Cavanaugh Standoff

“It’s kind of complicated, Dad.”

“Isn’t he treating you right?” her father asked.

She knew all she had to do was say that he wasn’t and her father would be right there, in Ronan’s face. She didn’t need him to champion her. All she needed him to do was what she’d asked.

“Please, Dad, just ask Maeve,” she repeated.

She heard her father sigh deeply. “Look, Sierra, I always told you what cops were like. If Maeve’s son isn’t treating you with the respect you deserve, quit,” he told her. “You know I can always use you on my team. Your brothers’ll show you the ropes and we can make this a whole family affair.”

She closed her eyes, searching for strength and the right words. “Dad.”

“What?”

“Just ask her for me, okay? Thanks. I’ll call again soon.”

With that, she ended the call. She loved her father—and her brothers—more than anything, but there were times when talking to the man could make her feel so drained.

And then she smiled to herself. She supposed that could be viewed as a two-way street. She was fairly certain her father probably felt the same way about her.

Chapter Six (#u41bc55eb-9b0f-51a0-8913-f2c07dcb4e3c)

“Well, this is a surprise,” Andrew Cavanaugh said to his younger brother as he opened his front door. “Come on in, Brian.” Closing the door again, he said, “You don’t usually stop by in the middle of the week like this.” Since the kitchen had become the hub of his activity, the former chief of police led the current chief of detectives to the kitchen. “Things a little slow at the police department these days?”

“Actually,” Brian answered, crossing the threshold into the state-of-the-art kitchen, “they’re a little more hectic than usual.”

As the oldest, Andrew had always been able to read his brother like a book. But this time there was a note he couldn’t quite identify in Brian’s voice.

“Something wrong?” he asked, stopping by the counter and studying his brother more closely. “Something you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”

Brian smiled for a long moment. “Not in the way you think.”

Andrew crossed to the industrial-size refrigerator. “Well now you really have me curious. Want a beer? Something harder?” he asked when Brian didn’t take him up on the beer.

Brian glanced toward the refrigerator. “You have any of that cake left over that you served at the last gathering?”

Praise, even implied praise, never got old, Andrew thought. He’d been a dedicated chief of police in his time, but the culinary arts had always been his passion. He’d put himself through school that way and it was a love that lingered to the present day.

“No, but I whipped up a new cake if you’re interested.”

“I’m always interested in cake, you know that,” Brian said, taking a seat at the extra-long, custom-made kitchen table. He grinned ruefully. “Lila says if I keep this up, I’m going to have to go on a diet. I thought I’d just remedy the situation by putting another notch on my belt.”

“That doesn’t mean what it used to, does it?” Andrew’s wife, Rose, asked as she came into the kitchen. She smiled warmly at her brother-in-law.

Brian laughed softly. “Not since before Jared was born,” he told her, referring to the first of his four adult children, three of whom were police detectives. The fourth, Janelle, was an assistant DA.

“Okay, other than my cake, what’s brought you out on a school night like this?” Andrew asked, placing a healthy slice of amaretto cake in front of his brother.

Fork poised over his serving, he looked at Andrew and Rose. “You two aren’t having any?” Brian asked. “I feel strange, being the only one eating.”

“Like I believe that.” Andrew laughed. “But I’ll have a small slice to keep you company. Rose?” he asked his wife as he cut himself a slice that was half the size of the one he’d just given his brother.