Cavanaugh’s Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the present again. Hardly daring to breathe, he looked from the woman to his father, who nodded.
    He wasn’t a police detective anymore, he was a son. A son whose missing mother had turned up in his living room.
    They were already aware that Rose Cavanaugh was alive. His father had told them of Rayne’s discovery, of going up and seeing for himself the woman who answered to the name of Claire. He had wanted to persuade her to come home with him. Shaw also knew that the woman claimed not to have any memory of them.
    Shaw could see a great deal of unresolved emotion in his father’s eyes. He could also see that while she was looking straight ahead at them, trying to smile, the woman who didn’t appear to know she was his mother was digging her fingertips into the leather armrests.
    “And these are your sons, Shaw and Clay,” Andrew told her.
    The woman inclined her head, rising slightly from her seat, and succeeded in smiling at them. At him. Smiling at him with his mother’s smile.
    Shaw had no idea what to feel, what to think.
    And then she shook her head, sorrow in her eyes as she turned them toward his father. Her apology throbbed with emotion, with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember them, either.”
    Andrew nodded, resigned but ever hopeful. “You will,” he promised. “It’ll take time but you will.” He didn’t have a single strain of doubt in his voice. Andrew looked at his sons. There was triumph in his expression. “Boys, Claire has agreed to stay here with us for a while.”
    Shaw raised his eyes toward his father, waiting for an explanation. Questions began to form in his mind.
    “Claire?” he echoed.
    “It’s my name,” the woman told him quietly. “At least, that’s the only name I’ve known for the past fifteen years.”
    Her voice was soft, like his mother’s voice. Shaw felt an ache take hold. There was nothing he could do to fix this except ride it out. Compassion welled up within him. He sincerely felt for his father.
    Unable to hold back any longer, Rayne was on her feet, standing in front of Claire. “That’s because you disappeared fifteen years ago,” she insisted. “You are our mother, you are his wife. Why can’t you see that?”
    Her voice broke even as Shaw crossed to her. Ever protective of his siblings, especially of Rayne, who’d always been the most troubled and the most tormented by all this, he put his arm around his sister.
    “This is why we never let you become a psychiatrist,” he teased, trying to lighten the moment if only a fraction. He kissed the top of her head, then he gave her a quick, heartfelt squeeze. Rayne had been the one the most vocal in her suffering when her mother had disappeared after the accident. The youngest, she’d been the most attached. “It’s going to be all right, Rayne,” Shaw promised. He looked at his mother. “It’s just going to take time, but we’ll all be there for you. For each other.”
    Claire seemed filled with remorse that she didn’t know them. “I’m so sorry I can’t—”
    On his feet, Andrew cut her short. “That’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
    “Now here’s something you should remember.” Taking her cue from the others, Teri tried to keep the conversation on a light, upbeat path. “Dad always has a corny saying to reinforce his points.”
    Claire smiled bravely at these strangers around her. She’d been alone for so long, both physically and mentally. Alone, yet haunted by memories that refused to form beyond specters. To believe that there was a family waiting for her, ready to accept her with open arms, was more like a fantasy than reality.
    But even so, she couldn’t make the wall keeping her from her past come down, couldn’t even chip away at it until there was the slightest clink in the mortar. Couldn’t access anything beyond the time she regained consciousness, found herself dripping wet and walking along a highway.
    Going from nowhere to nowhere.
    Andrew looked