Cavanaugh's Woman. Marie Ferrarella

could almost see it in her mind’s eye. “Every night, he’d come up that walk, looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. But the second he walked into the house, out came that thousand-watt smile. He really loved my mother a great deal, would have done anything for her.”

      Sorrow threatened to overpower her. Moira struggled to stay one step ahead of it, divorcing herself from her past, pretending it was only a character she was talking about, not her father, not someone who mattered the world to her.

      “Broke his heart when he lost her. He sold the house, sold everything that reminded him of her.”

      “How did you go to school?”

      The question only made her smile widen as memories returned to her. “For the most part, at the University of Daddy.” She could see that the answer didn’t sit well with Shaw. “When the time came,” she assured him, “I took an equivalency test. Passed with flying colors, too.” He looked surprised. She realized that she liked surprising him. “Like I said, my father was very, very smart.” There was still skepticism in his eyes. “Ask me anything.”

      He wasn’t about to play a lightning round of Jeopardy with her. In his experience, people didn’t put out challenges like that unless they could live up to them. Besides, there was something else he wanted to know about her. “What made you get into acting?”

      It wasn’t the question she’d expected. She thought he’d take special pleasure in trying to find a question she couldn’t answer. “Natural transition, I guess. I was used to pretending.”