He supposed love was a little like that, too. There were things you could identify and things that defied classification. The bottom line was important there, too.
What the hell was going on in his head? Had seeing her so suddenly after all this time thrown him completely off-kilter?
He was determined not to let it.
Taking a breath, Clay deliberately made his way over toward her. Time to take the bull by the horns, to challenge himself to be a man and not a mouse.
Right now, being a mouse was beginning to have its appeal.
His father was right behind Ilene, another tray of the same origin in his hands. Any attempts at what could have been an apology to Ilene died before it was born.
He frowned at his father. “I didn’t leave her here to be pressed into service, Dad.”
Andrew placed the tray on a table, then took the one Ilene was holding and put it down next to the first. “Then maybe you should have stuck around a little this morning and been a little more explicit in your instructions.” To underscore his point, Andrew indicated Ilene with his eyes.
His father was telling him he shouldn’t have left Ilene like that the first morning she was here. But this wasn’t a social thing; it was professional. And as a professional, he didn’t have time to baby-sit a woman he’d covertly forced to break up with him because he hadn’t had the nerve to make a commitment.
“I don’t mind,” Ilene told him. The look on Clay’s face told her he didn’t believe her. “Helping out keeps me from going stir-crazy.” She glanced at Andrew and smiled. “Besides, I like pitching in.”
“I can always use another pair of hands,” Andrew affirmed. He looked over to the side where he had Alex and Rachel folding napkins just to make the two feel part of the whole. The two children seemed to be getting along very well. He looked back at Clay. “Since you’re here, why don’t you go in and bring out your sister’s cake?” With a nod of his head, Clay began to head for the kitchen. “Don’t drop it,” Andrew called after him.
Clay rolled his eyes as he kept walking. “I’m not ten, Dad.”
“No, you’re not,” Andrew agreed. “What you are is clumsy.”
Clay stopped dead and turned around. He held up one finger. “Once, I dropped something once,” he reminded his father.
“It happens once, it can happen again.”
“Make sure there’s no cat to trip over and it won’t,” Clay said over his shoulder as he made his way into the kitchen.
He found Rayne there, dipping her finger into the whipped chocolate icing. She raised her eyes when she saw him walking in. A lop-sided grin lit her face.
“Busted.”
He laughed. “Hi, kid, happy birthday.”
Rayne raised her chin. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’m twenty-five.”
“And I’m two years older. To me, you’ll always be a kid.” He moved the huge sheet cake closer before he picked it up. “Someday that’ll be a comfort.”
Rayne frowned as she stuck her hands into her back pockets. “Maybe, but right now, it’s a pain in the butt, always being the baby.”
He laughed, pausing to give his sister a one-arm hug. “Like you were
ever
a baby. You were born old, Rayne. And then you made Dad that way.”
Her eyes took on the same twinkle he’d seen in his father’s. The two were more alike than either wanted to admit.
“It’s a damn dirty job, but someone had to do it,” she cracked.
Ilene stuck her head in the doorway in time to catch the exchange. Seeing him with his family was showing her a side to Clay she had no idea existed. He could be warm and loving under the right conditions. The conditions just hadn’t included her, she thought ruefully. At least, not for long.
“Need any help?” she offered.
“I’ve got it under control,” Clay told her. He picked up the heavy cake. It could probably be a meal all by itself, if you were given to eating sweets exclusively, he thought. “But you can handle the candles and the matches if you want.” He nodded at the items on the table.
Ilene picked up the box of small blue candles, Rayne’s favorite color, and the book of matches that only saw use at birthdays and followed Clay and his sister back into the living room.
Clay placed the cake in front of his father, who always did the honors. He stepped back, nearly stepping on Ilene’s toes. She shifted to the side just in time.
“Where were you all day?” she asked in a hushed voice as everyone gathered around to watch Andrew begin the process of lighting the candles.
Clay stared straight ahead, trying not to inhale the perfume she always wore. Trying not to want the woman who was wearing it. “Trying to find out who left that drawing at your place.”
Ilene held her breath as she looked at him. She wanted the path to lead to someone other than her boss. And she wanted this to be over. “And did you?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed. She felt her heart begin to hammer again. “Do I know him?”
He looked at her then and saw the disappointment that came into her eyes when he said, “No.”
“I don’t understand. Then why—”
She was in denial, he thought. He guessed he could see it from her point of view. She didn’t want to believe that someone she knew would want to hurt her. “He was hired by someone. It’s just as we thought, they did it to scare you off.”
She braced her shoulders and he knew that the attempt had failed. Walken, or whoever was responsible, might have wanted to scare Ilene off, but all they had done was get her to dig in.
Part of Clay was proud of her, part of him wanted to convince her that it just wasn’t worth the risk.
But the lights were being dimmed just then. His father cleared his throat and led the gathering in the traditional birthday song. It was sung very much off-key despite the fact that several of them could actually carry a tune.
Singing along, Clay decided to table any further discussion until later.
Chapter 8
T
he singing died down amid groans proclaiming this to be the worst rendition of “Happy Birthday” ever. Rayne leaned over the center of the large sheet cake decorated with a cartoon version of a tough-as-nails policewoman dragging a criminal off to jail, made her wish and blew. The candles flickered valiantly, then died.
“Told you she was a windbag,” someone joked.
Standing beside his youngest born, Andrew raised his hands, motioning for everyone to quiet down.
When they did, he said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, or whatever you all call yourselves, I give you the baby of the family, Lorrayne Rose Cavanaugh.” Glancing at her with pride, he saw the glare. “And don’t give me that look, Rayne. Even if you’re 125, you’ll always be the baby of the family.” His blue-gray eyes took measure of his children. “Face it, you’re not getting off the hook until one of these sluggards you call your brothers and sisters decides to do the right thing, get married and give me that first grandchild.”
Clay laughed along with the others. It was a familiar refrain that still managed to tickle everyone, especially when it got under Rayne’s skin.
Glancing toward Ilene to see if she shared in the humor, he noticed that she was looking at Alex just as his father had mentioned getting his first grandchild. There was something about the look that gave him pause.
He knew what he’d said to his father when the latter had raised the subject to him last night—that Alex wasn’t his. Couldn’t be his. He’d been so sure when he’d said it. The timing was off, and besides, he felt certain that Ilene would have told him if the boy was his.
At least, fairly certain, anyway.
Even so, he felt his pride sting. The time line excluded him as father, but it did indicate that the second he and Ilene had broken up, she had found someone else to replace him.
Maybe even before they’d broken up.
He looked at her now as she drew her son to her, laughing at something Callie said to her. A restless, unsettled feeling grew within him.
Had he been that easy to get over? That easy to forget?
Damn it, what was the matter with him? What was he doing, being jealous of hypothetical situations that might or might not have been true? Situations revolving around a woman he had willingly walked away from?
For reasons that now looked incredibly threadbare to him, he thought, as he watched her help Rayne slice the cake and hand it out.
“Hey, cuz, what’s up?” Dax, his uncle Brian’s oldest son, came up next to him and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “You look like you’re a million miles away in not so pretty territory.”
Clay shook his head. Close to all his cousins, he didn’t feel like going into anything right now. This was something he needed to figure out for himself. “Just thinking about the case I’m working on.”
Dax pretended to take a step back as he stared at his younger cousin. “God, you
have
grown up, haven’t you, Clay? Time was, when you’d be thinking about the latest lady you were working on, not a case.”
Why did that sound so shallow to him? It had been acceptable enough just a few days ago. Or had it? Maybe that was where this restlessness came from. He’d grown dissatisfied with the way his life was going—nowhere.
Taking a breath, he shrugged. “Yeah, well, we’ve all got to grow up sometime.”
There was a contrary grin on Dax’s face. Of all of the male members of the family, Dax had the wildest reputation when it came to women. The standing family joke was that Dax had never met a woman he didn’t like.
“Not me. I’m staying ‘charmingly boyish—”’ he winked at Clay, using terminology Clay guessed someone had applied to him “—until they bury me at eighty or so with a very satisfied grin on my face.”
Clay might have willingly followed such a credo once, but it seemed very hollow to him right now. Not wanting to get maudlin, Clay raised the glass of champagne his father had made certain everyone had just before they began singing and toasted his cousin. “More power to you, Dax.”
Clay heard his father’s voice above the others. “Ah, Clay, you want to make a toast?” Turning, he saw the look on the man’s face. Obviously, his raised glass had caught his father’s eye.
He played along willingly. “Yeah, I do. To my baby sister,” Clay began, and laughed as he saw the face that Rayne made at him. “Took a long time, but you’re finally almost bearable. Keep up the good work.” In response, Rayne stuck her tongue out at him. “Uh-oh, looks like we’ve had a momentary lapse back to the old Rayne.” He ducked as she feigned throwing his piece of the cake at him.
Ilene had just eased the slice onto a plate. So this was what it was like, she thought longingly. This was what it felt like, sounded like to have a family gathered around you, a family that really cared about you and wasn’t just marking time until you were old enough to move on with your life, a life away from theirs. She couldn’t help feeling envious of Clay.
Regret wafted through her. She stopped what she was doing, letting Andrew continue doling out the slices that Rayne cut.
“Anything wrong, girl?” Andrew whispered.
Ilene realized tears had gathered in her eyes and that the man had seen them. Fighting embarrassment, she blinked a couple of times, but that only succeeded in causing one of the tears to slide down her face.
“No, nothing,” she told him, accepting the handkerchief he offered her. “I always get sentimental at birthdays.”
Taking the handkerchief back and tucking it into his pocket, he pretended to believe her. “Well then, if you were part of this family, I’d say you’d be in for a lot of crying.”
There were worse things. She smiled at his comment. “I could handle it.”
His eyes were kind, crinkling. “I bet you could at that.”
Clay watched the exchange, though he couldn’t hear anything that was being said. He had a hunch he knew, though. His father was getting way too cozy with Ilene. Undoubtedly, he was pumping her for information. The man had a way of extracting things from people without their knowing. It was a gift he’d honed as a detective and one that had pretty much been perfected at home.
Time to separate them, Clay decided, making his way through the crowd. When he reached her, Ilene mechanically handed him a piece of cake. Clay took it, even though the last thing on his mind was eating.
“What does he want you to do now?” Clay asked, looking at his father accusingly.
“Have a good time,” Andrew replied, then gave his younger son a penetrating look. The one designed to make the recipient feel underage. “Since when did you get so suspicious?”
“Since I found out how sneaky you could be. Basically, from about the age of two and beyond. C’mon, Ilene.” He took the plate she was holding out of her hand and placed it on the buffet table, “I’ll introduce you around.”
Hesitating, Ilene glanced over toward where her son was. Alex still played with his new-found best friend, Rachel. Callie and Rachel’s father, Brent, were sitting beside them, apparently enjoying the children’s interaction.
For a second, looking quickly, Ilene thought that could have been her and Clay instead of his sister and her fiancé. Her hair was a little darker than Callie’s strawberry-blond and Brent’s a little lighter than Clay’s black hair, but it could have been them. Should have been them. She felt her heart ache.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Wasn’t that something her mother had said to her on more than one occasion? It usually came at the end of a crying jag that followed a blowup between her parents. Her mother would look at her and declare how she wished her life had turned out differently. And Ilene always knew what she meant. That her mother wished she hadn’t given in to pressure and gotten married just to give her daughter a legal name.
Forced marriages never worked out. For anyone involved.
“I’m surprised,” Ilene murmured as he drew her over to a cluster of people she’d already met that morning. “You never wanted to introduce me to anyone in your family when we knew each other.”
The phrasing she used caught his attention. When they knew each other. Meaning they no longer did. Well, it was true, wasn’t it? They didn’t know each other anymore. Why did that bring such a pang to him?
About to approach a group of his cousins, Clay paused. “I thought you wanted to keep it simple,” he reminded her. It was an excuse for his actions, nothing more. Seeing her now, he knew he should have handled things differently then.
“I did,” she lied.
The lie grew more elaborate, gaining depth and breadth.
“Well, this crowd is anything but simple. Hell, I always felt as if I was part of a small town whenever Dad had them all over for some occasion or other. Like breakfast.” He laughed.
He hadn’t introduced her to anyone then not to spare her, or play along with any sort of simplicity requirement on her part, he hadn’t introduced her because he hadn’t wanted her getting entrenched in his family. Hadn’t wanted them accepting her and silently and not-so-silently goading him on to the next step. A step he wasn’t prepared to take.
Because when you loved someone and they left your life, you never recovered. His dad had taught him that. Not in any words, but he only had to look into his father’s eyes to know it was true.
“Well, I think it’s nice.”
He was about to say something flip about the grass always being greener, but then relented. She was right. He wouldn’t have traded his family for anything. Ever.
“Yeah, well maybe it is,” he acknowledged in an offhanded manner. Taking her arm, he drew her over to two of what his father referred to as Brian’s boys. “Anyway, over here’s—”
“Dax and Troy,” she told him. “Yes, I know. Save yourself some trouble, Clay, I met them at breakfast. Met most of them at breakfast,” she added. “As a matter of fact, the only one who seemed to be missing at breakfast was you.”
Though she tried not to let it, a part of her was hurt that Clay had just abandoned her like that this morning, going off without so much as a word. You would have thought she’d have learned by now, Ilene thought. She certainly had enough to go on as to his MO. There were no promises as far as Clay was concerned. That way they could never be broken.
Only her heart could be.
He noticed the way Dax was looking at her. Something territorial arose within Clay. He moved and blocked her with his body. “I was busy trying to follow up a lead.”
She nodded, looking away. Knowing that being so close to him like this was not the wisest thing she could do. Even though there was a crowd around, it didn’t stop the desire that insisted on raising its head within her. “So your father said.”
“Here, if you have to listen to him, don’t do it on an empty stomach.” Andrew seem to materialize out of nowhere, a plate with birthday cake in his hands. He pressed it on her.
“How could it be empty? There’s food everywhere I look,” Ilene pointed out.
“Which you hardly touched,” Andrew countered.
Once the party had gotten underway, she hadn’t eaten anything. But she could have sworn Andrew had been too busy to notice. “How did you—”
Clay cut off her protest. “Don’t waste your breath, Ilene, the man is all-seeing. I learned that a long time ago. Most parents have eyes in back of their heads. Dad has eyes all over, like a fly.”
Gray eyebrows drew over his nose as he regarded his second son. “With that golden tongue of yours, I’m beginning to understand why you couldn’t hang on to a good woman.”
The remark caught her by surprise. Ilene looked at Andrew. Did he mean her? Or was that just a general, throwaway comment he was making about his son’s way of life?
“Maybe the good woman didn’t want to be hung on to,” Teri suggested, coming up behind him.
They were ganging up on him. Normally, that didn’t faze him. Tonight, however, there was something different going on. He didn’t know if it was a simple matter of coming face-to-face with a portion of his past he had never felt right about, or something more. In any event, he wanted a chance to regroup.
Taking the cake from her, Clay popped the last piece into his mouth, then set the plate on the arm of the sofa. Andrew gave him a reproving look as he picked the plate up again.
“Want to get some air?” Clay suggested.
He obviously wanted to get away from his father and sister. But she didn’t welcome the idea of being alone with him. Mainly because she wanted to be and she knew that was a dangerous road to walk.
“It’s kind of chilly outside.” It was her last line of defense.
“I can keep you warm,” he volunteered.
“Yes, I know.”
He’d meant by giving her a sweater, but then realized how it had come out. He tried again. “I want to talk to you.”
About the man who’d frightened her last night? About the case? About the past? She wasn’t going to find out playing guessing games in her head. “Okay.”
“Holler if you need help,” Andrew called after her.
She thought Clay’s father was more than half-serious. He was a darling man, she thought. Clay didn’t know how lucky he was.
His hand on her shoulder, Clay guided her through the throng of friends and relations until he reached the rear of the family room. Opening the patio door, he ushered her out, then slid the door closed behind them.
They were the only ones outside. A quarter moon shone above them.
Behind them, the volume of the sound had only gone down a little more than a notch. Clay noted it with a grin. “Dad had new windows and doors put in about a year ago. The salesman swore they’d mute the noise, but then, I guess we can’t be too hard on him. He’d never encountered the Cavanaugh tribe.”
There was affection in his voice even as he pretended to deride them. She tried not to let it seduce her. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from sweeping her into his arms. “Cut right to the chase, right?”
Go back inside, she told herself. Inside’s safer.
“I just don’t want to seem rude to your father.” It was a lie. Andrew Cavanaugh was the furthest thing from her mind right now. And Clay’s lips were the closest as she tried to recall the feel of them against hers.