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“It is if I want to sleep at night. Excuse me for a second.” Janelle drew the phone in closer to her.
Turning her body away from her, Janelle let her fingers quickly tap out the familiar numbers. Her father, Brian, was the current chief of detectives and the younger of the two surviving Cavanaugh brothers. His three sons, her brothers and six of her seven cousins were also with the police force. Only Patience had broken free, following her own destiny to become a veterinarian. But even Patience had continuing contact with the police force. Janelle’s cousin treated the German shepherds that made up the K-9 squad.
There were times when Janelle thought of the police force as her personal cavalry. This was one of those times.
Connected to her father’s private line, she lowered her voice as she began to speak. After a few moments of obligatory give and take and a promise to stop by “soon,” Janelle told her father why she was calling. Quickly, she gave him Ilene’s background story and what she’d brought to the table.
Listening to her father’s answer, Janelle had no way of knowing she was setting into motion something that was going to mushroom out until it touched all of them.
“You look much too happy for a Monday morning,” Kyle Santini, Clay’s partner of two years grumbled as he slumped down in his own seat. The sudden action all but sent his coffee sloshing over the sides of the chipped, worn mug his five-year-old had made him in camp last year. Carefully, he set the misshapen royal-blue mug on his desk, keeping it away from any important papers. Kyle eyed the man considered by the squad to be the personification of the carefree, happy bachelor. “You still seeing that stripper?”
“Exotic dancer,” Clay corrected. “And no, I’m not still seeing her. Ginger and I came to a parting of the ways more than a week ago.”
A knowing look came over Santini’s face. “Let me guess, she wanted to have ‘the talk.”’ Taking a long drag of the mud that passed for coffee in the precinct, Kyle chuckled to himself. “Sooner or later, they all want to have ‘the talk.”’ Kyle shook his head, a man to whom women would always remain a mystery. “What is it about women that makes them want to clip a man’s wings?”
“I don’t know,” Clay said honestly. “But it never got that far with Ginger and me.”
He thought of the woman he’d seen a handful of times in the past six weeks. One fateful night her screams had brought him into the alley where she’d been dragged by some low life intent on turning his fantasy into reality. Rescuing her had earned him Ginger’s gratitude and a few other things, as well. The woman had a body that wouldn’t quit and a mind that wouldn’t start.
Even though he’d told himself that was exactly what he wanted at this stage of his life, Clay had found himself getting restless and looking for an excuse to end the romance. The woman had given him one when she’d suggested a threesome.
“Ginger was a free spirit,” he told a more than mildly interested Santini. “She just wanted to be a little freer than I liked.”
Kyle groaned as if he’d just been deprived of his reason for living. “Don’t let my mind go there. You’re talking to a monk.”
Clay grinned. In the past six weeks, this had been a familiar complaint. “Alice is just about due, isn’t she?”
“If you ask me, she’s about overdue.” Santini sighed. Apparently prenatal was no better than post-natal. “Then I get to listen to her complain about how men should be the ones to have the kids.” Shaking his head, Kyle shot Clay an envious look. “You don’t know how lucky you are, being a bachelor.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Clay echoed then laughed. His partner wasn’t fooling anyone. He’d cut off his right arm before he’d give up what he had. “I’ve seen you with your son. You wouldn’t change that for the world.”
“No, but there are times I’d be willing to trade Alice in, at least for a weekend.”
Clay rocked back in his chair. He knew better. “Any man looks at her twice, you’re ready to knock them into last year.”
Santini shrugged. “That’s beside the point. That’s just my hot temper.”
Straightening up, Clay decided these reports weren’t going to file themselves, no matter how much he wished they would. He got busy, or tried to. “Nothing wrong in admitting you love the woman you married, Santini. Not enough of that going around.”
Santini clearly wasn’t interested in platitudes, he was interested in details. Preferably juicy ones. “You still didn’t answer me. If you didn’t get a little last night, why are you grinning like some loony hyena?”
Clay knew his answer was going to disappoint the man. “Because I just found out we’re going to have a judge in the family. My sister’s getting married.”
“You’re going to give me more of a hint than that, Cavanaugh. You’ve got three sisters,” Santini reminded him.
“Callie.”
Clay couldn’t remember his older sister ever looking so excited. She’d waited until they’d all sat down to Sunday dinner. For once, his father had managed to corral everyone, even his uncle. They’d all but poured out of the dining room, even with the extra leaves added on to the table his dad had specially made for family affairs.
Putting two fingers into her mouth, Callie had whistled the way she used to as a kid, getting the roar at the table to die down to a whisper and then, as sweet as could be, she’d made the announcement. She and Brent were getting married. And just like that, he was going to become an uncle, thanks to the judge’s five-year-old daughter, Rachel.
“You’re kidding me.” Santini whistled, shaking his head. “Damn, and here I was hoping she’d give me a tumble after I leave Alice.”
“Fat chance. In more ways than one.” Clay paused. “Why don’t you call up and send your wife flowers?”
Kyle laughed. Flowers were usually to apologize for something. “That’ll throw her.” And then he grinned. “Maybe I will.”
Captain Reynolds leaned into the cubicle, his gray eyes sweeping over both the men. “Cavanaugh, Santini, the chief just called. He wants the two of you to protect a witness. Apparently this is a big deal. The D.A. doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
Clay rolled his eyes. He’d never been much for baby-sitting detail. One of the desk jockeys could do just as well. “I’ve got a desk full of work.”
The gray-haired man looked at him, his manner friendly but brooking no nonsense. Reynolds liked to stay on top of things at all times, which meant exercising control, but never holding the leash too tight. Taut leashes had a way of snapping.
“Which’ll still be there whether or not you pull this detail. Consider it a vacation with pay.” About to withdraw, Reynolds stopped again. “Either of you boys got any stock in Simplicity Computers, I suggest you cash it in right now. Seems one of the internal auditors found some dirty business going on.”
Clay sighed. Terrific. A whistle-blower. “This have something to do with the person we’re supposed to be guarding?”
Reynolds nodded. “It does.”
“This person have a name?”
“Yeah.” Reynolds paused to think a moment. “Ilene O’Hara.”
Feeling like someone who had just slipped into the Twilight Zone without so much as a warning flash of light, Clay stared at the captain.
The smile had vanished from Clay’s lips.
Chapter 2
All during the ride to the D.A.’s office Clay had been silently steeling himself for the ordeal ahead.
Beside him, in the driver’s seat, Santini sat expounding on whatever topic floated through his dark head. Occasionally coming up for air, his partner’s nonstop flow of words only managed to bounce off Clay’s ears, hardly penetrating as he thought about the woman he was going to be seeing after all this time.
Ilene O’Hara.
It had been six years. Six years and three months, but who was counting, he thought with a self-deprecating smile. He and Ilene had broken up in August and now they were looking down the calendar at November. Technically, she had broken up with him, but he’d driven her to it. On purpose.
Ilene O’Hara.
He’d thought she’d left Aurora. When had she gotten back? Clay glanced out the window, barely seeing the scenery go by as Santini took the streets a little quicker than they were meant to be taken.
Clay didn’t know how he felt about seeing her again. He was trying not to feel anything at all, but that wasn’t working out too well. Emotions insisted on rumbling through him. He was like a channel surfer who’d accidentally come across an episode of a program he’d once enjoyed. There was a sense of familiarity washing over him, perhaps even a vague sense of nostalgia, but nothing more.
He couldn’t let there be anything more.
“Where the hell are you today?” Santini’s voice finally elbowed its way into his thoughts, demanding his attention. Demanding a response.
Turning, Clay looked at him. “What?”
“You,” Santini repeated impatiently, turning a corner and going down the street that would eventually lead them to the D.A.’s office. “Where are you?”
Clay stopped himself from bracing his hand against the dashboard. “Here, next to you, risking my life as you take turns too fast and give all detectives a bad name.”
Santini snorted. “Don’t give me that. First you come in looking as if you’d been peeled off the top of the morning, now you look like the used gum that you peel off the bottom of someone’s heel.” Santini spared him a penetrating glance before looking back on the road. “After riding around with you for two years, I know that you’re not one of those sensitive guys, so this isn’t a mood swing. What gives?”
Santini was his partner, and he shared as much with him as he shared with any man or any member of his family. At times even more. But right now he didn’t feel like talking about it. He didn’t even want to let his thoughts stray in that direction. He just wanted the assignment to be magically over instead of just beginning.
“Just drive.”
Santini mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, but Clay managed to pick up enough of it to know that the man was casting aspersions on closed-mouth black Irishmen. For the first time since he’d heard Ilene’s name this morning, Clay smiled.
She looked better than he’d expected.
Six years had taken the promise of beauty and had lovingly polished it until it shone. She’d changed, he realized. She didn’t look innocent anymore. Just knowledgeable, as if she now knew that the world wasn’t some huge playground with all the safety features built into it.
He supposed that was partially his fault. If he hadn’t pushed her toward it, maybe they wouldn’t have broken up.
Maybe…
The land of maybe was mist-filled territory with long, winding, intersecting roads that led nowhere, and Clay wasn’t about to go there. Today was what it was and so was he, there was no point in speculating otherwise. Ultimately he knew he wouldn’t have been any good for her. A woman like Ilene needed stability, and stability scared the hell out of him.
Stability and stagnation both began with the same letter.
As he walked into the room, Clay glanced down at her left hand. She was wearing a ring on the appropriate finger, but it wasn’t a wedding ring. It was sporting a blue stone in its center.
Her birthstone was blue. Sapphire, he thought, not aquamarine. Funny the things you remembered even after all this time.
Her profile had been toward him. When she turned around to look at him, he saw her mouth drop open a second before she shut it again. She was absolutely stunned. He’d always loved the way surprise had blossomed on her face. But this wasn’t that kind of surprise. This was more like shock. She hadn’t known he was the one being called in.
Clay’s eyes shifted toward his cousin Janelle, the only other person in the small, book-lined room besides his partner who had just entered.
So that was it. Janelle.
He might have known.
This was her idea, he was sure of it, even though the order had come down to him from Captain Reynolds. Janelle fancied herself a puppeteer, orchestrating the lives of those around her. He’d figured himself immune. Obviously, he’d figured wrong.
They were going to have to have a talk, he and Janelle. She meddled in things that didn’t concern her, more even, than his sisters did.
As blameless as Mother Teresa, Janelle was on her feet in a moment, rounding her desk and coming to greet her cousin and his partner. She nodded at the latter while flashing a broad, encouraging and amazingly guileless smile at Clay.
“Thanks for coming so quickly. Ms. O’Hara, this is Detective Kyle Santini.” The pause was almost imperceptible as she added, “And you already know my cousin.”
“Yes.” Normally a warm, outgoing person, Ilene could feel herself withdrawing. Freezing up. “I know your cousin.”
Her eyes, Ilene hoped, were cool as she regarded Clay. Her voice and expression were about all she felt she could control. As for her heart, well, that had launched into double time, beating as if she were free-falling off the edge of a cliff. God knows she hadn’t expected this.
She took a small breath to steady herself before asking, with what she prayed was slight disinterest, “How have you been?”
Clay felt as if he needed an ice pick just to chip out the words she’d directed his way. They were two strangers, unceremoniously pushed together on the dance floor. And neither one of them wanted to dance.
“I’m doing all right,” he replied. His eyes shifted toward Janelle. “Captain Reynolds got a call saying something about a witness needing protection?” The words hung in the air like a challenge.
He was mad, Ilene thought, and she didn’t know why. Men were so damn hard to figure out at times.
“That was my idea,” Janelle acknowledged.
Clay’s blue eyes were steely as they regarded his cousin. “I’m sure it was.”
“But it’s not mine,” Ilene declared. This was an omen. She shouldn’t have come.
Rising to her feet, struggling not to hurry from the room or say anything that would give away the shaky state of her emotions, Ilene tightened her hand around the purse strap hanging from her shoulder. The air supply in the small room decreased at an alarming rate. She needed to get out of here. Now.
She’d left Aurora for a while. When she’d returned, she’d always known she’d run into him someday. Aurora wasn’t small, but even in cities like San Francisco and L.A., paths sometimes crossed unwillingly and Aurora was smaller than either of those places.
Even so, she’d hoped that when the day did come, she’d be prepared, that some hidden sixth sense would have forewarned her before she was suddenly thrust into his presence. Then at least she would have felt confident enough to put on a decent performance. One that would convince him that he hadn’t broken her heart in a million pieces.
But right now she had her son and her work and that was more than enough.
Except that now she didn’t have her work, Ilene reminded herself. Or possibly a future, either. She struggled against sinking into a pool of emotional quicksand.
Her hands tightened around her strap again as she deliberately addressed her words to the dark-haired man behind Clay. “Look, I’m sorry you were called out for nothing, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” Janelle protested.
Ilene looked at the other woman. She’d never been able to tolerate restrictions well. “Watch me.” But as she began to leave the room, it was Clay, not Janelle, who got in her way.
He was a cop first, he reminded himself. And the situation needed one. “Captain Reynolds doesn’t throw around the term ‘protection’ lightly. Now what’s this about?”
“Ms. O’Hara says that her boss is misrepresenting her company’s profits to the public,” Janelle said.
Her company.
It occurred to Clay that he didn’t even know where Ilene worked or what she even did for a living. They’d been involved while in college, when everything was promising and fresh, and paths hadn’t been laid down yet. He’d always felt she could be anything she wanted to be. After they’d split and she’d left town, he’d purposely tried not to keep tabs on her, knowing if he did, he might be tempted to do something stupid, like tell her what a fool he’d been to walk away from her.
He would have hurt her if he’d remained. He knew that just as surely as he knew his own name. But men like him didn’t marry, Clay reminded himself. They dallied and went on. His one true love was the force and always would be.
“You work for Simplicity Computers, right?” he heard Santini inquiring.
“Yes, I do,” Ilene replied tersely.
At least until they find out what I’ve done. And then she wouldn’t be working for anyone. There was money in the bank, but that would only last a little while. How was she going to provide for Alex then? Oh God, this was a huge mistake.
Santini gave a low whistle. “You’re kidding. I just bought one of those starter computers for my kid.”
“It’s not going to self-destruct,” Ilene told him, her eyes covertly shifting to Clay. Trying not to see how time had only made him better looking. “The problem isn’t with the product quality. It’s still the finest that money can buy,” she assured Santini. “That’s the problem.”
“How do you mean?” Clay asked.
