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  “Apparently not,” he agreed. His voice was lofty again and seemed to be regaining some of its former volume, along with a little wry humor.

  “Seriously,” she told him, her expression reflecting how she felt about his almost getting killed protecting her. It was what partners were supposed to do, watch one another’s backs, but had he been killed, she would have had a great deal of trouble coming to terms with that. “I don’t want you doing that kind of thing again, all right?”

  “Okay,” he responded glibly. “Next time I see someone pointing a gun at you, I’ll just let them go ahead and do what comes naturally.” He looked at her pointedly. “Happy?”

  “Happy” would have come with another partner. One who didn’t constantly keep stirring her up this way, Kendra thought.

  “You know what I mean,” she bit off.

  “Sadly, most of the time, no,” he confessed with a sigh.

  Shifting in his seat, he looked forward. His body started to ache something fierce. Whatever effects the local anesthetic had had on him began to vanish, leaving behind a light residue of pain and exhaustion.

  “It’s been a long day, Good, and it’s not nearly over yet. Tell you what, just let me close my eyes for a minute and you just drive us to the precinct.” Matt glanced at her to see if she had any objections. “Is that okay with you?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed out what he’d neglected to do. “You forgot to buckle up.”

  “It’s a little awkward, reaching for the seat belt from this angle,” he confessed.

  “You’re a detective. You’re supposed to set a good example.”

  “For who? You march to your own drummer anyway. As far as I see, you’re the only other person in this car, Good.”

  With a sigh, she leaned over him and grabbed hold of his seat belt, then pulled it across his body and slid the metal tongue into the groove. Though she tried to avoid it, that involved getting very close to him and all but brushing against his torso. Granted, it was not nearly as close as he had gotten earlier, pressed against hers, but it was still something that didn’t exactly go unnoticed by either one of them.

  “Thanks,” he murmured when she was finished.

  “You’re welcome,” she answered, doing her best to sound casual even as a warm blush crept up her cheeks. Backing out of the spot, she put the car in gear and drove.

  And pretended she didn’t hear him laughing softly to himself.

  Chapter 9

  At first, Matt thought it was his imagination. But it only took the short ride from Sabrina Abilene’s apartment to his own to convince him that something was off with his mother. He needed to find out what before his partner showed up to take them to the former chief’s house.

  “Everything all right, Mom?” he asked as he studied her.

  Over the years, he’d become pretty much of an expert when it came to reading her. Sometimes he got more out of observing her than talking to her.

  Sabrina raised and lowered her shoulders in a vague, dismissive way, trying to tough it out for a second. Failing, she blurted out, “Are you sure I won’t embarrass you?”

  Since when was his mother this insecure? That last guy had really done a number on her by walking out, Matt thought. Maybe it was lucky for him that the bastard had vanished the way he had, because if he had the man in his sights right now, he might not be responsible for his actions.

  “Why?” he asked, feigning amusement. “What are you planning on doing?”

  Sabrina gazed down at her freshly polished pink nails, acting unusually flustered. “Nothing,” she declared breathlessly. “But, well, these are people you work with, right? People whose opinions you probably value?”

  “Right. These are down-to-earth people,” he emphasized. “Not born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-their-mouths, critical-of-everyone-who-breathes Southampton people.” He paused for a moment, ignoring the doorbell that had just begun to ring. “You’re a survivor, Mom.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You could never embarrass me.”

  But his mother apparently remembered it differently. “How about the time you came home early from school and walked in on me and—”

  He was not about to go there. It had taken him a while, all those years ago, to purge from his brain the compromising sight of his mother and her then “boyfriend” in bed.

  “Okay,” he allowed, “maybe that one time. But I’ve never been embarrassed by you, the person.” He gave her forehead a quick kiss. “Ready?”

  Sabrina took a deep breath and smoothed down the skirt of her yellow-and-white sundress, even though it was lying perfectly flat.

  Swallowing, she nodded. “Ready.”

  Ushering her gently over to the door, Matt opened it. Kendra was standing in his doorway, her hair pulled back in two short, sassy pigtails. She was wearing a white peasant blouse that ran out of material just shy of the top of the waistband of her frayed, faded denim cutoff shorts.

  Matt certainly hadn’t been prepared for this. He all but did a double take at the expanse of tempting, creamy skin.

  “You look like a teenager, Good,” he told her. “A young teenager.”

  She cocked her head. “I don’t know if you just complimented me or put me down.” Ignoring any further exchange with her partner, Kendra put her hand out to the slender, petite strawberry-blonde woman standing next to him. “Hi, I’m Kendra, Abil—Matt’s partner,” she introduced herself, smiling warmly.

  “I’m Sabrina Abilene,” the woman said, flashing Abilene’s smile at her. They had the same slightly tilted curve of the lip on one side, Kendra noted. “Did my son just call you ‘Good’?” the woman asked her, slightly confused.

  “That he did,” Kendra answered, then realized that, from a mother’s point of view, that “name” might be misconstrued. “It’s a long story.”

  Sabrina smiled brightly. “I’d love to hear it sometime.”

  Backed into that one, Kendra thought. “If there’s a lull at the barbecue,” she promised, then glanced at her watch. “In the meantime, I think we’d better get going.”

  Abilene waited for his mother to cross the threshold, then following, he turned to lock the door behind him. “You didn’t tell me we’d be punching a time clock.”

  “We don’t,” Kendra answered. “But if you want to park somewhere relatively close to the house, it pays to show up early. Depending on how many people are coming today, any latecomer might have to walk about half a mile or more to get to the house.”

  Sabrina looked from her son to his partner, waiting for some punch line.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked as she got into the passenger seat in Kendra’s car.

  Kendra glanced at her partner. “Have you warned your mother how big the family is?” Not waiting for a response, she continued. “And that doesn’t begin to touch on any friends who might have been invited.” Her focus was back on his mother as Kendra pulled her vehicle away from the curb. “I know this word tends to get overused, but the chief’s parties are legendary. The food is fantastic, and the people—” she smiled at the woman “—well, they have a way of making you feel glad you’re alive.”

  “Is it that way for you?” Abilene asked from the backseat.

  Kendra fully expected to see a smirk or a cocky half smile on Abilene’s lips, but when she spared him a glance over her shoulder, he actually seemed serious. As if he’d just asked something he wanted answered, not eventually, but now.

  “Sometimes,” she allowed cautiously, again addressing her words to his mother. For some reason she couldn’t explain, saying that to him would have felt way too personal. “Anyway, I think you’ll have a great time, Mrs. Abilene.”

  “Oh, call me Sabrina,” the woman told her with feeling, then tagged on an emphatic “please.”

  Kendra didn’t ordinarily feel comfortable calling someone’s mother by her first name, but this woman seemed exceedingly youthful. She made a guess that Sabrina Abilene had to have been awfully young when her son
was born.

  “All right,” she said to his mother, “if you insist.”

  “I do,” Sabrina told her with a soft little smile. She seemed to relax a little for the first time since before her son had come to pick her up.

  “Your mother’s very nice,” Kendra said, tossing the words over her shoulder to the man sitting directly behind her. “What happened to you?”

  “The ‘nice’ gene made a U-turn and doubled back when it realized it was going into my body,” Abilene quipped without hesitation.

  “That’s not true,” Sabrina protested. “You’re a very good son.”

  But Kendra nodded as if Abilene had just recited chapter and verse of what she’d already suspected.

  “That would go a long way toward explaining things,” she murmured under her breath, even as she smiled broadly at the passenger to her right and said, “I’m sure he is, Sabrina.”

  * * *

  “Come in, come in!” Andrew Cavanaugh greeted them warmly less than a beat after Kendra rang the doorbell. Because they were guests, the former chief of police and acting patriarch of the family first shook Sabrina’s hand and then her son’s. “Good to see you again,” he told Abilene.

  Turning toward Sean’s daughter, Andrew embraced Kendra. Her immediate reaction was to stiffen. The next moment, she forced herself to relax. She wasn’t entirely successful.

  “Better,” Andrew said, laughing as he released her. “We’ll get you into this hugging thing yet. It’s an acquired taste.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it.

  Even back during his hectic days as chief of the Aurora police department, Andrew Cavanaugh was nothing if not a devoted family man first, a servant of the people second. Nothing and no one was ever more important to him than family. He was a firm believer in “the more, the better.” Kendra’s slight resistance to being absorbed by the family was nothing new to him.

  He was accustomed to reluctance. It had taken patience to bring around some of his late brother’s children. Until a couple of years ago, he hadn’t even known of the triplets’ existence and they—Ethan, Kyle and Greer—had believed themselves to be the children of a dead war hero, not the illegitimate offspring of a policeman shot in the line of duty. And there’d been the four stepchildren—Zack, Taylor, Riley and Frank—that his younger brother Brian had brought into the family fold when he’d married his former partner, Lila McIntyre.

  But all that paled in comparison to the eight new members they had uncovered when the hospital mix-up had come to light.

  They were all trying to work out the emotional logistics. But, for the most part, Andrew felt that it was coming along rather nicely, all things considered. Sean Cavanaugh had already been embraced as the long-lost brother. Even their father, Seamus, had left his idyllic life in Florida, pronouncing it “boring,” and had returned to Aurora to meet the son he’d never known. The reunion had gone so well, that the once-vibrant police officer who’d fathered them all made up his mind that he would stay.

  Their numbers were growing by leaps and bounds and Andrew, for one, couldn’t be happier about it.

  “Why don’t you grab something to drink—or eat—and introduce Sabrina around?” Andrew suggested to his niece.

  Kendra glanced into the living room and the family room beyond. She was still trying to get everyone’s names straight herself.

  “I didn’t bring my player’s handbook,” Kendra confessed wryly.

  Andrew didn’t see that as a deterrent. “No shame in asking. Sometimes I forget a name, too,” he confided with a wink.

  “Must be your advanced old age,” Seamus said to his son as he came up behind him. He clamped a hand down on Andrew’s shoulder.

  Andrew laughed as he half turned to look at his father. “Careful, old man, or I’ll hide your teeth,” he warned.

  “These are all mine,” Seamus assured Kendra and her partner and especially Sabrina as he pulled at a couple to show how solidly embedded they were. “You must have me confused with yourself.” And then he bowed gallantly, although not as low as he once could have, before Sabrina. “Tell you what, why don’t I do the honors for this pretty lady?” he suggested. Straightening, he gallantly offered Sabrina his elbow. “Let’s go dazzle the natives, shall we?”

  “He’s some character,” Abilene commented to Kendra as he watched his mother be whisked off by the oldest of the Cavanaughs.

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that score,” Andrew agreed.

  Matt hadn’t thought that the chief could hear him. He didn’t want the man to think he was being flippant about his father. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean—”

  Andrew waved the apology away. “Sure you did. And you’re right. Dad is a character. And a handful.” He watched as his father seemed to disappear into the crowd with his newfound charge. “Brian and I still haven’t figured out how to handle him.”

  “You don’t ‘handle’ a man like that,” Sean told his newly discovered older brother as he joined the small circle, finding a place beside Kendra. He brushed a kiss against his daughter’s cheek by way of a greeting, never missing a beat of the conversation. “You just get out of his way before he mows you down. It’s what you do with a force of nature.”

  Approaching from the family room, Brian Cavanaugh laughed as he overheard Sean’s assessment of their father. “You’re a fast learner,” he commented with approval. “But then, you are a Cavanaugh.” He patted Sean on the back.

  “No self-esteem issues in this crowd,” Lila Cavanaugh laughed as she slid in beside her husband. She smiled at Matt. “Hi, you must be Kendra’s partner, Matt Abilene.”

  “I must be,” he agreed affably, shaking the woman’s hand. He’d been here perhaps a couple of times before, invited by a friend of a friend of one of the Cavanaughs. Once had been for a Christmas party. The family was even warmer than he remembered. “And you’re—”

  “Hungry,” Lila confided, looking at Andrew. “Isn’t it almost about time that you fired up the grill, Chief?” she asked.

  “Just waiting for someone to suggest it, Lila,” Andrew told her. For Matt’s benefit, he nodded his head toward the still very pretty blonde and said, “And she’s Lila, who’s much too good for Brian but she sticks by him anyway. She used to be his partner, you know. Back in the day. I figured she was way too good for him even then.” Before Brian could utter a comeback, Andrew took charge of both his brothers. “C’mon, you two, you can help.”

  “I can’t cook,” Sean protested, falling into place beside Brian and behind Andrew.

  “Okay, but you can lug, can’t you?” Andrew asked as they went out.

  “Lug?” Kendra asked uncertainly, looking to Lila for a possible explanation.

  “He’s probably referring to the propane tank for the grill,” Lila guessed.

  “That he is. Andrew likes to make people feel useful,” Rose, the former chief’s wife, told the two newcomers as she drifted by them with a tray filled with tiny smoked-cheddar cheese stuffed mushrooms. “Have a couple,” she offered, holding the tray lower so that Kendra and Matt could make their choices. “Hopefully it’ll tide you over as you find your way around this maze,” she told them. “There’s always a lot of smoke when Andrew barbecues. I think he does it on purpose. It’s almost like watching a magic act. Just follow your nose and you can’t go wrong.”

  “Well, they certainly are a friendly bunch,” Kendra commented just before she took a bite out of the stuffed mushroom she’d selected.

  Matt regarded her for a long moment. She was a complicated piece of work. In his partner’s place, he would have welcomed being part of this forceful family.

  “You don’t sound as if you know whether that’s a good thing or not.”

  “I do know that it’s pretty overwhelming,” she freely confessed.

  By now she should have gotten somewhat used to it, he thought.

  Looking around, he could see his mother in the center of a small cluster of people. Even at this distan
ce, he could see how wide her smile was. She was enjoying herself. He felt a sense of relief.

  “My mother seems to have taken to it like a duck to water,” he observed. And then he surprised Kendra by shifting gears. “Why’s your guard up?”

  She had a choice of denying his observation, ignoring it or telling him the truth. Caught off guard, she went with the truth.

  “I find it hard to get close.”

  “Because they won’t let you in?” Even as he asked, he knew that couldn’t be it. The Cavanaughs were family-oriented to a fault—and for them, “family” included the men and women of the department as well.

  “Because I won’t let me in,” she told him simply.

  She’d told him this much, so Matt decided to dig a little further. “Why? You don’t strike me as the naturally shy type.”

  Finished eating, she balled up the napkin in her hand. “No, just supercautious.”

  “Why?” he asked again. “Have you been burned?”

  The choice of words was enough to startle her. She covered it quickly, but he’d seen the sudden wariness, the quick intake of breath, the single second of pain in her eyes to know that somehow, without meaning to, he’d managed to strike a nerve.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

  There was no way she wanted to talk about it, especially not with someone she would have to see day in, day out, at least until this case was solved. After that, maybe one of them could get a transfer.

  “No.”

  He knew when to push, and when to back away. “Okay. I can respect that. Me, I don’t get close because I’ve watched my mother do it for most of my life and all she ever managed to get for it was kicked in the teeth.”

  To him, it was a simple object lesson. You put yourself out there, as his mother did, you were asking to have your heart tossed into a shredder. He figured that relationships, if they had a prayer of working, developed slowly, over time. They didn’t burst upon you like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  She felt as if she was looking at him for the first time. He’d suddenly become more than simply two-dimensional. “So you’ve made up your mind that it wasn’t going to happen to you.”