Cavanaugh’s Woman

by Marie Ferrarella

  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.

  Chapter Four

  After the performance he’d just given, Shaw was pretty confident that his uninvited guest would be gone by the time he finished showering and dressing.

  She wasn’t.

  The woman wasn’t anywhere in sight when he first opened his bathroom door, but there was a definite aroma in the air that hadn’t been there before.

  Eggs and coffee.

  The aroma became stronger the closer he got to the kitchen.

  So did the scent of her perfume. It was light and airy, yet very potent, which didn’t make any sense to him, but he could detect it separately from the tempting aroma of food.

  It surprised him that another, deeper hunger stirred, but then, he was only human, only male. And every so often, the fact that he wasn’t in anything that could even remotely be called a relationship did rise up to take a bite out of him.

  Talk about rotten timing.

  The last person in the world he would want to suddenly feel male around was a movie star. As far as he was concerned, they were, by definition, a shallow breed in need of adulation and constant reaffirmation. That wasn’t within his job description.

  He’d never been a joiner per se and signing up to be part of Moira McCormick’s fan club was as out of character, as foreign for him, as suddenly growing feathers and flying south for the winter.

  He came into the kitchen. Not only did she have something going on the stove, but she seemed to be doing something with his refrigerator that involved a sponge and the garbage pail he kept hidden in the cabinet beneath the sink.

  “What are you doing?”

  He’d startled her and she jumped, pulling back and swinging around. Moira came within an inch of colliding with him. Reflexes had him grabbing for her before she made contact.

  Holding her, Shaw realized that for all her bravado and the larger-than-life aura she cast, Moira McCormick was rather a delicate woman, at least in structure.

  He didn’t release her as quickly as he should have. Deep green eyes looked up at him, amusement winking in and out.

  “Cleaning out your refrigerator and making you breakfast with the only edible things I could find. Is there a lab paying you to house some of these things?”

  She nodded at the pail that now held the take-out containers whose origin in time he couldn’t begin to pinpoint. The pungent smell told him that their safety margin had long since expired.

  He chose to ignore her flippant question. “I didn’t know Hollywood types knew how to cook and clean.”

  Shaw couldn’t begin to adequately describe the smile that played along her lips, only that it managed to pull him in. “I wasn’t always a Hollywood type. Once I was a real person. Real people know how to do a whole lot of things. Sit.”

  He stayed where he was, watching as she moved the scrambled eggs from the pan to a plate. “I don’t usually have breakfast at home.”

  She made her own interpretation. “This is better than grabbing a prefried egg sitting on a leathery muffin from some fast-food place, trust me.” Moira set the plate down on the table.

  He began to say that he ate breakfast with his family at his father’s house, but that seemed like much too personal a piece of information to give her. And there was no way he was taking her over there with him. Last night had been all right, but awkward. Shaw had no idea how this morning would go. His father and the rest of the family had enough on their hands to cope with without adding this woman to the mix.

  “Trust you,” he echoed as he finally sat down at the table. She’d set only one place, but then, as he recalled, there were only two eggs left in the refrigerator and maybe she’d already eaten. Shaw moved the napkin and fork to the opposite side of the plate. “Trust is something that’s earned.” His eyes met hers. “I don’t even know you.”

  “That’ll change,” she promised cheerfully. She passed the sponge over the shelf, then tossed it into the sink. “We’ll get to know each other. Like I just got to know something about you.”

  Shaw fully expected her to make some comment about the previous scene in his living room before he’d gone back to the shower. He braced himself. “Like?”

  “Like you’re left-handed.” Moira poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat down to face him. She took a sip before she continued. “Did you know that left-handed people are now considered to be, on the average, more intelligent than right-handed people? Quite a comeback for a group that was thought of as the devil’s spawn three hundred years ago. Shame they don’t live as long as right-handed people.”

  Shaw cocked his head, as if he was looking behind her. She turned her head, following his line of vision. There was nothing there. “What’s the matter?”

  “Just looking for the key that wound you up.” The eggs were good and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. “Are you just making this stuff up as you go along?”

  Moira savored the hot liquid for a moment before answering. “No. My father was left-handed.”

  “Was?”

  “Is,” she corrected. “I haven’t seen him for a while. We kind of lost track of each other.” And she missed him, she added silently, missed him terribly. But she’d given her father an ultimatum for his own good, saying she didn’t want to see him until he changed his ways. That had been almost two years ago, just before her career had skyrocketed. There’d been no word since then. She couldn’t help wondering if pride was keeping her father away from her.

  Shaw made short work of his breakfast, but took time over his coffee. “Don’t see how that’s possible, seeing as how your face is everywhere.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.” She straightened her shoulders with renewed resolve. “He knows where to find me if he wants to.”

  Shaw knew he shouldn’t ask. The less he knew about this woman who had been pushed into his life, the better. More than likely, the parting of the ways she was referring to had come about because of something she’d done. In any case, it was none of his business.

  But something in her voice wouldn’t let him just leave it alone. He heard himself asking, “What kind of terms did you part on?”

  “His,” she said simply. And then she smiled that quicksilver smile of hers that was guaranteed to bring teenage boys to their knees and send teenage girls running to the nearest makeup counter in hopes of achieving the “Moira McCormick look.”

  Shaw realized he was staring and forced himself to look at his own coffee cup as if it held special interest for him. “So now you’re being mysterious?”

  “No, I’m being sensible.” Her father had admonished her for being too open. Don’t let people in, Moira. That’ll give them the upper hand and they can use it to hurt you. “I’ve got a feeling that you’re too much of a cop to hear any more.”

  Shaw thought of Hawk, Teri’s partner, and what he had recently learned about his sister’s fiancé’s late parents. “Your father a drug dealer?”

  Had she been drinking coffee, he would have been wearing it right now. As it was, Moira stared at him before she burst out laughing.

  “Drugs? Oh, God, no.” Her father was very strict about that. The only thing he had been strict about. “The only drug of choice my father believed in was wine—the more expensive, the better.” She sighed just before draining her cup. “That was the problem—he had very, very expensive tastes.”

&
nbsp; She’d managed to hook him. He wanted answers. “Then what? He’s a burglar?”

  Moira shook her head. “My father separated people from their money with his tongue.” A fond smile played on her lips. “He could charm the fur off a snow leopard.”

  Now he understood. Beneath her fancy description, her father was a common thief. “A con man.”

  “Artist,” Moira corrected. Getting up, she got the coffeepot and divided what was left between their two cups. They got approximately three swallows each. “A con artist.” Retiring the pot to its burner, she sat down again, taking the cup between both hands. “I always thought that if he had devoted his considerable brain power and abilities to something a little more traditional, my father would have been king by now.”

  “We don’t have kings,” Shaw pointed out.

  Her smile just grew. “They would have made an exception for him.”

  He paused, studying her. Drawing his own conclusions. “But you didn’t approve.”

  She’d approved of her father, but once she was old enough to realize the dangers involved, divorcing them from the excitement that a successful score could generate, she’d no longer approved of the lifestyle he’d chosen. She didn’t want him spending his remaining years in prison, which was where he was heading once his luck ran out. And eventually, everyone’s luck ran out.

  “My nerves weren’t as steady as his,” she explained evasively. “I thought of consequences.” Her father never did. In a way, she supposed he was Peter Pan with a golden tongue. He’d never grown up. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she had. “I had a little more of my mother in me than my father.”

  Finished with his coffee, Shaw set down his cup. “Where is your mother?”

  “Dead.” She said the word crisply, refusing to unlock the pain that always emerged whenever she thought of her mother for more than a moment. “She died when I was seven. That’s about the time when we hit the road.” She smiled sadly to herself. “Up until the time Mama died, Daddy walked the straight and narrow. Had a nine-to-five job and everything.”