Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh's Woman

Shaw 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….

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To

Nancy Parodi Neubert

and

a friendship that goes back to

elementary school

This RITA ®Award-winning author has written over one hundred and twenty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

Detective Shaw Cavanaugh loves a good movie but when it comes to real life, there’s no room for actors. So when Moira decides to use him as research for her next film, he’s none too pleased. But then Shaw learns the hard way she’s more than a pretty face—she may just be the woman of his dreams!

Movie star Moira McCormick wants to shadow someone who won’t be starstruck and Shaw shows all evidence of fitting the bill. She likes his indifference to her and wonders if he’s hiding what she’s hiding—a lethal attraction.

Former police chief Andrew Cavanaugh loves his children and hides from them his secret quest to find his long-lost love. Fifteen years ago his wife disappeared and Andrew won’t give up hope that she’ll come home….

Rose “Claire” Cavanaugh went out for a drive fifteen years ago and found herself with a new identity and no recollection of her past. Can a kindly, handsome man who claims to be her husband bring her back to the fold?

Let’s not forget other members of the Cavanaugh brood:

Callie (Racing Against Time, IM#1249),

Clay (Crime and Passion, IM#1256),

Patrick (Internal Affair, Silhouette Books),

Rayne (Dangerous Games, IM#1274) and Teri (The Strong Silent Type, IM#1613).

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

The sound of the back door closing resounded through the morning air. The last of his offspring had gone off to work. Rising from the table, Andrew Cavanaugh struggled against the wall of loneliness that threatened to close on him.

Last night had been a surprise. He’d come home from the movies only to have Teri tell him that she was getting married. To her partner on the force—one Detective Jack Hawkins.

Of course, he had to admit that he’d seen it coming. Seen the way the young man had gazed at his middle daughter when he thought no one else was looking.

Probably just the same way he had looked at his Rose once. Right up until the day she’d vanished from his life more than fifteen years ago.

Andrew sighed as he gathered up the last of the breakfast dishes from the table. The others had already left to begin their day on the Aurora police force. The way he once had, before he retired.

Retirement was highly overrated.

Maybe he should start thinking about taking on consulting jobs, Andrew mused. At least that would keep him busy.

That made four now, he thought, stacking the dishes on the counter beside the sink. Four out of his five children were getting married soon, not to mention that Patrick, one of his four nephews, had suddenly decided to settle down, as well. All out of the blue, just like that. One minute they were too busy to draw two breaths together, much less get serious about someone; the next, they were making plans, making commitments. Moving on with their lives to the next level.

About time. He was thrilled for them.

Andrew paused, looking around the cheery kitchen. With the silence, he thought of how empty the house was going to seem soon.

It made him miss Rose all the more.

Maybe he should go back up there, he decided, to that little diner his youngest, daughter, Rayne, had discovered while working on one of her cases. The same diner where Rose had surfaced after all these years.

Except that it wasn’t Rose, at least not in her mind. The woman he had gone to see, to reclaim, didn’t remember who she was, didn’t remember the family they’d created. She’d stared at him blankly when he’d turned up at her garden apartment, armed with a book of photographs and the knowledge that she really was his long-lost wife. He covertly got a sample of her fingerprints and had them run against the ones found on her favorite book. That had given him that final tangible proof. She could wear any name tag she wanted pinned to the front of her pink-and-white uniform, call herself anything she pleased, but she was still his Rose.

As gently as he could, he’d tried to convince her of that. It frustrated him that all he’d managed to do was make her sunny smile disappear. She’d withdrawn into herself right before his eyes and become upset. So, while everything within him had begged him to stay until he could convince her she was who he said she was, Andrew had retreated. He’d left the mother of his children with the novel, a copy of Gone with the Wind, and his phone number in case things began coming back to her.

He’d hoped that she would have called him by now, but she hadn’t. Maybe if he went, tried to persuade her a little, that might do the trick….

Something caught his attention. Andrew stopped and cocked his head.

Was that the doorbell?

Telling himself he was probably hearing things, he nonetheless stopped rinsing the dishes before stacking them in the dishwasher and shut off the tap water. He walked a little closer to the front of the house.

The soft peal of the doorbell again disturbed the atmosphere. He grabbed a towel and dried his hands as he made his way to the front door. Slinging the towel over his right shoulder, Andrew reached for the doorknob and swung the door open. “What did you forget?”

The words hung in the air, mocking him, as he looked into the face of the woman who called herself Claire—the woman his heart knew was Rose.

The soft-spoken blonde on his doorstep looked nervous, vulnerable and more than a little wary. It took her a moment before she responded.

“Everything, apparently.”

It took Andrew longer to recover. He’d lived the last fifteen years imagining this very scenario from every possible angle. He’d envisioned Rose tired, jubilant, even contrite, but he’d never once thought there would be a vacant, confused look in her eyes.

He heard himself whisper the words in grateful awe. “You came.”

“I had to,” she confessed. When he went to take her arm to usher her in, Claire shrank back a little, then offered him a rueful look as she walked into the house unassisted. She hadn’t meant to flinch. Reflexes were responsible for that, reflexes that had been there when she’d woken up, not knowing who or where she was. “I had to see if there was some truth to this story you told me. If I really was this Rose Gallagher Cavanaugh you said I was.”