Internal Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  It barely was now.

  A hunger had crawled up from her belly, clawing its way forward and seizing her in its viselike grip, disintegrating almost everything else in its path. Making confetti out of her resolve.

  Her heart began to hammer audibly in her ears, drowning out the soft drone of voices until it was completely gone.

  He tasted of beer. And sin. The path to which was tempting her beyond her wildest imagination.

  She wanted to touch him, to place her hands about his face. Instead, Maggi gripped the sides of the wobbly table, anchoring herself to something real, something tangible, before she was completely swept away.

  As she was afraid she would be.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d let his guard down and kissed her.

  Maybe it was the word “tempted” that had triggered him. Because he had been.

  Tempted ever since he’d proved his point to her in the car eons ago, halting a kiss at the very last possible moment. Wondering what it would have been like had he gone through with the aborted movement. It had been hovering about in the recesses of his mind all day.

  Each time he thought of their almost kiss, the curiosity only became more pronounced.

  And now he knew.

  Kissing her was like stepping through some kind of time portal. A rip in the fabric of time that took him back to the days when he hadn’t quite realized that the world was a hard, unforgiving place where bad things instead of good happened. Back to a time when he’d believed in the kind of world that his uncles tried to create, not the one that existed.

  She made him want things.

  Want her.

  Abruptly he pulled back.

  Dazed and struggling very hard not to be, Maggi looked at him with wide eyes that initially refused to focus.

  “Afraid of what you found out?” she finally managed to ask, brazening the moment out. Surprised that she had a voice at all. And grateful that they were sitting, because the consistency of her body had turned to mostly sticky liquid.

  He searched her face for a clue before asking, “What do you mean?”

  “That you’re human.”

  His laugh was short, dismissive. “Annual physical tells me that.”

  Maggi shook her head, hoping the man didn’t have a clue as to how far he’d unraveled her. “No, your annual physical tells you that you’re still breathing. The human part’s trickier.”

  He surprised her by smiling at her comment. “You sound a lot like my uncle.”

  Good, he was talking family. The pleasure of that was dampened by the pragmatic feeling that she knew she needed to burrow in a little further, that this was the way to get him to trust her, bit by bit. “Andrew or Brian?”

  He looked mildly surprised that she knew their names. “Doing a little digging into my life, Mary Margaret?”

  She was almost getting used to the sound of that, of her names being waved at her like a red flag. Her annoyance had gone down several notches over the course of the past few days.

  “Don’t have to. You’re a Cavanaugh, you come with a pedigree.”

  Which was also why she’d been told to tread lightly. Because, maverick or not, Patrick Cavanaugh had strong family ties, ties that went back several generations in the police department. Had he been anyone else, the investigation that was launched would have been public. But there were too many possible waves here to make swimming easy, hence the covert approach.

  She nodded. “My father used to work with your uncle Andrew and he knew your uncle Brian, as well as your father.”

  He seemed not to hear her when she mentioned his father, but she had a feeling he did. Had there been bad blood between the two? Did that affect Patrick in some manner, turning him against the force to which his father had sworn allegiance?

  Questions crowded her head, butting up against the sensations that were still rippling through her minutes after he’d withdrawn his mouth from hers.

  Her body hummed, aching. Wanting.

  “Want another?” he asked her.

  She stared at him, her heart hammering hard again. Was he actually asking her if she wanted him to kiss her again? The word “yes” hovered on her lips, begging to be released.

  “Beer,” Patrick clarified. The lighting in the bar was several notches below dim, but he could have sworn he saw color creeping up her cheeks. Amusement nudged an elbow in his ribs.

  For a moment, she’d thought…

  Damn, what was wrong with her? She wasn’t some nubile, untried virgin, being led off to the hayloft for her first tryst with the good-looking farmhand. Why was she acting like one?

  Annoyed with herself, with him for rattling her this way, she cleared her throat. “No, this was nice, but I think one’s a good place to stop.” She looked at him pointedly.

  Good advice, applied to the beer and to her, he told himself. For once they were in agreement.

  Patrick inclined his head. “Well, then I guess we’d better call it a night.”

  “Right.” Maggi was on her feet a little too fast. Wobbly or not, she needed to put some space between them. Fresh air might not be a bad idea, either. “Early day tomorrow.” She was babbling, she thought, but she didn’t want there to be silence between them right now. Silence was too sensual. “There’s probably some i’s we forgot to dot and t’s we forgot to cross.”

  “I don’t forget to dot i’s or cross t’s,” he told her, throwing down several bills on the table.

  Placing his hand at the small of her back, he ushered her out. Making it feel as if this was a date. But it wasn’t, Maggi told herself. And it couldn’t be.

  “Sorry, don’t know what came over me. I forgot you were perfect.”

  “Not perfect,” he told her as he opened the door then let her walk through first. “Just thorough. And careful.”

  Careful.

  That was the key word here, she thought. The word she needed to hold on to. Because she’d slipped back there, slipped and very nearly lost her footing. Fraternizing with the enemy was strictly forbidden and, until she could find proof of it otherwise, Patrick Cavanaugh was still the enemy—a dirty cop who made them all look dirty by association. And cops like that had to be routed from the force and punished for the tarnish they caused and spread. She needed to remember that.

  Flipping her collar up, Maggi turned around to look at him. The wind had picked up and the smell of more rain wafted through the air. The parking lot was all but empty. They might as well have been the last two people on the earth. It felt that way.

  She took a deep breath, as if that could somehow fortify her against the man before her. “Thorough and careful,” she echoed, letting amusement play along her lips as she thought of what had just happened inside the bar. “Always?”

  He looked at her, at the way the light from the street-lamp was playing off her lips. He could taste just the barest hint of her lipstick. Something light, sweet, mingled with the bitter taste of beer.

  He felt that tightening in his gut again and deliberately concentrated on shaking it off.

  “No,” he said quietly, “not always.”

  The wind picked up the words and feathered them across her face.

  For one very long moment, she felt as if there was a war going on, a war she was destined to lose no matter which way it went.

  If she gave in, allowed herself to be pulled in, she faced a huge ethical and moral dilemma. If she did the right thing, pulled back, everything would remain intact. Except what she was feeling.

  The right thing felt all wrong.

  Desperately searching for higher ground before she slid down a slippery slope, Maggi shoved her hands into her pockets and cleared her throat. She forced a smile to her lips as she looked at the man she had to remember was her assignment and nothing else. “So, this the way you usually celebrate closing a case with your partner?”

  Patrick hunched his shoulders against the wind and mist. “Throwing back a couple of beers? No, not usually.” He thought back. “Just
a couple of times with Ramirez. He insisted on buying.”

  That wasn’t what she meant and they both knew it. “And the other?”

  Looking into her eyes, he smiled to himself. The woman was damn annoying, there was no question about that. So why did he find her, of all people, appealing? “No, never kissed Ramirez. Never even been tempted.”

  Did I tempt you?

  Ripples of excitement undulated through her. She wanted to talk about what had just happened, to explore the sensation it had created and let it titillate her.

  Damn it, Mag, you’re behaving like a schoolgirl.

  God knew she didn’t feel like a schoolgirl. She felt like a woman. A woman who wanted what she knew she couldn’t have. Moreover, what she shouldn’t have. Hooking up with Patrick Cavanaugh promised nothing but complications. She had to remember that. She wasn’t trying to get on his good side to form a lasting partnership, she was trying to draw information out of him. To get him to trust her enough to let something slip.

  The bitter taste of bile rose to her mouth.

  “It’s late,” she murmured. “We’d better get going. My father’ll be standing at the window, watching for me.” A fond smile played on her lips. “Trying to pretend he’s not worried.”

  Patrick looked at her, mildly surprised. He would have thought she lived alone, with maybe a pet for company. A dog. She didn’t look like a cat person. “You live with your father?”

  “No, not anymore. I just promised I’d stop by on my way to my apartment, that’s all.”

  “Not anymore?” he questioned.

  “I did for a while. I came back to take care of him after he was shot.” She still remembered how she’d felt getting the call. Like a mule had kicked her in her stomach. Which was why she let her father fuss over her. Everyone had their own way of dealing with tension. “Friendly fire,” she said incredulously. “Technically, anyway.”

  About to walk away, Patrick jerked to attention. “What did you say?”

  “Friendly fire,” she repeated, wondering why he was looking at her so strangely. “The bullet came from a police-issued weapon, but they found one of the dead ‘suspects’ holding it. He must have gotten a hold of the gun somehow during the scuffle. It was a raid,” she explained. “My dad was one of the backup cops on the scene.” The look in Patrick’s eyes told her she’d said something that had caught his attention, something she didn’t realize she’d said. A lightning review of the conversation assured her that it had nothing to do with her cover. But still it was something. “What’s the matter?”

  Maybe something. Maybe nothing. “That’s how my partner got killed,” he told her. “Friendly fire.”

  “Except that in Ramirez’s case, it really was so-called friendly fire,” she pointed out. “Isn’t the officer who did it undergoing counseling right now?”

  Patrick raised his brow, obviously surprised.

  “Hey, I like to know what I’m getting into. I asked around when I found out you were going to be my partner.”

  Patrick nodded absently. It was plausible. What still didn’t feel plausible or right was Ramirez’s death, over and above the obvious. More than a month later, there was still something about the way it had gone down that didn’t sit right with him.

  He told himself he had to let it go, to put that out of his mind. Just as he had to put the longing that was attempting to wrap long tentacles around him out of his mind. Because he knew he’d be out of his mind to give in. McKenna was his partner and that was bad enough. Making her anything more was crazy and asking for the kind of trouble he didn’t need or want.

  “See you,” he tossed over his shoulder as he abruptly walked away.

  “Count on it, Zorro,” Maggi murmured, staring after him.

  Who was that masked man? Had he just kissed her like that to throw her off? Because she certainly felt thrown off. No, kissing her to throw her off would have been the action of a man accustomed to winding women around his little finger. She’d be willing to bet her next year’s pay that wasn’t Cavanaugh’s style.

  So what the hell was going on here?

  Damned if she knew.

  Suddenly feeling very drained and weary, Maggi got into her car and drove to her father’s home. She planned to pay a quick visit and then go straight to her apartment. What she needed right now, she counseled herself, was sleep. Things would be back to normal in the morning.

  Or so she told herself.

  Chapter 10

  Morning came and went. Maggi put the evening before out of her mind and concentrated on her job. Both the one she was supposedly doing and her covert one. With no new homicide to work on, Reynolds made it a point to tell them that it was an ideal time to catch up on long-overdue paperwork.

  As far as Maggi was concerned, there was never an ideal time to catch up on paperwork, especially when the cases initially had belonged to someone else.

  The day dragged on longer than it should have. When she saw Patrick getting up from his desk, his computer shut down for the day, her antennae gratefully went up.

  She swung her chair around to bar his way out of the cubicle. “Where’re you going?”

  Very deliberately, he took hold of her armrests and repositioned her, then walked out of the cubicle. “I’m taking off early.”

  Maggi was on her feet. “Hot date?”

  Turning around, he looked at her. “No.”

  “Then what?”

  Was it him, or did she sound eager? Maybe she just wanted to get out like he did. Sitting, shuffling papers all day could be mind numbing. It was for him. “Did it ever occur to you not to ask questions?”

  “Not really,” she told him cheerfully. “Knowledge is a wonderful thing.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  Looking down, she indicated her legs. She wore a skirt that showed them off to a far-from-modest advantage. It took Patrick a beat to draw his gaze away.

  “Two legs, not four. I’m safe.” Determined to learn what he was up to, leaving early like this, she gave it her best shot. “I thought that unless you’re off on a trip to your proctologist to have that stick you’ve been harboring surgically removed, since there’s no grisly homicide staring us in the face right now, maybe you’d like some company.”

  He wasn’t looking forward to what he was about to do and it left him in a less-than-amenable mood. “I’m going to see Alicia Ramirez to see how she’s getting along. And no, I wouldn’t like some company.”

  Her eyes skimmed over his face, trying to read between the lines. She thought she detected something. A reluctance he was trying to hide from her. Maybe even from himself.

  “But maybe you need some,” she countered. “Alicia’s your partner’s widow, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  He sounded almost belligerent. She would have backed away if this wasn’t about something bigger than just her own feelings.

  “So it’s still in the early days since he was killed. Your heart’s obviously in the right place, but you really don’t have the softest touch, Cavanaugh.” She pretended to be cocky. “My touch is very soft. She might want a woman around.”

  Alicia Ramirez came from a large family. Her emotional support system was assured. He was going over for a different reason. He’d already put this off for too long. “I’m sure she’s got plenty of women around.”

  “Then you might want a woman around.” He looked at her sharply and she added, “To take over when the going gets awkward.”

  He supposed she might have a point. Though he liked Alicia, this wasn’t something he looked forward to, just something that had to be done. His sense of honor demanded it. “You certainly have no problem taking over.”

  She laughed. “Funny, that’s what my father always says.”

  He nodded. “Smart man.”

  “Yeah, he is,” she said. There was no mistaking the affection in her voice. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that way about his own father. Earliest memories involved hearing his fath
er shouting and his cowering in his closet, trying to get away from the sound.

  Maggi looked over to the secretarial assistant they had covering the front desk. “Terrance, if the captain asks, I’m taking a couple of hours personal time.”

  “Very good, Detective.” The young man’s bright hazel eyes shifted toward Patrick. “You, too, Detective?” His meaning was less than veiled.

  “Apparently,” Patrick muttered, even though he had already told Terrance earlier that he was going to be leaving early.

  Patrick walked out of the room without another word.

  Maggi grabbed her purse and hurried after him. If nothing else, this assignment was certainly keeping her on her toes physically. “Are we going together?”

  Patrick was already on his way out of the building. “No.”

  He didn’t need to be in an enclosed space with her. The effects of last night at the bar were still very present in his mind. He needed to dissipate, not reinforce, them.

  She was almost trotting to keep up. “Then give me the address in case we get separated.”

  “We’re not going to get separated,” he snapped, then added as he slowed down, “no matter how much I try.”

  The backhanded admission nudged a smile from her. “Just trying to help, Cavanaugh.”

  They weren’t going to go there, to some area of mutual dependency. He’d made the mistake of forming a relationship with his last partner and he wasn’t about to leave himself open to that again.

  “Get this straight, Mary Margaret, I don’t need your help.”

  “Fair enough.” But she stood her ground. “Then maybe Alicia Ramirez might.”

  There was no getting rid of the woman, he thought. And maybe, just this once, she was right. He wasn’t at his best dealing with emotional situations or emotional women. He already knew that. With a sigh, Patrick rattled off the address to her.

  Alicia Ramirez was a petite, dark-haired woman with huge, sad eyes that brightened when she saw her late husband’s partner standing on her doorstep. She smiled warmly at him, opening the door all the way.