Cavanaugh's Woman

And then she shook her head, sorrow in her eyes as she turned them toward his father. Her apology throbbed with emotion, with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember them, either.”

Andrew nodded, resigned but ever hopeful. “You will,” he promised. “It’ll take time but you will.” He didn’t have a single strain of doubt in his voice. Andrew looked at his sons. There was triumph in his expression. “Boys, Claire has agreed to stay here with us for a while.”

Shaw raised his eyes toward his father, waiting for an explanation. Questions began to form in his mind.

“Claire?” he echoed.

“It’s my name,” the woman told him quietly. “At least, that’s the only name I’ve known for the past fifteen years.”

Her voice was soft, like his mother’s voice. Shaw felt an ache take hold. There was nothing he could do to fix this except ride it out. Compassion welled up within him. He sincerely felt for his father.

Unable to hold back any longer, Rayne was on her feet, standing in front of Claire. “That’s because you disappeared fifteen years ago,” she insisted. “You are our mother, you are his wife. Why can’t you see that?”

Her voice broke even as Shaw crossed to her. Ever protective of his siblings, especially of Rayne, who’d always been the most troubled and the most tormented by all this, he put his arm around his sister.

“This is why we never let you become a psychiatrist,” he teased, trying to lighten the moment if only a fraction. He kissed the top of her head, then he gave her a quick, heartfelt squeeze. Rayne had been the one the most vocal in her suffering when her mother had disappeared after the accident. The youngest, she’d been the most attached. “It’s going to be all right, Rayne,” Shaw promised. He looked at his mother. “It’s just going to take time, but we’ll all be there for you. For each other.”

Claire seemed filled with remorse that she didn’t know them. “I’m so sorry I can’t—”

On his feet, Andrew cut her short. “That’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“Now here’s something you should remember.” Taking her cue from the others, Teri tried to keep the conversation on a light, upbeat path. “Dad always has a corny saying to reinforce his points.”

Claire smiled bravely at these strangers around her. She’d been alone for so long, both physically and mentally. Alone, yet haunted by memories that refused to form beyond specters. To believe that there was a family waiting for her, ready to accept her with open arms, was more like a fantasy than reality.

But even so, she couldn’t make the wall keeping her from her past come down, couldn’t even chip away at it until there was the slightest clink in the mortar. Couldn’t access anything beyond the time she regained consciousness, found herself dripping wet and walking along a highway.

Going from nowhere to nowhere.

Andrew looked at the faces of his children. “Okay.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s eat.”

Shaw laughed and shook his head. Food was his father’s solution to almost any dilemma. He maintained that if you had a pleasantly full stomach, problems didn’t loom as large.

Shaw had a feeling they were going to have to consume a mountain of food before this was all finally resolved to their satisfaction.

The alarm went off.

Reluctantly, Shaw rolled over on his side and stared at the blue digital numbers. It was early.

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.

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