Cavanaugh’s Woman

by Marie Ferrarella

  “How would you know?” He saw amusement highlighting her features. “I could be referring to my inner self. Can’t tell a book by its cover.”

  He wondered if she was mocking him, or if he’d just managed to trip over his own tongue. “No, you can’t. In case it was unrecognizable, I was trying to give you a compliment.”

  There was a soft light in her eyes as she looked at him. “Why?” she asked.

  It took him a second to drag his own eyes away from her. In this light there was something almost hypnotic about Moira.

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Well, in the name of science and edification, don’t you think we should explore this?”

  “No.” He glanced at his watch. It was late. As it was, he doubted if he’d get right to sleep. Being around her had managed to stimulate him far too much. “I’ve got to get going.”

  Taking his wrist, she angled it slightly to look at his watch. She hadn’t realized that it was so late. She wanted to be fresh tomorrow so that he’d have no excuse to leave her behind.

  “Yeah, me, too.” Releasing his wrist, she looked up at him. “Walk me out?”

  She looked perfectly capable of walking out on her own. “Everyone in your line of work as pushy as you?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” She saw the second director looking her way. He’d been trying to corner her all night. She knew the moment she was alone he’d pounce on her. As the main star, the movie was riding on her shoulders and she wanted to keep things on a friendly but distant level with the second director.

  Moira decided to fudge a little. “I do know that if I start heading for the door alone I’m going to be waylaid by a lot of people who want to get in just one last word. I don’t want to be rude, but I do need to get some sleep. If they see me with you, they’ll make an assumption and not try to keep me here.”

  “And what assumption is that?”

  She slipped her arm through his and laughed lightly, although he’d said nothing the slightest bit funny. She was doing it, he figured, for her audience.

  They began walking toward the exit. “That you and I have another kind of party in mind.”

  Once outside, she removed her arm from his, freeing him. “Thanks for running interference.”

  Shaw glanced over his shoulder. He saw Reese looking at him enviously. His partner wasn’t the only one watching their exit.

  Taking her arm, he walked her toward the elevator. “Why don’t I just take you up to your room?” He saw the surprised look that came into her eyes. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. “In case anyone comes out at the last minute and rides up with you.”

  He tried to filter out the effects of her smile. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  By the time the elevator car arrived, several people had gathered in the lobby and got on with them. None of them was from the cast party. Shaw noticed that one woman kept looking at Moira, then dropping her glance, not wanting to be guilty of staring.

  The last one left in the car got out on the floor below theirs. Just as the woman glanced one last time over her shoulder, Shaw caught her eye and nodded. “Yes, it’s her.”

  The doors closed before the woman could say anything. Moira laughed. He didn’t see anything funny about it. “How do you put up with people staring at you?”

  She valued her privacy. She valued her hard-won success even more. “I don’t mind.” The truth was, she enjoyed being famous for the right reasons. “It took a lot of work for me to get to where they do stare. It’s when they stop staring that I’ll worry.” The doors opened again, this time on the fifteenth floor. The long corridor was empty. “Well, this is my floor.”

  Common sense told him to say good-night and ride the car down to the lobby. He didn’t follow through. “Might as well do the whole bit,” he told Moira as he followed in her wake.

  She led the way to her room, her back to him so that Shaw couldn’t see her smile. “Your parents raised you well.”

  “My dad,” he corrected.

  “Parents divorced?”

  “Separated.” He thought of the woman who’d been at his father’s table last night. His mother. And yet not. What he’d said to Moira was technically true. His parents had been separated, under the oddest of circumstances.

  “And your dad raised you.” Stopping at her door, she opened her small clutch purse, looking for her key. “I guess that gives us something in common.”

  “I guess so,” he muttered, trying not to let his thoughts drift too far. They were alone in the hallway. On the floor. And there were things going on inside of him that were best kept in check.

  Taking out the card that the desk clerk had issued to her, she pushed it into the slot, then opened the door just the slightest bit. She stuck her heel in as she turned around to face him. “Thank you for being a gentleman and walking me to my door.”

  He shrugged away her words. She laughed and, one heel still acting as a doorstop, she raised herself slightly on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek.

  The light touch of skin against skin instantly aroused him, placing Shaw on automatic pilot before he quite realized what was happening.

  She drew her head back and looked up at him, her eyes staring into his soul. Had he been thinking clearly, he would have taken the opportunity to leave.

  But he wasn’t.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he took her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers as if it had been written somewhere that he should. As if it had been scripted.

  The moment he did, he became aware of an excitement spreading through his veins, his limbs, rousing him, bringing his whole body to rigid attention. What he was experiencing was the same kind of rush that coursed through him just before he and Reese raced into a life-and-death scene.

  Life and death. Was that the kind of consequences that were awaiting him at the end of this moment?

  He didn’t know.

  He wanted to find out.

  Her heart was racing and she felt as if everything inside of her was smiling, a big Cheshire cat–type smile. It wasn’t often that she was caught unprepared for the consequences of her actions but this definitely qualified as one of those times.

  The man took her breath away. That didn’t happen very often; she wouldn’t allow it. Despite her carefree attitude, she was very much in control of everything that went on around her. She refused to be someone who allowed things to just happen, refused to simply ride out the waves. She either made them happen or they weren’t allowed to touch her life.

  This time, it was different. This time, she had no say in what was happening.

  It was just happening.

  Shaky, feeling like someone who had lived through an earthquake and had no idea of the extent of the damage that had resulted, Moira drew her head back and looked up at the man who had, unintentionally, assaulted her senses as well as her equilibrium.

  It took her a second to find enough air to take a breath. When she did, she blew it out the next moment. “Well, that was a surprise.”

  “Why?” His glib question, he hoped, hid the fact that he felt about as steady as a cardboard man in the middle of a hurricane. “Didn’t you expect me to kiss you?”

  Moira took another a deep breath. It did no more to steady her than the last one had. Logic, talk logic. He likes logic.

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t expect you to even walk me to the exit when I asked you.”

  She had to think he was a complete hick. Shaw banked down the urge to touch her face. “Am I that surly?”

  “Independent,” she corrected, although the other word fit, too. But right now, she wasn’t thinking of him as surly. Another S word came to mind. Sexy. Belatedly, she tried to collect herself and smile. “I always find that putting the right spin on things makes them more palatable.” Her heart refused to stop pounding. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, tasting him. Wanting more. Did he? God, but he was hard to read. “Would you like to come in?”


  Yes, he would. But he knew better. “I don’t think that would be wise.” For either of us, Shaw added silently.

  The smile on her lips was small, heartfelt. And hit its target with the force of a silver-tipped arrow scoring a bull’s-eye.

  “Somehow, I’m not feeling very wise right now, but you’re probably right.” Subtly, she took another deep breath, trying to steady a pulse that was still scrambling and sending out garbled Morse code to the rest of her body. She offered him what she hoped was a carefree smile. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

  Shaw nodded, then qualified his response. “At the precinct.” He didn’t want her popping up at his apartment in the morning. He planned to stop by his father’s place tomorrow and he didn’t want to bring her along with him. The situation was difficult enough for all concerned as it was without his having to explain things to her. In general, his father was an open man, but until his mother finally came around and remembered them, remembered herself, this definitely fell under the heading of private family business.

  He was right, she thought, whether he knew it or not. The way her body tingled right now, just from a simple kiss, being alone with him might not be the wisest thing in the world for her right now.

  She nodded. “At the precinct,” she repeated.

  Moira waited until she saw Shaw walk down the hall and disappear around the corner before she slipped her room card into the slot one more time. Somewhere during that toe-curling kiss, she’d moved forward and allowed her door to lock again.

  Pushing the handle down, she opened the door and walked in.

  And stopped dead.

  Her mouth dropped open. For a second, she felt as if she’d stepped through a time portal into the past.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked of the woman sitting on her bed.

  “Waiting for you.” The other woman pushed aside the magazine she’d been flipping through and smiled.

  “How did you get in?”

  “I told the man at the desk that I misplaced my card. He couldn’t find another one fast enough for me.” Her smile widened. “I guess looking like you just keeps paying off.”

  Moira couldn’t believe it. It’d been three years. Three years without a word. And now here Carrie was, in her room, pretending to be her. It was a little difficult to grasp all at once. “Funny, I always thought I looked like you.”

  Younger by eleven months, her sister was an inch or so taller than she was, and perhaps a little thinner of face, but to the undiscerning eye, they looked enough like one another to be twins. Or, at the very least, pass for each other.

  It was a fact that hadn’t been wasted on their father. He used their uncanny resemblance whenever he could incorporate it into one of his scams.

  The years melted away, as did the hurt at being left to carry on without her. The past was instantly forgiven. What was left was joy, sheer joy at seeing Carrie.

  Moira crossed quickly over to the bed, part of her wondering if she was dreaming with her eyes open. Kissing Shaw had addled her brain, so was this a hallucination?

  She reached out and took her sister’s hand. “What are you doing here?” she asked again. “Why didn’t you call, write, send smoke signals, something?”

  Carrie shrugged. “I figured it would get lost in the shuffle.” Mail addressed to Moira arrived at Firestone Studios in large gray canvas bags by the ton. “Now that you’re a big star—”

  She didn’t want to get into that, didn’t want it separating them. She’d been lucky. Carrie had run off with some guy she’d met during their travels. Things hadn’t turned out all that well for her.

  “Never mind that now. How long can you stay?”

  “A while.” Carrie pressed her lips together. The look on her face was uncertain, as if she didn’t know how to phrase the next part. “That all depends on Simon.”

  “Simon,” Moira repeated. That wasn’t the name of the man Carrie had run off with. That had been a Lewis Sotherland. “Who’s Simon?”

  Carrie took a deep breath. To Moira’s way of thinking the smile on her face seemed a little forced. “The man I’m going to marry.”

  “Marry?” Moira stared hard, searching for the customary joy that traditionally accompanied that kind of declaration. She didn’t see it. What was going on here? “My God, you just drop out of the sky after three years and tell me I’m going to have a brother-in-law? Wow.”

  Trying to be thrilled for her, Moira hugged her sister. She felt Carrie wince against her, heard the whimper that escaped before she could press her lips together.

  Moira drew back, wary. Worried. And suspicious. “What’s the matter? I haven’t gotten that strong, or you that weak,” she added.

  Carrie looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “Nothing.”

  Puzzled, concerned, Moira deliberately pressed her fingers against the left side of her sister’s rib cage. Carrie winced even as she pulled away. Moira matched her movement for movement, peering at her face, trying to read between the lines.

  “Carrie?”

  Carrie deliberately avoided looking at her. “It’s nothing.”

  The hell it was. “Let me see ‘nothing.’”

  Her sister began to back away, but Moira grabbed hold of her blouse and managed to pull it up before Carrie could step back. There, pressed against her flesh, was an ugly rainbow of colors—yellow, blue, green with a dash of purple—swirling around in an uneven swatch. Moira’s heart froze. Her voice was stony as she raised her eyes to her sister’s face. “How did you get that?”

  Before Carrie could answer, Moira heard the sound of the toilet being flushed. The realization that there was someone else in the hotel room with them penetrated just as the bathroom door opened and a tall, dark-haired handsome man walked out. A broad smile graced his tanned face. Moira caught herself thinking that whoever this was, he looked like a matinee idol and had the swagger to match.

  Carrie took the opportunity to snatch back the edge of her blouse and tuck it back into her jeans.

  The man extended his hand toward her as he approached. “Hi. You must be Moira. And I’m—”

  She’d noted the way her sister shrank into herself when she first turned to look at the man. It was probably all unconscious, Moira thought, and all the more telling because of it.

  Her expression was unsmiling. “The man who gave my sister that bruise?”

  Simon looked taken aback by the accusation. “What?” The look he tossed Carrie was just the slightest bit accusing. “Hell, no. She walks into things a lot—don’t you, Carrie?”

  Carrie’s head bobbed on cue. “Uh-huh, all the time.” She flashed a weak smile at her sister. “You know how I was.”

  Moira’s eyes were steely. It took everything she had not to fling herself at the man, her nails extended. Ever since her mother had died, she’d been the matriarch, the protective one. Feelings like that didn’t fade away over time.

  “Yes, I do. Dad used to call you the steady one.”

  Carrie nervously ran her tongue along her lips. She made Moira think of a skittish animal waiting for the jaws of a trap to snap shut.

  “I’m older now,” her sister told her. “I got clumsy.”

  Moira’s eyes narrowed. What had he done to her carefree sister? “Only in your choice of men.”

  “Hey, you have no call to say that.” Simon took a step closer to her, anger flashing in his dark eyes.

  Aligning herself with Carrie, Moira indicated the door. “I’d like you to leave please.”

  Simon remained where he was. He looked at Carrie accusingly. “You didn’t tell me your sister was a bitch. C’mon, Carrie.”

  Moira moved to block her sister’s way, her eyes on the man. “No, not her. Just you.”

  He reached for Carrie’s hand, but Moira stopped him. “She goes where I tell her to go.”

  “Not anymore.”

  His expression turned malevolent. “And who’s going to stop her? You? You won’t look so pretty with your face
rearranged.”

  “Simon—” Carrie protested, panicked.

  “Shut up, Carrie.”

  Moira raised her chin pugnaciously. “Neither will you behind bars. Not after a while. Pretty men like you are considered fresh meat there. You lay one finger on me—or my sister—and you’re going to have to kill me because I’ll be calling the police the second I scrape myself off the floor. Now get out of here,” she ordered, “before I call security.”

  “You women are all alike,” he growled.

  “No,” she said, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “We’re not.”

  Simon managed to grab Carrie’s wrist. “You’re coming with me.”

  Carrie began to struggle. Moira grabbed his hand and began peeling his fingers away from Carrie’s wrist.

  “Let go of her!” she shouted.

  The next second, Moira heard someone knocking loudly on the door. “Moira, are you all right?”

  Her heart leaped into her throat. It was Shaw.

  Chapter Eight

  Moving Simon aside, Moira lost no time in getting to the door and throwing it open.

  Shaw glimpsed what looked like relief on Moira’s face as she stepped back to admit him. There were two other people inside the room. Well-honed instincts instantly kicked in. Shaw took one look at the man and knew this was no late-evening tryst he’d walked in on.

  He could feel the tension in the room. His eyes shifted back to Moira. “Anything wrong?”

  She could have hugged him. While she never doubted that she could handle Simon, that the man who badgered her sister around was at bottom a coward the way all abusers were, it was nice to have backup.

  “Not anymore,” she told Shaw. She looked at Simon. “This man was just leaving, weren’t you?”

  Anger smoldered in Simon’s eyes as he looked at Carrie. Whatever he’d hoped for by coming here with her sister—and Moira could make a better-than-educated guess as to what that was—it was not panning out for him. Given half a chance, she knew he would take his frustration out on Carrie. “You coming?” Simon asked.