Mission: Cavanaugh Baby (7 page)

Destiny smiled placidly. “Almost.” Glancing in her direction, Destiny’s smile widened just a tad. “You’re even more impatient than your furry friend here,” she observed. “It’ll take me another twenty minutes or so. Trust me,” Destiny told her. “In the meantime, there’s a pot of fresh coffee in the break room. I just made it,” she added, then asked, “Why don’t you help yourself to some?”

Ashley shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t drink coffee.”

“‘Don’t drink coffee’?” Shane echoed. She turned to see that rather than remain seated, the detective had come up behind her.

Was this man going to shadow her every move all day long?

“That’s almost un-American,” he told her.

Since when was ingesting caffeine strictly the purview of the Americans?

“Be that as it may,” she said, dismissing the detective’s flippant observation. “I was forced to drink black coffee when I was a kid, and I developed a real distaste for it, so now that I don’t have to drink coffee, I don’t.”

“‘Forced’?” he repeated. “Who forced you to drink coffee?” He couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of a parent would make their child drink something as strong as black coffee. What was wrong with them? Or did she have older siblings who’d thought it was fun to bully her any way they could find?

That was a poor choice of words on her part. She’d let it slip.

“That’s not the point. The point is that I don’t have to drink coffee, so I don’t. But thank you for the thought,” she said, addressing the lab technician.

Destiny nodded. “Almost done,” she promised.

Shane said nothing as he studied the woman he’d thought of until just now as a glorified dog catcher. He’d promised himself that all he was going to do for the next year or so was just coast, enjoy himself and not take
any
of the fair sex seriously—no matter how attractive they turned out to be.

But despite his self-made promise, this woman he found himself temporarily allied with raised questions in his mind, questions that managed to intrigue him and draw him in at the same time.

She obviously didn’t seem to want to volunteer anything personal about herself, at least not knowingly, but that only served to make him more curious and determined to find the answers.

Maybe what she needed was a more congenial atmosphere that was more conducive to sharing things.

“How about a drink?” he suggested.

Her eyes remained on the dog, as if she had a way of knowing the animal would sense if she was either preoccupied with something other than his well-being, or not here altogether.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you also not drink?” he asked. “I’m talking about stopping by Malone’s after work and taking a social drink or two. Is that something you don’t do, either?”

“Why, are you asking me out after work?” she asked.

Not in the sense that she meant—or at least, he didn’t think he was—but who knew? Out loud he said, “Nothing wrong with grabbing a beer or something else if beer doesn’t appeal to you.”

“No,” she agreed. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

But she wasn’t all that keen on it, either. She was waltzing around the elephant in the room, he thought. “So will you?”

She looked at him, leery. “With you?”

“And a room full of fellow officers,” he added, in case she didn’t trust him enough to be close to him without certain precautions. A crowd scene could afford her that kind of emotional protection.

“When was I promoted?” she asked him.

He didn’t understand what she was getting at. “What?”

“Well, just a few minutes ago, I was a ‘glorified dog catcher,’” she reminded him. “Now I’m suddenly a fellow officer.”

“With one hell of a chip on your shoulder,” he observed.

Her eyes met his defiantly. “Nothing I haven’t earned, trust me.”

“I’d like to,” he told her with feeling, surprising Ashley. “I’ll be there after my shift. Join me if you want to. Don’t if you don’t.”

And that was all he said on the subject.

Chapter 6

“Y
ou keep watching that door as if you expect it to fly open any second and do tricks,” Declan Cavanaugh observed, glancing over his shoulder at the tavern entrance.

“No, I’m not,” Shane protested with what, even to his own ears, sounded like just a tad too much feeling.

It was obvious to him that he hadn’t convinced his older brother. Declan continued to eye him over his glass of beer, amusement clearly reflected in his expression. That was the bad part about having such a large family, Shane thought. Everyone believed they knew you better than you knew yourself.

What was even worse was when they were right.

“Something you care to share with the rest of the class, brother?” Declan coaxed after taking another long sip of the house beer.

Shane tipped back the half-finished glass of dark ale, then laughed harshly. “It’s hard enough sharing a drink with you, let alone a secret—”

Declan grinned triumphantly. “Ah, so you
do
have one. Just as I thought.”

He really had to watch how he worded things, Shane warned himself. Most of his immediate family was still tiptoeing around his feelings. Declan was of a mind that his feelings had to be kicked to the curb, his past relationship forgotten about so that he could go on with his life.

And, from the way he was talking, Declan was assuming that it was already a done deal.

“You didn’t let me finish—
if
I had a secret to share,” he told Declan pointedly.

Shane spared the entrance a quick side glance.

She wasn’t going to show.

He had no idea why that bothered him so much or why he kept the fact that he was waiting for someone he’d been forced to interact with today to himself. By keeping quiet about it, he was giving the whole thing far too much importance, much more than it actually deserved or merited.

He supposed it was because he didn’t want to seem like a fool in anyone’s eyes, least of all a member of his immediate family, which was the way he thought of his father and the seven of them: Tom, Kendra, Bridget, Kari, Logan, Declan and himself. The others were family—newly found family, at that—and he was still adjusting to the fact, as were some of the others.

Tom and Kari would have embraced anybody who professed to be part of the family, no matter how distant, but he and the rest of them would take varying degrees of time to come around. When he’d first learned the news, he couldn’t just stand there, have someone wave a wand over him, declare him to be a Cavanaugh, not a Cavelli, and be instantly okay with that.

Acceptance, as far as he was concerned, took a little more time.

“Well, Pinocchio, as much as I’d like to sit around watching your nose grow, I’ve got to hit the road.” Putting his empty glass on the counter, Declan pulled a five-dollar bill out of his pocket and left it on the counter for the bartender.

“Oh?” Shane moved his stool so that he could get a better look at his brother’s face.

“Yeah.” There was a rather careless shrug of his shoulders as he elaborated for Shane’s benefit. “I’ve got a date.”

“‘A date,’” Shane repeated somewhat incredulously.

Declan pretended to look around, as if to pinpoint where the sound was coming from within the center of the din.

“Strange echo in here, Shane. Sounds just like you,” Declan said drolly. “Yes, a date,” he confirmed. “You remember dates, don’t you, Shane? Things that involve you and a smaller, softer human being.” His expression grew more serious. “God, but that witch really did mess you up, didn’t she?” Anger momentarily flashed through his green eyes as he thought of the woman who’d broken the engagement and, from the look of it, his brother’s heart, as well.

“Don’t call her that,” Shane said defensively. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t yours,” Declan said heatedly. “You weren’t pretending to be a circus clown and then sprang your secret identity on her. She knew what you were from the start, knew exactly what she was getting into when she agreed to marry you. Aurora’s relatively safe when you compare it to other cities of the same population, but things can happen in the best of places.

“To act surprised when they do,” he went on, “well, that just means she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and you’re better off without her. I know, I know,” he said, raising his hands to fend off Shane’s protests, or worse, some kind of defense of the woman he’d come to actively dislike, a defense that for some reason Shane felt honor bound to make. “People say that all the time to someone getting over a breakup, but in this case, I mean it because it really
is
true,” Declan insisted.

Declan paused for a moment before leaving. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“Like I’d fit right into your date,” Shane said, deadpan.

“You would,” Declan assured him, warming to his subject. “She’s got a sister. From what I hear, a very accommodating sister. Think about it,” he coaxed. “She might be just what you need.”

There was no way he was up for that. “What I need is to have the rest of this beer and enjoy a little peace and quiet,” Shane responded.

Declan looked around at their surroundings. “Well then, you picked the wrong place to go, Shane. No peace and quiet here,” he assured his brother.

About to say goodbye, Declan saw his brother’s expression change from indifferent to alert. Curious, he turned and saw a petite young redhead wearing an officer’s uniform entering the tavern. She was looking around the room, even as her expression seemed to indicate that she wasn’t sure why she’d come in the first place.

Glancing back at Shane, Declan realized that his brother had gotten off the bar stool and was now waving to get the pretty redhead’s attention.

“On second thought, I see you’ve already taken care of your needs for the night.” He nodded his approval. “My compliments, Shane.”

Shane cut him off before Declan could say another word. “Nothing to compliment. We worked on a case together today, and I told her to come share a drink with me if she felt like it.”

Declan weighed the merits of the comment his brother had tendered to the redhead. “Not exactly smooth,” he said in critique. “But I guess it’s better than nothing. At least it’s a start.”

“Aren’t you going to be late?” Shane prompted, trying to get his brother moving and out the door. “You’ve got a date, remember?”

“And apparently, so do you,” Declan said with a laugh. “See you around, Shane,” he promised, taking his leave. “We’ll compare notes.”

“There’ll be no notes to compare,” Shane informed his brother tersely.

“So it’s like that, is it? Want to keep it all a secret, do you?” It was a rhetorical question, and Declan looked exceedingly pleased. “They’re right what they say about still waters.” He clapped his brother on the back. “You just keep on paddling, Shane. No matter what, just keep on paddling.”

As he made his way to the door, Declan kept one eye on the woman walking toward his brother. Shane was going to be just fine, he thought, pleased about the turn of events. He nodded his approval at the redhead as he passed her.

“Be gentle with him,” he said glibly to the woman as he walked by.

Puzzled, Ashley turned to look at the man who’d just made the strange comment, and she frowned to herself. What was
that
all about?

“Did he say something to you?” Shane asked, waiting for Ashley to take a seat at the bar before he sat again himself.

She glanced back at the stranger, but he’d already disappeared through the front door. “Just something about ‘being gentle with him.’” She turned back to face Shane. “I’m assuming he was referring to you. Who is he?” she asked, nodding in the direction she’d last seen the stranger.

“Declan,” he told her, then added, “one of my misguided brothers.” He waved a dismissive hand toward the door Declan had used. “Don’t bother paying any attention to him.”

“That won’t be hard to do since I missed half of what he said,” she admitted. Still, the words she
had
heard replayed themselves in her head. Just why did Shane’s brother think she was going to do something to hurt the detective?

Shane changed the subject. “Beer okay with you?” he asked. “Or would you like something else?”

She wasn’t high maintenance. “Whatever’s on tap is fine with me,” Ashley answered.

Shane held up his hand to get the bartender’s attention. When the man came over, he ordered a beer for Ashley and another one for himself. The order was quickly filled, and then the man made himself scarce.

“I almost went home,” Shane admitted after he’d taken a sip of his beer. “I didn’t think you were going to show.”

She didn’t bother telling him that she’d debated before finally coming here. Instead, she told him what had caused the immediate delay. “I had to get Albert home first. I don’t think this place allows dogs on the premises.”

“Wait, you took the dog back to the apartment? That’s still taped off as a crime scene.” At least, he assumed it was. From what he’d picked up from his father, the yellow tape usually remained in place for at least twenty-four hours, if not more.

“No, I took him
home,
” she repeated with emphasis. “My home,” she explained when he looked at her as if he was still meandering through a fog.

“Why would you do that?” If anything, the dog should have gone to Aurora’s official animal shelter now that they were through processing him.

She would have thought he would have caught on by now. The man obviously had no experience with animals, she decided. “Like I said before, I took him to my house because he was traumatized, because he has to settle down, start trusting people again. And because,” she added, her voice softening, “he had just about the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.”

Shane laughed, shaking his head. The woman liked to come on tough, but she was a pushover. At least where animals were concerned.

“Doesn’t Animal Control have some kind of rule about taking your work home with you?” he asked.

“Albert’s not work,” she insisted. “If anything, he’s a material witness to a murder.”

“Right.” Shane scrutinized her. Was she being serious? “And what, you expect him to testify?”

“Not directly.” She could see that the handsome detective without a heart thought she’d lost her mind. Since she was here, taking him up on his invitation, she decided she might as well explain her thinking. “If we put the word out that the dog isn’t under lock and key, maybe whoever did that to the poor woman will come by to eliminate him. He’s a loose end. And that’s when I’ll arrest him—or her.”

He wasn’t concerned about the dog. If for some outlandish reason she was right, he was concerned about her. “So in other words, you’re setting yourself up to be a target.”

That wasn’t the way she saw it. “Albert and the boys won’t let anything happen to me,” she told him with what Shane viewed to be innocent—not to mention misplaced—confidence.

“The boys?” he questioned. Exactly who was staying with her?

“Albert isn’t my first pet, or my first dog,” she told him. Pausing for a second, she took another quick sip of beer. “I’ve got a German shepherd and a Labrador at home. I had to make sure they were okay with Albert staying with us for a while before I came to take you up on that warm invitation of yours.”

He’d tendered the invitation that way for a reason. She wasn’t the type to be pressured into anything, so he’d left the decision up to her.

What she
was,
Shane decided, was the type who seemed to believe that animals were capable of a regular, deep thought process. He, however, didn’t.

“And were they?” he asked, humoring her. “Were they okay with Albert staying with them for a while?”

She knew he was having fun at her expense, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she answered him as if he’d asked a serious question.

“They were fine with it after a few rough minutes.” When she saw him raise a quizzical brow, she laid it out for him. “You know what I mean. They were checking each other out, sniffing butts and making sure the other dog was okay.”

“’Fraid that’s a little out of my realm of experience,” he told her, still trying to decide whether the soft spot she seemed to have for animals was in her heart or in her head. “I don’t smell a fellow detective’s butt to make sure he—or she—is on the level.”

Ashley laughed at the image he’d created, and he found her laughter to be a soft, enticing sound. Something like what he imagined flowers would sound like if they could make music.

Maybe he should stop at two beers, Shane decided. He just wasn’t thinking clearly this afternoon.

“There’s nothing that makes me feel safer,” she was telling him, taking another sip of the brew the bartender had poured for her, “except for maybe my sidearm. But my sidearm isn’t about to go flying across the room to bring down anyone trying to break—or sneak—into my house.”

Ashley added the latter mainly for his benefit. She got the impression that he thought of her as some defenseless, fluffy woman instead of a police officer who had police academy training and who was, among other things, rather proficient in martial arts, something she’d learned on her own time.

“A fired bullet can get to its target faster than a dog,” Shane pointed out.

She couldn’t argue that, but there was another fine point that she
could
argue. “That assumes the person firing can hit what they’re firing at.”

“And you can’t.” It was an assumption he’d put together from what she’d just said to him.

She’d done just fine at the firing range—again, on her own time—hitting the target square in the center time and again. But there was a world of difference between a paper target and a person. For one thing, a paper target didn’t fire back.

“Never had the occasion to,” she admitted. “Guns don’t exactly come into play during the course of my day on the job.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. “How about when you fire a tranquilizer gun?” he asked her.

Still not the same thing. The animal she might be firing at didn’t come armed. “They told us to keep firing the rifle until you hit something.”