Obviously he’d been wrong. It felt as if he’d been thrown in the deep end of the pool right from the start. There was no place to retreat to, no alcove to hide in. Just people everywhere he turned.
Andrew Cavanaugh lived in one of the older developments in Aurora. Consequently, his backyard was three to four times the size of the ones in newer developments. Certainly a lot bigger than the yard surrounding the homes planned for the Old Aurora Hotel site.
But even with such a huge piece of property, the area was dwarfed by the presence of all the people attending the chief’s get-together. Everywhere he looked, Jackson thought, there were people talking, eating and, above all, laughing.
* * *
Despite his efforts to the contrary, Jackson found himself being drawn into one conversation after another, some overlapping. Some with people he knew by name or by sight. Other conversations were with people who were complete strangers to him at the outset. But not so once the conversations were over.
All in all, Jackson was almost in awe that there were this many people getting along with one another. There were no raised voices, no heated arguments breaking out. No displays of anger at all. In short, none of the things that he had grown up witnessing in his own family.
He half expected someone to come out in the middle of the festivities and yell, “Cut! That’s a wrap.” But this wasn’t some movie set. Hard as it was for Jackson to believe, all this was genuine.
The Cavanaughs and their friends seemed to have a lock on knowing how to get along.
“A bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” a deep voice behind Jackson said with an amused laugh. When he turned around, Jackson found the sympathetic smile of a man he vaguely recognized from the precinct.
“First time I came to one of these gatherings—not willingly, mind you,” Davis Gilroy added with feeling and a lopsided grin, “all I wanted to do was run. Fast. Come to think of it, I probably had the same look in my eyes that you do right now. But it gets easier.”
Shifting a drink into his left hand, the detective extended his right to Jackson. “Davis Gilroy,” he said. Nodding in the general direction of the patio, he continued, “I’m Moira’s husband.”
Shaking Davis’s hand, Jackson introduced himself as well.
“I know,” Davis said, dropping his hand to his side. “You’re the detective working on the Old Aurora Hotel murders case.”
“One of them,” Jackson corrected.
Davis smiled. He was familiar with cautious responses. A couple of years back, this could have been him.
“Right. I know the others on it,” Davis responded. “Well, nice meeting you. I’d better find Moira before it gets any more crowded. She’s around here somewhere. Oh, by the way, just a word to the wise from a former outsider. These people are the best thing that ever happened to me. And believe me, I really resisted being taken into the fold.” He clapped a hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “I would have been a lot happier a great deal sooner if I hadn’t.”
And then Jackson saw the other man nodding and smiling at someone just to his right. Before he could turn to see who it was, Davis told the person, “He doesn’t look nearly as overwhelmed as I felt the first time Moira brought me to one of these.”
When he heard the laugh in response, Jackson knew who Davis was talking to.
“He’s got a good poker face,” Brianna said. As Davis left, she turned toward Jackson. “Prepare to have your taste buds feel like they’ve died and gone to heaven.”
He’d been getting more than a whiff of a tantalizing aroma for the last few minutes, reminding him that, in his haste to leave the apartment before Brianna got there, he’d skipped breakfast.
“Are we going in for lunch?” he asked, looking toward the house.
“No,” Brianna told him. “Lunch is coming to us. With this many people, Uncle Andrew relies on a buffet to feed the masses. For a while, before everyone started getting married and having kids, he had this really long table specially made so that he could seat everyone together. But then the marriages and babies came, along with another really large branch of the family—”
That seemed a little mind-boggling. “Wait. Where were all those people hiding before that?”
It was a familiar story to her because she was part of the second wave of Cavanaughs to descend on the city, increasing the police department by a third.
“Uncle Andrew’s dad had a younger brother whom he lost track of when his parents were divorced. To give his dad, Shamus, a feeling of closure, Uncle Andrew located this younger brother a few years back, or rather, he located the younger brother’s offspring.” She saw that she’d managed to snare his interest. “Unfortunately, the younger brother had died before Shamus had a chance to reunite with him.”
“Damn,” Jackson murmured, “I’m sorry I asked.” When he saw the look on Brianna’s face, he had to ask, “Why are you grinning like that?”
Her eyes crinkled. He did his best not to notice. “Because you did ask.”
“So?” he asked gruffly.
“So,” she stressed with a satisfied grin, “you, Jackson Muldare, are not nearly as aloof as you’re trying to pretend to be.”
“I’m not pretending,” he insisted, a bit more forcefully than the situation warranted.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved away his protest. “Just come and eat. Uncle Andrew’s meals are guaranteed to mellow the surliest of beasts.”
“Is that supposed to describe me?” Jackson asked.
Once again hooking her arm through his, Brianna steered her reluctant guest toward a large platter of sliced roast beef.
“You?” she asked, fighting to keep a straight face. “No. You’re not surly in the least.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Jackson turned his attention toward what really did look like a feast. There were three kinds of meat and a bevy of side dishes, and that didn’t even begin to cover the desserts. All in all, it was overwhelming.
He could recall nights when he and Jimmy had had nothing to eat because their father had used what money there was to buy whiskey. The boy he once was momentarily felt like a kid in a candy store.
“You’re the veteran,” he said, addressing Brianna. “What’s good here?”
There was something almost infectious about the smile on her face as she turned toward him and said, “Everything.”
He knew she was talking about the huge buffet that extended over the surface of four very large tables, but that wasn’t what he found himself thinking about.
* * *
Jackson had no idea where the time went.
They’d arrived at the former chief’s house well before eleven, and Jackson had silently promised himself that he was going to find a way to leave by one o’clock at the very latest.
But one o’clock came and went, as did two and three and then the hours after that. Somehow, between the food, the conversation and the company, the hours seemed to melt into one another, and eventually they took the daylight along with it, ushering in dusk, then twilight and, finally, evening.
Jackson was rather astonished to realize that the day was all but gone and he hadn’t felt the desire to flee even once after having been introduced to the man responsible for all of this.
When, after many of the couples with children had called it a night and left, Brianna finally turned toward him and asked, “Are you ready to go?” he had to admit that it came as a surprise to him.
“Why? What time is it?” he asked, turning away from her brothers Luke and Ronan, who were regaling him with stories of what a hellion Brianna had been growing up. He had to admit that he was enjoying himself.
“A lot later than I thought it would be,” Brianna told him. Pleased with the way the day had gone, she didn’t bother suppressing her grin. She had to ask, “I was right, wasn’t I?”
“If you were,” Luke spoke up, laughing
, “it would be the first time.”
“You’ve got that right,” Ronan said, high-fiving his brother.
“Good night, boys,” Brianna said deliberately as she took command and steered Jackson toward the front of the house. “Some of us are working an active case,” she tossed over her shoulder.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk shop,” Jackson said. “Isn’t that some sort of rule at this gathering? As I recall, those were your words initially, weren’t they?”
“Well, it’s nice to know you pay attention sometimes,” she replied, smiling at the man she’d initially been prepared to drag here if she had to.
It was probably the drink he’d had with her mother, a former ambulance driver who had gone on to manage several ambulances, but Jackson caught himself telling Brianna after a significant pause, “Oh, I pay attention, all right.”
The problem was, he thought, he was paying too much attention. To her. If he wasn’t careful, the woman was going to reduce him to a bowl of mush and that was not the way he saw himself. Definitely not the way he wanted to be.
Chapter 18
“No such thing as making a quick getaway when it comes to your family, is there?” Jackson asked more than half an hour later.
They were just now finally outside Andrew’s house. It had taken them all this time to work their way from the center of the house to the front door. There had been a legion of people to say goodbye to.
“How do you keep track of all their names?” he asked incredulously.
“Practice,” Brianna answered glibly as she got into her car. “I attend as many of these get-togethers as I’m able to.” When he looked at her as if she were crazy, she added, “It’s good to feel part of something.”
Jackson shrugged noncommittally as he buckled up. “Still think name tags might be helpful.”
Pulling away from the curb, Brianna considered his words for a moment. “Well, it was a little rough on all of us when my side of the family first got together with the Cavanaughs who were already living in Aurora. At that point, I would have agreed with you.”
“Wait. Back up.”
She froze, hitting the brake and looking around. “Did I hit something?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean that literally. You weren’t part of the original group?”
Foot back on the accelerator, Brianna shook her head while she drove out of the development. “Nope. We didn’t know anything about Shamus’s branch of the family. Why do you look so surprised?”
After spending just a little while with them, he would have been hard-pressed to pick out who was part of the old guard and who belonged to the new wave that had been introduced to that old guard.
“I guess I’m just not used to a family blending so well,” he admitted.
She knew he was thinking about his own family. Granted, she hadn’t had time to look into his background, partly because she was hoping that he would volunteer the information himself—Del Campo hadn’t had any time to come through yet, either—but she had the feeling that there hadn’t been much blending or happy moments in Jackson’s childhood.
“I think blending is mandatory if you’re a Cavanaugh or related to one,” she joked. “All kidding aside, you seemed like you had a nice time today.”
He didn’t want to admit to something that might wind up opening a can of worms for him down the line. “I’ve had worse.”
“Oh, please, don’t lay it on so thick,” Brianna pleaded melodramatically, placing one wrist against her forehead like a silent movie heroine as she waited for the light to turn green.
Jackson decided to switch the direction of the conversation. “I had a long talk with your mother.”
Maeve Cavanaugh O’Bannon was a strong-willed woman who spoke her mind and had always gone after whatever she wanted. Hearing that her mother had cornered Jackson made Brianna cringe.
“Oh, Lord,” she groaned, thinking of what she’d overheard when she extricated Jackson from her brothers. “More tales about how much grief I gave her when I was growing up? She exaggerates, you know. So do my brothers.”
Jackson laughed quietly. The sound captivated her. “No,” he told her, “no tales of grief. Although she did say she was a little disappointed that none of her kids had gone on to become ambulance drivers, but she’s proud of all of you. She also mentioned how rough all of you had it when your dad was killed in the line of duty.” He turned to look at Brianna. There was no mistaking the respect, or the wistfulness, in his voice. “She’s a pretty remarkable woman, your mother.”
“I always thought so,” Brianna said with sincerity. “I tried to tell her that once, but Mom just said it was no big deal. That she was only doing what every mother was supposed to do, providing for her kids and taking care of them.”
“Not every mother,” Jackson contradicted quietly. “That’s not as common as your mother might think.”
Bits and pieces began to come together for Brianna. She felt just awful for what Jackson must have gone through in order to think this way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open up any old wounds.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he told her, his voice devoid of emotion as walls that had temporarily slipped down went back into place. “You didn’t cause any of the wounds.”
She knew that faced with this awkward situation, some people would just change the subject, hoping that the subject would fade away. But she was her mother’s daughter and had always forged ahead where angels feared to go. Now was no exception.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“What makes you think I would want to talk about it?” That was the last thing he wanted to do.
Brianna was catching every light. At this rate, she’d have him at his apartment in a couple more minutes. She really wanted to get this positively resolved before then.
“Well, keeping it all bottled up inside will eventually lead to an explosion, and those usually happen at the worst possible times, not to mention that they’re messy. But if you talk about it,” she coaxed, “it has less power over you.”
Jackson blew out a breath. He didn’t want to lose his temper, but he wasn’t in the mood to put up with what he viewed as psychobabble.
“Do you have this secret desire to be a psychiatrist?” he demanded, hoping that would be the end of it.
“No, I have a secret desire to see the people I work with happy,” she answered.
She had reached Jackson’s apartment complex and parked in the closest guest spot she could find. Despite the close proximity to his front door, Jackson just assumed that the woman who obviously thought she knew what was best for him would remain in the vehicle when he got out.
But she didn’t.
Brianna got out of the car when he did. This wasn’t over. He sighed. He was having trouble tamping down his temper. He was also having trouble with another emotion Brianna had quite inadvertently managed to stoke—which was why he wanted to call it a night.
“You know what’ll make me happy?” he asked.
“Does it involve my washing out your mouth with soap after you say it?” she asked archly.
Caught off guard, he stared at her. “What? No.” And then, mentally throwing up his hands, he laughed, shaking his head. “I was going to say figuring out who killed those women and how they were sealed into the hotel walls without anyone noticing.”
She knew a blatant hint when she heard it. Obligingly, Brianna dropped the subject of his mother. She’d made enough headway for one day, she told herself. She’d got a remote Jackson to come to a family gathering, and surprisingly enough, he hadn’t complained all day.
She’d said that the gathering was a much-needed break and now the break was over. “Tell you what. Why don’t we go in tomorrow and try looking at the case from another angle? Maybe that’ll yield something we missed.
”
Jackson nodded. Yes, he wanted to solve the case. This one had been eating away at him more than usual. But he was using the case to keep from confronting the very thing that Brianna had told him to.
His eyes washed over her. She looked no different than she usually did. Oh, maybe she was dressed a little more appealingly, but that didn’t account for what he was feeling at the moment. A pull he didn’t want to acknowledge. Certainly one he didn’t want to feel.
Which was why he was surprised when he heard himself asking, “Since you’re already out of the car, you want to come in for a nightcap?”
“You don’t have any food in the house, but you have alcohol?” It was a rhetorical, amused question. She really wasn’t surprised that he had the one but not the other.
“Hey, this is California,” he quipped. “We’re supposed to be prepared for emergencies.”
“Since when does needing a drink qualify as an emergency?” Brianna asked.
The answer came without any thought. “Since I spent the day with you.”
They were at his doorstep now, and he had his key in the lock when his quip stopped her short.
“Okay, I can take a hint,” Brianna told him, turning away.
He caught her wrist and pulled her back around. He felt as if he was trying to hold on to lightning. “No, you can’t.”
And then, without any warning to himself, he did something that defied everything he had always viewed as logical.
He kissed her.
Kissed her with a forcefulness that he didn’t even know he was capable of. Kissed her with such feeling that it actually unnerved him. Because he had always thought—believed—that he was empty inside. That he didn’t feel anything.
But he was feeling something now with an intensity that was off the charts. He stunned even himself, and his first thought was to pull away.
Except that he couldn’t.
And that split second’s hesitation sealed his fate. The very next second, her arms were going around his neck, her body and her mouth cleaving to his.
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