Free Cavanaugh Judgment by Marie Ferrarella Page A

and pressed the buttons that would connect her. As the phone rang, she waited for someone to pick up on the other end.
    Her wait wasn’t long.
    “Hello? Uncle Andrew?” The word uncle still felt foreign on her tongue, but she was getting more accustomed to it and she had to admit she liked the whole concept, liked the way it made her feel to be part of something bigger than just herself and her brothers. “This is Greer. I was wondering if you’d mind having three extra at the table for dinner tonight?”
    “Mind? You obviously haven’t been part of the family long enough,” the man on the other end of the line told her with a pleased laugh. “C’mon over,” he urged heartily. “The more the better.”
    “What time’s dinner?” she wanted to know.
    The answer was one that she would eventually learn to expect. “What time can you get here?”
    Greer didn’t bother trying to hold back the smile that rose to her lips. The man was every bit the legend he was made out to be. Warm and generous to a fault. The father figure every family patriarch should be.
    “Just so you know,” she told the former chief of police, “I’ll be bringing Judge Blake Kincannon and his father.”
    “Thanks for telling me,” he answered. “I’ll make a point of calling Callie and telling her that Brent’s presence is requested.”
    She was vaguely aware that Callie, Andrew’s oldest daughter, was married to a judge. The two had met several years ago when Callie was assigned to find his kidnapped daughter.
    “That’s really not necessary,” Greer assured the patriarch.
    Andrew saw it differently. “Of course it is. Your judge gets to talk to another judge and Rose and I get a reason to make our daughter and her family drop by. It’s a win-win situation.”
    They were right, Greer thought. There was no arguing with Andrew Cavanaugh. Not that she really wanted to. “We’ll be there in forty minutes,” Greer promised.
    “Any time is fine,” he answered as he broke the connection.
    “We’ll be where in forty minutes?” Blake wanted to know.
    She would have had to have been deaf to miss the edge in his voice. “At Andrew Cavanaugh’s house. We’re invited to dinner.”
    “You invited yourself over,” Blake pointed out. He was far from pleased with the turn of events. When not in court, he tended to prefer staying at home to going anywhere.
    “Just beating Uncle Andrew to the punch,” she told him cheerfully. “If I’d stayed on the phone long enough, he would have been the one doing the inviting. He really likes nothing better than to have a full house at every meal.”
    It was one of the first things she’d learned about the former chief of police. The only thing Andrew Cavanaugh loved more than cooking was having his family and friends over, eating his cooking. Any time, night or day, there was always something on the stove, always an extra chair to be pulled up at the custom-built, extra-long table.
    No one who came over ever left hungry—or lonely.
    “That’s all well and good,” Kincannon told her, a note of finality in his voice, “but I’m staying in tonight.”
    “You can stay in after we get back,” she informed him cheerfully.
    His eyes narrowed, darkening. “Detective, as I understand your assignment, you’re supposed to guard me, not order me around.”
    “I have to do whatever it takes to keep you safe and well,” she countered. “In case you’re wondering, this comes under the ‘well’ heading.”
    He had no intentions of giving in. If he gave this woman an inch, he was certain that he was going to lose the proverbial mile.
    “Look, Detective, my life’s disrupted enough already. Much as I might appreciate the gesture, I don’t feel like dropping everything and running over to the former chief’s house.”
    To Greer’s surprise, it was Alexander who came to her aid. “Oh, lighten up, Blake. You’re not running anywhere, she’s driving us. Right, O’Brien?”
    “That’s