All a Man Is

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Alec shrugged provisional agreement. “That possibility has been at the back of my mind. If this is a case of misdirection, it suggests involvement by someone local who knows enough to make it believable, which is one reason I still think the Perez connection is unlikely. I’ve got to say, though, my talk with Eugene Brock and the campaign manager shook me a little. Their shock looked genuine.”

  “Perez is out on bail, I presume?” Noah asked.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “How big is his organization?” Lines furrowed Noah’s forehead. “Any chance the tentacles reach as far as the Northwest?”

  Alec grunted at the unpleasant surmise. “A lot of the product arriving in the area is coming from Latin America. We know that.” He glanced at Colin. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but my sense is, it’s mostly locals who have been arrested.”

  “A few pilots from out of the area. Otherwise, that’s true.”

  “And yet,” Brian reminded them, “the kind of money it took to buy Bystrom, Ronald Floyd and a bunch of cops, that’s not local.”

  “No, damn it,” Colin agreed.

  “Shit,” Noah said intensely.

  “I guess what I’m asking is that you be aware of my problem,” Alec said slowly. “Brian, I’d appreciate increased patrols by my house. I’m worried most about Julia and the kids.”

  “You considered sending them on vacation?” Noah asked. “Say, Hawaii?”

  “It’s crossed my mind. Trouble is, we all know disappearing effectively isn’t easy. You can’t get on an airplane without showing ID, for example. I could have someone else rent a house in Portland or Seattle...” He frowned, thinking about it. “A possible snag is that, at this point, I’m not sure I can trust Matt not to open his big mouth. He might do it just to be hurtful.” It stung having to admit that. “Then there’s the fact that, once they’re out there, they’d be completely isolated. Here, there’s some protection.”

  “That’s a big plus,” Colin said. “When we knew someone was after Nell, we considered the same options. Ditto, later, with Cait.”

  Noah nodded his agreement.

  “Here, you have your own police force as backup,” Colin continued.

  Noah grimaced. “Nothing is foolproof. We came close to losing both Nell and Cait. The kids make you even more vulnerable.”

  “Jane Vahalik knows everyone on the drug interdiction task force.” Obviously, Colin had already been thinking. “I can set her to making phone calls, see if there’s ever been a hint of a connection with this Perez’s outfit.”

  Alec felt—not relief, that would have been premature, but something close. “I’ll share everything I know about it. Names, known operations.”

  They asked about Matt: How did Alec intend to keep him corralled? Was the opening day for the trial certain? Any doubt about when his own testimony would be required?

  “At least we have a limited time frame,” Colin said. “Keep Alec’s family safe for four to five weeks. If the motive has to do with the election, that’s different.”

  “But I’d take it a lot less seriously,” Alec said.

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Unexpectedly, it was Brian Cooper who disagreed. “Let’s not rule out that possibility. Dirty officers in the sheriff’s department have plenty of motive for wanting to keep Colin from taking the reins from Brock. Yeah, the chief here seems like a strange target, but what if he’s right that he’s just a test case? Scare him into compliance, move on to other local bigwigs.”

  Alec nodded. “I agree. Worst option, though, is something that we haven’t even thought of.”

  For now, they had a plan, they agreed at last: try to determine if there was a local connection to Perez and his organization, and wrap Julia and the kids in as much security as possible.

  Alec thanked them, trying not to sound embarrassingly fervent. Julia, he thought, had been right. To a man, they hadn’t hesitated to offer ideas and support. More, they’d used words like we and us.

  One for all and all for one. Wasn’t that from Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers? Yeah, he thought so. In one way it was a reassuring motto. In another way, not so much, since it suggested any one could be sacrificed for the good of all. Who would that be? The bright teenage girl who was so bravely willing to testify against Roberto Perez? Julia? God, one of the kids? How about somebody who worked for Alec?

  He’d always taken for granted his own willingness to give his life to save another, just as he imagined Josh had. What hit him suddenly, disconcerting him, was the realization that now he wanted to live with a piercing hunger he had never felt before. He finally had real hope for the kind of future that had once seemed illusory, and, damn, he wanted it.

  Hope and self-sacrifice didn’t sit well together.

  Alec made a rough sound, going back to his desk after showing the men out. He was getting maudlin, and that was something he couldn’t afford.

  A stray thought hit him. Maybe Josh couldn’t have done the job he did if he let himself care too much about the people he left behind, over and over.

  Alec’s jaw tightened. Yeah, so Josh had made a choice—but it wasn’t one Alec would or could ever have made. Did that mean he was a weaker man than his brother? He didn’t know, but he wouldn’t change who he was even if he knew the answer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN HE GOT HOME Wednesday after work, Alec checked out the progress on the backyard fence and was pleased. Julia stepped out, too.

  “They say they’ll be done by the end of the week.”

  “The hard part is done.” Workers had sunk the posts in concrete that already seemed to have set. Some of the crosspieces were in place. Pallets of six-foot cedar boards lay ready. There would be a gate on each side of the duplex. “We need to do some landscaping.”

  “We could at least get trees and a few shrubs in and established before the cold weather hits,” Julia agreed, looking around. “I can’t believe no one ever planted so much as a tree back here.”

  “If the landlord didn’t, why would a renter bother?” Somehow the fencing emphasized the starkness of grass turned brown from summer heat. “We could either enlarge these patios or have decks built, too.”

  She smiled at him. “Not a do-it-yourself guy, huh?”

  “I could do it in theory. Josh and I helped Dad build that deck off the back of my parents’ house. I’d rather take Matt kayaking.”

  “Do you dare?”

  “I haven’t decided. It depends where we go, I guess. The week is up, though. I thought I’d take him shopping for a couple of kayaks tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

  “That would be fabulous.” She eyed him. “It would be even better if you’d consider a little, er...”

  He cringed. “Not clothes.” Grinning, he dodged the sharp point of her elbow.

  “You could disguise it by buying some hiking boots and, well...”

  “Clothes.”

  She was still laughing at his resigned tone when the sound of the timer summoned them back in.

  Once they were all seated at the dinner table and dishing up, Julia said almost casually, “I might have a possibility of a job.”

  Liana looked alarmed, Alec surprised. Even Matt quit shoveling food in momentarily, the fork halfway to his mouth. He probably wished she would go to work and leave him unsupervised all day.

  Fat chance, she thought ungraciously.

  “I didn’t know you were looking yet,” Alec said slowly, gaze on her face.

  “This kind of came up out of the blue,” she explained. “It’s...well, you know how much I enjoy remodeling.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced away. “Matt, please pass the biscuits.”

  Matt instead grabbed one from the basket and tossed it. Alec snatched it one-handed from the air and, without comme
nt, split the sourdough biscuit open and began buttering it.

  Eyes on her son, Julia opened her mouth, then closed it. Matt might have done that to be funny rather than snotty. And, face it, table manners were the least of her concern right now.

  “Go on,” Alec prodded her.

  She told them that she’d borrowed tile samples from a store downtown that specialized in tile, blinds, flooring materials and wallpaper. “Naturally, their prices are higher than for the more basic materials at one of the big home-improvement stores, but the selection is way better, the quality higher and the staff is knowledgeable. They offer design services, too. I’ve been getting to know the woman who owns the store. I showed her pictures on my phone of our last house, plus what I’m doing to the two kitchens here in the duplex. I guess she liked what she saw, because she mentioned they’re looking for someone else. It would mean working the sales floor, but also going out to look at people’s homes, measure for blinds and so on, and help the homeowners come up with plans. I think I’d really enjoy the work.”

  Alec’s smile grew as she talked. “Funny,” he said, “I’d been thinking of suggesting something like that. You talking with Hailey made me wonder if you might want to consider becoming a chef, but that has some drawbacks.”

  She made a face. “You think? Like really terrible hours?”

  Liana asked what that meant, and Julia explained that most chefs worked lunch through dinner, which meant until a restaurant closed for the evening. “I suppose a pastry chef might not keep those hours, but they probably start at the crack of dawn instead. And...oh, I enjoy cooking for family, but I’m really not dedicated enough to do it as work. Besides, I’d have to get a lot more training before I could get any kind of decent cooking job.”

  “So—” Alec’s gaze rested briefly on Matt “—is this a now-or-never opportunity?”

  Realizing that Liana was listening anxiously, Julia smiled reassurance. “No. The woman’s name is Clio Sinclair. She sounded like they could be really flexible. Late summer is a fairly slow time for them, except for work-through builders. Full-time residents are going on camping weekends, taking vacations, thinking about back to school if they have kids. They’re not remodeling. According to her, summer people tend to have work done in the late spring or early summer, people with winter cabins in the fall. She implied I could cut back to part-time during school vacations, that kind of thing. She said if I’m interested we could talk.”

  “Talk,” Alec said without hesitation. “It sounds perfect.”

  “I’ve thought about going back to school,” she said tentatively.

  “To do what?”

  She laughed. “I have no idea. To figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life?”

  His grin held both warmth and amusement. “You can do that, too, you know.”

  “Eventually.”

  “Who’d want to go to school?” Matt muttered.

  Alec raised his eyebrows. “College can be an amazing experience. Exploring what interests you most. Hang on and you’ll get there.”

  Predictably, Matt sneered. Because he wasn’t looking, Julia rolled her eyes. Alec suppressed a smile she saw anyway.

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me,” she decided. “Or I’ve convinced myself. I’ll at least have a serious talk with Clio. But I definitely don’t want to start work until September.”

  Matt whined when once again she told the two kids to clean the kitchen, but Julia just said, “Drop it,” and went to the living room.

  “Getting tough there, lady,” Alec said from right behind her.

  She crossed her arms and faced him. She felt too restless to sit. “Did you talk to Colin?”

  “And Brian and Noah.” He told her about the discussion.

  Listening, Julia had a suspicion he was holding back, but decided not to challenge him. At least he hadn’t insisted on doing it alone.

  “It felt good,” he admitted. His mouth curved. “You were right. I was wrong.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, “and I mean for you.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not just because I like being right.”

  He chuckled, but sobered quickly. “What did Matt do all day?” he asked, voice low.

  “Stayed in his room. I don’t know. I wish I had chores I could insist on, but what?”

  He shook his head. “I thought about having him take over mowing the lawn, but that would have him too exposed right now. The idea of him just lying in his bedroom all day brooding makes me uneasy, though.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Make him go with you when you take the girls for their swim lessons or do errands,” he suggested.

  “He’ll hate it.”

  After a moment, Alec said, “A couple more weeks.”

  Her crossed arms tightened. “Longer than that.”

  He grimaced agreement. He wouldn’t even be leaving for L.A. until something like the fourth or fifth of August, and then be there who knew how long. She imagined Matt as a seething ocean behind a crumbling seawall. She was running around heaving sandbags into place to shore up an inadequate defense. How could she hold it together?

  Caught in the tension between her and Alec, she found it easy to tune out the background bickering from the kitchen and the occasional clatter that, in another mood, might have made her wince.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll stay with your parents when you’re down there,” Julia said almost at random.

  Alec shook his head. “No, I’ll be spirited away somewhere behind armed guards. I probably won’t even be allowed to tell you where I’m staying.”

  The idea of him simply disappearing like that filled her with dread. It wasn’t only fear because she might need him and he wouldn’t be here. She struggled to understand herself, not wanting Alec, watching her with those too-perceptive brown eyes, to be able to read her turmoil. Oh, Lord, she realized—he would be disappearing the same way Josh had. While Alec was gone, she would live with the same kind of strain she’d grown to hate.

  Her throat closed. This might be worse. Would be worse. With Josh, his comings and goings had become routine—until he died during one of those disappearances—whereas Alec had become such a steady part of her life and the kids’ lives she had begun to believe he would always be there. But also—the knowledge, painfully sharp, rushed over her—she loved Alec as she’d never loved her husband.

  What did that say about her?

  And what did it say about her that she wanted to beg him not to go? The words were right there. Please. Please don’t leave us.

  She could not let herself say them. For his sake, and for hers, she had to pretend she was stronger than she felt.

  Praying that he hadn’t noticed her breathing too fast, Julia went over and sank onto the sofa. “Your mother called today.”

  Alec swiveled, his eyebrows climbing, either at the abrupt change of subject or at the mere fact that she had talked to his mother. “Really?”

  “Why so surprised?” she challenged him. “We do talk sometimes. Usually when your dad isn’t around, I gather. I kind of wondered why, until you told me more about your parents’ relationship.”

  “Has Mama said anything to you about him?” Alec looked curious.

  “Mostly she worries about the kids and me. Lately about him, too. She thinks he’s tiring too easily and is being stubborn about seeing a doctor.”

  “She said that to me, too.” Alec gave a grunt that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I offered to reinforce the message to him. When I did, he was annoyed she’d gone behind his back.”

  “Do you think it’s his heart?”

  “It’s possible. Stress is one of the classic risk factors, right? Dad’s always been angry. You know him. After he retired, instead of enjoying puttering around, maybe growing some vegetables the way he used to talk about doing, he
turned the whole thing into a competition. His yard had to look better than any of the neighbors’. His zucchini had to be bigger. The lawn has a razor edge. God forbid the Finkels’ grandkids should kick a ball into his yard.” Alec’s expression became distant. “My grandfather died when I was in college. It might have been his heart.”

  “You need to think about your own health, then,” she said fiercely.

  Alec rocked back on his heels, a slow smile spreading. “Hey, my diet is in your hands.”

  “Maybe we should cut back on the desserts.”

  “Don’t you dare.” He crossed the room swiftly enough to make her pulse pound. He sat, as he had before, on the coffee table, close enough they could have touched if they hadn’t both been conscious of the kids only a room away. “Julia, I eat well, and I stay in good physical shape. Compared to my father, I’m downright easygoing.”

  Was he laughing at her? Julia eyed him suspiciously. “Sure you are.”

  “You ever seen me lose my temper?”

  “Losing your temper is probably healthier than suppressing everything.”

  He was smiling again. “I don’t do that, either. I acknowledge what I feel. I just don’t make a show of it. And, unlike my father, I’m capable of relaxing and having a good time.”

  She couldn’t deny that. The day at Elk Lake, she’d seen a happy man. If it weren’t for her darling son’s behavior, she’d see Alec happy a lot more often. The thought brought renewed frustration.

  “You’re right.” She ached to touch him, to be held in his arms. “I wish...”

  “I wish, too.”

  They looked at each other, the naked wanting and a different kind of frustration on his face undoubtedly echoed on hers.

  The stomp of footsteps and slam of a door gave warning that the kids were done in the kitchen. Alec tore his gaze from Julia’s and looked past her.

  “What are you talking about?” Liana asked.

  Julia wanted to cry. Instead, she held out an arm for her daughter, who sank onto the sofa beside her and cuddled close. “Oh, all kinds of things.”