That, Bridget thought as they left the lab a couple of minutes later, was the kind of marriage she wanted. One where the love didn’t wear out once the newness of the situation faded away.
But even as she thought it, despite everything she knew about the way Josh operated, she couldn’t help glancing at him.
And wondering.
What if…?
Chapter 10
“You clean up good,” Josh said when Bridget finally opened the front door.
It was Saturday and two o’clock, the time she’d told him to come by. He’d been all but leaning on her doorbell since she didn’t answer the first two times he’d pressed it. When at last the door did open, he’d meant to say a few sarcastic things about her taking her sweet time.
But those words completely evaporated in the heat generated of his partner in a gray-blue dress.
The long-sleeved dress only came midway down her thighs, but it lovingly adhered to every curve of her body during that journey even when she wasn’t moving.
Josh made the comment to her in self-defense, hoping that the semi-flippant assessment would annoy her enough to draw attention away from the fact that he’d been momentarily stunned into silence by her appearance and had all but swallowed his tongue.
Granted, since he’d already given in once and kissed her, he’d suspected that Bridget was a great deal hotter than their day-to-day relationship would have normally made him believe. But in his wildest dreams, Josh wouldn’t have expected that she could look this hot.
“You make it sound as if I come in to work looking like something that the cat wouldn’t drag in on a bet,” Bridget said.
The comical description made him laugh. With a careless shrug he conceded, “Well, maybe not quite that bad.”
“But bad?” she pressed incredulously. “You actually think I look bad when I come into work?” She always tried to appear professional and at her best when she came into the squad room in the morning.
“You fishing for a compliment, Cavanaugh?” he asked, raising one probing eyebrow. He made no attempt to hide his amusement. “Okay, I guess I can give you a compliment. You’re an attractive woman, partner, we both know that. But to be honest, I really had no idea that you were this hot.”
She did her best not to allow a superior, satisfied smile curve the corners of her mouth. No doubt he’d probably have a crack about that, most likely something about her wanting to appeal to him. God forbid he got started on that line of thinking, even though, secretly, his reaction did please her—maybe a little more than it should have.
Even so, she just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a quip.
“Maybe your radar isn’t as good as you think it is, Youngblood.” She tilted her head as she pretended to study him. “Ever think of maybe having it overhauled and updated?”
He’d never really noticed how brilliantly blue her eyes were. Or just how very female she could be.
Or maybe he had, he reasoned, and had gone out of his way to pretend that he hadn’t, just like he was trying to block the scent of her perfume now. You couldn’t have distracting thoughts about your partner and still operate at maximum efficiency.
But right now, neither one of them was on duty and he was noticing a hell of a lot of things he shouldn’t be. Like how enticing her breasts were as they rose and fell with each breath she took.
If he wasn’t careful, she’d damn well take his breath away.
“Right now,” he told her seriously, his voice low, “you wouldn’t want to know what I was thinking.”
Warning bells went off in Bridget’s head. There were a lot of layers to his words and she was wise enough to step back.
“If you’ve changed your mind about going,” she told him, “I can drive myself over.”
“I never said that,” he pointed out. Seeing her looking like this, Josh wanted to go to the family gathering more than ever. He put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?” he asked.
Bridget’s eyes met his. Something strong undulated through her. If she had an ounce of sense, she’d head straight for the hills.
She didn’t.
“Ready,” she answered.
He doubted that either one of them really were ready.
* * *
“You’re just in time,” Brian declared warmly as he opened the front door to admit them. Andrew had asked his younger brother to man the door while he put the finishing touches on something in the kitchen. “The old man just arrived about five minutes ago. He came in the back way and hasn’t been out to address everyone yet,” the chief told them. He ushered the two of them through the foyer. “Get yourselves a good space to stand in,” he advised. “As I recall, my dad could talk the ears off a statue once he got going.”
She looked at Josh. “Last chance to back out,” she whispered.
But Josh shook his head. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. My ears are glued on tight.” Placing his hand to the small of her back, he ushered Bridget into the living room.
As he did, he glanced around. It astounded Josh just how many members of the police department were scattered through the ground floor of the former chief of police’s spacious house. It was a matter of record that the Cavanaughs’ numbers were not exactly minor. Looking at them now, with their spouses and children around them, Josh found the number to be all but staggering.
Thinking of the precinct, he asked, “Anyone minding the store?” bending close to Bridget’s ear so that she could hear him above the not inconsiderable din.
Bridget struggled not to shiver as his breath cascaded down the side of her neck, making it hard to catch her breath.
It took even longer to find her voice. “I’m sure there’re one or two police officers left to defend the good citizens of Aurora.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Josh said. He accepted a glass of wine from a woman carrying several on a serving tray. She seemed vaguely familiar. “Thanks,” he acknowledged, then finished his sentence. “I see a few non-Cavanaughs here, too. It looks like the whole police department is here.”
“Non-Cavanaughs?” she repeated. “You mean like besides you?” Bridget shook her head when the woman—Andrew’s daughter, Teri—offered her a glass of wine as well.
“Yeah,” he answered. The whole house teemed with police personnel now that he looked closer. Maybe there wasn’t anyone left patrolling the streets. “You know, if I was an enterprising crook, this would seem like the perfect time to knock off a string of gas stations in Aurora.”
Teri Cavanaugh-Hawkins couldn’t help overhearing. She didn’t bother trying not to laugh. “You call that enterprising?”
“He’s had a tough week,” Bridget told the woman with a grin. “Cut him some slack.”
Teri’s eyes danced and she paused, studying Bridget’s face. It was obvious that she was trying to remember the other woman’s name. “You’re… Kendra?” Teri asked, catching her lower lip between her teeth.
“I’m Bridget,” Bridget corrected. “Kendra’s older sister.” Although the difference was only a matter of thirteen months, as children it had been this insurmountable chasm and she’d rubbed Kendra’s face in it.
“Sorry.” Teri flashed an engaging smile, then promised, “I’ll get it right next time.”
Josh took a sip of his wine. “You Cavanaughs should come with flash cards,” he commented. “At the precinct is one thing.” For some reason, he was accustomed to seeing the various members of the clan there and could distinguish between them despite the strong resemblances. “But en masse and in civilian clothes, hell, that’s a whole other story.”
“Don’t worry.” Frank, one of the chief’s stepsons, came up behind Bridget and Josh and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “There’s not going to be a quiz at the end of the evening.”
Zac, Frank’s older brother, came in from their other side and joined the growing group. “However, there will be one when you want to get into the precinct come Monday morning. How’s
it going, Youngblood?” he asked gregariously, picking up a drink from the near empty tray Teri was holding. He and Josh had worked together a couple of times in the past. “Our newest cousin drag you here for the big meet-and-greet?”
“I did not drag him,” Bridget protested. “He insisted on tagging along.”
“What was the draw?” her older brother, Thomas, asked as he too joined the group. On his arm was a tall, slender, stunning redhead, who was also his fiancée. Kaitlyn Two Feathers, the newest detective to permanently join the department, was a recent transplant from New Mexico. Thomas looked from his sister to the buffet against the far wall. “You or the food?”
“The food,” both she and Josh answered at the same time. The grin on her brother’s face, Bridget noted, was smug, as if he’d expected them to answer in unison for some reason. She knew better than to question Tom with so many people around. She might hear what she didn’t want spread around. So, for now, she ignored both his grin and him.
Instead, she turned to Zac and asked, “Do you know where the chief’s father is?”
“You mean our grandfather?” Tom prompted.
It really felt strange hearing someone being referred to as their grandfather, Bridget thought. By the time she was four years old, neither the people her father believed to be his parents, nor her mother’s parents, were alive. The idea of having a grandparent was an entirely new sensation for her.
“Yes,” she answered. “Our grandfather.” She looked toward the chief’s stepsons for an answer.
But it was Teri who pointed the man out to her. “He’s right over there,” she said. “With Dad and Uncle Brian.”
Flanked by two of his sons, Andrew and Brian, Seamus Cavanaugh looked more like their older brother than their father. Six feet tall with wide shoulders and a trim waist, his once-jet-black hair was as thick as ever, but it had turned a gunmetal gray. Despite that, his features were still startlingly youthful.
Bridget decided that it was the man’s wide smile that made him look younger than his seventy-three years.
It was another several moments before she became aware of the fact that the older man wasn’t just walking into the center of the room, he was walking toward someone.
Toward her father.
A large lump came out of nowhere, rising to her throat as she watched Seamus Cavanaugh embrace the son he had inadvertently been separated from almost five decades ago.
Everyone around them burst into spontaneous applause, touched to be part of this reunion, which was to some a miracle in its own right.
Seamus cleared his throat as a host of emotions, led foremost by joy and wrapped tightly in disbelief, fought to gain control over him.
“You look just like your mother,” he managed to tell Sean. Then, in a vain attempt to hold back his tears, Seamus said, “I guess you’re too big to take for a pony ride.”
Laughter erupted after the observation. The family patriarch was referring to something that had become a tradition for him. As each of his sons became old enough, he would take the boy to have his picture taken sitting astride a pony and wearing Western clothes right down to a pair of stitched boots and a cowboy hat.
Brian had copies of the individual pictures on his desk and Andrew had them on the wall of his den. There were three. One of Andrew, one of Brian and one of Mike, the brother who had died in the line of duty. There had never been a fourth one because the brother they believed to be Sean had never lived to see his first birthday. The pictures reflected Seamus’s weakness for Westerns.
As the laughter continued, Seamus held his hand up for silence. When it came, he looked around at the members of his family who were gathered around him and observed, “There were a lot less of you when I left.”
Smiling, he slowly scanned the area. The faces he remembered had grown older. And there were new faces, some belonging to children who had been born while he was living on the other side of the continent, others belonging to spouses his grandchildren had exchanged vows with.
He’d missed a lot, Seamus thought.
“Maybe I should have come back sooner.” Seamus paused for another moment, his steel-gray eyes sweeping over the very crowded room, then coming again to rest on his newfound son. “They say as you get older, life stops surprising you.” The corners of his mouth curved again. “They lied.”
His heart swelled. Seamus put a strong, firm hand on Sean’s shoulder, remembering. And regretting.
“I only wish your mother was still alive so I could tell her that I was sorry and that she was right. She would have loved that.” Realizing that some might not understand what he was referring to, he explained, “She swore that the baby we brought home from the hospital wasn’t the baby she’d given birth to. I thought she was just stressed out from the ordeal. You were a really big baby,” he told Sean.
A wave of laughter met his comment.
“I should have never doubted her. Mothers always know,” he gladly admitted.
Seamus took in a deep breath and it was obvious that he was struggling to steady his voice and to suppress the emotions threatening to break free.
“We have a lot of catching up to do, you and I, son.” He put his arm around Sean’s shoulders. “What say we get started?”
“I say great,” Sean responded, his deep, resonant voice choked with emotion like his father’s.
And for the second time in her life, Bridget saw her father shed tears. But, unlike when her mother died, this time the tears were happy ones.
Tears like her own, Bridget realized belatedly as the dampness on her cheeks registered with her consciousness. She sniffed, doing her best not to draw any attention to herself or the tears she subtly wiped away with her hand.
And then a handkerchief was being silently pressed into her hands. Not by any of her newly discovered relatives, or her brother, who was standing on her other side. To her surprise, the handkerchief came from Josh.
What surprised her most of all was that Josh gave it to her without uttering a single word or comment. Her partner usually teased her about her being emotional, or soft, or something along those lines. Her warmth for Josh grew. The man could really shock her.
Clutching the handkerchief, she wiped her eyes. A moment later, more tears gathered, seeking immediate release. She wouldn’t have thought she could get so emotional.
It was obviously a day for surprises.
During the course of the evening, she and her brothers and sisters, as well as Tom’s fiancée, were all introduced by their father to their grandfather.
The older man, like his sons Andrew and Brian, had an uncanny ability to make each person feel singled-out and special while he spoke to them. The man really meant it when he said that he wanted to spend time getting to know each one of them. She believed him when he told her that he intended to be a hands-on grandparent from now on.
Andrew, however, eyed his father skeptically. “What about Florida?” he asked.
Sitting on the wide sofa, surrounded by his new grandchildren, Seamus looked over to his firstborn. “What about Florida?”
Andrew had thought, when his father had called to say that he was finally coming back to Aurora, that he meant on a visit. No mention had been made of staying indefinitely.
“Well, for one thing, your house is there,” Andrew pointed out.
Seamus surprised more than a few people who were listening when he shook his shaggy head and told them, “Not anymore. I put the house up for sale.” He looked around at dynasty that he had given birth to, marveling at the miracle of it all. “You might as well know, I’m moving back here.”
“Back here?” Brian repeated. “But I thought you loved living in Florida, being retired. You called it living the good life.”
“Turned out not to be so good,” Seamus answered, then elaborated. “A man can only take so much sitting around, doing nothing.” He thumped his chest with a closed fist. “I’m still alive so it’s high time I started acting that way.”
Brian glanced over toward Andrew, who moved his wide shoulders up and then down in a mystified shrug. Neither of them had a clue where their father thought he was going with this.
Brian was the first to put it into words. “Just what does that mean, Dad?”
“It means,” Seamus began, then paused impishly for a moment as his gaze swept over the faces of those sitting closest to him, “that Seamus Cavanaugh’s getting back in the game.”
Andrew and Brian exchanged looks again, this time a little uneasily. That was the way their father had always referred to police work. No one wanted to hurt the old man’s feelings, but he had to face the fact that he was just that: an old man.
“Dad,” Andrew broached tactfully, “you’re a little over the age limit to be talking about rejoining the police department.”
“You mean too old,” Seamus said bluntly. “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m also too old to be taking orders from some wet-behind-the-ears kid young enough to be my grandson—or granddaughter,” he tactfully included, nodding toward several of his grandchildren. “Which is why I’m opening up my own detective agency,” he announced, ending on a note of fanfare as he gleefully rubbed his hands together.
He let the news sink in before continuing, “And Andrew, if you ever decide you’ve had enough of standing over a hot stove, feeding this bunch…” He chuckled. “You might think about coming to work for me—or with me,” he corrected. Seamus raised his hands and then spread them out wide, as of tracing a large, imaginary sign. “Cavanaugh & Cavanaugh.” His eyes twinkled as he looked around the room. “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Seamus asked with a wide, pleased smile.
“It’s official,” Bridget heard someone behind her say. “Grandpa’s back.”
That, too, she couldn’t help thinking, had a nice ring to it.
Apparently, Seamus heard the comment from one of his grandchildren. “You bet I’m back,” he answered. “And I intend to make up for lost time.”
“Take it slow, Dad,” Andrew advised.
“Slow?” Seamus’s hearty, infectious laugh filled the air. “Are you kidding? I can’t take it slow. It’s not like I’ve got another forty years to work with this time around,” he reminded his son. “Slow is for young guys like you,” he told Andrew. “Whatever I do, I’ve got to do fast.”
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