Cavanaugh Rules by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

from his tone that he was a man who really hated tears. “Okay, I’ll see you after work,” he agreed. “We’ll go out.” Abilene paused, listening. As did Kendra, trying to piece together what was going on without being obvious about it. “It’s the best I can do.”
    With that, he terminated the call. Dropping the cell phone back into his pocket, Abilene blew out a frustrated breath. As he glanced toward his partner’s desk, it took him less than a second to come to the conclusion that she’d been listening in on his half of the conversation. Given her nature, it didn’t surprise him.
    His eyes met hers and he waited. He wasn’t about to say anything unless she was.
    He didn’t have long to wait.
    “Former girlfriend you dumped?” she asked, nodding toward the pocket with the cell phone in it. Getting up, she pushed in her chair.
    “No,” was all he said. They went into the hall together.
    The single word vibrated with finality and an entire collection of No Trespassing signs.
    So be it, she felt in a moment of empathy. If the tables had been turned, she wouldn’t have wanted to be quizzed, either. She thought back to a little more than eighteen months ago. There’d been some really intense, poorly muffled conversations with Jason in the days before his suicide that she wouldn’t have wanted to repeat, either.
    “Sorry,” she apologized, hitting the Down button for the elevator. “None of my business.”
    He hadn’t thought that she was capable of an apology—at least, not one to him. Not when it came to something like this.
    Because she had backed off, Matt found himself loosening up just a little.
    “That was my mother,” he told her.
    Kendra looked up at him sharply. That wouldn’t even have been her tenth guess.
    “Your mother?” Kendra replayed the short conversation in her head, viewing it in a completely different light. She was still convinced that the other woman had been crying. Compassion flooded through her, not to mention a new, warm feeling as she regarded the man who’d been sitting across from her.
    “You need to see her, I can cover for you,” she offered.
    Matt shook his head. Running to his mother’s side wasn’t going to help anything—or change anything. “Thanks, but no. This isn’t anything new, even though she never seems to see it coming.” The elevator car arrived and they got in. He paused for a second, debating whether or not to say anything else, then shrugged. It wasn’t all that much of a big deal, he told himself. “My mother’s got a habit of getting mixed up with the wrong kind of men.”
    Kendra thought of her desk and the brand-new notes she’d just written that now rested like so many new snowflakes on top of her other, older notes. Who knew—maybe that was ultimately Summer Miller’s story as well. “A lot of that going on lately.”
    “Yeah, except that at her age, you would have thought my mother would have developed a little common sense and learned not to be charmed and taken in by some con artist’s smooth line.”
    Rarely did the heart listen to reason. If it did, Kendra would have known enough to back away, to insulate her heart right after Jason’s accident. That way his suicide wouldn’t have almost destroyed her when it had happened.
    “The heart wants what the heart wants,” Kendra replied simply. The elevator doors opened and she led the way out. “Besides, it’s a misnomer.”
    He caught up to her in less than one stride. “What is?”
    “That bit about common sense.” God, this man really had a long stride. She would never be able to beat him in a race. The realization annoyed her even though the need to outrun him would most likely never come up. “Sense isn’t common. At least not when the heart is involved.”
    “You speaking from experience?” he asked her, moderately intrigued.
    She was, but she wasn’t about to go there. Not with someone she didn’t know. It was hard enough to talk with her family about