Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Reunion

Cavanaugh Reunion

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cover

Title Page Cavanaugh Reunion Marie Ferrarella www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written two hundred books, some under the name of Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Dedication To the wonderful Intrigue family, and especially Patience Smith, who more than lives up to her name. I thank you all for making my dreams come true. Also, to Pat Teal, who started it all by asking, “Would you like to write a romance?” Thank God I said, “Yes.” And last, but by no means least, to you, beloved readers, thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you.

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

Epilogue

Copyright

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLAhas written two hundred books, some under the name of Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Dear Reader,

So here we are with another Cavanaugh story. By all rights, this is also the last one. And if you believe that, you don’t know me. I have a great deal of trouble letting go, except for a truly awful experience. In essence, I am an emotional pack rat.

Case in point: when I was a teenager in New York City, every year we had a real Christmas tree. I would plead for our tree to stay well into January and once actually into February (Valentine bush, anyone?). As with everything else, it had been a source of joy once and I didn’t want to let it go. So how could I possibly say goodbye to a family I have come to love?

Sidebar: this is my two hundredth book. Not bad for a person who thought she had only one, possibly two books in her when she started out. I have loved every nail-biting minute and hope to write another two hundred! As ever, thank you for reading my books, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Marie Ferrarella

To the wonderful Intrigue family, and especially Patience Smith, who more than lives up to her name. I thank you all for making my dreams come true. Also, to Pat Teal, who started it all by asking, “Would you like to write a romance?” Thank God I said, “Yes.” And last, but by no means least, to you, beloved readers, thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you.

He smelled it before he saw it.

His mind elsewhere, Detective Ethan O’Brien’s attention was immediately captured by the distinct, soul-disturbing smell that swept in, riding the evening breeze. Without warning, it maliciously announced that someone’s dreams were being dashed even as they were being burnt to cinders.

Or, at the very least, they were damaged enough to generate a feeling of overwhelming sorrow and hopelessness.

Summers in California meant fires, they always had. Natives and transplants would joke that fires, earthquakes and mudslides were the dues they paid for having the best, most temperate overall weather in the country. But they only joked when nothing was burning, shaking or sliding away. Because during these catastrophic events, life proved to be all too tenuous, and there was no time for humor, only action. Humor was a salve at best, before and after the fact. Action was a way to hopefully curtail the amount of damage, if at all humanly possible.

But it wasn’t summer. It was spring, and ordinarily, devastating fires should have still been many headlines away from becoming a very real threat.

Except that they were a real threat.

There were fires blazing all over the southern section of Aurora. Not the spontaneous fires that arose from spurts of bone-melting heat, or because a capricious wind had seized a not-quite-dead ember and turned it into something lethal by carrying it off and depositing it into the brush. These fires, ten so far and counting in the last two months, were man-made, the work of some bedeviled soul for reasons that Ethan had yet to understand.

But he swore to himself that he would.

He’d been assigned to his very first task force by Brian Cavanaugh, the Aurora Police Department’s chief of detectives, and, as he’d come to learn in the last nine months, also his paternal uncle.

Knowledge of the latter tie had jolted him, Kyle and Greer the way nothing ever had before. He could state that for a fact, seeing as how, since they were triplets, there were times when he could swear that they functioned as one, single-minded unit.

The three of them received the news at the same time. It had come from their mother in the form of a deathbed confession so that she could meet her maker with a clear conscience. She’d died within hours of telling them, having absolutely no idea what kind of turmoil her revelation had caused for him and his siblings.

Initially, finding out that he, Kyle and Greer were actually part of the sprawling Cavanaugh family had shaken the very foundations of their world. But in the end, once they’d gotten used to it and accepted the truth, the information had proven not to be life-shattering after all.

He had to admit, at least for him, that it was nice to be part of something larger than a breadbox. Back when his mother’s death was still imminent, he’d anticipated life being pared down to it being just the three of them once she was gone. Three united against the world, so to speak.

Instead, the three of them were suddenly part of a network, part of something that at times seemed even greater than the sum of its parts.

Just like that, they were Cavanaughs.

There were some on the police force who were quick to cry “Nepotism!” when he, Kyle and Greer advanced, rising above the legions of patrol officers to become detectives in the department. But as he was quick to point out when confronted, it was merit that brought them to where they were, not favoritism.

Merit riding on the shoulders of abilities and quick thinking.

Like now.

On his way home after an extraordinarily long day that had wound up slipping its way into the even longer evening, Ethan had rolled his windows down in an attempt to just clear his head.

Instead, it had done just the opposite.

It felt as if smoke were leeching its way into his lungs and body through every available pore. The starless sky had rendered the black smoke all but invisible until he was practically on top of it.

But nothing could cover up the acrid smell.

In the time that it took for the presence of smoke from the fire to register, Ethan was able to make out where the telltale smell was emanating from. The building to his right on the next block was on fire. Big-time.