Cavanaugh Cowboy

A killer in a sleepy Texas town?

A Cavanaugh Justice romance

Worn-out homicide detective Sullivan Cavanaugh’s looking for some peace and quiet in Forever, Texas. But once Sully meets feisty ranch foreman Rachel “Rae” Mulcahy, it’s clear that quiet isn’t in the cards. Especially when one of Rae’s wranglers turns up dead. Can Rae and Sully outrace the killer to crack the case—and could Sully’s stint in Forever be one for keeps?

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

Also by Marie Ferrarella

Mission: Cavanaugh Baby

Cavanaugh on Duty

A Widow’s Guilty Secret

Cavanaugh’s Surrender

Cavanaugh Rules

Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard

Cavanaugh Fortune

How to Seduce a Cavanaugh

Cavanaugh or Death

Cavanaugh Cold Case

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Cavanaugh Cowboy

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09394-1

CAVANAUGH COWBOY

© 2019 Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To

Jessica,

Who Still Hasn’t Read

A Single One Of These.

All My Love,

Mom

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Prologue

“Something wrong, boy?” Seamus Cavanaugh asked. He was the long-retired police chief and currently the head of a small but thriving security firm, as well as the official patriarch of an extremely large clan that was firmly entrenched in the law enforcement community. He lowered himself into a love seat beside Sullivan Cavanaugh, one of his nephew Angus’s sons.

Angus was one of his late younger brother Murdoch’s sons. Despite the fact that there were enough Cavanaughs within Aurora, California, to populate their own small town, and Seamus was far from spending his days sipping a scotch and watching shadows elongate themselves across his front porch, he felt it his duty to watch over each and every one of them. From the oldest—his son Andrew, a retired police chief like himself—to the youngest, Dugan and Toni’s daughter, who was about to reach her first birthday, Seamus took an interest in all of them.

At first, Sullivan Cavanaugh didn’t realize that his great-uncle was speaking to him. There were a lot of people at this gathering and consequently a lot of noise. It was another one of his uncle Andrew’s typical impromptu gatherings—nobody cooked like Uncle Andrew—and every inch of the house and grounds was stuffed with members of the Cavanaugh family as well as other friends, all of whom, in one way or another, dedicated their lives to keeping the good citizens of Aurora safe.

Sully had hoped that coming here would be enough to erase this burned-out feeling he’d been carrying around, a feeling that had unexpectedly descended over him even as he had wound up almost eighteen months’ worth of following cold leads and circular trails before finally finding the murderer he’d been so relentlessly pursuing.

Usually, once a case was put to bed, he would feel buoyed up, invigorated and ready to start again on a new case.

But not this time.

This time, the burned-out feeling remained, growing only more oppressive, preventing him from going on.

Still, he hadn’t thought it was that obvious.

Sully blinked, shifting his body toward his great-uncle.

“Nothing’s wrong, sir,” he answered, doing his best not to sound the way he felt.

Steel-gray eyebrows drew together over exceedingly penetrating dark eyes.

“Don’t give me that, boy. I’ve seen that look before. You just solved the Gilmore case, didn’t you?” It was a rhetorical question.

“My team and I did, yes,” Sully replied.

Everyone in the room was aware of that, he thought. Aware, too, that it had been a team effort even though for some reason, Sully felt unaccountably alone at this point. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling this way.

“That was rather an important case,” Seamus commented. “Even the mayor took an interest in it. And yet here you are, looking like your favorite dog just died.”

Sully shrugged. “I guess it’s all those long hours finally catching up to me. Maybe I just need to go home and get some rest.”

But Seamus didn’t appear convinced.

“It’s more than that,” the onetime police chief said. Seamus scrutinized the man seated beside him in silence for a moment before asking, “Burnout?”

There was no sense in lying, Sully thought. Even though he was in his early seventies, the old man was too sharp to try to fool.

“I guess maybe,” Sully acknowledged with a careless shrug. “But I’ll get over it.” He said it more to convince his great-uncle than himself.

“I’m sure you will,” Seamus told him with the confidence of a man who had seen and lived through a great deal in his lifetime. “But in the meantime, maybe you need a little extra help.”

“Extra help?” Sully repeated, not sure what his great-uncle was telling him.

His guess was that the man was going to suggest possibly a temporary closer acquaintance with Johnnie Walker.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Seamus nodded and said, “A change of scenery.”

Sully didn’t see how that could help and dismissed the suggestion. “I’m not sure if a vacation—”

Seamus continued as if Sully hadn’t said anything. “What do you think about Texas?”

“Texas?” Sully echoed. He’d never been to that state, nor did he have any desire to change that. “I don’t really think anything about Texas,” he began but just like before, he got no further.

“I have this old friend who runs a diner in Forever, Texas. She’s also got this small horse ranch,” Seamus told him. “I’m sure if I contact her, Miss Joan’ll let you stay there.”

Sully looked at his great-uncle, bemused. Everyone knew that the man could be a bit eccentric.

“You call your old friend Miss Joan?” Sully questioned.

Seamus saw nothing unusual about that. “Everyone does,” he said. “All I have to do is pick up a phone and call her—”

“That’s okay, really,” Sully replied, cutting his great-uncle off. He began to rise. “I don’t need a change of scenery.”

Seamus caught his wrist. For a man in his seventies, he had an exceptionally strong grip. Sully sank back down.

“Yes,” Seamus insisted with emphasis, “you do. And as I seem to recall, wide-open spaces don’t intimidate you. You ride, don’t you?”

The old man’s memory was as sharp as Uncle Andrew’s. And, like all his uncles, he also had all the answers before he asked the questions, so there was no point in pretending that he didn’t know his way around a horse, Sully thought. He did. Riding tended to relax him. That went all the way back to his childhood and summers spent with his father, enjoying wide-open spaces.

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good,” Seamus pronounced. “Nothing left to do but pack your bag.”

Sully eyed the older man uncertainly. Seamus was assuming a lot here.

“But you haven’t even called your friend yet,” he pointed out.

Seamus leaned in closer to him.

“The good thing about old friends, Sully,” Seamus said in a low, confidential voice, “is that you know their answer even before you ask the question. Another good thing is that you can always count on them for a favor.” As he sat back, the older man’s smile widened. “Now, stop arguing with me, boy, and pack your bag.”

Chapter 1

Miss Joan knew the minute that Sully Cavanaugh walked into her establishment.

She wasn’t looking toward the diner’s entrance at the time, but she saw the suddenly dazed expressions of utter admiration on her waitresses’ faces. The two young women, Mandy and Beth, appeared to have been suddenly struck speechless.

Mandy recovered first. Sighing deeply, the dark-haired young woman murmured, “That is one tall, cool drink of water.” Sheer appreciation rang in her voice.

“There’ll be no sipping from that glass,” Miss Joan informed both the young women sternly. “He’s the great-nephew of a friend of mine.”

“I’ll say he’s great,” Beth pronounced with enthusiasm.

Miss Joan frowned and waved the two young women toward their work areas. “You two have tables to bus,” Miss Joan reminded the mesmerized duo. “I suggest that you get to them before the piles get too large.”

As a police detective, Sully was used to walking into unfamiliar places, his every footstep carefully observed, with only seconds for him to assess whether or not his life was in jeopardy. This situation wasn’t that serious, but he was still aware of the fact that he was being closely scrutinized.

Probably because he was a stranger, Sully guessed. From what he’d gathered from his great-uncle, Forever was, for the most part, a small, tightly knit community.

The thin older woman at the counter made him think of an eagle, dissecting his every step as he drew closer to her. She was trim, narrow shouldered and a redhead, most likely a natural one once, but given her age, he guessed that she sought out a little artificial help to maintain the deep red color.

She’d been beautiful once, he thought. And he could see that back in the day, she had definitely been the type who had caught his great-uncle’s eye.

“Excuse me,” Sully said, clearing his throat.

The redheaded woman looked at him, and then at his hat.

Belatedly, he remembered to take off the black Stetson that his great-uncle had gifted him with when he’d left Aurora, bound for Forever. He wasn’t accustomed to wearing a hat, but the sun outside made it almost a necessity.

Running the brim along his fingers, he said, “I’m looking for Miss Joan.”

Miss Joan stopped wiping down the small counter space directly in front of her. Leaning slightly forward on the hand that was against the counter, she informed him, “You found her.”

Sully put out his hand. “I’m Sully Cavanaugh. I think that my great-uncle called you to say that I was coming out.”

Miss Joan glanced down at the offered hand but waited a beat before finally shaking it.

“No, he said he was sending you out for your own good,” she corrected. “He said something about you needing a place to regroup.”

Sully was accustomed to being a private person and waiting before offering any information beyond the bare minimum. This woman already seemed to know more about him than he was happy about.

“I don’t know about that—”

“He did,” Miss Joan continued, cutting him off. Hazel-green eyes slowly slid over the length of his torso, making no secret of the fact that she was assessing what she saw. “You look a lot like Seamus,” she told him. “Back when he was young and good-looking,” she added. “I imagine he’s rather old, craggy and fat by now.” Her voice rose slightly at the end of her statement, a silent invitation to be contradicted.

“He’s still pretty trim,” Sully told her. “And I think he sees himself as wise, not craggy.”

“But he is old,” Miss Joan said, noticing that the young man before her hadn’t said anything to contradict that.

“Old?” Sully corrected that impression now. “Not so you’d notice.”

Miss Joan waved a hand at his words. “You’re his family. You have to say that.”

Rather than protest, Sully took out his cell phone. He pressed the app where he kept family photographs and found the one he’d taken of his great-uncle earlier in the year.

He held it up for her to view. “Judge for yourself, Miss Joan.”

Rather than taking the phone from him, she took hold of Sully’s hand to steady it. Miss Joan peered intently at the photograph he had pulled up.

She pursed her lips and asked suspiciously, “When was this taken?”

Sully thought for a moment. “Around the first of the year.”

Her eyes narrowed, looking at him like a seasoned interrogator. “This year?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My, my,” she murmured under her breath, releasing his hand. “If I wasn’t already spoken for, I might think about looking Seamus up again, see if some of that old magic was still there.”

Sully slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Old magic?” he echoed.

Although Sully had always considered himself to be pretty open-minded, it was hard picturing someone his great-uncle’s age having anything that even remotely resembled a love life.

Miss Joan gave him a somewhat impatient look. “Use your imagination, boy. I’m not going to spell it out for you,” she informed him. “I’m a lady.”

Sully chose to avoid the subject altogether by changing it. “You and Uncle Seamus have the same way of addressing me.”

Miss Joan raised her eyes to the handsome, rugged young stranger’s face.

“I’ll let you in on a secret. Saying ‘boy’ is a lot easier than remembering everyone’s names. Although I do,” the woman added authoritatively as a coda, just in case he thought she didn’t.

Sully smiled at this woman who apparently had once known his great-uncle extremely well. “I never doubted it, ma’am.”

Miss Joan surprised him by frowning. “Don’t keep calling me ma’am,” she chided. “Makes me feel like I’m a thousand years old.”

“No way, ma’—Miss Joan.” Denying her assumption, Sully quickly corrected himself before he wound up slipping again.

She nodded. “Keep practicing, boy. Meanwhile, sit down and take a load off,” she instructed, nodding at the stool that was directly to his right. When he did as he was told, she pulled out a menu from beneath the counter and slid it directly in front of him. “What’ll you have? We’re serving lunch, but I can have Angel whip up breakfast for you if you’d rather have that.”

Sully didn’t bother looking at the menu. He left it right where it was. “No need to go to any trouble,” he told Miss Joan. “I just wanted to stop by to say thank you and to pay my respects—”

“If you want to pay your respects,” Miss Joan informed him, cutting Sully off, “you’ll eat something like I said. Can’t have you wandering off with an empty belly.” She stopped and peered at him. “What are you grinning about?”

Sully did a little self-editing before answering the woman. “Uncle Seamus said you had a way about you.”

Miss Joan laughed and took a guess at the exchange between Seamus and his great-nephew.

“Probably said I was like a stubborn mule,” she corrected. Seeing that Sully was about to deny her assumption, she said, “And he’s right. I am. So stop sitting there, giving me lip, and order something. The sooner you eat, the sooner we can get you out to the ranch.”

“Then I can stay there?” Sully asked.

He knew that his great-uncle had said that the woman had extended the invitation, but Sully still had his doubts that the invitation had actually been tendered. He really didn’t want to impose if she didn’t want him staying at the ranch. After all, from start to finish, this had all been Seamus’s idea, not his.

“That’s what Seamus and I agreed on,” Miss Joan replied with an air of finality. And then her eyes bored into the young man before her. “Why, you change your mind about staying?”

“No, ma’—Miss Joan.” Sully caught himself at the last moment again. “It’s just that I am surprised,” he admitted.

“How so?” Miss Joan asked.

She was aware that not just her two waitresses, but almost everyone within the diner at this point was paying attention to this handsome, dark-haired young man with the liquid green eyes. That he was oblivious to the attention he was garnering spoke well of him.

“You don’t know me from Adam,” Sully replied. He was used to friendly people, but they all knew him. This situation was different.

“Maybe I don’t,” Miss Joan admitted. “But I know Seamus, and he wouldn’t send me someone who wasn’t trustworthy, even if that someone turned out to be a relative of his.” And that was that in her book. “You got any other doubts that you’re wrestling with that I can put to rest?”

A small hint of a smile curved the corners of Sully’s mouth. He shook his head. “None.”

“Okay, then,” Miss Joan declared. “Let’s get your order out of the way and then, while Angel makes it for you, you can tell me all about what that sly devil of a man is up to these days.”

Sully had a feeling that once he got back to Aurora, Seamus would ask him the same questions about Miss Joan. “Well, Uncle Seamus said to be sure to thank you for putting me up.”

Miss Joan waved a thin, slightly blue-veined hand dismissively.

“He already said that on the phone when he called. I’m interested in what he’d been doing for the last forty years before that phone call.” Then, because he didn’t begin to immediately answer, Miss Joan switched subjects like a rerouted runaway train and nodded at the menu she had placed in front of him. “Made up your mind yet?”

The woman jumped around from topic to topic like a frog landing on hot lily pads, Sully thought. But even though he’d been in her company for less than ten minutes, he knew better than to make that observation to her. So instead, he made his selection.

“I’ll have today’s special,” he told Miss Joan, pushing the menu to the side.

Miss Joan didn’t bother turning the menu around. Though it changed every day, she knew the selections by heart.

“Mandy,” she called over her shoulder, “tell Angel we need her special.” She fixed Sully with a look. “Rare, medium or well-done?”

He preferred rare, but he knew that to some cooks, that meant almost raw, so he went the safe route. “Medium.”

Miss Joan nodded, obviously approving his selection. “Good choice,” she pronounced. Glancing at the waitress she’d summoned, she saw that the young woman seemed rooted to the floor. Mandy was staring at Sully as if he was the most tempting ice cream sundae she had ever encountered. “Well, you heard the man, Mandy. Get a move on.”

Coming to, Mandy mumbled, “Yes, Miss Joan.” The brunette spun on her heel and made her way through the kitchen’s double doors.

Miss Joan didn’t bother suppressing the sigh that escaped her lips. There were times when the young women she took under her wing and into her employ could be a trial.

Turning back to Sully, she said, “All right, that gives us a little time to kill. Tell me what that old man’s been up to.”

The diner had slowly been filling up since he’d first walked in. Sully was aware of the way each and every one of the patrons who came in stared at him before they went to either a booth or one of the stools at the counter. But more than that, he was aware of their growing number.

“Don’t you have to see to your patrons?” he asked Miss Joan, hoping to redirect her attention toward something else.

The expression on Miss Joan’s face told him she knew exactly what he was up to. And she had an answer for that.

“I own this place, Sully. That means that I get to do what I want whenever I want—within reason. Since I’ve got two girls taking orders and bringing them back, plus a third girl coming in about fifteen minutes from now, that means that right now, I get to ask questions and find out what that old Romeo is doing these days.”

“Romeo?” Sully repeated incredulously.

He had been just about to take a sip of the coffee Miss Joan had poured for him, and now he was glad that he hadn’t. Otherwise he was certain that he would have wound up choking on it. Or, at the very least, spitting that coffee out in a spray and making unplanned, unwanted contact with the man he’d just glanced at sitting on his left.

“Your great-uncle,” Miss Joan clarified. “He might look like a harmless old man to you, but unless I miss my guess, there’s nothing harmless about him.” She fixed Sully with a deep, probing look. “Am I right?”