Pushing the door open with his fingertips, Ronan walked into the house with Sierra right behind him.
The moment she entered, she could almost feel the warmth that seemed to all but radiate from every corner of the house.
It was a house that had seen its share of trouble and coped with it and now resounded with love. The love of family, of friends and of good times, past and present, Sierra thought.
It was a house where the heartsick could come to heal. Without being fully conscious of it, she glanced at Ronan, wondering if he could feel it.
“C’mon,” he told her. “Let me introduce you to Uncle Andrew.”
Ronan felt it was the least he could do and once it was taken care of, he would be free to mingle with his family, leaving her to mix with and talk to whomever she wanted. He didn’t have to worry that she’d feel like an outsider. His family never left anyone to his or her own devices once they were all gathered together.
“I’d like that,” Sierra told him.
Hurrying to keep up, she almost grabbed his hand to keep from losing him in the crowd, but at the last moment she caught herself and dropped her hand to her side. She was here as his colleague, not as anything else, and she didn’t want him to think that she thought anything else—even if, here and there, for a fleeting second, she might have.
“There he is.” Ronan pointed to a tall, silver-haired man who looked like an older version of the man she’d seen being sworn in as chief yesterday.
Stopping whatever he was saying to the people with him, Andrew turned just as his nephew approached. A wide, welcoming smile graced his rugged features.
“Ronan, your mother said she thought you were coming. I’m glad you could make it. How have you been?” Andrew asked, grasping his nephew’s hand in his and shaking it heartily.
“I’ve been good,” Ronan answered vaguely. And then, because Andrew looked at him knowingly, he added, “Getting better,” to forestall any questions.
Andrew wouldn’t embarrass him in public, but Ronan knew that if there was an occasion to corner him in private, questions would come. Not because Andrew was curious, but because he genuinely cared. Andrew more than anyone else here knew what it meant to lose someone and feel as if his heart had been carved out of his chest and skewered.
But in Andrew’s case, the wife he’d thought had been swept out to sea had turned up, a victim of amnesia but alive.
There was no such resolution for him, Ronan thought, but he appreciated that Andrew cared and was sensitive of his situation.
Andrew’s green eyes shifted toward the young woman beside his nephew. “And you brought Detective Carlyle with you.” The large hands closed around hers in a warm handshake. “Welcome to my home. This is your first time here, isn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question. Andrew was aware of every new face that turned up in his home. “I hope it won’t be your last.”
Sierra looked at the older man, stunned. “You know who I am?”
“He knows who everyone is, don’t you, Dad?” Shaw said, joining them. He nodded toward Ronan and the detective with him. “When I was a kid, I found that knack of his kind of spooky. It’s like he memorized the general population of Aurora and could call up a name at will.” Turning to Sierra, Shaw put out his hand. “Hi, I’m Shaw Cavanaugh.”
“The new chief of police, yes, I know. I was there at the ceremony,” Sierra said with a smile. “Oh, this is for you,” she said belatedly, handing him the gift she’d brought.
“This really isn’t necessary,” Shaw objected, appearing pleasant and almost shy at the same time.
“It’s nothing big,” she told him. “Just something you might want to relax with.”
“Now you’ve got me curious.” He tore away the wrapping paper. “The 1988 World Series games,” he said, reading the cover. He looked at her. “Thank you,” he told her sincerely.
“It’s from both of us,” Sierra told him, nodding at Ronan.
“Well, thank you,” Shaw said again, this time looking at his cousin.
“Yeah, well, it was her idea,” Ronan said, not really wanting to take the credit for it, but not wanting to say that she was lying, either. “So how does it feel, being the new chief of police?” he asked.
“Not sure yet.” Shaw glanced toward his father. “He left me some very big shoes to fill.”
“Not that anyone’s measuring,” Andrew replied, “but you’ve got some pretty big shoes of your own, son. We all find our own path.” The next moment he waved away the topic. “But all these people didn’t come to talk shop today.”
“No, they came to eat those great dishes you whip up,” Rose Cavanaugh told her husband, coming up behind him and threading her arm through his in a gesture that simply radiated love. “Man won’t let me near the kitchen,” she told Sierra. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. He cooks better than I do,” she added with a wink.
“Way better.” Andrew laughed. He turned toward Ronan and made a suggestion. “Why don’t you take Detective Carlyle—”
“Sierra, please,” Sierra corrected.
Andrew inclined his head, smiling. “Sierra,” he amended, “and introduce her around? I’m sure she doesn’t know everyone here.”
“You’d better pay attention. There’ll be a quiz at the end of the day,” Shaw deadpanned.
“Do I get to stay here until I get it right?” Sierra asked, amusement shining in her eyes.
Tickled, Andrew laughed heartily. “I like this one, Ronan.”
Sierra instantly became alert. She didn’t want anyone thinking their relationship was anything but professional. “Nice meeting you, sir,” she said, this time taking Ronan’s arm and drawing him away.
“What was that?” Ronan asked her the moment they were out of his uncle’s earshot.
Knowing that Ronan was a man who insisted on fighting his own battles, Sierra tried to seem as innocent as possible as she asked, “What was what?”
“Were you just coming to my rescue?” he asked.
She started to say no, then gave it up. “I just thought the situation was getting a little awkward for you.”
“Why, because my uncle said he liked you?” he asked. “My uncle is entitled to like anyone he wants to like. As a matter of fact, I think I’d probably be really hard-pressed to find someone my uncle didn’t like. The man’s got a big heart and he’s just that kind of a person—unless, of course, you’re a criminal and even then, he’d most likely give you the benefit of the doubt if you told him that you were really sorry for what you’d done and wanted to reform.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the man they had just left. Andrew was in the middle of another crowd of people gathering around him. “Your uncle seems like a really nice guy,” she told him.
“There is no ‘seems’ about it,” Ronan told her with feeling. “He is.”
His tone was a little gruff and she didn’t want him to think she’d insulted their host. “I never meant to imply anything else,” she said sincerely. And then she added, “It’s nice.”
She had a habit of snatching words out of the blue, confusing him. “What is?” he asked.
She knew he didn’t like attention drawn to him, or flattery. But sometimes he just had to suck it up, she decided. “I was talking about you being so protective of your family.”
Sierra wondered if the frown that came over his face went clear down to the bone. He switched subjects so fast, a bystander would have gotten whiplash, she thought.
“You have your choice. Do you want something to eat, or names?” he asked. It took her a second to realize that he was letting her choose between eating and introductions.
“Can’t I have both?” she asked innocently. “I got the impression from your uncle that the party is going to last a while. If that’s the case, we have time to eat and
to meet people—for me to meet people since you already know them,” she amended.
“You can have both,” he said, answering her question. “I just meant, which do you want to do first,” he clarified.
She didn’t get a chance to answer. The next moment his attention was diverted elsewhere.
“Ronan!”
By the time he turned around, the thin, small woman with the sharp green eyes and engaging smile swooped in and threw her arms around him in a fierce embrace.
“You came!” the woman cried happily. “I mean. I told Andrew you’d be here, but I honestly wasn’t sure if you would be.” Her face split into a wide, wide smile. “But you are.”
“Mom,” he choked out. “I’m having trouble breathing.” For a little woman, she had an incredibly strong grip. “You can let go now.”
“Trouble breathing,” she laughed, negating his protest. “You’re a big, strong man and I’m just a little woman,” she said, releasing her son.
Turning to Sierra, she began to introduce herself. “Hi, I’m—oh, my lord,” she cried, putting her hand to her chest. Her eyes darted toward her son. “Do you—Yes, you do.” She completed the sentence without actually saying the words that had run through her head when she’d first seen Sierra.
Ronan did what he could to cover so that his mother wouldn’t voice the fact that she was struck by the resemblance between Sierra and his late fiancée.
“This sometimes incoherent person is my mother, Maeve Cavanaugh O’Bannon. Mom, this is Sierra Carlyle.”
“Carlyle?” the woman repeated, obviously turning the name over in her head. “Are you by any chance related to Craig Carlyle?”
Sierra smiled proudly. “In every possible way. He’s my dad.”
“Of course he is,” Maeve said. “I can see it now in the way you hold your head. Your father looks like that when he’s being defensive. Good man, your father,” she added quickly. “Stubborn, but good.”
Sierra laughed. “Yes, that’s the way I see him, too.”
“So,” Maeve said, threading her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders, “how did you manage to get my son to come?”
She was quick to redirect the woman’s assumption. She wasn’t about to be cast in the role of the one who motivated O’Bannon to do things.
“I’m afraid you have that all wrong, Mrs. O’Bannon. Your son brought me. I don’t think that anyone can get your son to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Least of all, me.”
Maeve nodded her head. “Spunky,” she pronounced, looking at her son. “Good quality.” Then, as if a timer had gone off in her head, Maeve retreated. “Well, I’ll leave you two to talk or whatever. I’m just so glad to see you getting out,” she told her son, getting up on her tiptoes and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Your brother’s getting married, you know,” she told him as if she was under the impression he didn’t know.
“I know, Mom,” Ronan replied patiently. “He wants me to be best man.”
Her eyes lit up. She was the embodiment of sheer happiness. Things were obviously going better than she’d hoped.
“And you are. You are,” she cried, hugging her son again. “Well, I’ve got to go, mingle. You, too, you two,” she all but ordered. Turning toward Sierra, she reinforced her directive. “Make him mingle!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sierra replied, suppressing the impulse to salute.
“And that’s my mother, the drill sergeant,” Ronan told her drily.
“She is a dynamo,” Sierra said with an appreciative laugh.
“That she is,” he said with a weary sigh. “But she means well, even though I sometimes wish she’d mean a little less well.”
Sierra grinned. “I actually understand that. My dad likes to meddle in my life, too. And it took him a long time to get over my joining the police force instead of the fire department.”
She looked over toward Ronan’s mother, a bemused expression on her face. “I think that parents feel they can lay out our lives for us and everything’ll be fine—but they can’t and it’s hard for them to sit on the sidelines sometimes.”
“Tell me about it,” Ronan said, rolling his eyes. And then he came back to the immediate present. “Why don’t we get something to eat and then I’ll play the good nephew and introduce you around? Uncle Andrew has the pre-dinner tables laid out in the backyard.”
“Pre-dinner?” she repeated quizzically.
“Dinner is served in the house,” he explained. “Basically, I think he wants to have everyone eating all day long. It’s a wonder there’s not a real weight problem in the force.
“C’mon, I’ll show you. And after we get something in our stomachs, I’ll give you a crash course in Cavanaughs. Don’t worry about learning names. It took me a while, too. Someone once suggested wearing name badges to these things and, to be honest, I’m beginning to think that might not be a half-bad idea. Not everyone has a mind like Uncle Andrew’s.”
Nodding, she told him, “I’ll do my best.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” he murmured, wishing he wasn’t reacting to Sierra the way he was.
Chapter Fifteen
The celebration was more than half over before Ronan realized he hadn’t done what he had promised himself he would do. He hadn’t made good his escape by leaving Sierra with any one of the relatives he had introduced her to during the course of the day. He was still with her.
What’s more, he had stayed with Sierra not out of some sense of duty or obligation but just because it had felt right. Not only that, but he was enjoying himself.
He supposed the latter wasn’t a surprise to him. After all, he had always liked his family, liked being around them. There wasn’t a single member he would have avoided even if he had been given the opportunity. As for Sierra, it was obvious that she was having a really good time. She appeared to be thriving, surrounded by the various branches of his family.
It wasn’t hard to see that she liked them and the sentiment seemed definitely mutual.
And being part of that gave him a really good feeling.
By evening’s end, after eating, swapping stories and just plain laughing, Ronan found himself at ease for the first time in a long time. That, he concluded, had to be his long overdue wake-up call.
It was time to let go of the past and move on.
Several members of his family had been through circumstances similar to his and they had all eventually regained their foothold in life. There was absolutely no reason, Ronan thought, why he couldn’t do the very same thing.
“You’re smiling,” his mother said with approval as she approached him again. “It does my heart good to see that,” she confided with enthusiasm.
Taking one of his hands in hers, Maeve told her son, “You had me very worried there for a while. You had all of us worried,” she added with significant emphasis. She reached up to lovingly touch his face. “But you’re a Cavanaugh and my son. Life wasn’t going to keep you down for long.” Maeve beamed at him. “You’re too much of a fighter.”
There was nothing but affection in his voice. “Then why were you worried?”
“Because I’m a mother and it’s a mother’s job to worry,” she told him matter-of-factly, as if the answer was as plain as the nose on his face. “Don’t confuse the issue with logic, Ronan.”
“Sorry, don’t know what I was thinking,” he replied, doing his best not to laugh. He kissed the top of her head, then decided to reverse the table on her, playing the parent to her child. “Shouldn’t you be going home, Mom? It’s past your bedtime.”
“Well, listen to the egg telling the chicken what to do,” she said, pretending to be annoyed. “I’ll have you know that I’ll go home whenever I’m ready, thank you very much.”
Christian chose that moment to approach his mother. “Ready, Mom
?” he asked, nodding toward a cluster of relatives a few feet away, “Suzie’s just saying a few last-minute goodbyes.”
Ronan arched a quizzical brow at the exchange. “‘Ready’?” he repeated, looking at his brother for an explanation.
“Yeah. Suzie and I brought Mom with us to the celebration and we’re dropping her off on our way home.”
“Oh?” Ronan turned to look at his mother.
She raised her chin proudly and informed her firstborn, “And now I’m ready to go home.”
Ronan laughed and shook his head. “See you soon,” he promised.
“I will hold you to that, Ronan,” Maeve called after him.
He never doubted it. Waving goodbye to his mother, he went in search of Sierra. It occurred to him that this was the first time all evening they had been separated.
Why that should make an impression on him he didn’t know, but it did. And even though he’d initially tried not to pay any attention to it, seeing Sierra interacting with his family had warmed him. It amazed him that after all the time he had spent after losing Wendy, almost a shell of his former self, he could actually feel something again.
And, on top of that, that those stirrings could actually be connected to a woman who made him crazy.
He joined Sierra just as she was saying goodbye to both the former chief of police and the present one, as well as their wives.
“Thank you for a wonderful time and for inviting me,” she said, addressing the last part to Andrew and his wife, Rose.
Andrew flashed his well-known smile at her. “Well, now that you know your way,” he told her with a wink, “I expect to see you a lot more often. The door is always open.”
She grinned, glancing in the general direction of the front door. “Yes, I noticed that.”
“She thought it was an open invitation to home invaders,” Ronan told his uncle.
Cavanaugh Standoff Page 14