Cavanaugh Watch (9 page)

“In name only,” she whispered.

“In every way that counted,” he countered. He was not going to lose her because of this, because of his own cowardice. He couldn’t.

“Except for blood,” she snapped back. She was numb and furious at the same time. Her mind raced around, trying to make sense of this. Trying to find an explanation she could cope with. “Why didn’t you tell me? When I think of all the times I prattled on about how much I looked like you, how much I acted like you—” She finished because she felt like such an idiot. And so betrayed she couldn’t even begin to put it into words. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she demanded again. She stared at the man sitting opposite her. Who
was
this man she’d thought she knew so well. “Were you laughing at me? Was I being entertaining enough for you?”

“Damn it, Janelle, nobody was laughing at you. I just told you why I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Especially after I lost your mother. You were my daughter, I loved you—”

She didn’t believe him. “How could you love me?” she demanded hotly. She shot to her feet, ready to run off. “How could you not be disgusted? Every time you looked at me, you saw the living proof of your wife’s infidelity, her betrayal—”

Brian caught her hands in his before she could get away. “How could I not be disgusted?” he echoed. “Because every time I looked at you, I saw a little girl I loved. And I watched her grow up to be a young woman I was proud of—”

“A young woman you lied to—” Janelle insisted angrily, trying to work her way around the pain that was ripping her in half. She wasn’t his daughter. The man she adored, the man who was her key to a huge family network, to the people she had loved since forever, wasn’t her father. She felt betrayed, alone. Lost. And angry. Oh, so very angry. At her mother, at this man she’d thought was her father. At Marco Wayne. And at herself for having to hear this.

Brian refused to release her hands, trying to hold on to the only bond he still had with his daughter.

She pulled her hands away from him, her heart breaking in too many places to count. Omitting something was the same as lying. “Damn it, Dad, or whatever I’m supposed to call you, you know better.”

Just as with Susan that awful night she’d made her confession to him, he wasn’t an impartial cop, he was a man. A man who hurt. Who was afraid of hurting. “All I know was that I was afraid of losing you. Afraid you’d react just this way—”

Questions materialized. “Who else knows?” she demanded, sinking back into her seat. Embarrassment all but swallowed her up. She couldn’t bear having her brothers, her cousins, look at her with pity. “Does everyone know?”

“No, the only people who knew were your mother and me. And Andrew.” He saw Janelle’s eyes widen and quickly added, “Andrew was the one who told me to put this all behind me and forgive your mother if I still loved her. And I did. With all my heart. I still do.”

She would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that there were no secrets in her family. That everything that went on eventually came to light. The laugh was on her, she supposed. Especially if she was the only one who’d been kept in the dark. “And Dax, Troy, Jared, the others, they—”

“They don’t know,” he told her firmly, before she could finish her question. “Not even Marco knows.” This time, his assurance was for her benefit alone. Since the man had called her, Brian wasn’t a hundred percent certain that Marco didn’t suspect that Janelle was his. “Your mother never told him.”

She thought of the phone call, trying to recall if there were any nuances in the man’s voice. Had Wayne known? Was there a reason for him to suspect? Or had he known all along?

Was that why he’d sought her out? Or was it just a coincidence, based on nothing more than that she was the daughter of someone he’d once been acquainted with? A man whose wife he’d once had an affair with.

A straw floated by. Desperation made her clutch it as if it could bring her safe passage to shore. Her mother made love with Marco. If she’d had relations during the same period of time with her father— “Maybe there’s a mistake, maybe—”

“No mistake, Janelle,” he said softly. “The timing,” he explained. “Your mother and I hadn’t been together as husband and wife for a while when she realized that she was pregnant.”

Everything around her crashed and burned. Everything she believed about herself, about her life, her family, none of it was true. It was all based on illusion. On lies.

She had to get out, had to get away. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. If she stayed here any longer, she was going to pass out. She needed air.

On her feet, Janelle hurried away from the booth. From things that broke her heart. She heard her father calling her name in the background, but all she could focus on was reaching the front door. On putting distance between herself and the pain.

Her hands flat against the door, she pushed it hard so that it groaned as it flew open. Bursting outside, Janelle took in huge gulps of air, filling her lungs as far as she could, then releasing the breath. Trying to pull herself together.

It wasn’t helping.

Swallowing an oath, she hurried to her car, knowing only that she had to get out of here.

Sawyer had watched her the entire time. For form’s sake, he’d nursed a club soda, much to the bartender’s disdain. The latter had walked away muttering something about recovering alcoholics being the death of him. Sawyer had only listened with half an ear as he’d continued to observe Janelle at the booth.

Granted, the lighting left a hell of a lot to be desired, but he had a great ability to focus and concentrate. That more or less helped balance out the deficiencies.

Sawyer settled back, an elbow against the bar he had his back to, prepared to nurse his carbonated drink for about an hour or so, when he saw the look on Janelle’s face. Even at this distance, with this light, he could see that she’d just listened to something that had a major impact on her life. A major impact that was unwelcome.

Guessing, he figured it probably had something to do with her extended family. Not his business as long as it didn’t involve having a bullet aimed at some part of her body. And she was, after all, with Aurora’s chief of detectives, so that pretty much kept her safe.

But whatever thought he’d had about relaxing for the next hour or so instantly fled when he saw Janelle abruptly get up from the table. It seemed completely out of character, especially since she was talking to her father. Rumor had it they enjoyed a healthy, respectful relationship.

Didn’t look like that from here. His assignment looked as if she had just been ambushed by an eighteen-foot Gila monster.

Damn it, he thought as he strode quickly through the restaurant toward the door, plowing his way through the crowd, guarding Janelle Cavanaugh just kept getting trickier.

Chapter 9

J
anelle’s hands were shaking as she took her car keys out of her purse and she dropped them. Her hands never shook, she thought angrily, stooping to pick up the keys. But then, why should she be surprised? It was obvious that she couldn’t count on anything being what she thought it was.

Her chest ached.

Aiming the remote at the car, Janelle pressed down on the small button. Nothing happened. She tried again with the same results. Frustration flared so quickly, it almost frightened her. Getting a grip, she stabbed the car key at the keyhole. She managed to scratch the area around it, but miss the opening. Twice.

Finally, Janelle unlocked the door. Swinging it open, she got in, narrowly avoiding being hit by the door as it swung back. Biting off a curse, she tried to get the key into the ignition. Her hands were shaking harder and she dropped the key ring again.

“Damn it!”

The keys had fallen directly beneath the steering wheel. She had to snake her way under it in order to retrieve them.

By the time she’d secured the keys and sat up, the door on the driver’s side was thrown open again.

“Get into the passenger side,” Sawyer growled. From where he stood, she looked as if she were having some sort of a breakdown, which meant she was in no condition to drive.

Janelle glared at her intruder. Where the hell had he come from? Her brain felt numb, unable to process anything. It took her a second to remember that she’d left him back at the bar. Why couldn’t he have just stayed there?

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Janelle snapped in response.

Anger he could deal with, but he had a problem coping with the hint of tears on the horizon.

“I’ll tell you what to do if I think you need telling,” he informed her almost passively, then repeated his instructions. “Now get out and move over to the passenger side.” He appraised her face again. Damn it, she was going to cry. He’d bet a month’s salary on it. His only chance was to get her too angry to shed tears. “You’re in no condition to drive.”

What the hell did he care what condition she was in? She was just his assignment, an inanimate object to guard as far as he was concerned. Only good thing she’d just learned was that she could send him away now.

“You’re free,” she declared, barely controlling her voice. She waved her hand at him dismissively. “I emancipate you. Go home, Detective Boone. You don’t need to guard me anymore.”

“Stop babbling and do what I tell you to do.”

Her hands gripped the steering wheel. She needed something solid to hold on to, even if just physically. Everything else felt as if it were crumbling around her.

She wasn’t a Cavanaugh.

She wasn’t anything, she thought.

“Don’t you get it?” she demanded angrily. “You don’t need to be my guard dog anymore. I’m taking myself off the case. Maybe off the D.A.’s team altogether,” she added. She felt completely disoriented. How could she possibly be of any use to anyone else? “Go back to your Batcave and wait for another assignment,” she added cryptically.

Rather than stand there and argue with her, Sawyer physically pulled her out of the vehicle. Stunned, Janelle began to shout at him, raining a few choice names down on his head. His face impassive, he didn’t seem to hear her.

Hooking his arm around her midsection, Sawyer literally carried her to the other side of the car as if she weighed next to nothing. The fact that she was beating on his chest with fisted hands left no impression whatsoever.

He opened the passenger door and unceremoniously deposited her back into the vehicle. Before Janelle could yelp in protest again, he secured her seat belt around her, brushing against her thighs in the process, then slammed the door. He swiftly rounded the hood and was in the driver’s seat before she had a chance to unbuckle her seat belt and make a break for it.

The man was incredibly fast for someone his size, she thought grudgingly.

Sawyer hit the power-lock keypad on his side of the car, locking all four doors at once. Then he pressed down the bypass button, rendering the lock on her side useless. She was locked in.

“This is kidnapping, Boone!” Janelle shouted in frustration.

He checked to see that the key was still in the ignition. It was. With a snap of his wrist, he turned it. Janelle drowned out the sound of the engine coming to life, threatening him.

“You can bring me up on charges later,” he replied mildly.

She blew out a long, angry breath. If he was counting on her easygoing nature, he’d miscalculated. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“I’m sure you’ll have the full power of your daddy behind you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Janelle stiffen. After backing out of the parking space, he drove toward the exit at the end of the lot. Before turning onto the street, he took the opportunity to glance in her direction. The blood had drained out of her face. “You’re pale. What did I say?”

She stared straight ahead, afraid she was going to cry. Damn it, she didn’t want to cry in front of this man. He’d probably think it was because of something he’d said.

“Nothing.”

The hell it was nothing. He respected boundaries, but not when they crossed over into his territory. And as long as this woman was his responsibility, she was his territory.

He tried again. “Look, I’ve only been on this assignment a couple of weeks, but it doesn’t take long for me to get a handle on some things. You’re a talker. If you don’t talk, you’ll explode.”

Guiding the car into the flow of traffic, he waited for her to start.

Instead, she stubbornly dug her heels in. “So?”

“So talk,” he ordered impatiently. “Blood’s hard to wash out of the upholstery. If anything happens to you, any one of a number of people will be after my head,” he reminded her. “Your brothers, your cousins, your father, not to mention the ex-chief of police.”

Her family.

Her once and past family, she thought sarcastically.

Damn it, she would have given anything if Marco Wayne and his damn son hadn’t come into her life.

Careful, that’s your father and brother you’re denouncing. Half brother,
she amended angrily. Two people who had just robbed her of her happiness and her peace of mind. She hoped they’d both rot in hell.

Janelle continued staring straight ahead, willing her tears back into her ducts. “You’ve got nothing to worry about from them,” she assured Sawyer between clenched teeth.

Sawyer sincerely doubted if he’d ever heard as much hurt packed into a voice as he did right at this minute. She didn’t strike him as the hysterical type, or a person given to making dramatic scenes. Yet she seemed to be on the verge of falling apart. Vulnerable and defensive all at the same time.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you don’t,” she retorted, crossing her arms before her chest.

Sawyer glanced at her again just as headlights from an oncoming car intruded into the interior of the one he was driving. Illuminating the woman beside him. Her breathing was shallow, her face pale. Again, Janelle seemed on the edge of some sort of anxiety attack.

Sympathy stirred within him. But sympathy wasn’t the way to get anything out of her. He instinctively sensed that. “What the hell did your father say to you back there?”

She wouldn’t have told him. Of all the people she knew, she would have been more inclined to tell one of the criminals she’d prosecuted than this man. But she felt completely lost, completely directionless and so completely abandoned. She needed to make contact, to grab a lifeline and pull herself out of the mire before she went down for the third time.

Sawyer held out a lifeline.

And suddenly, the words just came tumbling out. Along with the tears she would have rather died than shed. “That he wasn’t my father.”

Sawyer had had no idea what to expect, but this sure wasn’t it. “What?” he demanded.

Janelle had taken a drink, but the glass had been still half-full when she’d suddenly bolted from the restaurant, so she couldn’t be drunk. If she wasn’t drunk, what the hell was she talking about? Had she had an argument with the chief? Was she one of those females who flew off the handle when she didn’t get her way?

He waited for an explanation.

Janelle dragged a hand through her hair, wishing she could somehow erase this day. To pluck out everything that was wrong and make it the way it was before.

Not going to happen. Ever.

She wanted to be alone.

“Look,” Janelle began impatiently, “why don’t you drive to your place?”

The suggestion caught him completely off guard. Was she propositioning him? Under normal circumstances, if she hadn’t been an assignment, if they had just come across one another in that restaurant they’d just vacated, he might have actually been tempted. Something about the woman cut through the barricades he’d thrown up around himself. Something basic that spoke to him.

But she was what she was and right now, he was trying to treat her with kid gloves. Which meant that if this was a proposition, he had to turn her down.

“What?” he asked again.

“That way you can go home and I’ll take the car the rest of the way to my place.” Each word was an effort.

Sawyer dismissed her suggestion. “My place is not on the way to your place.”

“I don’t care.” Why was he giving her grief? She just wanted to be rid of him. To go home, throw herself on her bed and cry her heart out. Then maybe it wouldn’t ache so much. “I’m not trying to save on gasoline right now.”

“I’m taking you home.” His tone was firm. There was no arguing the point.

Home.

Where was home? Home had always been a state of mind for her, more people than place. Although, if she’d really been pressed to cite where her home was, she would have pointed to the sprawling house where she had grown up. Grown up feeling secure believing she knew who she was and what her place in the universe was.

Idiot, she thought and sighed listlessly. “Yeah, whatever.” The next moment, Sawyer was pulling the car over to the side of the road. Now what? She glared at him. “What are you doing?”

He shut off the ignition and turned to look at her. “We’re not going any farther until you tell me what’s going on.”

What did he want from her? Blood?

Now there was an ironic thought, she silently jeered. The blood she’d assumed she had running through her veins, she didn’t. All those years she’d kept seeing similarities between herself and her father, her cousins, all of it was just a big joke. There
were
no similarities. Because she wasn’t a Cavanaugh.

“I already told you,” she insisted, annoyed. “You know as much as I do.”

He didn’t budge. “I don’t think so. You’re going to pieces on me and you’re not the type to do that.”

Her temper snapped. “How the hell do you know what my ‘type’ is? How do you know anything about me when
I
don’t know anything about me.”

“Did someone slip you something?” he asked. “I was watching you the whole time, but if a waiter wanted to put something in your drink—”

“Nobody put anything in my drink. My father—” Janelle stopped abruptly the second the word was out of her mouth. He wasn’t her father, not anymore. She tried again. “The chief of detectives just pulled the plug on my world, that’s all.” She spread her hands wide, as if to display something. “This is me when everything goes down the drain.”

He still wasn’t following her. Crack lawyer or not, she just wasn’t making any sense. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning.”

She was suddenly very tired. Of everything. “Why do I have to start at the beginning?” she demanded hotly.

“Because I can’t help you unless I understand what’s going on.”

“And why would you want to help me?”

“Because I have a merit badge to flesh out,” he snapped. “Stop asking stupid questions and just get on with it. Now why are you acting like a chicken with her head cut off?”

Janelle pressed her hand to her chest at the same time that she pressed her lips together. The latter was to keep her voice from cracking. “It’s not my head, it’s my heart.”

“Your heart?” His brow furrowed. “What’s the matter with your heart?”

“It’s been cut out.”

Leaning back, he blew out a breath. For a talkative woman, she rationed out information as if there were a famine underway. “What did you mean when you said that the chief isn’t your father?”

She pressed her lips together again. Taking a breath, she let it out slowly before she trusted her voice. “He’s not.”

How was that possible? Everyone knew the chief of detectives had a daughter and that daughter was currently sitting beside him in the car. “But I thought—”

Janelle laughed, cutting him off. The hollow sound echoed through the interior of the car, mocking her. “That makes two of us.”

“You’re not getting out of the car until you start making sense,” he warned her. “Now what the hell did the chief tell you back there that has you acting like some kind of crazy loon?”

She raised her chin, as if gravity could keep the tears from coming. “He told me that Marco Wayne is my father.”

Thunderstruck, Sawyer could only stare at her. “What?”

His expression mirrored what she felt inside, Janelle thought. Except that he was far more in control. She felt as if she were harboring the aftermath of a hurricane inside her chest.

“Exactly.” She took a deep breath. What did it matter if this man knew? Everyone would know eventually. This kind of thing didn’t stay hidden forever once the lid was removed. Or blown sky-high.

“Apparently my father—the man I thought was my father,” she amended as Sawyer’s frown deepened, “my mother and Marco Wayne were all from the same neighborhood. Wayne had a ‘thing’ for my mother. Seems he kept on having this ‘thing’ even though he was married and so was she. I’m told that the chief and my mother had their share of problems and Marco took advantage of some downtime in their marriage.

“To put it quite simply, he and my mother had an affair.” She spread her hands wide, the smile on her lips taut, painful and utterly without mirth. “And I was the result.”