Cavanaugh's Woman

He stayed where he was, watching as she moved the scrambled eggs from the pan to a plate. “I don’t usually have breakfast at home.”

She made her own interpretation. “This is better than grabbing a prefried egg sitting on a leathery muffin from some fast-food place, trust me.” Moira set the plate down on the table.

He began to say that he ate breakfast with his family at his father’s house, but that seemed like much too personal a piece of information to give her. And there was no way he was taking her over there with him. Last night had been all right, but awkward. Shaw had no idea how this morning would go. His father and the rest of the family had enough on their hands to cope with without adding this woman to the mix.

“Trust you,” he echoed as he finally sat down at the table. She’d set only one place, but then, as he recalled, there were only two eggs left in the refrigerator and maybe she’d already eaten. Shaw moved the napkin and fork to the opposite side of the plate. “Trust is something that’s earned.” His eyes met hers. “I don’t even know you.”

“That’ll change,” she promised cheerfully. She passed the sponge over the shelf, then tossed it into the sink. “We’ll get to know each other. Like I just got to know something about you.”

Shaw fully expected her to make some comment about the previous scene in his living room before he’d gone back to the shower. He braced himself. “Like?”

“Like you’re left-handed.” Moira poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat down to face him. She took a sip before she continued. “Did you know that left-handed people are now considered to be, on the average, more intelligent than right-handed people? Quite a comeback for a group that was thought of as the devil’s spawn three hundred years ago. Shame they don’t live as long as right-handed people.”

Shaw cocked his head, as if he was looking behind her. She turned her head, following his line of vision. There was nothing there. “What’s the matter?”

“Just looking for the key that wound you up.” The eggs were good and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. “Are you just making this stuff up as you go along?”

Moira savored the hot liquid for a moment before answering. “No. My father was left-handed.”

“Was?”

“Is,” she corrected. “I haven’t seen him for a while. We kind of lost track of each other.” And she missed him, she added silently, missed him terribly. But she’d given her father an ultimatum for his own good, saying she didn’t want to see him until he changed his ways. That had been almost two years ago, just before her career had skyrocketed. There’d been no word since then. She couldn’t help wondering if pride was keeping her father away from her.

Shaw made short work of his breakfast, but took time over his coffee. “Don’t see how that’s possible, seeing as how your face is everywhere.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.” She straightened her shoulders with renewed resolve. “He knows where to find me if he wants to.”

Shaw knew he shouldn’t ask. The less he knew about this woman who had been pushed into his life, the better. More than likely, the parting of the ways she was referring to had come about because of something she’d done. In any case, it was none of his business.

But something in her voice wouldn’t let him just leave it alone. He heard himself asking, “What kind of terms did you part on?”

“His,” she said simply. And then she smiled that quicksilver smile of hers that was guaranteed to bring teenage boys to their knees and send teenage girls running to the nearest makeup counter in hopes of achieving the “Moira McCormick look.”

Shaw realized he was staring and forced himself to look at his own coffee cup as if it held special interest for him. “So now you’re being mysterious?”

“No, I’m being sensible.” Her father had admonished her for being too open. Don’t let people in, Moira. That’ll give them the upper hand and they can use it to hurt you. “I’ve got a feeling that you’re too much of a cop to hear any more.”

Shaw thought of Hawk, Teri’s partner, and what he had recently learned about his sister’s fiancé’s late parents. “Your father a drug dealer?”

Had she been drinking coffee, he would have been wearing it right now. As it was, Moira stared at him before she burst out laughing.

“Drugs? Oh, God, no.” Her father was very strict about that. The only thing he had been strict about. “The only drug of choice my father believed in was wine—the more expensive, the better.” She sighed just before draining her cup. “That was the problem—he had very, very expensive tastes.”

She’d managed to hook him. He wanted answers. “Then what? He’s a burglar?”

Moira shook her head. “My father separated people from their money with his tongue.” A fond smile played on her lips. “He could charm the fur off a snow leopard.”

Now he understood. Beneath her fancy description, her father was a common thief. “A con man.”

“Artist,” Moira corrected. Getting up, she got the coffeepot and divided what was left between their two cups. They got approximately three swallows each. “A con artist.” Retiring the pot to its burner, she sat down again, taking the cup between both hands. “I always thought that if he had devoted his considerable brain power and abilities to something a little more traditional, my father would have been king by now.”

“We don’t have kings,” Shaw pointed out.

Her smile just grew. “They would have made an exception for him.”

He paused, studying her. Drawing his own conclusions. “But you didn’t approve.”

She’d approved of her father, but once she was old enough to realize the dangers involved, divorcing them from the excitement that a successful score could generate, she’d no longer approved of the lifestyle he’d chosen. She didn’t want him spending his remaining years in prison, which was where he was heading once his luck ran out. And eventually, everyone’s luck ran out.

“My nerves weren’t as steady as his,” she explained evasively. “I thought of consequences.” Her father never did. In a way, she supposed he was Peter Pan with a golden tongue. He’d never grown up. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she had. “I had a little more of my mother in me than my father.”

Finished with his coffee, Shaw set down his cup. “Where is your mother?”

“Dead.” She said the word crisply, refusing to unlock the pain that always emerged whenever she thought of her mother for more than a moment. “She died when I was seven. That’s about the time when we hit the road.” She smiled sadly to herself. “Up until the time Mama died, Daddy walked the straight and narrow. Had a nine-to-five job and everything.”

She knew those times had been hard on him, but she would have given anything if things could have continued that way. It was the last time she’d felt secure. Safe. “I used to sit at the window, waiting for him to come home.” She could almost see it in her mind’s eye. “Every night, he’d come up that walk, looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. But the second he walked into the house, out came that thousand-watt smile. He really loved my mother a great deal, would have done anything for her.”

Sorrow threatened to overpower her. Moira struggled to stay one step ahead of it, divorcing herself from her past, pretending it was only a character she was talking about, not her father, not someone who mattered the world to her.

“Broke his heart when he lost her. He sold the house, sold everything that reminded him of her.”

“How did you go to school?”

The question only made her smile widen as memories returned to her. “For the most part, at the University of Daddy.” She could see that the answer didn’t sit well with Shaw. “When the time came,” she assured him, “I took an equivalency test. Passed with flying colors, too.” He looked surprised. She realized that she liked surprising him. “Like I said, my father was very, very smart.” There was still skepticism in his eyes. “Ask me anything.”

He wasn’t about to play a lightning round of Jeopardy with her. In his experience, people didn’t put out challenges like that unless they could live up to them. Besides, there was something else he wanted to know about her. “What made you get into acting?”

It wasn’t the question she’d expected. She thought he’d take special pleasure in trying to find a question she couldn’t answer. “Natural transition, I guess. I was used to pretending.”