Cavanaugh on Duty
Authors: Marie Ferrarella
Tags: #Romance, #fullybook, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Romance
THE PAST NEVER DIES…BUT IT CAN KILL
Esteban Fernandez only has one reason to live—and that reason vanishes when his cover is blown. As an undercover narcotics detective, Esteban wants to hunt the scum who killed his brother—and put his stepfather in prison for life. Reassigned and rootless, the brooding detective couldn’t care less about the sexy cop he’s now paired with…until they start finding bodies.
Kari Cavanaugh never asks for a new partner. Competent and self-contained, Kari makes the best of any situation—by herself. But when a series of murders points toward a serial killer, her scruffy new sidekick may have insights into the case. If only the heat rising between them doesn’t spark its own danger.
The kiss was to scare her away.
Instead, he managed to scare himself—but not before he took the so-called “warning” he was issuing to its full conclusion, devouring her the way a starving man devoured his first meal in countless days. Except that for Esteban, it had been countless months, not days. Countless months that had stumbled their way into years without his complete memory of the empty journey. Pleasures of the flesh hadn’t been important to him at the time.
Now, though, something seemed to be waking up within him....
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the Cavanaugh world, where family is always the most important ingredient and love can break through the thickest walls.
This time we get to meet Sean’s daughter, Kari, who not only doesn’t have a problem when she discovers that, thanks to her father, she is actually a Cavanaugh, she welcomes the news. Kari has always made the best of every situation, which is why Brian Cavanaugh, the chief of detectives, feels she is the perfect partner for Esteban Fernandez, a former undercover narcotics officer. Esteban’s sole purpose in life is to avenge the deaths of his half brother and mother at the hands of the drug cartel. When that is taken away from him, he needs help finding a reason to go on. Kari decides that it is
her
mission to make him come around and see the good he can accomplish working with her as a police detective. She hadn’t counted on falling in love with her assignment. But nothing is ever without twists and turns in the Cavanaugh world, and this is no exception.
As always, I thank you for reading and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.
All the best,
Marie Ferrarella
Marie Ferrarella
Cavanaugh on Duty
Books by Marie Ferrarella
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Private Justice #1664
**The Doctor’s Guardian #1675
*A Cavanaugh Christmas #1683
Special Agent’s Perfect Cover #1688
*Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard #1699
*Cavanaugh Rules #1715
*Cavanaugh’s Surrender #1725
Colton Showdown #1732
A Widow’s Guilty Secret #1736
*Cavanaugh on Duty #1751
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
**A Doctor’s Secret #1503
**Secret Agent Affair #1511
*Protecting His Witness #1515
Colton’s Secret Service #1528
The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair #1556
*Cavanaugh Pride #1571
*Becoming a Cavanaugh #1575
The Agent’s Secret Baby #1580
*The Cavanaugh Code #1587
*In Bed with the Badge #1596
*Cavanaugh Judgment #1612
Colton by Marriage #1616
*Cavanaugh Reunion #1623
**In His Protective Custody #1644
Harlequin Special Edition
†A Match for the Doctor #2117
†What the Single Dad Wants… #2122
^The Baby Wore a Badge #2131
†††Fortune’s Valentine Bride #2167
†Once Upon a Matchmaker #2192
-Real Vintage Maverick #2210
†A Perfectly Imperfect Match #2240
***A Small Fortune #2246
†Ten Years Later... #2252
Silhouette Special Edition
‡Diamond in the Rough #1910
‡The Bride with No Name #1917
‡Mistletoe and Miracles #1941
‡‡Plain Jane and the Playboy #1946
‡Travis’s Appeal #1958
Loving the Right Brother #1977
The 39-Year-Old Virgin #1983
‡A Lawman for Christmas #2006
‡‡‡Prescription for Romance #2017
†Doctoring the Single Dad #2031
†Fixed Up with Mr. Right? #2041
†Finding Happily-Ever-After #2060
†Unwrapping the Playboy #2084
=Fortune’s Just Desserts #2107
Harlequin American Romance
Pocketful of Rainbows #145
††The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise #1329
††Ramona and the Renegade #1338
††The Doctor’s Forever Family #1346
Montana Sheriff #1369
Holiday in a Stetson #1378 “The Sheriff Who Found Christmas”
††Lassoing the Deputy #1402
††A Baby on the Ranch #1410
††A Forever Christmas #1426
*Cavanaugh Justice
**The Doctors Pulaski
‡Kate’s Boys
‡‡The Fortunes of Texas: Return to Red Rock
‡‡‡
The Baby Chase
†Matchmaking Mamas
=The Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found
††Forever, Texas
^Montana Mavericks: The Texans Are Coming!
†††The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance
-Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle
***The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
MARIE FERRARELLA
This
USA TODAY
bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website,
www.marieferrarella.com
.
To Ian Conrad,
Welcome to the world, Little Man
Contents
Prologue
S
omething was wrong.
He could feel it in his bones, smell it in the air. The minute Esteban stepped out of the run-down tenement apartment building he’d called home these past three years, he’d sensed it.
Something was off.
He had nothing concrete to base it on, except for a gut instinct. The same gut instinct that had helped him survive out here on the cusp of hell, slowly making his way up the cartel food chain, earning trust by seemingly not giving a damn.
It had been a juggling act all the way. The people within the drug cartel had an honor code without displaying a shred of real honor. Moreover, they expected a man to keep his word while they broke theirs with bone-chilling regularity.
Black was white, and white vacillated between nonexistent and a color he couldn’t begin to describe.
But he had managed to navigate these streets, being one of them while standing apart, and all the while sleeping with one eye open.
Although it had come at a great personal cost, he’d bided his time, waiting for the chance to even a score that would never truly be even.
But this
thing
he was feeling was different. His nerves twisted and tensed; a chill swept along his spine. Every fiber in his body was on high alert, listening intently even though he didn’t know for what.
And then he knew what he was listening for.
Because he heard it: the high-pitched whine of a bullet as it hurtled from its source.
A bullet with his name on it.
Abruptly, he swung to the right.
The bullet couldn’t.
It missed him.
The same gut instinct told him to keep on running if he wanted to live. Confronted with an actual choice between life and death, he surprised himself by deciding to live a little longer.
So he kept on running.
His job wasn’t finished. He still had people to bring to justice. After that, it didn’t matter what happened to him. He was already dead on the inside anyway.
Chapter 1
B
rian Cavanaugh leaned back in his chair as he studied the young man in his office.
Intense
was the first word that sprang to mind, prefaced by
very.
His own words were measured when he spoke, as his goal was to put the other man, freshly plucked out of undercover work, at ease.
“The first thing I want you to know is that this is not a demotion—”
It had been an exhausting thirty-six hours, beginning with a nerve-racking leap from the very jaws of hell. Esteban’s surroundings right now—clean, orderly, devoid of vermin—seemed almost surreal. He’d all but forgotten places like this existed.
But he’d chosen that netherworld over this because he had a purpose, a mission. The mission wasn’t accomplished yet. He needed to find a way back. Somehow.
“With all due respect, sir, when someone leads with that, it usually means that it
is
a demotion,” the man who had gone by the name Juan Dominguez for the past three years pointed out.
The corners of Brian’s mouth curved in apparent amusement. “You mean like when someone prefaces a statement with the phrase, ‘With all due respect,’ he or she usually doesn’t harbor that respect?”
Unable to contain his restlessness, the detective who’d been summoned to Brian’s office continued to pace. His broad shoulders stiffened slightly. “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. In this case, there is a great deal of respect. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that you feel as if you’ve been given a time-out, sent to stand in the corner, while everyone you know is still out on the playground, doing what they please,” Brian guessed, completing what he anticipated were the younger, somewhat disheveled-looking man’s thoughts on the matter.
“Something like that,” the detective murmured. He returned the Chief of D’s look, searching for an opening, a way to reverse what he knew in his gut the older man was planning on doing.
“You know you
can
sit down in my office,” Brian reminded him patiently. He’d already extended the invitation to the man whose real name, according to the requisitioned file on his desk, was Esteban Fernandez.
Esteban stopped pacing. His tone was polite, with just a hint of defiance, as he asked, “Is that an order, sir?”
Brian had not reached his rank by choosing his battles recklessly. This was not a battle, just a reassessment of a situation. Fernandez could be either a valuable asset—or a loose cannon.
“No, just a point of fact,” he replied calmly.
“Then if it’s all the same to you, sir,” Esteban said, “I’d rather stand.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Brian told him, his eyes holding Esteban’s. “But if you prefer to imitate a moving target, that’s your call.”
Esteban watched the Chief for a long moment. According to what he’d heard, Brian Cavanaugh was considered fair to a fault by the men and women who answered to him and whose undying allegiance he’d earned one by one.
Esteban wavered for a moment, wanting to stick to his guns, an army of one. Then, suppressing the sigh that rose to his throat, he lowered his lean, muscular frame into one of the two chairs that faced the Chief of D’s desk.