Janice Johnson - All a Man Is

Noah’s grin was downright rakish. “Oh, there’ll be fireworks.”

Cait laughed, rolled her eyes and blushed all at the same time.

The host was politely waiting to one side, clutching menus, so Alec excused them and they allowed themselves to be seated by the window.

Not until they were alone did she laugh. “Okay, why the groan? He seems nice enough.”

“Nice isn’t the word that comes to mind to describe Mayor Chandler,” Alec said drily. “He’s improving on acquaintance, though.” He glanced their way. “I did tell you about Cait getting kidnapped and Noah rescuing her, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sort of.” Her forehead wrinkled as she thought back. It had all happened during her last few days getting herself and the kids ready to leave Los Angeles. As she remembered it, he’d said they “had some excitement here in Angel Butte.”

“But I hadn’t met anybody you were talking about, and mostly I was having a quiet panic attack because our handpicked town didn’t sound nearly as safe as I’d imagined it. So tell me again.”

“Let’s choose our meals first, before the waiter shows up,” he suggested.

Since she’d had it with pizzas and burgers, she went with an interesting-sounding wrap, while Alec ordered a steak. Once they had their salads and a Cabernet from a Willamette Valley winery, he told her the story in more detail.

She had also seen Cait McAllister’s brother during that news clip. He was the police captain who was running for county sheriff, the one the mayor admitted having blacklisted for the job of police chief. Cait had lived in Angel Butte as a child, but hadn’t been back since she was ten years old. Only recently had she moved here to be near her brother. Within days of her arrival, impulsive words spoken to a barely remembered acquaintance made her the target of a killer. She’d eventually remembered as a child seeing two men burying something, and one of the two was the man she’d spoken to.

“After they filled in the hole back then, they poured a concrete patio over it,” Alec told her. “Once Cait pointed us to the right place, we broke it up and, no surprise, found bones.” He grimaced. “In a bizarre twist of fate, the dead man was Chandler’s father. Solved what had been a mystery in his life.”

She listened, intrigued, as he told her more about Noah. He owned two more restaurants besides the one here in Angel Butte, but evidently had enough energy left over to have decided to run for mayor.

“Consensus is, the last mayor was known for turning a blind eye to a lot of shady practices, while Chandler may be an SOB but is scrupulously honest.” Alec shrugged.

Their salads arrived, and they both picked up their forks.

“Back to the story,” he said after a moment.

Cait had survived one murder attempt, after which her brother and Noah both had done their damnedest to keep her safe, according to Alec. Watching anyone 24/7 was next to impossible, though. Perhaps inevitably, she’d been left alone for the few minutes that allowed the killer to grab her.

It was Noah who had rescued her, at high cost to himself. The bullet had come close to killing him.

“Gutsy thing Chandler did,” Alec conceded. “He’s barely back at work.”

She smiled at his air of grudging admiration. “Come on, you like the guy.”

He grinned crookedly. “Like I said, I’m warming to him.”

She laughed, studying him across the table. Noah Chandler definitely had sexual charisma that would have any woman giving him at least a second glance, but as far as she was concerned, so did Alec...times ten.

There were moments when her heart caught at his resemblance to her husband, but more often she would wonder why he didn’t look more like Josh. Both men had the near-black hair of their Italian mother as well as her rich brown eyes. Josh had been an inch or two taller and definitely broader, although some of that might have been because of the conditioning he had to maintain as a navy SEAL. His face had been wider, his features less sharply defined. Alec had a lean, greyhound elegance his brother had lacked. Josh in general had been more physical, less thoughtful. He always wanted to be doing something. He’d drag one of the kids out to kick the soccer ball or practice pitching. He’d started teaching Matt to surf. Evenings, he and Matt would retire to Matt’s bedroom, where she’d hear them hooting and groaning as they played video games. Josh was so competitive, it had become a joke between them—but what was funny when she was twenty-two had become less so as the years went by.

Alec, she thought, was more subtle. He was hard to read; it was rare to catch naked emotion on his face. She suspected he, too, liked to come out on top when it came to the important things, but he was relaxed about the little everyday moments that to Josh were all a contest. The irony to her was that, as a SEAL, Josh had needed to be able to take initiative, but in a more cosmic sense he was always following orders. What if he disagreed with the politics behind a military action? she would ask, and without fail he’d deal the patriot card. Meanwhile, she’d watched Alec steadily rise in the hierarchy, accepting the loss of action so that he could gain command and the ability to make the decisions.

For the first time, she identified the key difference between the brothers. For all that he was a warrior, Josh had remained boyish in his motivations. Boyish was not a word that would ever occur to her in relation to Alec. He was all man, and had been for a long time.

Part of what made him a man was his unwavering sense of duty. For all she knew, he didn’t even like her. But, by God, she was his brother’s widow, her kids were his niece and nephew, and so he would take care of them.

What scared her most was to think that he might stay single because of a commitment to her, when he didn’t love her at all.

Oh, dear God. I should have said no. I should have taken the kids and gone home to Minnesota, she thought, the squeeze of panic stealing her breath. I shouldn’t have let him make such a huge sacrifice for us.

“Do you hate your job here?” Her voice came out thin, and under the table her fingernails bit into her palms.

He stared at her. “What brought that on?”

“I don’t know.” She fought to recover her poise, to keep him from knowing how close she sometimes was to a complete breakdown. “Belated second thoughts, maybe?”

“You think you forced this on me.” Those dark eyes read her too well.

“I didn’t mean to, but—” she closed her eyes briefly before she could finish “—I think I did.”

“No.” The one word came out harsh. “Damn it, Julia! I didn’t know you were still thinking like this. If you’d taken the kids and gone back to Minnesota, I’d have gotten hired as police chief there whether you liked it or not. I’d have followed you.”

“Because you think that’s what Josh would expect.”

Now she really couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“No,” he said finally, calmly.

It was her turn to stare. Was he implying...? But he couldn’t be.

“I used to lump you and Josh together, in a way,” she heard herself say.

A flicker of some emotion passed through his eyes. “Except that you were married to Josh,” he said after a moment.

She flapped her hand. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I thought you were both addicted to taking risks. That you’d chosen the careers you did because parachuting in the dark under gunfire or kicking in a drug dealer’s door gave you the ultimate high.”

His jaw bunched. “You mean, you thought we were a pair of adolescents.”

Julia bowed her head, unable to hold that intense gaze. “Not quite, but...I suppose I believed there was an element of that in both of you.”