Cavanaugh Cowboy. Marie Ferrarella

       Prologue

      “Something wrong, boy?” Seamus Cavanaugh asked. He was the long-retired police chief and currently the head of a small but thriving security firm, as well as the official patriarch of an extremely large clan that was firmly entrenched in the law enforcement community. He lowered himself into a love seat beside Sullivan Cavanaugh, one of his nephew Angus’s sons.

      Angus was one of his late younger brother Murdoch’s sons. Despite the fact that there were enough Cavanaughs within Aurora, California, to populate their own small town, and Seamus was far from spending his days sipping a scotch and watching shadows elongate themselves across his front porch, he felt it his duty to watch over each and every one of them. From the oldest—his son Andrew, a retired police chief like himself—to the youngest, Dugan and Toni’s daughter, who was about to reach her first birthday, Seamus took an interest in all of them.

      At first, Sullivan Cavanaugh didn’t realize that his great-uncle was speaking to him. There were a lot of people at this gathering and consequently a lot of noise. It was another one of his uncle Andrew’s typical impromptu gatherings—nobody cooked like Uncle Andrew—and every inch of the house and grounds was stuffed with members of the Cavanaugh family as well as other friends, all of whom, in one way or another, dedicated their lives to keeping the good citizens of Aurora safe.

      Sully had hoped that coming here would be enough to erase this burned-out feeling he’d been carrying around, a feeling that had unexpectedly descended over him even as he had wound up almost eighteen months’ worth of following cold leads and circular trails before finally finding the murderer he’d been so relentlessly pursuing.

      Usually, once a case was put to bed, he would feel buoyed up, invigorated and ready to start again on a new case.

      But not this time.

      This time, the burned-out feeling remained, growing only more oppressive, preventing him from going on.

      Still, he hadn’t thought it was that obvious.

      Sully blinked, shifting his body toward his great-uncle.

      “Nothing’s wrong, sir,” he answered, doing his best not to sound the way he felt.

      Steel-gray eyebrows drew together over exceedingly penetrating dark eyes.

      “Don’t give me that, boy. I’ve seen that look before. You just solved the Gilmore case, didn’t you?” It was a rhetorical question.

      “My team and I did, yes,” Sully replied.

      Everyone in the room was aware of that, he thought. Aware, too, that it had been a team effort even though for some reason, Sully felt unaccountably alone at this point. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling this way.

      “That was rather an important case,” Seamus commented. “Even the mayor took an interest in it. And yet here you are, looking like your favorite dog just died.”

      Sully shrugged. “I guess it’s all those long hours finally catching up to me. Maybe I just need to go home and get some rest.”

      But Seamus didn’t appear convinced.

      “It’s more than that,” the onetime police chief said. Seamus scrutinized the man seated beside him in silence for a moment before asking, “Burnout?”

      There was no sense in lying, Sully thought. Even though he was in his early seventies, the old man was too sharp to try to fool.

      “I guess maybe,” Sully acknowledged with a careless shrug. “But I’ll get over it.” He said it more to convince his great-uncle than himself.

      “I’m sure you will,” Seamus told him with the confidence of a man who had seen and lived through a great deal in his lifetime. “But in the meantime, maybe you need a little extra help.”

      “Extra help?” Sully repeated, not sure what his great-uncle was telling him.

      His guess was that the man was going to suggest possibly a temporary closer acquaintance with Johnnie Walker.

      But he didn’t.

      Instead, Seamus nodded and said, “A change of scenery.”

      Sully didn’t see how that could help and dismissed the suggestion. “I’m not sure if a vacation—”

      Seamus continued as if Sully hadn’t said anything. “What do you think about Texas?”

      “Texas?” Sully echoed. He’d never been to that state, nor did he have any desire to change that. “I don’t really think anything about Texas,” he began but just like before, he got no further.

      “I have this old friend who runs a diner in Forever, Texas. She’s also got this small horse ranch,” Seamus told him. “I’m sure if I contact her, Miss Joan’ll let you stay there.”

      Sully looked at his great-uncle, bemused. Everyone knew that the man could be a bit eccentric.

      “You call your old friend Miss Joan?” Sully questioned.

      Seamus saw nothing unusual about that. “Everyone does,” he said. “All I have to do is pick up a phone and call her—”

      “That’s okay, really,” Sully replied, cutting his great-uncle off. He began to rise. “I don’t need a change of scenery.”

      Seamus caught his wrist. For a man in his seventies, he had an exceptionally strong grip. Sully sank back down.

      “Yes,” Seamus insisted with emphasis, “you do. And as I seem to recall, wide-open spaces don’t intimidate you. You ride, don’t you?”

      The old man’s memory was as sharp as Uncle Andrew’s. And, like all his uncles, he also had all the answers before he asked the questions, so there was no point in pretending that he didn’t know his way around a horse, Sully thought. He did. Riding tended to relax him. That went all the way back to his childhood and summers spent with his father, enjoying wide-open spaces.

      “Yes, sir, I do.”

      “Good,” Seamus pronounced. “Nothing left to do but pack your bag.”

      Sully eyed the older man uncertainly. Seamus was assuming a