A Cavanaugh Christmas (7 page)

“We can get it together,” he told her, then explained his offer. “I’m guessing you don’t know your way around yet—not that you won’t,” he interjected quickly before she resurrected the chip to her shoulder. “It’s just quicker right now if I take you.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to turn down his offer, but if she did she’d be acting too ornery. Even though she wasn’t actually hungry, she needed to eat in order to keep going.

“You have a point,” she allowed.

“Thanks. I try,” he said with a quick, easy smile that, due to her weakened state, she judged, she was finding more and more attractive. “Any kind of takeout in particular you were interested in getting?”

Kait shrugged. Unlike some people who lived to eat, she ate to live. “Food’s food,” she answered indifferently.

Tom laughed. Andrew Cavanaugh would definitely love to get his hands on her, he couldn’t help thinking. The former chief of police who had opted for early retirement to raise his then-motherless five children—and to conduct a long, patient search for the wife he never believed had died when her car went into the lake—had wound up funneling his energy into creative cooking. He made it a point to have everyone in his family—and that included his extended family, otherwise known as the police department—know that his door was always open and that they could always find a hot meal at his table.

Wouldn’t he be surprised if one of the members of his newly “uncovered” branch of the family turned up at his table, with a guest no less,
Tom mused.

But he wasn’t the type to just show up, open invitation or no open invitation. Otherwise, he would have been tempted to bring Kaitlyn to Andrew’s house and introduce her to what actual excellent cooking was all about. Him, he couldn’t successfully boil water, but that didn’t stop him from knowing the difference between a decent meal and one that was just short of heavenly.

Besides, he thought, tired or not she looked as if she would have his head if he tried to bring her over to Andrew’s house.

“Okay.” He locked the middle drawer of his desk and stuck the key back into his pocket. It was time to call it a day. “Since you don’t really care, if you like pizza I know a place that makes the second-best pizza in Northern California.”

She fell into step beside him. “Second best?” she echoed. That was certainly an odd way to put it. “Who makes the first?”

“Andrew Cavanaugh.” The man had served up several incredible themes and variations of classic pizza at the last “meeting” that had been called gathering the entire family together.

The man certainly seemed to revel in all that closeness, Tom thought. Up until that point, he’d thought he had a large family when it was just the seven of them and Dad. Now that almost seemed small and cozy in comparison.

“Andrew Cavanaugh,” Kait repeated. “Is he any relation to the chief of detectives?”

Tom nodded as he pressed for the elevator. “Andrew’s his older brother. He used to be the chief of police,” Tom went on, “before he took an early retirement. But that’s a long story.”

“Another long story,” she noted, then asked, “Do all the Cavanaughs have long stories?” She remembered what he’d said earlier about there being a long story behind the discrepancy about his name.

The elevator arrived just as he shrugged. He waited for her to get in, then got in himself. Tom pressed for the first floor. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of them to ask.”

“How many of them are there?” she asked, her curiosity piqued despite her best efforts not to care. “Cavanaughs, not stories,” she clarified.

She probably thought he was just carelessly tossing terms around, he thought. Was she in for a surprise. “At last count?”

“Well, yeah.”

He paused for a moment, doing a mental head count. He remembered being really overwhelmed when he’d first walked into Andrew’s house for the initial introduction, and he wasn’t a man who was rattled easily.

Tom suspected that his siblings had all felt more or less the same way. The Cavanaughs en masse were a mighty force to be reckoned with.

“Strictly speaking, if you don’t count spouses or children, there are twenty-eight of them—if you include my side of the family.”

Kaitlyn stared at him. He had to be pulling her leg. “You’re not serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She laughed shortly, shaking her head. “Where I come from, there’re towns with less people than that.”

He could well believe it. The Southwest had more than its share of small towns. “Yeah, well, fortunately, the Cavanaughs use their powers for good and not evil,” he quipped.

Chapter 5

A
fter an initial, mercifully brief discussion as to whether or not they were going to be using two vehicles or just one and if one, which, Tom was a little surprised that he managed to convince Kait that since he actually knew where the restaurant was and she didn’t, he should be the one to drive them there.

“I expected you to put up more of an argument,” he admitted as he approached his destination several minutes later.

“Didn’t really seem worth the effort,” Kaitlyn told him.

She had to be tired. But for someone who was obviously dead on her feet, she still looked damn good from where he was sitting.

The restaurant, Naples, had been in the neighborhood for the past thirty-five years. Some said longer. In that time it slowly expanded from a small, two-table storefront eatery to what it was today, a large, sprawling restaurant that took up a third of the block it was on and was generally filled with customers. Tonight was no exception.

Its patrons didn’t seem to mind or really notice that the restaurant’s decor amounted to just the bare minimum. The tables all had the classic checkered red-and-white tablecloths, some which were even frayed around the edges. The floor was covered with sawdust that was swept out every night. The prices were more than fair, and what money was left over after the staff was paid went right back into the business. Only the best ingredients were used, and the ovens were top quality. No one had ever been known to go away dissatisfied.

Sitting at the table, waiting for their order to be brought over once it emerged out of the oven, Kait slowly took in her surroundings. She could relate to the bare-bones appearance and rather liked it.

“So, I guess you’re not trying to dazzle me,” she observed wryly.

“What I’m trying to do is feed you,” he reminded Kaitlyn.

From where he was sitting, Tom could easily see the area directly behind the counter where the ovens were situated. The pizza they had ordered—a classic pepperoni with sausage, heavy on the mozzarella—had just been gingerly taken out of the oven. The man who’d prepared it now deftly cut the aromatic pie into equal parts, then loaded his work of art into a large box.

The box in turn was handed over to the waiter who quickly delivered it to their table.

Tom could literally feel his taste buds surfacing and salivating in anticipation of what was ahead. Until he’d tasted Andrew’s rendition of pizza, he’d been confident that this place had no match.

It was still an extremely close second.

Throwing open the top of the box, he deposited a slice onto the empty plate in front of Kait, then quickly took one for himself. He savored the first bite like a penitent who’d finally been allowed to enter heaven after an abnormally long wait.

He hadn’t had pizza in a week.

“So,” he said as he began to feel human again, “where are you staying?”

Busy eating, Kait glanced up at him. She had to admit he was right. Never one who had cared very much for pizza, this could turn her into a true believer.

“Why?” she asked. “Are you planning on standing beneath my balcony and serenading me?”

He supposed, if they worked together long enough, he’d get used to her particular brand of sarcasm. He might even view it as entertaining. Right now, he saw it for what it was. A defense mechanism. He recognized it because he had used the same M.O. on more than one occasion.

“No,” he replied easily as he took a second slice out of the box and brought it over to his plate. He noted with satisfaction that Kait was almost finished with her first slice, as well. At least she wasn’t pretending not to like it. “I’m just curious if you picked a safe part of the city.”

“I come equipped with a gun,” she pointed out matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty much safe anywhere.” She paused as she took a bite out of a second slice. “But, since you asked—and you are springing for the pizza—right now I’m not staying anywhere.” She could see by his expression that her answer aroused a second wave of curiosity, so she indulged him and explained. “I came directly to the precinct when I hit Aurora. I didn’t want to waste any time.”

She was driven. It didn’t take a genius to see that. And it was beginning to have an effect on her. It didn’t take a genius to see that, either.

“Just how long has it been since you last slept?” he wanted to know.

About to eat another bite of her slice, Kait lowered it instead and fixed him with a penetrating, reproving look. “What’s with all these personal questions, Detective?” she asked.

“Hey, I saved your life,” he calmly reminded her. “I figure that entitles me to at least ask a couple of questions about the person I saved.”

Kait sighed. She supposed he had a point. Sort of. And she didn’t want to come across as completely ungrateful.

“I don’t know when I last slept,” she admitted grudgingly. “Day before yesterday, I think.” Before he could make a comment, she was waving it away. “Don’t worry about me. I can get by on very little.”

The woman probably thought she was indestructible. But no one was, and since he was, in a manner of speaking, responsible for Kait while she was here, he wanted to make sure she didn’t turn into a liability. At the same time, he had a gut feeling that it would be a futile effort to tell her she needed to get some sleep, so he approached the subject in a roundabout way.

“If you haven’t gotten a room yet, I’ve got an extra bedroom if you’re interested.”

Kait stopped eating. Her eyes met his. Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

“I’m not,” she informed him firmly.

He realized how she must have misinterpreted his offer. “Not that way,” he told her. “Interested as in interested in saving time and money. I’m house-sitting for a friend. The place is located not too far from the precinct, and there’s plenty of extra room.”

“House-sitting,” Kait repeated. That seemed to indicate that he had no place of his own, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. “All right, where do you normally live?”

Another slice found its way to his plate. “Currently, I’m in between places. The apartment complex I was living in raised its rates. I didn’t think the place was worth the price at the lower rent, much less what they raised it to. I was looking for somewhere else to rent when a friend of mine asked me to watch his place while he was away on assignment. He’s a photojournalist and his boss was sending him to the Middle East for six months. I said yes and bought myself a little time. I know he wouldn’t mind if you crashed there.”

Since she was pursuing this case on her own time, all the expenses she was incurring would have to come out of her own pocket. This would be a way to cut a few corners, and it was tempting. Still, she didn’t like being in debt to anyone—and she certainly didn’t want to be put in a compromising situation if Cavelli took her agreement to mean she was agreeing to other things, as well.

“To be honest, I was actually planning on going back to the precinct after dinner. I thought I’d start sifting through those surveillance tapes, see if we can get a clearer picture of the guy who rented the van to pass around.”

Okay, so maybe the roundabout method wasn’t going to work so well in this case. Maybe he needed to be more blunt, Tom decided.

“You’ll be of more use to that little girl if you get some decent sleep—something that you won’t be getting with your face pressed against a desktop,” he assured her. When he saw that she’d started vacillating, he pushed his advantage. “The bedrooms all have locks on the doors and like you’ve said, you’ve got a gun,” he reminded her. “And if you need any more assurance, I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure.”

The last part was an out-and-out lie, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get her to agree to his offer if she thought he might take advantage of the situation.

Not that she wasn’t attractive, but right now, he was more interested in saving that little girl than having a one-night stand, no matter how gorgeous that stand was.

Kait appeared to be mulling it over as she chewed thoughtfully on her third slice of pizza. “I suppose it would be simpler than trying to get a room at a hotel at the last minute—and I hate settling for staying in a motel,” she added. Most of the ones that were in her price range were rundown and seedy. And the rooms were little better than oversized bacteria-incubating petri dishes.

Tom did his best not to look triumphant. “All right, we can go straight there whenever you’re ready,” he told her, nodding at the slice in front of her. It was all but gone at this point.

“We can go straight there
after
we go back to the precinct and I get my car,” Kaitlyn corrected him pointedly.

Tom thought of that as an unnecessary step since they were both going to be heading back to the precinct in the morning. He was about to say so when his sixth sense stopped him. She probably saw the car as synonymous with independence. So rather than debate the point, Tom decided that it would be a lot simpler to just agree with her. He coupled his words with a genial smile.

“Whatever you say, Detective.”

Rising and picking up the box, he slanted a glance toward Kait. For a moment, he debated saying anything, then decided that he had nothing to lose. The worst that could happen would be for her to tell him to mind his own business.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” he asked as they wove their way out of the restaurant.

She spared him a glance. Was it his imagination, or was that wariness he saw in her eyes? “Go ahead.”