poster child for the words “drop dead gorgeous,” she told herself that she didn’t want to ruin a good thing. She and Josh worked well together, anticipated one another and for the most part, thought alike.
At times they wound up completing one another; what one lacked, the other supplied. Partnerships like that were exceedingly rare, not worth sacrificing in order to scratch an itch.
She’d been quiet too long, she realized. To deflect any kind of suspicions or possible questions on Josh’s end, she got back to the reason they were out here in the first place. “Yeah, well, if we don’t come up with some kind of answers for the narcissistic fool they made our acting lieutenant, Howard might wind up splitting us up out of spite.”
He sincerely doubted that would ever happen. When they had first been paired, all he saw was what one of his late father’s friends had described as a “hot babe.” It didn’t take Bridget very long to set him straight. She might have killer looks, but it was her brain power that he actually found sexy. The fact that she didn’t trade on her looks was another plus in her favor.
It also allowed him the freedom to tease her now. “You could always go and complain about Howard to your ‘Uncle Brian.’”
Bridget sat up a little straighter as she gave him a withering look. “Hello, possibly we haven’t been introduced yet. My name’s Bridget Cavelli and I fight my own battles.”
“So, you’re keeping it?” Josh asked, picking up on the name she’d used. “You’re not changing it?”
“Changing what?”
“Your last name. Technically, you are a Cavanaugh, you know. You have no real ties to that moniker you’ve been sporting around for the last thirty years—”
“Twenty-eight,” she corrected tersely. “I’m twenty-eight.”
He knew exactly how old she was—knew a great many other things about her as well—but he liked getting under her skin. It helped to keep things light. It also helped him deflect other feelings he was having. Feelings that had no place on the job and would only get in the way of a working relationship.
“And you don’t look a day over twenty-seven and a half,” he deadpanned.
Bridget sighed and settled back in her seat. It was going to be a very long morning, she thought. She could tell.
“Andrew, are you all right? You look a little pale,” Rose Cavanaugh said to her husband, stopping short.
She’d just walked into the state-of-the-art kitchen to get a glass of juice. This was where the former chief of police and the love of her life spent a great deal of his time each day. He could be found here creating or re-creating meals for any one of a vast number of relatives who had a standing invitation to drop by whenever the occasion allowed, or they were in the neighborhood. She’d never known anyone who loved cooking—and family—as much as Andrew did.
But it was obvious that right now, he had more on his mind than cooking. Like the person he’d just finished talking to.
“Who was on the phone?” she asked him as Andrew hung up the receiver.
He tried to offer his wife a smile, but he was still sorting out the news he’d just received. “That was my father.”
The family patriarch, Seamus Cavanaugh, was the first of the family to join the police department and work his way through the ranks, back when Aurora was unincorporated and considered an off-shoot of Sacramento. For the last dozen years or so the retired police chief had been living in Miami Beach, Florida, enjoying the company of some of his old friends from the force who had also migrated there.
Rose smiled fondly. Her father-in-law liked to check in from time to time. He did it in order to keep his sons from worrying, although he insisted that he was perfectly capable of looking after himself.
“What’s he up to?” she asked, wondering what had prompted this particular call. If she knew Seamus, the man was probably in love—again—and asking Andrew what he thought about getting a new “mother.”
“About thirty thousand feet,” Andrew answered matter-of-factly.
Rose cocked her head, trying to make sense out of what her husband was saying. “Come again?”
“He is,” Andrew confirmed. “Coming back again.” After taking a fresh cup from the cabinet next to the sink, Andrew poured himself some of the coffee he’d just brewed right before the phone had rung. Holding the cup in both hands, he sat down before he attempted to clarify his statement. “Dad’s flying back to Aurora right now, even as we’re having this conversation.”
Sitting down opposite him, Rose placed her hand on top of her husband’s in a mute display of unity.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned. They had been trying to get Seamus to come back out for a visit for years now. But he had always been very adamant about not flying. Because of that, the senior Cavanaugh had missed out on a host of weddings and births.
He’d even passed on what Andrew felt had been a major event in his life: finding Rose again after his wife had gone missing and had been presumed by everyone—everyone but him—to be dead. He never gave up working the case, never gave up looking for the mother of his five children. And eventually, his persistence had paid off. The only thing that remotely came close to spoiling the event for him was that his father had sent his hearty congratulations instead of turning up to celebrate with the rest of the family.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Andrew told her. “He said he suddenly just got tired of doing nothing with the rest of his life but shooting the breeze with a bunch of old men who were living in the past. He’s decided to turn over a new leaf. Part of that involves flying out here. And, I suspect that he’s anxious to meet his new son.”
Rose smiled. “At his age, Sean can’t exactly be called ‘new,’” she pointed out, amusement curving the generous corners of her mouth.
He looked at it in another way. “Considering the fact that Dad’s never seen him, I think the word ‘new’ could be applied in this case.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Pushing aside the empty juice glass, Rose got to her feet. “Well, I’d better get myself to the store,” she announced. She caught her husband arching his eyebrow in a silent query, which surprised her. “If there’s going to be another one of Andrew Cavanaugh’s famous parties in the very near future, I’ve got a lot of grocery shopping to do. Do you have a list ready for me?”
Instead of producing one, Andrew caught her hand and pulled her over to him, stopping his wife from leaving the room.
“No, no list and no famous party,” he told her. “I think that this time around, Dad meeting his son for the first time will be a private occasion.”
He could have knocked her over with a feather. “Really?” she asked incredulously.
In all the years that she had been part of Andrew’s life, she’d found that absolutely everything was an excuse for a family get-together and a party. “One for all and all for one” wasn’t just a famous phrase written by Alexander Dumas in The Three Musketeers, it was a mantra that she strongly suspected her husband believed in and lived by.
“Dad’s got a
