Cavanaugh on Duty - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,54

she said. Then, picking up on the signs, she said quietly to him, “But I think you already know that.”

“Hey, Steve—right?” Thomas, her oldest brother called out, waving at her partner to get his attention.

“Esteban,” Esteban corrected him. His name hadn’t been that important to him when he was younger. But it was now. Having lost everything else—his mother, his brother and, in part, his stepfather, since the man was now in prison serving twenty to life—his heritage was all that he had left, and Esteban was determined to hang on to it.

“Sorry. Esteban,” Thomas acknowledged with a cheerful nod. “Need an opinion here,” he told Kari’s partner. “Tell me if I’ve finally got this damn thing level, will you?” he asked.

With a shrug, Esteban did as he was asked and with that one single, small action, he wound up shedding the last residual traces of being an outsider. He was part of them now, part of the brotherhood that made up the family of cops, as tightly connected a family as any in the annals of history.

If, during the course of the rest of the day and the evening to follow, Esteban began to entertain ideas about pulling back, those notions were promptly smashed by one person or another.

Esteban found himself pulled into one conversation after another almost seamlessly. Each time he thought he was separating himself from one group, another group would snare him.

And, throughout it all, there was Kari. Kari, beside him at the wedding, quietly shedding tears of joy and getting his handkerchief damp. Kari, urging him to sample yet another dish of something he didn’t recognize and bringing him a gin and tonic rather than a glass of champagne—which he loathed—so he could properly toast the new bride and groom.

And Kari, who wound up coaxing him onto the dance floor.

It seemed as if it had been an eternity since he’d had an occasion to dance—or the desire to.

The first time she threaded her hand through his and began pulling him toward the temporary dance floor that two of her cousins had constructed less than twenty-four hours before the wedding, he had dragged his feet, resisting.

“I’ll step all over your feet,” he’d protested, falling back on the age-old excuse.

“I really doubt that,” she’d told him. Knowing she couldn’t say she had seen him on the dance floor back in high school—he’d already denied that he was that Steve Fernandez—she fell back on a small white lie. “You look like rhythm would come naturally to you.”

He’d laughed shortly at that. “I think you have entirely too much faith in this overblown image you’ve conjured up of me.”

Taking his left hand, Kari positioned it on her hip, then took his right hand in hers and drew him in closer to her.

A lot closer.

The air seemed to shift, bringing with it a wave of warmth that transcended anything the air-conditioning could negate—if there had been any out there, which there wasn’t.

“I think, Esteban,” she said, emphasizing his name, “you’re completely up to anything I come up with—and more.” Her eyes held his to make her point. “And you’re right, I do have great faith in you...but I believe that faith’s justified.”

“Based on what?” he wanted to know.

As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything to prove himself to be an asset to her. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t even want to. But of late there had started to be this small, nagging desire inside him. He wasn’t even sure just what sort of desire was involved, just that it was there.

And it was growing.

“Gut instinct,” she told him cheerfully. “Something you’re born with if you’re a Cavanaugh.”

He pinned her with a look as their hips all but locked in syncopated rhythm. “But you were born a Cavelli,” he reminded her.

“That was a technicality that has since been smoothed out,” she told him, unfazed. “And, for the record, I was right.”

He felt as if they were in two different conversations—and he had lost track of hers. “Right about what?”

The tempo was slow. Her movements, slower. And sensual as hell. He was really doing his best not to notice, but it was like trying not to notice that he needed to breathe. It was damn impossible.

“About what I said when I dragged you out onto the dance floor earlier. I said you could dance and that’s exactly what you’re doing, you know. You’re dancing. Dancing so well, other couples are stopping just to watch,” she told him proudly.

That wasn’t the only thing