Cavanaugh Strong Read online

  “Not to,” Melinda repeated dutifully, her lower lip sticking out in a pout to end all pouts. “But this is Lucy. We hafta open the door for Lucy,” she insisted. “Lucy can’t get in unless we open the door.”

  “Terrific,” Noelle muttered under her breath as she shook her head in disbelief. “I’m raising a minilawyer.” Taking a deep breath, she answered Melinda as if she was talking to an adult instead of a six-year-old. Brighter than most children several years older than she was, Melinda responded to being acknowledged rather than ignored. “Lucy can get in because I’m going to open the door for her, not you. When you get to be my size, you can open the door for her, too. Understand?”

  The small, open face scrunched up as Melinda obviously pondered her mother’s words. “How tall are you, Momma?”

  “Taller than you. Look, we’ll talk,” she promised the little girl, breezing by her. She flipped the lock on her front door to the open position. “Hi!” Noelle said brightly, greeting her grandmother as she walked in.

  “Hi,” Lucy echoed back in a less-than-enthusiastic tone.

  Even if Lucy’s tone of voice had sounded chipper, Noelle would have immediately realized that something was definitely wrong. While no one had ever accused Lucinda O’Banyon of being cheerful, she was chipper and behaved closer in age to her great-granddaughter than to the octogenarian she would soon become.

  Lucy’s voice, coupled with the fact that she had come very close to being late for the first time since Noelle had known the woman, had Noelle back to being concerned. Really concerned.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked the older woman pointedly.

  This would have been the place where her still very shapely, attractive and feisty grandmother would have denied that there was anything wrong and then turn the tables on her, putting her on the defensive by demanding to know why she thought anything was wrong, etc.

  Noelle knew the way her grandmother responded to events almost as well as she knew how she herself responded to things. Better, actually, since there were times when she was unclear as to her own reactions. She was never confused about Lucy’s reactions and motivation. Lucy was reliable, predictable and, more than that, the older woman had been her rock for ages now.

  Neither one of her parents had ever been very “parental.” Her mother, Adriana, viewed being a mother as an inconvenience that got in the way of her lifestyle, and while her father, Howard, had shown signs of wanting some sort of a relationship with his only child, he was firmly entrenched under her mother’s thumb. Being so didn’t allow him to deviate from the plans Adriana had set in motion for him. He was her escort, her consort and the man who paid for all the expenses despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things, Adriana’s family had more money than her father did.

  As far back as she could remember, her parents were always going to one country or another, usually getting there via some lavish cruise. That sort of lifestyle had no room for a pubescent daughter who needed regular schooling of some sort. So time and again, her parents would deposit her with her grandmother and take off.

  In the beginning, they would pick her up again when they returned from whatever vacation hot spot had lured them away. But by and by, with each trip that became less the case. At first, a few days would go by before they would come for her. But then a few days would knit themselves into a week and then two, until one day, they “forgot” to come for her at all. After that, she stopped seeing her parents between their travels.

  Noelle adjusted accordingly.

  Though Lucy wasn’t ordinarily given to protestations of feelings or any overwhelming displays of emotions, her grandmother made her feelings for her known through actions and the interest that Lucy took in the various events—large or small—occurring in Noelle’s life.

  Whether it was through her vigilance regarding basic hygiene or making sure that her grades were kept up, her grandmother made a point in having her finger in every pie that was part of her young life.

  And Noelle loved her for it.

  She noticed now that Lucy was not shrugging off her question, but neither was her grandmother immediately answering it.

  Noelle examined the older woman more closely, seeing her grandmother’s reluctance to talk coming in direct conflict with an obvious apparent need to talk.

  Noelle decided to try to help the matter along a little. Her eyes met her grandmother’s. “Tell me,” she coaxed softly.

  Lucy took a deep breath as if bracing herself for the words that were to emerge from her lips. “Henry died,” the woman replied quietly.

  Henry, Henry. Noelle searched her brain, trying to match the name to a piece of information that might have been carelessly tossed her way in one of their many conversations, both recent and from years past. Lucy was not one to go on at length about anything, but she did mention a great many things in passing.

  And then it clicked into place.

  “Henry, that’s the friend you visit at that senior retirement home on Thursdays,” Noelle remembered.

  “Every other Thursday,” Lucy corrected. “Henry was Dan’s friend,” her grandmother told her, referring to her late husband, the grandfather she had never known. “And mine,” Lucy added in an eerily quiet voice Noelle surmised she was using to camouflage her pain.

  Her grandmother and Melinda were the two people she allowed inside the barriers she had built up around herself. Emotions within that limited area came quickly and without restraints.

  “Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry,” Noelle cried softly. Stopping short, she knew better than to just go with her instincts without first asking for permission. Generally speaking, Lucy was not a demonstrative person. But this was, after all, an extenuating circumstance. “Is it all right to hug you?”

  Lucy nodded, suddenly looking much sadder than she remembered ever seeing her grandmother look. “I think I could use a hug right about now,” the older woman said.

  Melinda, who had been quietly listening to the exchange, absorbing every word like a short adult-in-training, now took this opportunity to remind her mother and her grandmother of her presence by piping up, “Me, too, Lucy?”

  Lucy extended her free hand toward the child, even as she struggled to keep back her hot tears. “You, too, Cupcake.”

  Melinda instantly pressed her small form against her mother and her grandmother, melting into them and becoming part of the whole.

  * * *

  From a distance, as he watched the woman approaching the squad room where they both worked, Duncan Cavanaugh thought that his almost-brand-new partner looked like a walking tall drink of water. In general, he had always been a man who had never quite satisfied his overwhelming thirst.

  But if nothing else, Duncan also had a keen instinct when it came to survival. He just naturally knew when to stand back and when to lean in.

  The former was at play here. Newly minted detective Noelle O’Banyon might as well have had a no-trespassing sign taped to her forehead. Tempting though she was and definitely gorgeous, he knew enough to stay back and keep hands off. Even if he hadn’t been unexpectedly partnered with her when his former partner Lopez relocated to Miami six months ago to be near his ailing father, Duncan understood that you didn’t act on feelings of attraction to someone who clearly had the word rebuff written all over her.

  At bottom, Duncan had decided that Detective Noelle O’Banyon was his own personal, ongoing trial. A test he could only successfully pass if he was oblivious to her.

  Not an easy trick.

  Especially when Cameron Holloway, one of the other detectives in Vice, had been quick to give him a heads-up the first time he had learned the name of Lopez’s replacement on the Aurora police force.

  “Hey, man, this should be very interesting. You’re partnered with the Black Widow,” the slightly overweight Holloway had gleefully told him.

>   The unflattering nickname sounded like something an irreverent journalist would slap on an elusive perpetrator, not a label the police would put on one of their own.

  “What are you talking about?” Duncan had demanded, confused.

  Holloway had looked at him, obviously enjoying the fact that for once he was the one in the know while Duncan was still in the dark.

  Grinning broadly, the detective had laughed, “You really don’t know, man?”

  Duncan enjoyed being challenged. Teased, however, was a different matter and he had little patience with it. Curbing what could be a flash temper on occasions, he replied as coolly as he could, “I wouldn’t be asking if I knew.”

  The other man had smirked, no doubt enjoying the moment and drawing it out for as long as he could. “You ask me, it’s nature’s way of protecting its own.”

  “What is nature’s way of protecting its own?” he’d asked through teeth that were clearly gritted.

  Holloway had leaned in, though he still failed to lower his voice. “Well, rumor has it she’s been engaged twice.”

  “Twice,” Duncan had echoed while looking at the woman who at that moment was meeting with the head of the vice department, Lieutenant Stewart Jamieson, before being brought out to meet the rest of them.

  The grapevine, in the guise of Duncan’s older brother, Brennan, had alerted him to the name of his new partner. But Brennan failed to provide certain other pertinent details. If it didn’t interest Brennan, he just naturally assumed that it didn’t interest anyone else, either.

  “She broke it off?” Duncan had guessed.

  Holloway had shaken his head, looking like the proverbial cat that had gotten into the cream. “Nope, she didn’t have to. They both died. She didn’t even get to walk up to the altar once.” Pausing dramatically, Holloway had given it to the count of two before adding, “The first one left her pregnant.”

  Because he belonged to an extended family that could have easily acquired its own zip code, Duncan’s interest had gone up a notch. “She has kids?”

  “Kid,” Holloway had corrected, holding up his forefinger. “One.”

  “A daughter. Her name’s Melinda. She’s almost six. Anything else you want to know?” a melodious low voice coming from directly behind him had said, completing the information.

  Duncan had turned his chair around a hundred and eighty degrees to face her. Up close the energy had almost crackled between them. He would have had to have been dead not to notice. Just like he would have had to be dead not to notice her delicate, heart-shaped face, her soul-melting green eyes and her flaming red hair. But what got to him most of all was the killer figure that no clothes could adequately hide. He had a feeling that somewhere, in some huge ledger in the sky, he had just been put on notice. His number had finally come up.

  Still, he managed to sound unaffected as he calmly asked, “Yeah, where do you buy your shoes, because I didn’t hear you come up.”

  She’d glanced down at her footwear. Not knowing exactly what was expected on her first day in “the big leagues” as Lucy had referred to it, she’d worn her most attractive high heels. Wearing heels always secretly boosted her self-confidence.

  “This is just a guess,” she’d said drily, “but I don’t think that you’d look that good wearing four-inch heels.”

  “I make it a point never to rule out anything without giving it a fair shot,” he’d told her gamely, then rose to his feet as he put out his hand. “Duncan Cavanaugh,” he said, introducing himself. “I take it that I’m your new partner.”

  Jamieson had pointed him out to her, then had to stop to answer a phone call. She’d decided to do the honors herself and dive into her first day here.

  “I know,” she had replied.

  “And your name is?” Duncan had asked, thinking it only polite to pretend that he didn’t know as much as he did about her—including the information that Holloway had just given him.

  Holloway was retreating to his own desk. She had nodded in his direction. “Your friend there didn’t tell you?” Noelle had asked.

  Duncan remembered grinning. His new partner was quick. He liked that. “He skipped that part.”

  The two men had appeared to be deep in conversation when she’d approached them. Being the new kid on the block, she’d just assumed that they’d been talking about her. Duncan’s answer had made her doubt her assessment. It also made her wonder just what they had been discussing. The other man had glanced in her direction three times in that short length of time.

  Taking Cavanaugh’s hand, she told him, “It’s Noelle O’Banyon.”

  Duncan had nodded as if taking in the information for the first time. “You were born on Christmas?” he’d asked. He couldn’t recall hearing a woman called that name before.

  “As a matter of fact—no.”

  It seemed like a logical assumption from where he stood. “Oh.”

  “I was born on Easter Sunday,” she deadpanned.

  Duncan had stared at her for a second. He would have wondered if she was putting him on except that she looked so sincere when she’d said that. The woman had to have really out-there parents.

  “You’re kidding.”

  She’d laughed, dropping the ruse. “Actually, I am. It was just a name. I’m not even sure if either one of my parents picked it, or if maybe some hospital attendant suggested it.”

  That had an uncanny sad ring to it. Was she pulling his leg again? He couldn’t tell. “Well, either way, it’s intriguing.”

  “If you say so,” she’d said.

  And so began their dance of words. Over the past six months, they’d each gained a healthy respect for the other’s skills and knowledge.

  They also got as close as they could as partners given that one partner held the other at arm’s length, Duncan now thought, watching her approach.

  But maybe, he concluded as Noelle slid into her seat behind the desk that faced his, that was ultimately all to the good. He’d never had a relationship with a woman that had lasted beyond a month.

  Most had had a shorter lifespan. If his interaction with Noelle had gotten serious during off-duty hours, then gone sour, that would, in turn, have laid them both open to absolute months of awkwardness.

  If not longer.

  No, he told himself perhaps a little too firmly for what felt like the umpteenth time, what they had going on between them now was definitely the better way to go.

  He ignored the little voice inside his head that whispered, Sour grapes.

  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?”
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  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.