Cavanaugh’s Woman (13 page)

He’d found himself missing her the moment the sound of her footsteps faded into the night. Even before her car was out of sight.

Well, it was something he was going to have to get used to, he told himself sternly. She was going to be completely gone from his life soon enough. The filming wasn’t going to last forever, and once the film company pulled up stakes and returned to their Los Angeles studio, she’d be gone.

And his life would be back to normal.

Whatever the hell that was.

Shaw greeted daylight from the other side, having only dozed a few minutes here and there. Just enough to make him feel as if he’d been pulled inside out and dragged across a bed of cacti in slow motion.

The restlessness grew. Coming out of the shower, he knew if he remained by himself, it was only going to get worse. He needed to be around people. People he’d have to put on a show for unless he wanted them to jump in and start picking apart his problem.

He didn’t want it being touched. His problem was something he would handle in time. But that time wasn’t now.

Shaw made up his mind. He was going to go stop by his father’s place and get lost in the crowd.

Less than an hour later he found himself driving his vehicle down the familiar road to the house where he’d grown up. It was Saturday, so that meant that the full complement was probably set to arrive. Once upon a time, a full complement meant the six of them, his father and his siblings. But now, that number had grown and there was no telling how many people would show up at the table. The more the merrier, he supposed. With enough noise going on, he wouldn’t be able to think. Which was exactly what he wanted.

He wanted to stop thinking until he could compartmentalize his thoughts again, the way he had been able to before Moira had come into his life. She hadn’t come into his life, he corrected himself. Their paths had just crossed, that was all.

The hell it was.

Blocking his internal argument, Shaw got out of his car and went up the walk. He braced himself a second before he took out his key to the front door. Until just a minute ago, he’d forgotten that he’d be seeing his mother at the table, as well.

Some son he was, Shaw upbraided himself, forgetting about his mother making a reappearance in their lives after all this time. This thing with Moira really did have him tied up in knots, didn’t it?

“You going to pose in front of that door all morning, or are you planning on putting the key into the lock sometime soon?”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Callie standing behind him. He looked around, but saw no one else walking behind her. He rarely saw her here alone. “Where’s your better half? Is he starting to get cold feet?”

With the patient smile of a sister accustomed to endless teasing, she said, “That’ll be the day. He keeps suggesting we elope instead of having that big family wedding in August. No, Brent had to go in to his office today to get some papers. And Rachel’s at a sleepover. I thought I’d come by and give Dad some moral support. By the look on your face, you look as if you could use a little, too.”

He stiffened slightly. Sister or not, he didn’t like being analyzed. He saw it as an invasion of privacy. And until he untangled this satisfactorily for himself, what he was wrestling with was most definitely private. “Then you better get your eyes checked. I’m fine.”

“Well, nothing’s changed about your disposition, I see. Waspish as ever. How’s that ride-along going for you?”

Was it his imagination, or did his sister sound a tad too innocent as she asked the question? He unlocked the front door and walked in.

“It’s over,” he told her, leading the way to the kitchen. “Moira McCormick had her last day in the car yesterday.” He looked over his shoulder at his sister, deliberately showing her how unaffected he was by the events. “She goes back to being a movie star on Monday.”

Looking into the kitchen, Callie grinned. “I guess that leaves her the weekend to go slumming.”

He had no idea what his sister meant by that, but the sooner he got away from the topic of Moira McCormick’s actions, the better.

“I guess,” he echoed.

Callie tapped him on the shoulder and then pointed into the kitchen.

Following the direction of her finger, he saw that among the people seated around the enormous table in his father’s kitchen were two new faces.

Moira and her sister Carrie.

Chapter Thirteen

A
ndrew turned from the stove in time to see the expression on his oldest son’s face as Shaw walked into the kitchen. Stunned was the best description he could apply to it.

“I thought while Moira was in town, she might appreciate a home-cooked meal,” he explained mildly.

For once, he wasn’t playing matchmaker. This was about Rose and his desperately trying anything to jar her memory, to make her come around. He knew the path back wasn’t a straight one and he wasn’t above using any ammunition that came his way. When the conversation had gotten around to Moira McCormick being Shaw’s ride-along and Rose had expressed a fondness for the actress’s movies, inviting the young woman to his table while she was in Aurora had seemed only natural to Andrew.

“She asked me if she could bring her sister along,” Andrew went on, shifting pancakes from the griddle to a large plate. “What could I say? We all know that there’s always room for one more.”

His father’s familiar mantra echoed in his head as Shaw stared at Moira. The latter smiled back at him, her expression the very essence of innocence.

He knew his father needed no excuse to throw open his doors to anyone with half an appetite. He also knew his father had his heart set on marrying all of them off. Now that his brother and sisters were set, Shaw knew that, as the last man standing, he’d become a moving target. But even his father had to know that there was absolutely no future here.

He took his seat, which this morning seemed to be beside Moira instead of Teri the way it usually was. “How did you manage to get through to her?”

Andrew laughed. “Brian gave me the number.” He looked at the woman he’d placed at the foot of the table, where she’d always sat before. “Seems that your mother is quite a fan of Moira’s movies.”

“I’ve seen every one,” Claire told Shaw quietly. “You always portray such strong, independent women.”

“But with a soft center,” Rayne interjected. When the others looked at her in surprise, given that she had always pretended to be so disinterested in mundane things like movies, she protested, “Okay, so I’ve seen a few of them, too.”

No one wanted Rayne to feel as if she were squirming on a hook. “It’s not like it’s some kind of secret vice, Rayne,” Teri told her.

“Oh, God, I hope not.” Moira laughed. “Otherwise, my career’s going to be over soon.” When Shaw looked at her quizzically, she explained, “The ‘Last Year’s Blonde’ syndrome. You know, one nondescript face taking the place of another. It’s been going on ever since the first movie reel flickered inside of a darkened movie theater.” It was a given that in most cases, the staying power of actresses had never been as strong as that of actors. She intended to be the exception.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Andrew said warmly as he placed a plate filled with French toast drizzled with powdered sugar in front of her. “The last thing you are is nondescript.”

To Shaw’s surprise, not only did he see Moira smile with pleasure at the compliment, but he thought he actually detected a blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. It didn’t seem possible. Someone like Moira had to be accustomed to receiving compliments by the truckload. At this point, she should have been more than a little jaded about the whole thing. Yet there was that trace of pink along her skin.

Watching her interact with his family, she seemed like just any other woman. Any other woman with a drop-dead face and body, and an eight-figure income.

What the hell was he thinking, telling himself she fit in here? Of course she fit in, she was an actress, she could have seemed to fit in at an eighteenth-century penal colony if the part called for it. This was all an illusion and he had to remind himself of that before he got so entangled that he didn’t know which end was up.

If that hadn’t happened already.

Finishing a story she’d been telling at Claire’s request, about the last movie she’d filmed, a light romantic comedy set in Hawaii, Moira looked at Shaw. As everyone laughed at her punch line, she leaned in to him and whispered, “You’re thinking too hard.”

“What?”

She feathered her fingertips just above the point where his eyebrows had drawn together. For a precious moment, the other people in the room faded into the background.

“There’s a furrow there. I can almost feel the thoughts jumping from one place to another. Relax,” she advised softly.

Was he afraid she was going to say or do something to embarrass him? Or was there another reason he looked so intense?

He drew his head back, though not as quickly as he thought he should have. “I’m not tense.”

She grinned. “Sure you’re not.”

“Something you’d like to share with the class?” Callie suggested, amused as she looked from Moira to her brother.

Shaw blew out a breath. Sometimes, there was such a thing as too much family. This was one of those moments. “Not a thing.”

Callie leaned across the table toward Moira. “He always was the selfish kind, even as a kid.” Clearly delighted for Shaw, there was no way she could keep a straight face. “But he does have his good points—if you look hard enough.”

There was no point in playing coy. She liked these people too much and even though she knew she was only living in the moment, Moira wanted them all to know that the moment was a wonderful one.

“I know.”

“Well, don’t get carried away,” Clay advised. “They’re not all
that
good.” He got a poke in the ribs from his fiancée, Ilene, for his comment. “No fair,” he protested, making a face that made his son, Alex, giggle. “You can’t beat me up until after we’re married.”

“No, go ahead, Ilene. Beat up on him,” Teri urged. “I’ll even hold him down for you.”

“You and what army?” Clay challenged.

“Me,” Callie volunteered.

“Me, too,” Rayne was quick to chime in.

Moira slid a glance toward her sister to see if she was enjoying herself. To her relief, Carrie was laughing at something Teri had just whispered in her ear. Pleased, hopeful, her eyes met Andrew’s as he brought another platter of food to the table.

They understood each other, she and Andrew, Moira thought. Their main concern was the people they loved. She knew the entire story about his wife and how he’d gone on looking for her while raising five children, never giving up hope even when everyone else told him to close that chapter and get on with his life. She could only guess at what he was going through now. The old saying, “So near and yet so far,” occurred to her.

Moira wished that her father could have known Andrew. Maybe, under Andrew’s influence, Matthew McCormick could have become the father she knew in her heart he was.

But there was no point in wishing for a different past. If it had been different, maybe she wouldn’t have been here right now. And no matter how this turned out, she wouldn’t have missed these past few days for the world.

“Now who’s thinking too hard?” Shaw’s warm breath circled around her ear and cheek, causing an army of goose bumps to suddenly rise up and march down along her arms and spine.

She realized that she’d let her thoughts drift too far. “What?”

In reply, he lightly slid his finger over the ridge just above her eyebrows. There was a furrow there, just as there had been on his forehead. She laughed in response, the sound filtering through him. Making him feel as if, when he wasn’t looking, sunshine had somehow sneaked into his system.

Andrew smiled to himself. Looked as if another one of his kids was about to fall, he thought. And if Shaw wasn’t, if for some reason his son clung to that damn perch of his, he promised himself to give Shaw a little helpful push over the edge. Because as sure as he was standing here, watching his family, Andrew could see that there was more than a little something going on between his oldest and Moira McCormick.

The same kind of crackling electricity that had gone on between him and Rose.

The same kind, he promised himself, that would go on again once she fully returned to him.

“Seconds, anyone?” he asked, then smiled at the sea of hands that went up.

“You’ve got to be tired,” Shaw protested.

Unable to help himself, Shaw had driven over to Moira’s hotel after his shift was over, then lingered in the one restaurant that had an unobstructed view of the hotel’s entrance. Waiting for her. Needing just to see her while he still could.

When Moira had looked in his direction after he’d called to her, her face had broken out in a wreath of smiles. He told himself that was enough, but somehow, he couldn’t get his feet to move in the direction of the exit. Instead, he’d invited her for a late supper.

She’d countered with an invitation to her room, adding in a seductively lowered voice that Carrie was now staying in her own room at the hotel.

He’d countered the invitation by making an assessment of her condition.

Tired?
She’d looked surprised at his question. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want to see me?”

“No, that’s my way of saying that you’ve been up since four, filming until way after dark and, according to what you told me, you’ve got lines to memorize for tomorrow.” Even if she hadn’t told him, he knew her schedule cold. Knew with reasonable certainty what she was doing almost every hour of the day. He told himself it was his way of coping. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Even in the restaurant’s dim light, he could see her eyes shining with amusement. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They walked toward the elevators. A car stood open, waiting for them. He ushered her in quickly, wanting to ride up to her room without someone else coming along with them.

“That wasn’t a proposition.”

The doors closed. She pretended to look serious. “Someone else caught your eye?”

He only smiled. “Not possible when I’m blinded by the light you cast.”

Only training kept her from letting her mouth drop open. The elevator stopped on her floor. She was hardly aware of walking out and toward her room.

“My God, Shaw, that’s positively poetic. Who fed you the line?”

They stopped before her door. He waited as she opened the door, anticipation elbowing its way to the fore.

“Something I remember reading once,” he admitted. Then he added quietly, “It didn’t really make any sense to me, until I met you.”

“You’re just getting better and better at this.” She could feel herself choking up as she closed the door behind them. It took effort not to give way to her emotions. She’d known him such a short time, how could he have such an effect on her? The heart knows what it wants, something whispered inside of her. Too bad the heart was eventually going to be disappointed, she thought sadly.

“Tell me more.”

He wasn’t much on poetry, and venturing out on a limb, telling her what he felt, was a little more reckless than he wanted to be right now. “Sorry, fresh out.”

There was only one light on in the suite. She didn’t bother putting on any more. “Okay, then show me.”

Her voice, low, seductive, wound itself around him. “Are you sure you’re not tired?”

She grinned, suddenly feeling alive and vital. “I guess I’m just going to have to show you how not tired I am.”

Before he could protest or do what he knew in his heart was the right thing, she was weaving that magic of hers all about him. First her arms went around his neck, then her body pressed against his, the heat issuing an invitation of its own.

The second her mouth touched his, he could feel the fireworks going off, feel the desire growing. Feel, too, the sadness that stood off in the wings, promising itself to him the moment she left town.

He tried to shut its presence out, but couldn’t.

Its mere existence urged him on, had him determined to make love with her more enthusiastically than he had up until now. It encouraged him to take advantage of his time a little more zealously.

And all the while, pretend that tomorrow, with all its emptiness, would not come.

He made love to her as if it were their last time.

And their first.

Exhilarated, Moira sank down in her chair. They were filming in the heart of Aurora’s uptown district and the weather was cooperating beautifully. The scene had been a tough one to nail down, but she had gotten it in one overwhelming take. Her energy was flying so high, she’d funneled it all into her character, made the words come out just right at the pivotal moment. The second the director had called, “Cut—print,” the rest of the cast and crew had burst into a round of applause she found both humbling and energizing, as well.

Murmuring her thanks, she’d retreated off camera to her chair.

Slowly, her surroundings came back into focus. She was Moira again instead of Sally, her character in the movie. And as Moira, she became aware of all the things that mattered to Moira. The police personnel she’d prevailed upon the director to take on as extras were all gathered together, exchanging nervous talk and laughter until the cameras started rolling again. She saw Amy tugging at the hem of a too-short skirt. The girl was playing what she no longer was and doing a fine job of it.

Moira smiled to herself. She had her doubts that Amy was as old as she claimed, but there was no way to prove the girl wrong. According to Shaw, there was no missing child posting on her on the Internet, no record of her anywhere, not under the name she had given them. Her fingerprints hadn’t shown up in the database, either.

Maybe someday she’d get the girl to trust her enough to tell her who she really was, she mused. But right now, since the girl appeared to have no home other than the broken-down motel room she’d first taken her to, Moira fully intended to take Amy back with her when she returned to Los Angeles. She was confident that with her connections, she could always find work for her until Amy finally decided what she wanted to do with her life.

The same went for Carrie.

Looking to the side, she saw her sister in the distance, talking to a stuntman. Laughing. God, but it was good to see Carrie laugh again. Simon had left town and Carrie was beginning to revert to her old self again. There was no doubt in her mind that her sister would remain with her until after the baby was born.