All a Man Is

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Fair enough.” Alec ruffled the boy’s spiky, half-dry hair. “I think we can leave our stuff, don’t you?”

  They split up after renting two single kayaks and two paddleboards, the guys disappearing for forty-five minutes or more along the lakeshore, Julia and Liana struggling to master their less-than-efficient new mode of transport. Both wore bright orange flotation devices, as did Matt, who’d been insulted but reluctantly acquiesced to the rental requirement for youths under eighteen.

  Eventually man and boy returned and exchanged kayaks for paddleboards. Liana and Julia didn’t go far, though, as Liana’s skinny arms had to be tiring.

  Turning her head so that she could see the other three, Julia had a moment of happiness so sharp, it almost brought tears to her eyes. Alec, tall and strong and kind, was laughing at Matt, who had just taken a tumble and was climbing back aboard, his hair seal-dark, water streaming off him, his face transformed with a grin. Liana giggled as she awkwardly tried to do a U-turn.

  Competing memories, all bad, surged through her head. The fight with Josh. The doorbell ringing and her, unaware of how quickly life could shatter, answering it to find three uniformed, sober-faced men on her doorstep. Telling the kids, seeing Liana withdraw and Matt react with rage. Then, only days later, the first time he turned savagely on her.

  Why can’t it be like this all the time?

  It was Alec she couldn’t look away from as she held her paddle suspended over the water. My children are happy because of him. That was only part of why she loved him, but, oh, God, it was an important part. And she had never loved him more than she did right this minute.

  She felt as if she’d frozen the moment, and now action resumed. The clutch of acute emotion eased; sound was restored. She wished the day didn’t have to end.

  The sun was dropping in the sky, though, and they were all tired. They turned in their kayaks and paddleboards and PFDs, had ice-cream cones all around and finally packed up to go home. Julia could tell from the heat in her shoulders and face that she’d had too much sun, but she couldn’t regret it.

  Both kids became quiet soon after they started the drive. For once, Matt didn’t turn on his iPod, instead craning his neck to look at the lake.

  “Maybe we should think about buying kayaks,” Alec said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “There are plenty of lakes right around Angel Butte. I could get a rack for the Tahoe to carry them.”

  Matt’s face was stunningly open and hopeful. “Could we?”

  “Don’t know why not.” Alec looked rueful. “What with the lawn mower, I already can’t park in the garage. We’d have room to store them.”

  “Cool,” her son said.

  Julia smiled at Alec. Not until she heard the muffled sound of music from the backseat did she say, “You’re a nice man, Alec Raynor.”

  His eyes had a glint. “Some men would consider that an insult, you know. Cops aren’t supposed to be nice.”

  “Pooh. Nice is one of the greatest compliments there is.”

  He reached across the space between the seats and squeezed her thigh. “Then I’ll take it,” he murmured, his voice a little huskier than usual.

  Her heart gave a thump, and that happiness sharpened again. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “What for?” he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  She nodded toward the backseat.

  In the next instant, the relaxed warmth of his face was gone, lost in one of his enigmatic expressions. She absolutely could not tell what he was thinking when he nodded and took his hand away.

  * * *

  ALEC KEPT WAITING for the other shoe to drop.

  One last chance.

  How was he going to be made sorry? No—the voice had said very sorry.

  He couldn’t guard Julia and the kids around the clock, much as he’d have liked to. He still didn’t even know whether the threat involved them in any way. He himself had gotten hyperaware whenever he was walking in the open or driving, from the minute he backed out to the street in the morning.

  His conversation with Sheriff Eugene Brock hadn’t reassured him. Alec had dropped by the sheriff’s department to see Brock in person, waiting politely while the guy’s PA spoke in hushed tones on her phone, after which the door to the inner sanctum opened and the sheriff himself came out.

  “Raynor! Good to see you.” He was all bonhomie. He offered coffee, which Alec declined.

  Alec had been here before and now made a lightning assessment of an office furnished with an enormous desk that had to have been designed to intimidate. The huge leather chair behind it appeared adequate to cradle the sheriff’s bulk.

  Eugene Brock was fifty-eight years old. The campaign photos mostly showed a younger and fitter sheriff. In some he was garbed in SWAT-team black or wore a Kevlar vest and cradled a weapon. In one he stood in front of a snapping American flag, wearing full-dress uniform and looking square-jawed and solemn. In person, he had to heave his big belly into place as he settled behind his desk. He’d acquired an extra chin or two, and his eyes now appeared beady in a fat face. He was not an attractive man, and he was one hell of a poor example to his officers.

  He was campaigning on a platform of long experience and wisdom. He boasted endorsements from some local groups who’d likely benefited from “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” policies. The police union had come out in favor of Colin McAllister, which must have rankled with Brock.

  That day, Alec had settled into a chair opposite Brock, sat back with casual ease and said, “Gotta tell you, Brock, I don’t appreciate threats.”

  The shock on the sheriff’s face looked genuine. Shit. It’s not him, Alec thought in dismay.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Brock blustered.

  “Your campaign manager didn’t tell you?”

  “He said you claimed you’d gotten some kind of phone call you were trying to blame on us. Sounded like a prank call a teenager might’ve made.”

  “This wasn’t a teenager. And his demands were real specific. I was to publicly withdraw my support for Colin McAllister or I’d be sorry.”

  The chair creaked as the sheriff sat back. To his credit, he looked perturbed. “Wasn’t us,” he said flatly. “Even assuming I believed in dirty campaign tactics, why would I bother? That brouhaha with McAllister dropped him like a rock in the polls.”

  Alec didn’t bother mentioning that Captain McAllister had begun to rebound almost immediately.

  “I had a second call,” he said. “I’m told I have one more chance.”

  Brock chewed that one over for a minute. Literally. Alec began to wonder if he had some chewing tobacco tucked in his cheek. “I’ll talk to my manager,” he said finally. “Have him ask around, be sure we don’t have some loose cannon working on the campaign. But let me say again, it wasn’t me.”

  Alec nodded, stood and looked down at Sheriff Brock. “Just so you know,” he said, “something happens to me or a member of my family, the investigation will be looking at you anyway.”

  Brock slapped meaty hands on his desk, outrage transforming his face. “You threatening me? If you go to the press, I’ll slap a lawsuit on you so fast—”

  “No press,” Alec said flatly. “Just be sure you pass on that message, too. I want whoever is making those calls to get it. I don’t submit to threats, and if he tries to carry them out, I will come after him.”

  He’d walked out on a blustering man, confident his point was made, but afraid he hadn’t made it to the right person.

  If not Eugene Brock, who?

  Since then, his worries had stayed at a low simmer. He wished the damn election wasn’t still more than three months away. In the meantime, he was relieved that Matt had gone to the first day of the orienteering class and come home, if not enthusiastic, at least not sullenly p
roclaiming he’d never go again. Alec didn’t want either of the kids on the loose and unsupervised, and there was no way Julia on her own could corral Matt the way Alec would have preferred. Liana he was less concerned about; Julia kept a close eye on her and her buddy Sophie. He was still convinced she wouldn’t do anything much differently if he told her about the two phone calls. But he knew she’d stew about them, and he wanted to save her that.

  He spent Tuesday night that week with his two police captains, going over the data they’d gathered and refining the pitch he would make next week to the city council. He would be sorry to lose McAllister come November. There was no one else in the department he could see who was qualified to replace him. Alec would have preferred to promote from within, but this time they’d have to go outside to hire a new captain of investigative and support services. At least he was safe on the other sid—Brian Cooper, in charge of patrol, was solid, ethical and content with his job. When Alec had asked once why he hadn’t applied to be chief when the position was open, Cooper had shaken his head and said, “I’m, what, ten years at the most from retirement? No, thank you. I have enough headaches where I am.”

  After they broke up and Alec was home, stripping for bed, he grimaced at the knowledge that it had been all he could do not to cancel the blasted get-together so he could have dinner with Julia and the kids.

  Here he was living for the time he spent with them, and she seriously thought he would put his job ahead of them. He was getting to the point where he’d be pissed off, if he didn’t have enough memories of the strain on her face every time Josh had up and disappeared to who knew where and who knew when he’d be back. He kept remembering how many nights when Josh was in town that Alec answered his phone and could tell from background noise that his brother was in a bar. Or he’d talk about surfing, or conditioning, sometimes the kids but rarely his wife.

  Yeah, she had reason for her fears, so he tried not to take them too personally.

  Wednesday after dinner, she cleared the table, then spread out flooring samples and glossy pictures of stock cabinets and sinks and faucets and half a dozen ceramic tiles. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  He tried to hide his consternation. She didn’t want his opinion, did she?

  “Okay,” he said cautiously.

  “What if we redo your kitchen first? You’re mostly only eating breakfast there now, so it’ll be less disruptive than when I have this one torn out.”

  “That makes sense. Then you’d have a decent kitchen to work in while this one is gutted.”

  “Yes!” She beamed. “Which means you have to make some decisions.”

  He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was when she was happy. God help him, he wished there was a better way to keep her happy than to pretend interest in poring over these squares of vinyl flooring that all looked alike to him.

  “I put it in your hands,” he reminded her.

  “Well, I assumed you wouldn’t want to prowl Lowe’s or Home Depot with me, but I also don’t want to find out after the fact that you detest a color I’ve chosen or a particular style of cabinets.”

  “Julia,” he told her with complete sincerity, “you’ve put your stamp on every place you’ve lived, even that crappy first apartment you and Josh had. I always think, huh, what’d she do to make this place look so classy and, I don’t know, homey? Wave your magic wand over my kitchen. I promise I’ll like it. Picking out flooring for the bathrooms just about killed me.”

  “Okay.” She looked earnest. “Bear with me and I’ll tell you what my first choices are.”

  “Thank God,” he muttered.

  She laughed, but said with all seriousness, “I don’t want to make the two kitchens identical, although I suppose it wouldn’t matter.”

  Alec hoped not, since the bathrooms on both sides of the duplex were identical.

  “So, here’s what I’m thinking for your side.”

  She gave him a choice of two cabinet styles. One had crisper lines. He laid his finger on that photo. White sink or stainless steel? He went with stainless steel. Faucet? Whatever. Flooring, he leaned toward a vinyl that had enough color and pattern he guessed it wouldn’t show the dirt as much.

  “That’s good,” she murmured. “We can pick up that hint of rust—or, hmm, maybe the blue—with a tiled backsplash.”

  “Great.”

  Suddenly she was laughing at him again. “You should see your expression. Pure desperation.”

  He grinned. “Caught.”

  “I’m amazed at how beautifully you dress, considering how much you hate shopping.”

  “I put shopping for a new suit in the same category as I do picking out a new handgun or bulletproof vest,” he explained. “It’s part of the job and has enough of an impact on how people react to me that I consider it in the nature of a weapon.”

  She looked flummoxed. “You’re serious.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “How come Uncle Alec can say damn and I can’t?” Liana asked from behind him.

  His mouth crooked up, he turned and held out an arm. Still a little girl in looks and in his eyes, she came and leaned trustingly against him.

  “Ask your mom,” he suggested.

  Mom made a face at him. “He’s a big boy. I can’t wash his mouth out with soap.”

  “You’ve never washed mine out with soap.” Liana pondered briefly. “Or Matt’s, either, and he says bad words.”

  “He’s trying to sound grown-up,” Julia said. “Teenagers do that.”

  The ten-year-old’s face brightened. “You mean, as soon as I turn thirteen, I can use any words I want?”

  “Over my dead body,” Alec told her. He gave her hair a tug. “You can’t turn thirteen. Or if you do, at least promise me you won’t look twice at any boy.”

  She giggled. “There’s kind of a cute boy in Sophie’s swim class.” She looked shyly at her mother. “Did you notice him? He’s got brown hair and, I don’t know, he’s tall.”

  Julia rolled her eyes Alec’s way. “I noticed him.”

  He laughed. “Show Liana what you’re going to do to my kitchen.”

  It turned out she’d happily accompanied her mother on the forays into home-improvement stores and had her own opinions. She wasn’t pleased that he liked those plain cabinets. Still, she conceded it was his kitchen before disappearing again to her bedroom.

  He and Julia already had keys to each other’s sides of the duplex. She promised she’d keep him apprised of dates when workmen would be in and out.

  “You don’t leave guns out, do you?”

  “I have a gun safe.”

  “Oh. I guess Matt mentioned that once.”

  As far as he knew, she’d never seen any of his bedrooms. He’d mostly made a point of closing his bedroom door when they were over. He hadn’t thought it through in the early days, but knew on some deep, instinctive level that he didn’t want to be able to picture her there.

  Now...damn. Now he wanted nothing more than to have her in his bedroom. To be in there with her, the door closed, the kids nowhere around. To be drawing her toward the bed.

  His body responded predictably to so little, the fleeting beginning to a fantasy. He couldn’t quite suppress a groan.

  “Is something wrong?” Julia asked, looking surprised.

  “No.” Nothing new, anyway. “How long is this work on the kitchen going to take?”

  “Oh...in theory, two or three weeks. As long as, when they tear out the flooring and old cabinets, they don’t find damage we don’t know about. If all the subcontractors show when they promised, finish their part on time, none of them make a mistake...”

  He imagined sleeping with the smell of sawdust and paint and grout for months on end. Yes, but he could think of it as a kind of perfume trailing behind Jul
ia, who was masterminding all the work on his kitchen. He could live with that, he decided.

  “No rotting floors when they did the bathrooms, so we can hope.” His erection had subsided and Julia was gathering up her samples. Time for him to go, little though he wanted to.

  “I’ll stick my head in Matt’s room and say good-night,” he said, rising to his feet.

  Julia’s head came up. He thought there was something anxious, or maybe only hopeful, on her face. “Tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow night,” he confirmed. He took a chance, stepped forward and kissed her cheek, soft and giving. “Thank you. I’m getting spoiled.”

  She smiled, color rising to make her look more sunburned. “Haven’t eaten so well since you left home?”

  He patted his belly. “I’ll have to watch it or I’ll start looking like Sheriff Brock.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I saw your stomach Sunday. No danger there.”

  Alec cocked his head. “Looked, did you?”

  “In envy.” But her eyes shied from his. “I’m lucky women can wear swimsuits that cover their stomachs.”

  “There is nothing whatsoever wrong with yours,” he told her. “You have a hell of a body. You can’t tell me you don’t have men hitting on you regularly.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, but not convincingly.

  Going to say good-night to the kids, Alec was struck by the realization that in the next couple of months Julia would be dealing with all those construction subcontractors. Potentially being alone with each for hours, if not days. They were bound to be primarily male.

  That night as he lay in bed, hands clasped behind his head, staring at his dark ceiling, he faced a fear he hadn’t let himself acknowledge in a while: that one of these days, Julia would fall in love with someone else. Maybe get married, provide her children with a stepfather. Leave him on the sidelines—if he was lucky to be that close.

  Alec muffled a sound of anguish. He didn’t know if he could live with that. But what were his options?

  For the thousandth time, he calculated the risk-versus-loss ratio and came to the same conclusion as always. The chances were staggeringly high that he would lose everything on the mere chance that she would welcome a sexual advance from him, of all people. This, though, was the first time he let himself realize, with hollow certainty, that he would lose her anyway if he did nothing.