Free Cavanaugh Reunion by Marie Ferrarella Page B

car before he had a chance to pull up the handbrake. For a woman who was wearing rather high heels, she moved inordinately quickly, he thought.
    Kansas was more than several strides ahead of him by the time he got out.
    “Father,” she called out to the cleric, waving her hand to get his attention.
    A white-haired man in jeans and a sweatshirt, its sleeves pushed all the way back beyond his elbows, turned around in response to her call. He was holding on to the base of a ladder that was up against the side of the church, keeping it steady while a much younger man stood close to the top, trying to spread an even layer of stucco.
    Kansas flipped her wallet open to her ID and held it up for the priest to see as she approached. “I’m Investigator Kansas Beckett—with the fire department.” Putting her ID away, she nodded toward Ethan. “This is Detective Ethan O’Brien with the Aurora PD. We’re looking into this awful fire that almost took down your church, Father.”
    “ Almost being the key word,” the priest responded with a pleased smile. He turned back to look at the church. His smile told her that he was seeing beyond what was currently standing before them.
    “I see that you’re rebuilding,” Ethan observed.
    “Not me,” the priest answered modestly. “I’m just holding the ladder, stirring paint, that sort of thing. St. Angela’s is blessed to have such a talented congregation.” He beamed, looking up the ladder he was holding steady. “Mr. Wicks is a general contractor who, luckily for us, is temporarily in between assignments, and he kindly volunteered to give us the benefit of his expertise.”
    The man Father Colm was referring to climbed down the ladder. Once his feet were on the ground, he shook hands with Ethan and Kansas, holding on to her hand, she noted, a beat longer than necessary. But she did like the appreciative smile on his lips as he looked at her.
    Flattery without any possibility of entanglement. The best of all worlds, she thought.
    “By ‘in between,’ Father Colm means unemployed.” Wicks regarded the older man with affection. “I’m just glad to help. It keeps me active and allows me to practice my trade so I don’t forget what to do. It’s been a long dry spell,” he confessed.
    “With so many of the parishioners volunteering their time and talent, it won’t be long before we have the church whole and functional again,” the priest informed them with no small amount of pride.
    It was as good an opening as any, Kansas thought. “Father, right after the fire—”
    “Terrible, terrible time,” the priest murmured, shaking his head. His bright blue eyes shone with tears as he recalled. “I was afraid that the Vatican wouldn’t approve of our being here any longer and would just authorize everyone to attend Our Lady of Angels Church on the other end of Aurora.”
    Kansas waited politely for the priest to finish unloading the sentiments that were weighing down on him. When he stopped, she continued her line of questioning. “Did anyone come with an offer to take the property off your hands? Or, more aptly I guess, off the Church’s hands?”
    “The only ones who approached me,” Father Colm told her and O’Brien, “were Mr. Wick and some of the other parishioners. Everyone’s been so generous, donating either their time, or money, or sometimes even both, to rebuild St. Angela’s.” He sighed deeply. “I am a very, very blessed man.” There was a hitch in his voice and he stopped to clear it.
    Ethan rephrased the question, asking it again, just to be perfectly clear about the events. “So, you’re sure that no one offered to give you money for the property, saying you’d be better off starting over somewhere else from the ground up?”
    “No, Detective O’Brien,” the priest assured him. “I might be old, but I would have remembered that. Because I would have said no. I’ve been here for thirty-six years. I’m too old to start at a new