Cavanaugh’s Woman by Marie Ferrarella Page A

father’s knee. “I’ve always found it’s nicer to have friends than to go it alone in life.”
    “So you can fleece them?”
    She stopped walking. He found himself turning around even as he told himself to keep going. “Don’t make me regret being honest with you, Shaw. I don’t like having regrets.”
    “Welcome to the club,” he muttered. Then he added, “Sorry, that was uncalled for.” He normally didn’t take cheap shots like that. What was getting into him?
    They’d reached his complex. He looked around, but didn’t see anything that might have passed for the kind of car he figured a celebrity of her status would drive. “Where’s your car?”
    “At the hotel where I’m staying. I had a driver drop me off. I figured you’d do the honors.”
    “Would have been nice to have been asked.”
    If she’d asked ahead of time, she knew what the answer would have been. And it would have interfered with her goal to grow on him. So, instead, she got into his face now and batted her eyelashes at him in silent-screen-star fashion. “Would you?”
    “A little late for that, isn’t it?”
    “Better late than never.”
    “C’mon,” he growled, waving her toward his car.
    Moira didn’t wait for a second invitation. She prided herself on being able to read people, and Detective Cavanaugh of the vice squad had all the signs of a man who, given half a chance, could take off without her.
    She wasn’t about to give him that chance.

Chapter Five
    T he silence in the car was far from comfortable. Waiting for Shaw to say the first word was tantamount to waiting for snow to make an appearance in the desert. It just wasn’t going to happen.
    She wondered what it would take for him to feel more relaxed around her. Having basketball in common certainly hadn’t done it for him.
    Studying his rigid profile for a moment, Moira played another card. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
    Shaw spared her a quick glance as he drove through the intersection. “I’m a little young for Alzheimer’s,” he retorted sarcastically, then stated the obvious. “You’re the woman from the movies, the one who got lucky on the basketball court.”
    She laughed and it bothered him that the sound got under his skin, irritating him because it seemed so inviting.
    “Luck had nothing to do with it,” she told him glibly. “Skill, however, did. But I’m not talking about any of that. Think back.”
    Shaw frowned. He had never liked games. “How far back?”
    “Tenth grade. Half of tenth grade, actually.” She could see that he wasn’t buying into this. “Mrs. Alma Brickman’s Speech class.”
    His eyes narrowed. How the hell did she know his teacher’s name? This wasn’t some lucky guess on her part. You didn’t pluck a name like Alma Brickman out of the air. As far as he knew, that kind of information wasn’t readily available.
    “What do you know about Mrs. Brickman?”
    She closed her eyes for a second, summoning the woman’s image. It helped to be gifted with total recall. Her father certainly had gloried in her gift. “Short, gray hair, kindly voice.” Moira opened her eyes again to see how he was taking this in. “She had us act out scenes from plays. Shakespeare, mostly. I noticed by the videos on your shelf, she got you at least partially hooked.”
    The light turned red. He stepped on the brake and turned to stare at her. She’d described his speech teacher to a T. As far as he knew, there was only one way she could have known.
    “You were in my class?”
    Moira nodded, satisfied that she had managed to shake him up a little. “All of five months.”
    At this point, most of high school was a haze. He tried to summon her face out of the crowd and failed. It had to be a put-on. But if it was, how had she known about his teacher?
    “I don’t remember you.”
    Small wonder there. She’d been a late bloomer. His girlfriend, however, hadn’t been. “That’s because at the time you were going with Monica