy for your tongue,” he added in an understanding tone, “just Andrew will be fine with me.”

  The man would never be “just Andrew,” and they both knew it, Tom thought. There was a quality about this man that made you instantly sit up and take notice of him whenever he entered a room. It was the kind of quality found in all the leaders beloved by their men, leaders whose men would follow them through the gates of hell just because they were at the front of the column.

  “’Uncle is going to take a little time,” Tom admitted honestly.

  The tall man inclined his head. “Andrew, then,” Andrew agreed.

  Had they casually met at the bar and he had had no knowledge about the man, Tom wouldn’t have had any trouble referring to him by just his first name. But knowing that Andrew Cavanaugh had once been a highly respected chief of police, as well as being the patriarch of a large, sprawling family, not to mention this latest twist which had brought to light that he was also his uncle, made referring to him by his first name utterly impossible for him.

  So Tom compromised. “How about if I just call you ‘sir’ until the uncle part gets comfortable?”

  “‘Sir’ it is,” Andrew said with a laugh.

  And then he shifted his deep blue eyes to Kait. “I’m Andrew Cavanaugh,” he told her, extending his hand to the young woman. “The former chief of police,” he added.

  “Detective Kaitlyn Two Feathers,” she told him, taking the offered hand and shaking it. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  As before, his smile encompassed her. “Nice to meet you, too. And I already know who you are.”

  “He knows everything,” a young woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Tom’s sister Bridget informed her, coming up behind them.

  Another one of his sisters? Kait wondered.

  “Don’t even think you have a prayer of keeping anything from him. We all made that mistake when we were growing up. And we all got caught,” she added with a sigh. Rising up on her toes, she brushed a kiss against Andrew’s cheek. “Hi, Dad.”

  He kissed her back, then laughed. “As always, you’re exaggerating, Rayne,” Andrew told his youngest. Affection throbbed in every syllable. Looking at Kait, he assured her, repeating, “She’s exaggerating. As the baby of the family, she tended to do that a lot because we indulged her.”

  “No more than he did anyone else in the family,” Rayne confided to Kait.

  “I’ll be out of your way in a second,” Andrew promised his new nephew and the young woman with him.

  “I just wanted to invite you over to the house tomorrow. I’m having a get-together at five o’clock. Your father’s already coming and so are your sisters and brothers, and I’d appreciate seeing you there, as well.”

  It wasn’t an invitation so much as a command performance, Tom thought, amused. “Uncle” or “Chief,” you just didn’t say no to the man. There was just no way.

  “You, too, Detective,” Andrew told Kait, catching her off guard. “You’re more than welcome to come. The more, the merrier.”

  “And he won’t take no for an answer,” Rayne added, “so don’t even bother making excuses. He won’t accept them.”

  “This time, she’s not exaggerating,” Andrew told the duo, though he seemed to be addressing Kait more than his nephew. “I’ll look forward to seeing the two of you there,” he promised just before he slipped away to deliver other invitations.

  Stunned like someone who had just been blitzkrieged, Kait hardly remembered going out the door and leaving Malone’s behind.

  Were all the Cavanaughs trained in disarm
ing the world at-large?

  Chapter 10

  It occurred to Kait belatedly what had been nagging at her as she’d spoken to the former chief of police. He looked like Tom’s father. If not for what might have been a height difference, they could have been identical twins. In a town as small as hers, the similarity would have been noticed instantly, not over five decades later.

  But there were differences, she thought as she sat in the passenger seat of Tom’s car. Tom’s father, while certainly no shrinking violet, was less dynamic than Andrew Cavanaugh. The latter had instantly commandeered the immediate area just by his appearance alone.

  “He just materializes out of thin air and tells you to come over for a command performance?”

  Although they hadn’t exchanged any words since they’d left Malone’s, Tom knew immediately that she was referring to the former chief.

  “Pretty much.”

  She looked at Tom’s profile. He didn’t strike her as someone who could be ordered around, no matter how sugarcoated that command might sound when it was issued. “And you go?”

  He heard the challenge in her voice and laughed softly. Not everything was meant to be a battle. He wondered if she would ever take that to heart.

  “The man knows how to do things with food that you can’t begin to imagine. It borders on the magical,” he told her.

  “So you go because you like to eat?”

  There was a sarcastic note in Kait’s voice, but he could tell she didn’t believe the excuse he’d just uttered for a minute. Which meant, at bottom, that she gave him credit for not being shallow—whether she knew it or not.

  “I go because I like keeping an open mind. This, as it turns out, is my father’s family and so, now it’s mine, as well. Up until a few months ago, I knew them as ‘the Cavanaughs,’ good people, great cops. It’s interesting getting to know them on a more personal level, as my cousins, uncles and aunts.” He glanced in her direction. “In my position, you wouldn’t?”

  Her shoulders stiffened in a defensive move he was becoming pretty familiar with. “We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”