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Yesterday had been the Fourth of July. Since fireworks were shot off the crater rim of Angel Butte, they had been able to put lawn chairs on Alec’s small patio and watch from there. Liana had oohed and aahed while Matt, predictably, appeared bored. The show wasn’t as spectacular as some they’d seen, but they also hadn’t had to fight crowds, spend ages searching for parking and walk miles for a good spot for viewing. To Julia, this felt...magical. All of them together in the dark, in their own yard.
All the neighbors were outside, too. After the fireworks show, people started lighting their own smaller ones. Andrea and Sophie came over. While the girls swooped across the lawn waving sparklers, Matt and Alec set off fireworks Alec had bought, murmuring together and laughing. Watching them, Julia had felt the sting of tears in her eyes from, oh, a complicated mix of gratitude and joy, and sadness, too.
Talking about last night carried her and Alec through the short drive to downtown. The police department had gotten the predictable complaints, there’d been a few minor injuries but no serious ones and he was pleased at how his officers had handled the holiday.
He found street parking less than a block from Chandler’s. On a Friday night like this, the sidewalk was busy. He stepped around her to be sure he was walking on the curbside, and actually went so far as to lay a hand on her back. The warmth of it burned through the thin knit of the sweater. She was kept from feeling flattered, though, by his expression, which was oddly distant as he kept watch around them, much as he had between her front door and his SUV.
Had he always been so...protective? Funny, she didn’t remember ever noticing until recently. If he hadn’t been edgy in L.A., she couldn’t imagine why he’d be so here. Surely she was imagining things.
He held open the door to Chandler’s. They’d barely stepped in when she heard a groan, almost but not quite beneath his breath. She looked at him, surprised.
He bent so his mouth was close to her ear. “Chandler’s here. Thank God, it looks like he’s well into his meal, so neither of us will feel obligated to suggest we make it a foursome.”
The handsome and absurdly young man serving as host greeted Alec as Chief Raynor and ushered him and Julia straight to a table that had just been cleared by a busboy. The route took them close to the booth where a man she recognized from that television news interview sat with a beautiful woman with pixie hair and intriguing earrings that shimmered in the light when she turned her head.
Alec’s hand splayed on Julia’s back again and he steered her over to the booth. “Chandler,” he said with a polite nod. “Cait. I’d like you to meet my sister-in-law, Julia Raynor. Julia, our mayor and my boss, Noah Chandler, and his fiancée, Cait McAllister.”
In a surprisingly gentlemanly gesture, the mayor slid out of the booth and rose to his feet. He took Julia’s hand in his much larger one. “Good to meet you. We’ve all been hearing about you.”
She laughed. “Hmm. I think I’ll refrain from asking what he had to say.”
Noah Chandler was an intriguing man, she realized. She remembered the word tough coming to mind and even thinking he was kind of ugly, but in person...he was really a very sexy man, if big enough to be alarming to her. And the smile on his fiancée’s face was genuine and warm.
“We didn’t know if you’d arrive in time or not,” Cait said, “but Alec has an invitation to our wedding and we hope you’ll come, too.”
Julia returned the smile. “I’d love to come. You should have made the wedding on the Fourth, and you could have had a fireworks send-off.”
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.”
“Did Josh know you felt that way?”
“Yes,” she said softly, trying not to remember that last, terrible fight and the things she’d said. She had to live forever with that memory, but she didn’t have to tell anyone else about the end of her marriage.
“It didn’t occur to you there was any idealism in our career choices?” Alec asked. “To you, we were just a couple of cowboys out for a good time?”
“I said an element!” she shot back, shaken to realize he was angry. “I understood how dedicated Josh was. And you, too. I just—” She couldn’t go on.
“What, Julia?” he asked inexorably.
She shook her head.
To her shock, he laid his hand over hers. “Tell me,” he said, his voice gentler.
“I started to resent it.” Not wanting to see his expression, she looked at his hand, so much larger than hers, broader across, at the thickness of his wrist and the dark hairs dusting his forearm. “At home, all he did was kill time. I could tell he was waiting for a mission, for his real life. The kids loved him, but he was more like a playmate than a father.” Finally she lifted her gaze to meet his dark eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I was proud of him. Somebody has to do the job he did. He worked hard to do it well. He was courageous. I know that.” Her voice broke and she had to take a moment to collect herself. “But I came to realize we weren’t nearly as important to him as that job was. And call me petty, but the day came when I resented having to be a single parent while he was always off saving the world.”
She saw understanding on Alec’s face, but also something more indefinable. He removed his hand, and she saw his fingers curl into fists on the tabletop.
“So that’s why you were so shocked when I suggested we all move together.” He sounded careful, as if he wanted to be sure he understood how she saw him.
“Yes!” She glared. “Do you blame me?”
Again those muscles gathered in his jaw, before he moved his shoulders and the tension visibly drained from him. “No, I guess I can’t. I thought we knew each other better than that, but I realize Josh couldn’t talk about what he did, and it never crossed my mind that you were very interested in what I did all day.”
“Of course I’m interested.”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a half smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Then I’ll start talking. To tell you the truth, there are times I’d like nothing better than being able to lay ideas out or vent to someone who doesn’t have a horse in the race.”
“Unbiased.”
He dipped his head without taking his gaze from her. “Yeah.”
“Then I won’t do.” She felt her smile wobble. “Because I am biased. I’m on your side.”
“God, Julia.” His voice was hoarse, his emotions momentarily unguarded.
Her heartbeat did some wobbling, too.
The waitress appeared with their entrées, probably a fortunate interruption. Julia noticed that Noah Chandler and his fiancée were leaving, Noah pausing only to nod at Alec, who did the same. She wondered what they’d conveyed with that very restrained exchange.
“Men don’t always understand what women need,” Alec murmured, momentarily confusing her. Then she saw the amusement that lightened the depth of emotion they’d both been feeling.
“I have noticed,” she responded.
He laughed, although she sensed he might be forcing it. “When you need something from me, tell me. Otherwise, I won’t know.”
Your heart. I need you to love me.
He would tell her he did. Like a sister.
“Anything,” he added, sounding husky.
They looked at each other for an uninterrupted stretch that had warmth rising in her cheeks as she wondered crazily what he meant.
Anything.
“I never suspected,” he said after a moment.
“Suspected what?” She didn’t sound quite like herself, but if he noticed he gave no indication.
“I assumed you and Josh were completely happy.”
“Don’t you think any marriage has tensions?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Have you ever come close?”
He shook his head. “I love my parents, but I wouldn’t want what they have.”
She nodded her understanding. Norman Raynor was a tense, rigid, demanding man who both dominated and dismissed his wife. Even Josh, not often given to self-reflection, had talked some about his father’s expectations for his boys and his contempt for women. At the time, Julia had thought to be grateful that Alec and Josh didn’t have a sister. She had blamed Norm for his sons’ choice of careers, too; he had been a firefighter who thought men should be men. Mostly he and Rosaria had been great with the kids, but Julia hadn’t been enthusiastic about her children spending a lot of time with their grandfather as they got older and more conscious of things like gender roles.
“I feel sorry for your mother.”
“She made her bed.” Apparently realizing how harsh that sounded, Alec shook his head. “I don’t mean that. No matter how bad the marriage is, she’d never leave him. If nothing else, her faith wouldn’t let her. But it’s more than that. I’m not sure she even notices how he treats her anymore. I remember from when I was little how happy she was. Laughing and singing all the time.” His mouth crooked up and his expression softened. “Good smells from the kitchen, fresh flowers from her garden on the table, an Italian tenor bellowing from the stereo.” He grimaced. “Of course, the music went off when Dad walked in the door, and if Mama was lucky, he’d grunt his appreciation for amazing food. The change in her was gradual. She’d listen to music less and less often, smile less. By the time Josh and I were in high school, she’d lost any gift for happiness. I don’t know if she’d recover it even if he dropped dead of a heart attack tomorrow.”
Julia couldn’t help herself. She touched him, only fleetingly, her fingertips to the back of his hand, but it was enough to draw a startled, somehow riveted stare from him.
“Were their feelings hurt that we moved away?” she asked, as much to distract him as anything. His parents hadn’t said much to her, but she’d never been sure how they felt about her anyway.
As a distraction, her question worked. Alec gave a grunt of his own. “Couldn’t tell with Mama. Dad thought me quitting my job was asinine. I’d be a captain before I knew it, maybe rise to chief of the LAPD. He knew how to bring Matt into line, and it didn’t involve pampering the kid or uprooting the whole damn family. ‘My belt’s still good for something,’ he said.”
Julia shuddered. They were both silent for a moment.
