Cavanaugh Strong

Chapter 2

“Morning, Sunshine,” Duncan quipped.

Noelle raised her eyes to meet his. Given that she had sat down a few minutes ago and she assumed that Cavanaugh had taken note of that as well as seen her enter the squad room, the greeting he’d just offered seemed a little out of place or, at the very least, rather belated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked him.

She watched as her partner’s broad shoulders rose and fell in a careless and yet somehow oddly sensual shrug. What the hell was she doing, noticing how broad his shoulders were? What was the matter with her? The size of his shoulders wasn’t remotely important here. And yet, she couldn’t make herself look away. Couldn’t make the strange, tightening feeling in her stomach disappear.

“Nothing,” he replied, “just my small attempt to get you to, oh, I don’t know, smile maybe?”

That made no sense to her as far as she could see. “By calling me ‘Sunshine’ or by bringing my attention to the fact that it’s morning? Something, by the way, I am well aware of.”

The look he gave her was annoyingly knowing. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed again, did we?” Duncan lowered his voice. “Or is your less-than-spectacular mood due to the fact that you woke up to find that it was empty?”

After six months, she’d gotten used to him. Used to the easy, sometimes somewhat annoying banter that meant next to nothing. It was Cavanaugh’s way of dealing with boredom and she was okay with that. They all had their little gimmicks.

“It’s always empty,” she emphasized.

“Ah, well, that could be the problem right there,” her partner told her as if he’d just made a scientific breakthrough.

Her green eyes narrowed. She was not about to get sucked into discussing her private life, or worse, defending it.

“No, actually, I think the problem is right here, sitting at the desk across from me.” The last case they’d been working on had been resolved. If there was a new one in the offing, Cavanaugh would have told her that the second she’d walked in. Obviously they were in between cases. Inactivity made him antsy. “I take it that none of the good citizens of Aurora, California, have given in to the temptation of soliciting anything more lascivious than magazine subscriptions.”

Duncan frowned slightly. “Are we talking about hookers?”

“We’re talking about the fact that you’re bored and having a hard time dealing with it. Maybe one of the other departments is short on manpower. Why don’t you make a few inquiries and volunteer your services accordingly?” she suggested.

“And give up sitting across from the ray of sunshine that’s known as you?” he asked incredulously. “Not a chance, O’Banyon. Besides, some up-and-coming con artist or identity-theft ring is bound to rear its ugly head all too soon. And, as you’ve already mentioned, there’s always that dependable libido to fall back on.”

“Yours or the general public’s?” Noelle questioned wryly.

“I plead the Fifth,” Duncan said with a grin.

It was the kind of grin that women found sexy and exciting, a grin that went straight to the heart while first stirring the senses and making women—single or otherwise—dream of things that they hadn’t even realized they were missing until they had encountered tall, dark and teeth-jarringly handsome Duncan Cavanaugh.

Once upon a time when she’d still been innocent and naive, Noelle thought, that very same grin would have gotten to her at the speed of light. But after having had her heart broken into countless pieces—so many that she thought it could never be reconstructed to function properly again—and broken not once, but twice, she knew better than to even think about attempting to go that treacherous route again. That route was for others who were either more naive or stronger than her to pursue. She had her daughter, her grandmother and her career, and as far as she was now concerned, that was more than enough to fill her world and her time.

“So, how’s everything on the home front?” Duncan asked her, changing the subject after several minutes of silence had gone by.

“Peaceful,” she answered, then spared him a glance. “Which is more than I can say for here, thanks to present company,” she added pointedly.

“Yeah, the squad room is kind of noisy,” Duncan agreed, looking around the area while feigning obliviousness to her actual meaning.

He wasn’t fooling her. Cavanaugh knew exactly what she was talking about, Noelle thought.

“Now might be a very good time to catch up on all those reports that have been piling up,” Noelle mentioned.

Duncan rolled his eyes, but he didn’t bother commenting on her suggestion. Though he loved his job, loved the idea of carrying on in the family business that was, above all, to serve and protect the people who lived in the same city that he did, documenting that service was a chore that came in only slightly ahead of voluntarily walking into a dentist’s office and requesting a root canal be done—for no apparent reason.

Duncan worked his way back to his initial impression of her entrance—and the reason for his previous inquiry. “You were frowning when you came into the squad room just now,” he told her.

Noelle deliberately avoided making any eye contact. “Must have been your imagination.”

Duncan dropped his playful tone and became serious. “No, and it wasn’t my poor vision, either, if that’s what you’re going to suggest next. You definitely looked like you were disturbed about something just now. Anything I can do?” he offered.

He really was persistent, she’d give him that. She knew that most partners tended to share everything, their histories, their feelings. But that was eventually, and she didn’t feel that she was there yet.

For that matter, since she was determined to hold parts of herself in seclusion, she might never be in a place where sharing felt comfortable to her. To share was to be vulnerable.

“How about ten seconds of silence?” she asked in response to his offer.

Duncan seemed to seriously consider her request. But his answer, delivered without a smile, still gave him away. “I can do five.”

Noelle sighed. If only. Out loud she said, “I’ll take what I can get.”

True to his word, Duncan gave her exactly five seconds, glancing at the second hand on his analog watch, a watch his father had given to him when he’d graduated high school. His father had told him that it had belonged to his father and he thought it only fitting that he pass it on.

Ordinarily, Duncan had a fondness for the latest electronic gadgets, but there was something about connecting with his past—a past that had suddenly mushroomed in size around a year ago when he, his siblings and his cousins had discovered that they were part of an already large branch of the Cavanaugh family—that gave him a deep sense of stability as well as intensifying his sense of history.

Counting the seconds now, Duncan looked up at her when the last second faded. “Time’s up,” he announced.

“How about five more?”

“Maybe later,” he answered, then gave her his terms. “After you tell me what’s bothering you.”

Her eyes locked with his. “You mean other than a partner who won’t retreat back into his space and let me work on my reports?”

Duncan inclined his head. “Other than that,” he allowed, then reiterated his observation. “You were definitely frowning and you looked preoccupied.” He dropped all hint of a bantering tone. “C’mon, give. What’s up with you?”

Noelle blew out a breath. “Lucy was pretty upset this morning.”

Lucy. L before M. The alphabetic device was how he remembered who was who. It had taken him a month to get the names straight and stop confusing her grandmother with her daughter.

“Did you find out why?” he asked her.

Noelle nodded. “Henry died.”

“Henry.” Duncan repeated the name, waiting for some sort of identification to follow it. When his partner wasn’t as quick as he felt was prudent, he prodded her a little. “Is that her dog? Or a pet goldfish? Some character on the soap opera that she watches? Or...?”

His voice drifted off as he waited for his partner to set the record straight.

Noelle took offense for her grandmother at the way Duncan had just casually attempted to pigeonhole a woman she had always felt completely defied any ordinary typecasting. Lucy was and always had been one of a kind.

“She doesn’t have a dog or a pet goldfish and the only way that Lucy would wind up watching one of those soap operas would be if someone tied her up in a chair and taped her eyes opened. She absolutely hates soap operas,” Noelle declared with feeling.

“My mistake. So just who is—or was—Henry?” Duncan asked. “Her boyfriend?” he suddenly guessed.

“Her friend,” Noelle countered with emphasis. “According to Lucy, she and Henry had been friends since they were both kids.”

Duncan whistled. “Wow, that’s a lot of years,” he estimated.

“How would you know?” Noelle challenged. “You never met my grandmother.”

“Just a calculated guess,” he answered, backing off. “So what happened? Did he have a heart attack while they were out, or...?”

Noelle pushed the keyboard back on her desk. So much for catching up. She wasn’t going to have any peace until Cavanaugh had the whole story. She had to remember to practice her poker face more often when she was around him.

“They have a standing ‘date’ every other Thursday— Not like that,” she interjected, noting the triumphant look on her partner’s face. “They just go out to eat. Anyway, she picks him up every other Thursday to get him out of that depressing senior retirement home he’s living in.” Since she was stuck telling him this story, she decided to throw in a couple of more details. “Lucy says that ever since Henry moved in there, he’s been behaving like a broken man who was just marking time before he died.”

Duncan inclined his head. He could see that happening. “Well, technically, we’re all just marking time.”

Noelle frowned. That was not what she wanted to hear. “I’d prefer you keeping your cheery comments to yourself, Cavanaugh,” she told him. “Now, do you want me to tell you about this or not?”

He gestured grandly for her to continue with her narrative. “Go ahead.”

Noelle banked down her impatience, deciding that Cavanaugh wasn’t being deliberately annoying, it just seemed to be something that came naturally to him.

“Anyway, when she got there yesterday and knocked on his door, he didn’t answer. After a few minutes, she gave up being polite and just walked in.” She could just see her grandmother sailing full steam ahead into the room—and then stopping dead in her tracks once she realized what had happened. Her heart ached for Lucy. “She found him lying on his bed, dead. He was cold,” she added, “so he’d probably died a few hours before she got there.”

“Had he been ill?” The way Cavanaugh asked the question told her that his interest was clearly piqued. Boredom was really doing a number on the man, she couldn’t help thinking.

“No, actually rather amazingly, Henry was in excellent health, especially when you consider that when he’d moved to the retirement home, it was because he’d had surgery and wasn’t doing all that well on his own. According to Lucy, his recovery progressed rather slowly. Certainly slower than he was happy about. At the time, he’d needed help doing almost everything. It had to be hard for a proud man like him. But Lucy said he did get better eventually.”

“If that’s the case, why did he stay at the home?” Duncan asked. “Why didn’t he just go back to living in his house?”

“Because it was too late,” she answered. “Henry had to sell his house in order to afford living at the retirement home.” Her dismissive laugh was totally devoid of any humor. “Those little cramped rooms don’t come cheap,” she added.

The details surrounding going to live in a retirement home were something he knew nothing about. As far as he could tell, all the older members of his family were still going strong, including Shamus, the family patriarch who had been instrumental in bringing the two factions of the family together.

“How old was he?” Duncan asked.

“Seventy-nine.” She waited, expecting Duncan to make a crack about Henry having one foot in the grave or something equally as tasteless—after all, how could someone as vital looking as Duncan even understand what an older person felt? But her partner merely nodded, as if he were taking down information from a witness to a crime. Noelle was pleasantly surprised. Maybe he wasn’t so shallow after all.

“So he’s a healthy seventy-nine-year-old who just suddenly expires.”

“That about covers it all,” she agreed, nodding. She’d met Henry a couple of times and had liked the older gentleman, but she couldn’t begin to imagine how Lucy had to feel, losing someone who she’d known for so very long. “What makes it worse for Lucy is that she told me that this is the second person she knew who died in the last six months.”

From his perspective, Duncan came to the only logical conclusion that he could. “Is she worried about being next?”

“No!” Noelle cried sharply, then relented, softening her tone as she said, “Well, maybe. What she really is, I think, is lonely. Her circle of friends is growing smaller and I guess it’s making her rethink her life.”

“Missed opportunities?” he guessed.

But Noelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. Lucy never talks about things like opportunities she felt she missed out on. For the most part, she’s always been all about the moment, not the past. That was why seeing her like that this morning really kind of threw me.”

He completely understood her reaction and it was rather reassuring to know that his partner actually was capable of these sorts of feelings. There were times, especially in the beginning, when he’d felt he’d been partnered with a robot or the latest version of someone’s rendering of artificial intelligence.

“She’s your grandmother, right?” he asked. When Noelle nodded in response, he added, “And you said she raised you.”

“She did.”

Personally, Duncan couldn’t imagine what that had to have been like. Growing up, he’d had both parents around, not to mention the rest of the mob scene. He was one of seven brothers and sisters, so he’d never had even a moment when he had felt lonely—no matter how much he’d wanted to on more than a couple of occasions.

Duncan got to the crux of his question. “Why do you call her Lucy?”

“Because it’s her name,” Noelle replied with a straight face. “And because she wouldn’t have answered if I’d called her Grandma or Nana or any of those other traditional labels. She once told me that hearing them applied to her would make her feel old. Since she was my whole world—when she didn’t have to be—I would have agreed to anything she wanted from me.

“Besides,” she went on to say, “it seemed pretty much like a reasonable request to me. Actually, at five, anything an adult asks you to do seems rather reasonable at the time. I never questioned her preference. To be honest, I was so happy to have someone who actually wanted to take care of me I would have called her anything she wanted me to call her.”

Noelle saw the light that entered her partner’s deep green eyes and she quickly headed off what she assumed was his conclusion before he could allow it to grow and flourish.

“My parents didn’t abuse me, if that’s what you’re thinking. They just really didn’t notice me very much at all. I was sheltered, fed, clothed and taken in for the necessary shots that eliminated a bunch of childhood diseases—”

Duncan refrained from saying that the same was usually done for a household pet dog. He had no desire to open up any of his partner’s old wounds on the outside chance that they might have actually healed. Instead, he said, “But Lucy took more than just a passing interest in you.”

Noelle smiled and he noted, not for the first time, that it rather lit up the whole room.

“Exactly,” she said. “So I want to be able to be there for her whenever I can.” She glanced over toward the small office where Jamieson, their supervisor, was sitting, apparently deeply engrossed in the telephone conversation he was having. “Think Jamieson would mind if I took a couple of hours personal time to attend the funeral with Lucy?” she asked.

For the most part, the lieutenant was an easygoing man. He didn’t act as if he had something to prove; neither was he trying to make a reputation on the backs of his detectives.

“I don’t see why he would. It’s not like we’re exactly drowning in work,” Duncan pointed out. And then he had another thought—because they weren’t drowning in work and because he wanted to meet this woman who preferred having her granddaughter call her by a nickname than the traditional title he personally thought of as endearing. “You want some company?”

The idea seemed to catch Noelle completely off guard. She looked at him, somewhat confused. “You mean you?”

Duncan laughed at the surprised expression on her face. “Well, I can’t very well offer up anyone else’s company to you, now can I? I mean, maybe I could—but I wouldn’t,” he added mischievously. “Yes, O’Banyon, I mean me.”

So far the only time she had seen Cavanaugh after hours and out of the office was at Malone’s, a local bar that was frequented by members of the Aurora Police Department and that had only been a couple of times. Not to mention by accident because she hadn’t known he was going to be there. Up until now, they hadn’t made arrangements to meet anywhere that didn’t have to do directly with police work.

Since he appeared to be serious—or as serious as he could get—Noelle considered his offer. Cavanaugh was a little unorthodox, but she figured that he meant well and besides, her grandmother responded well to good-looking men. Cavanaugh was nothing if not that.

“Sure,” she said. “Why not? If you’re there, it might help her keep her chin up.” And then she flashed her partner a smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey, what’s a partner for, right?” he said with an easy, sexy smile.

She tried not to notice just how easily that smile seemed to slip under her skin and unsettle her just before she managed to shut it down.

“Right,” she murmured, focusing on the gesture and not on the man. Her life was just about as complicated as she was willing for it to be. There was no room in it for anything extra.

Certainly not for a cocky police detective with magnetic green eyes and a sexy swagger.

Chapter 3

“Are you sure that you’re up to this, Lucy?” Noelle asked her grandmother as they approached the cemetery that was on the far side of Aurora’s southern boundary three days later.

It was midmorning on Monday. She’d dropped Melinda off at school and driven here for the funeral with Lucy. There was a small, nondenominational chapel on the premises for those who wanted some sort of a service before standing at the deceased’s grave site, but her grandmother had opted to bypass that.

Henry never attended a service while he was alive. It’d seem strange having him there now that he was dead, Lucy had reasoned.

“Of course I’m up to this,” her grandmother now answered, shortly. “I’m the one who made all the arrangements. It’s not like I can call a time-out and put that minister on hold because I’m having heart flutters.”

Noelle pulled her car up into the small, uneven parking lot that was in front of the cemetery. Turning off the car’s engine, she shifted in her seat to look at her grandmother, searching for any telltale signs that might indicate that Lucy was in any sort of physical distress.

“Are you having heart flutters?” Noelle asked, concerned.

“No, I am not having heart flutters,” Lucinda stated firmly. “Stop looking at me that way, Noely, I’m not some Dresden doll ready to break because you breathed on it. You ought to know that by now.” She pressed the release on her seat belt. “Now come on, let’s get this over with. Henry’s probably looking down right now, annoyed at all the fuss. He never did like making a big deal out of things.”

Lucy wasn’t fooling her. She knew that her grandmother liked putting on a blustery front, but she was a softy underneath all that. “You sure you don’t want to take a minute to take a deep breath or anything?”

“My breathing’s just fine, Noely,” Lucy assured her. “Besides, if we don’t show up soon, the minister’s going to think no one’s coming and he’ll just go and do whatever it is that ministers do when they’re not praying over people they didn’t know.”

Noelle read between the lines. “Are you telling me that no one from the home is going to be coming?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. Those old biddies don’t like to be reminded that they might be next,” Lucy told her loftily.

“How about Henry’s family?” Noelle asked, coming around to the passenger side of her car.

As always, her grandmother had already opened the passenger door and gotten out. Lucy wasn’t looking for any assistance, but Noelle couldn’t help thinking that the woman suddenly appeared rather frail to her right now. But she knew better than to offer her grandmother her arm unless so requested. Lucy was extremely sensitive and proud that way.

She shook her head in response to the question. “Henry didn’t have a family. His wife, Jenny, left him years ago, thinking she deserved better—she didn’t.” Lucy shrugged as if the woman under discussion was of no consequence. “I heard that she died a couple of years back.”

“Children? Grandchildren?” Noelle asked, thinking how sad it had to be to know that you didn’t have anyone to mourn your passing.

“No and no,” Lucy replied, shooting down each question.

Something wasn’t adding up for her. “But didn’t you say that Henry took out an insurance policy?” she asked. Because it was slightly uphill, progress from the parking lot to the cemetery was slow.

“He did.”

Okay, now she was officially confused. “If Henry had no family, just who did he leave his money to?” she asked. And then it dawned on her. Or at least she thought it did. “You?”

Lucy abruptly stopped walking and looked at her incredulously.

“Me?” The woman waved away the very thought. “No. What would I need with Henry’s money? It was his friendship I wanted, not his money. Hell, when I came to pick him up on Thursday I was going to talk him into getting out of that depressing place and coming to live with me.” They resumed walking as Lucy sighed, resigned. “Guess that’s all water under the bridge now, or whatever trite saying fits this occasion. Oh, damn.”

They had just walked through the cemetery gates when Lucy stopped short for a second time.

“What’s the matter?” Noelle asked, glancing around to see what had caused her grandmother to utter the words of distress.

Lucy remained where she was, her eyes narrowing in obvious displeasure. “She’s here.”

“She?” Noelle repeated. “Who is ‘she’?”

“That annoying volunteer from the retirement home,” Lucy said with contempt. “The one who tried to keep me out of his room, acting like she knew Henry better than I did.”

Her grandmother had told her all about that when she had recounted all the details surrounding her discovery of Henry’s lifeless body. It was obvious to her that Lucy had more than just feelings of friendship cloaked in nostalgia when it came to Henry.

Turning toward the person who had aroused Lucy’s anger, she noticed a tall woman, her face all but obscured by the scarf she wore on her head and the dark, oversize sunglasses perched on her nose.

“Want me to arrest her for you, Lucy?” Noelle asked brightly.

Moving forward, Lucy never took her eyes off the woman who’d stirred her ire. “Don’t be ridiculous, Noely.”

“Sorry. Just want to make you feel better,” Noelle told her drily.

Lucy frowned, making no effort to disguise her feelings as she glared across the field at the other woman.

“Besides,” she complained, “you don’t have anything to charge her with.”

Noelle smiled to herself. “You have a point.”

And then it was her turn to stop walking, but for an entirely different reason than her grandmother’s.

Wearing a dark jacket over his customary black turtleneck and jeans, Duncan Cavanaugh was walking toward them.

She knew he’d said that he’d be there, but she’d thought that, as with everything else, he was just talking. She hadn’t really expected the man to actually show up. Especially to a stranger’s funeral.

Before she could say anything to let her grandmother know that their party had just increased by one, Lucy’s keen radar for good-looking men had alerted her to the tall, broad-shouldered young detective’s presence.

Noelle heard her grandmother take in a deep breath, heard the low murmur of appreciation as it fell from her tongue and felt Lucy suddenly straighten up as if an additional twenty to thirty years had just mysteriously melted away. Considering that Lucy already looked a decade younger than she was, that just about made the two of them practically the same age, Noelle judged.

“And whose tasty little morsel is that?” Lucy asked under her breath.

The question was a rhetorical one. Consequently she looked at Noelle in utter surprise when she heard her granddaughter inadvertently say, “Mine.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. And was that a spark of admiration she detected there? Noelle wondered.

“What?”

That had come out all wrong, Noelle thought, upbraiding herself. Why in heaven’s name had she said “mine”?

“I mean, I know him,” Noelle amended. “He works with me.”

At this point, Duncan had seen her and her grandmother and was now striding across the field toward them. He reached them in less than a heartbeat. She’d be the one to know since she was suddenly acutely aware of her own.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Duncan said to her with more than a touch of relief. “I was beginning to think I’d gone to the wrong cemetery or got the time mixed up.” And then, very smoothly, Duncan shifted his attention from his stunned-looking partner to the petite woman standing beside her. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister, O’Banyon.”

“And you didn’t tell me your partner failed his vision test,” Lucy responded, never tearing her eyes away from what she viewed to be a fine specimen of manhood. “I hope they had the good sense to take away your gun, boy,” Lucy told him drolly.

“Feisty,” Duncan observed with an approving nod and a wide smile to match. “I see now where Noelle gets it from.”

In the six months they’d been together, Noelle had never heard Cavanaugh say her first name. Why the sound of it sent a warm, inviting ripple down her spine made absolutely no sense to her, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it or to ponder why.

“And what is your name?” Lucy asked, her sharp blue eyes pinning the young man in place and devouring every available detail about him. Despite her age, Lucy missed nothing.

“Detective Duncan Cavanaugh, ma’am,” he said, giving her his full name.

Deliberately ignoring the fact that Amanda, the volunteer from the home, was making her way toward them to obviously join the tiny circle, Lucy turned so that her attention was strictly on the young man who had just introduced himself.

“Well, not that I don’t appreciate the company of a good-looking young man, Duncan Cavanaugh, but just what is it that you are doing here? Have you come to whisk Noelle to the scene of some crime?”

“No, ma’am, I have not. I thought that maybe you and O’Banyon here might like to have some company as you say your final goodbyes.” By saying “you and O’Banyon” he really meant the older woman, but he had a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate any references that would make her appear to be vulnerable.

“Oh, you did, did you?” Lucy asked, slanting a glance at her granddaughter before focusing back on the young man before her. “Well, that was very thoughtful of you, Duncan.” Glancing around Duncan’s muscular frame, Lucy nodded toward the casket that had been set up beside the hole that the groundskeepers had dug for it the day before. Henry’s final resting place. “Right now,” she prompted, “I think we’d better get over there before that minister decides to charge me overtime.”

Duncan laughed. “Can’t have that now, can we?” So saying, Duncan offered his arm to the older woman.

Noelle’s eyes met his as she shook her head, trying to warn him off before Lucy’s tart tongue told him what he could do with his arm and his assumption as to her frailty.

To her utter amazement, her grandmother not only didn’t take off his head, snapping that she was perfectly capable of walking unassisted by some whippersnapper, but Lucy actually slipped her arm through Cavanaugh’s and proceeded on to the grave site, blending her footfalls with his.

Or vice versa, Noelle silently amended.

As if reading her mind—not to mention noting her surprise—Duncan glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled broadly.

It was that same half sexy, half enigmatic smile that he’d flashed at her the other day. She had no idea what to make of it, then or now, only that she wished he’d refrain from aiming that smile in her direction. Each time he did, rather than grow progressively more immune to it, she found herself becoming more susceptible to it.

As Lucy, Duncan and she settled in around the perimeter of what was to be Henry’s grave, there was no possible way of avoiding the volunteer from the home any longer.

Especially since the woman made a point of taking Lucy’s hand and squeezing it as she told her, “I see you made it.”

Lucy seemed insulted by the simple, five-word sentence. Venting her displeasure, she looked at the other woman and asked, “What was your first clue?”

“Lucy,” Noelle admonished, infusing her grandmother’s nickname with a warning note.