LITMIR.BIZ

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lonely,” Bridget guessed, feeling for the woman. She’d met Eva Youngblood a number of times and found her to be extremely affable. They got along really well. The woman would make someone a really nice mother-in-law someday. “That’s what you get for being an only child.”

      “Hey, it’s not my fault,” Josh pointed out. “After my dad died, lots of his buddies on the force came around to make sure we were all right. They took turns bringing me to ball games, coaching my team, helping me study. They did what they could to be there for her, too. I know that more than one of them really wanted to get serious with her.”

      He frowned, remembering what it was like, hearing his mother cry late at night when she thought he was asleep. It broke his heart and made him promise to himself that he would never love someone so much that he couldn’t breathe right without them.

      “But Mom swore up and down that Dad had been the love of her life and she was not looking to get married again. Ever. And even if she was, it wouldn’t be to another policeman. She said she couldn’t go through that kind of pain again. Couldn’t stand there and be on the receiving end of a condolence call.”

      Bridget supposed she could understand that. Once hurt, twice leery. “So, instead of building a second life,” she surmised, “your mother is after you to finally build yours.”

      He sighed. “That’s about it.”

      Parents, she knew, could be exceedingly stubborn when it came to their kids. Her father was laid-back, thank God, but her late mother had been fairly intense. Looking back, she realized it was all out of love, but at the time it had driven her crazy.

      “So, what are you going to do?” Bridget asked, slanting a glance in his direction.

      He’d already looked into this solution. “I’m going to get her a dog.”

      Bridget laughed, pretending to study his profile for a moment. “I can see the resemblance, but I really don’t think that’s what your mother actually has in mind.”

      Whether she did or not, this was the plan for now. He was stalling for time until something better occurred to him. “I’ll tell her it’s just a placeholder until I find the girl of my dreams.”

      Surprised, Bridget shifted in her seat. This was a side of Josh she hadn’t expected. In the three years they’d been partnered, Josh had only gotten serious about their work, not about any of the myriad women he’d gone out with in that time.

      She caught herself holding her breath as she asked, “You actually have a dream girl?”

      “Yeah.” Josh spared her a quick, meaningful look. “One who doesn’t ask me any questions or make any demands of me.”

      For a minute there, she’d thought he was serious. She should have known better. Bridget laughed, shaking her head. Feeling relieved more than she thought she should. “Then I’m afraid that you’re doomed to being alone, Youngblood.”

      “I’m not going to be alone,” he told her. They came to a stop at a light. He took the opportunity to turn toward her and flashed a wide, brilliant grin. “I have you.”

      The very first time she’d seen that smile, it had gotten to her. She hadn’t grown immune to its effects, but at this point she knew that he meant nothing by it. He was just charming. And while she caught herself wondering what it would be like to be with Josh, really be with Josh, who could have been the living, breathing poster child for the words “drop dead gorgeous,” she told herself that she didn’t want to ruin a good thing. She and Josh worked well together, anticipated one another and for the most part, thought alike.

      At times they wound up completing one another; what one lacked, the other supplied. Partnerships like that were exceedingly rare, not worth sacrificing in order to scratch an itch.

      She’d been quiet too long, she realized. To deflect any kind of suspicions or possible questions on Josh’s end, she got back to the reason they were out here in the first place. “Yeah, well, if we don’t come up with some kind of answers for the narcissistic fool they made our acting lieutenant, Howard might wind up splitting us up out of spite.”

      He sincerely doubted that would ever happen. When they had first been paired, all he saw was what one of his late father’s friends had described as a “hot babe.” It didn’t take Bridget very long to set him straight. She might have killer looks, but it was her brain power that he actually found sexy. The fact that she didn’t trade on her looks was another plus in her favor.

      It also allowed him the freedom to tease her now. “You could always go and complain about Howard to your ‘Uncle Brian.’”

      Bridget sat up a little straighter as she gave him a withering look. “Hello, possibly we haven’t been introduced yet. My name’s Bridget Cavelli and I fight my own battles.”

      “So, you’re keeping it?” Josh asked, picking up on the name she’d used. “You’re not changing it?”

      “Changing what?”

      “Your last name. Technically, you are a Cavanaugh, you know. You have no real ties to that moniker you’ve been sporting around for the last thirty years—”

      “Twenty-eight,” she corrected tersely. “I’m twenty-eight.”

      He knew exactly how old she was—knew a great many other things about her as well—but he liked getting under her skin. It helped to keep things light. It also helped him deflect other feelings he was having. Feelings that had no place on the job and would only get in the way of a working relationship.

      “And you don’t look a day over twenty-seven and a half,” he deadpanned.

      Bridget sighed and settled back in her seat. It was going to be a very long morning, she thought. She could tell.

      “Andrew, are you all right? You look a little pale,” Rose Cavanaugh said to her husband, stopping short.

      She’d just walked into the state-of-the-art kitchen to get a glass of juice. This was where the former chief of police and the love of her life spent a great deal of his time each day. He could be found here creating or re-creating meals for any one of a vast number of relatives who had a standing invitation to drop by whenever the occasion allowed, or they were in the neighborhood. She’d never known anyone who loved cooking—and family—as much as Andrew did.

      But it was obvious that right now, he had more on his mind than cooking. Like the person he’d just finished talking to.

      “Who was on the phone?” she asked him as Andrew hung up the receiver.

      He tried to offer his wife a smile, but he was still sorting out the news he’d just received. “That was my father.”

      The family patriarch, Seamus Cavanaugh, was the first of the family to join the police department and work his way through the ranks, back when Aurora was unincorporated and considered an off-shoot of Sacramento. For the last dozen years or so the retired police chief had been living in Miami Beach, Florida, enjoying the company of some of his old friends from the force who had also migrated there.

      Rose smiled fondly. Her father-in-law liked to check in from time to time. He did it in order to keep his sons from worrying, although he insisted that he was perfectly capable of looking after himself.

      “What’s he up to?” she asked, wondering what had prompted this particular call. If she knew Seamus, the man was probably in love—again—and asking Andrew what he thought about getting a new “mother.”

      “About thirty thousand feet,” Andrew answered matter-of-factly.

      Rose cocked her head, trying to make sense out of what her husband was saying. “Come again?”

      “He is,” Andrew confirmed. “Coming back again.” After taking a fresh cup from the cabinet next to the sink, Andrew poured himself some of the coffee he’d just brewed right before the phone had rung. Holding the cup in both

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