All a Man Is

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He suddenly bent his head. “I don’t know if I can live through anything like that again,” he said, voice muffled.

  She pushed her chair back and went to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind and laying her head down in the crook of his neck. “I love you.”

  He shuddered and turned so that he could grab hold of her and bury his face between her breasts. He mumbled something she didn’t hear, then repeated it. “I’m luckier than I deserve.”

  That made her mad and wrenched her heart, all at the same time.

  “No.” She tried to shake him, but he was too solid for it to do much. She did it again anyway, for emphasis. “You’re an amazing man, Alec Raynor, and don’t you dare let guilt come between us!”

  His shoulders shook. Appalled, she wondered if he could be crying, but then she knew: he was laughing. He straightened and met her eyes. “Nothing is coming between us. And I’m not hungry anymore.”

  Warmth pooled between her legs and her knees grew weak. “Bedtime,” she said huskily.

  “You don’t know how much I want this.”

  A smile trembled on her lips. “I do.”

  He surged to his feet, lifting her. With a gasp she clamped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

  “Just say that one more time,” he murmured and kissed her.

  Somehow, with no practice at all, he managed to turn off the lights and carry her down the hall to her bedroom without once bumping a wall or making any noise whatsoever that would have awakened the kids.

  EPILOGUE

  ONCE AGAIN, the Raynors were at the airport, only this time they were there to meet Alec’s return flight.

  “I see it!” Liana suddenly cried, nose all but pressed to the glass.

  Matt tore off his earbuds. “Where?”

  By this time, Julia heard the rumble of an approaching prop plane. She abandoned the hard plastic chair to join the kids in front of the windows. They all watched the descent and held their breaths as the airplane touched down, gave a small bounce and braked. Her heart was pounding. He was home. Their daily phone conversations these past two weeks were all that had kept her going, that and poring over every detail about the trial she could find on the internet.

  The plane slowed and came to a stop near the end of the runway. As it turned and began to taxi toward the terminal, Julia could see activity below. Stairs were being rolled out, along with carts to collect the baggage.

  There was the inevitable delay before the airplane door opened and the steps were fitted into place. At last the first passengers disembarked. Julia felt as if she was in a state of suspension, unable to so much as breathe until she saw him.

  “There he is!” Matt crowed, and Liana whirled and hugged Julia, who was somewhere between laughter and tears. It was ridiculous. Her emotions had been so unstable lately. Something told her that with Alec home, she’d be fine.

  He carried a suit jacket over his arm and a laptop case over one shoulder. But his head was lifted as he looked for them. And then he gave a huge grin, reminding her of that day at Elk Lake.

  Happy.

  Moments later he strode through the door and they all threw themselves at him. He did his best to encompass his entire family in his arms, dropping kisses on tops of heads and on Julia’s lips.

  “God, I’m glad to be here,” he said finally.

  “Is the trial over?” Liana asked. “Did you win?”

  He laughed. “No, it isn’t over. The defense just started presenting their side. But you know what?” He winked at Liana, then met Julia’s eyes. “I think it is over. I think he’s going down.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He got them all started walking toward the baggage-claim area. The first cart of suitcases had already been rolled in. “I’ve testified in a lot of trials. You get so you can read juries.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it? They believed you.” Matt had a serious case of hero worship. Julia knew Alec worried about it, but she didn’t. Matt was a teenager, after all. Alec would develop feet of clay soon enough.

  “I actually think it was the young woman who witnessed the murder that night. She was amazing. The defense couldn’t shake her. She kept saying no, she knew the exact words she’d heard. ‘Roberto says you have a big mouth and it’s time to shut it.’ The entire courtroom was riveted. The jury believed her.”

  “How long until there’s a verdict?” Julia asked.

  “Another week, I’d guess. Maybe two, if the jurors have a lot to talk about. But I think it’s going to be quick.” He seized a large black suitcase off the second cart and smiled at them. “My part is over. What say we go home?”

  Liana bounced on her toes. “Yeah!”

  Home was going to change in the not-too-distant future. One side of the duplex was too small for all of them. In those daily phone calls, Julia and Alec had made plans. As soon as he was home, they agreed, they would start house hunting. They’d finish the basic remodel and start renting out the duplex.

  As they walked out into the hot August afternoon, Julia didn’t say much, and neither did Alec. They didn’t have to. The kids chattered away. School would be starting soon, and although Matt was pretending to be nonchalant, even he was excited. Apparently Alec had promised to buy those kayaks as soon as he got home, and Matt thought they should do it now.

  “And I know what I’m going to wear the first day of school!” Liana told him.

  Smiling, Alec listened to both talking at the same time. He stowed his suitcase in the trunk of Julia’s Passat, slammed it shut and said, “Your mom says the insurance check came, so tomorrow morning we can go buy a replacement Tahoe. With a rack. And I don’t see why we can’t pick out a couple of kayaks, too. Then I vote for a picnic.” He squeezed Matt’s shoulder. “No chance of taking those kayaks out until you get the cast off, but with a little luck we’ll be able to get them in the water before the weather turns. What do you say?”

  “Yeah, cool.”

  “How about we pack a lunch and go for a short hike, too?” Alec suggested. “Matt can do that.”

  The kids both cheered. Julia felt tears prickle again but smiled through them as she handed Alec the keys.

  “Let’s go home.”

  He slid behind the wheel, moved the seat back—way back—and put the car in Drive. He held her hand all the way home.

  * * * * *

  Look for the next book in Janice Kay Johnson’s THE MYSTERIES OF ANGEL BUTTE series! Coming in July 2014 from Harlequin Superromance.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SECRETS OF HER PAST by Emilie Rose.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “BRING MADISON HOME.”

  Tension and loathing snatched a knot in Adam’s gut at the sound of his former sister-in-law’s name. He stared at his father across the motor home’s small galley table. “I know your diagnosis was a shock, but bringing her back into our lives would be a mistake.”

  “I disagree. At times like this we need family support.”

  “She’s not family, Dad. Not anymore. By her choice.”

  “Madison wasn’t responsible for your brother’s death. The ic
e storm was.”

  “Even if that was true—” and it wasn’t “—she betrayed you. After all you and Mom did for her, Madison took the life insurance money and disappeared immediately after Andrew’s funeral, and she hasn’t bothered to call and check on you since. Family wouldn’t do that.”

  “Madison was grieving, too, son, in her own way. She lost her husband and her son that night.”

  “A baby she didn’t want.” His father’s stubborn refusal to accept reality made Adam want to punch something.

  “You can’t know that, son.”

  “I know what Andrew told me. He said she resented the pregnancy.”

  “You only heard one side of the story. The pregnancy might have been unplanned and the timing less than ideal, but Madison would have been a good momma once the little one arrived.”

  “Damn it, Dad, her carelessness killed—” An abrupt slicing motion of his father’s hand made Adam bite back his words. Danny Drake had never been willing to hear anything negative against the woman he’d loved like a daughter.

  Adam tried again—this time with cold, hard facts. “She was ticketed for ‘driving too fast for conditions.’ Your son and grandson died in that wreck, and she walked away with barely a scratch. How can you not hold her responsible?”

  “Not all wounds are visible. She was injured enough to miscarry her baby. Placing blame doesn’t change what’s happened. Andrew is gone. Holding on to your anger won’t bring him back.

  “You asked what you could do for me, Adam. I’m telling you. If I’m going to devote all my energy to beating this cancer, then I need to know my practice is in good hands. Madison is the only veterinarian I trust to do things my way while I’m out of commission.”

  “But you know nothing about what she’s been doing since she left.”

  “Wrong. I’ve been keeping tabs on our girl. Bring her home, son, or I’ll skip the surgery and take my chances with the chemotherapy radiation treatments. At least then I won’t have to miss as much work.”

  “The odds of a nonsurgical approach—”

  “I know the damned odds,” his father snapped, then took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Ripping my rib out to get to my lung is going to sideline me for months. I need backup. Reliable backup. This is my cancer. My fight. And I’ll do it my way. Bring. Madison. Home.”

  His father snatched up his newspaper and stormed from the galley down the short hall and into the bedroom, his footsteps shaking the motor home in which Adam’s parents had been living since beginning the renovations on their house. The door slammed shut.

  Frustrated by his father’s refusal to listen to reason, Adam balled his fists. What choice did he have except to comply if he wanted his father to take the most successful course of treatment?

  Adam had to go after the one woman he never wanted to see again. If he succeeded, would he finally win his father’s approval?

  * * *

  A GHOST ROSE from the rocking chair on Madison’s front porch, freezing her fatigued muscles with icy horror and chilling the sweat on her skin.

  No. Not a ghost—ghosts weren’t tall and tanned. They didn’t plant fists on lean hips and scowl with hatred-filled blue-green eyes and flattened lips.

  The man on her front porch wasn’t her dead husband. It was his identical twin. Adam Drake. Adam so strongly resembled the man she’d once loved with every fiber of her being that looking at him made her chest ache.

  Resignation settled over her like a smothering lead X-ray apron. She should’ve known her self-imposed exile couldn’t last. It had taken six years for the nightmare of her past to catch up with her. The Drakes had found her despite her changing names and relocating to another state.

  Judging by his expression, Adam hadn’t forgotten or forgiven what she’d done. She couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t forget or forgive her actions that night, either. She pressed a hand over the empty ache in her stomach—a sensation that never seemed to abate.

  With a face as rigid as a granite mountainside, Adam glared at her from the top step. She didn’t climb the treads to join him, and probably couldn’t have even if she’d ordered her gelatinous legs to move. Her run home in the sweltering heat had taken a lot out of her, but not nearly as much as this man’s presence. Her mouth was parched, her water bottle empty. She needed to rehydrate. But not so badly that she’d invite him inside her home.

  “My father has lung cancer,” Adam stated without preliminaries—typical of him. Andrew had been the charming twin.

  The bald statement punched the air from her. She struggled to wheeze enough breath to respond. “I’m sorry.”

  “He wants you to run his practice while he undergoes treatment.”

  No! Fear and guilt collided, sending razor-sharp fragments of pain slicing through her. She couldn’t let Danny Drake back into her life and her heart only to say goodbye to her father-in-law again. She’d already buried too many loved ones. Her parents. Her baby sister. Her husband. Her son.

  She wanted to ask about Danny’s prognosis, but couldn’t handle knowing even that much. Distance, both emotional and geographical, was her ally. “I can’t.”

  “You owe him.”

  “I have a practice here, Adam. People depend on me.” Sweat snaked down her spine.

  “In a backwater town this size you can’t possibly have enough business to operate five days a week.”

  True. Quincey was a one-stoplight rural Southern township. But the slow pace gave her just enough time and money to work with her rescue animals. As if to reinforce that point, Bojangles’s nicker pulled her attention to the pasture beside the house.

  The bay gelding shifted his hooves and pushed his broad chest against the board fence as if sensing her distress and wanting to come to her aid. She and the horse had a lot in common—they’d both been left behind by the people they loved. She’d taken enough psychology courses to know that saving the horse had been a substitute for saving the baby she couldn’t.

  “I wish your father well, Adam. But I can’t help. Give Danny and Helen my best. Goodbye.”

  He didn’t take the hint to vacate her porch. Fine. She’d go around back. She pivoted.

  “You owe him, Madison.”

  Her spine snapped straight under an icy deluge of guilt. Yes, she did owe the Drakes. They’d taken her in even before the tornado had killed her family. For years they’d been her surrogate parents, but then her mother-in-law had said things that still haunted Madison’s dreams. Neither Adam nor his father had witnessed Helen’s emotional explosion, but Madison had been shredded by the verbal shrapnel.

  Reluctantly, Madison faced him again. Sweat-dampened hair clung to her forehead. She shoved it back with an unsteady hand. “Adam, you don’t want me there.”

  “No. But I want my father alive. His wishes are the only reason I’m here.”

  “What does Helen say about this?”

  A nerve in his jaw twitched. “My mother will do whatever it takes to convince Dad to undergo the most promising treatment protocol. We both will.”

  Hope that Madison hadn’t realized she’d been harboring leeched from her, leaving her drained, aching and empty. They didn’t want her back. She was a necessary evil, not a long-missed family member.

  “I can’t, Adam.”

  Disgust twisted his lips. “Andrew was right. You are a cold, selfish bitch.”

  Cold, selfish bitch. The words sliced her like a new scalpel, reopening the gaping wound left by the hateful argument that night when she’d learned the man she’d loved had sabotaged her carefully made plans. Plans they had discussed. Plans they had agreed upon.

  But she would never tell Adam or his parents about those final, horrible moments before the accident. Their memories of Andrew were all they had left and she didn’t want to spoil them.

  Her n
ails bit into her palms. “Danny needs to find someone closer to Norcross. Quincey’s a seven-hour drive away.”

  Adam descended the stairs and stopped a yard from her, bombarding her nerves in a dozen different ways. He looked so much like his brother—same dark hair, blue-green eyes, features and height. But he wasn’t the husband she’d loved, the one who’d betrayed her, the one she’d buried because she’d lost her temper and made a mistake that she couldn’t wash away no matter how many tears she cried or how many animals she saved.

  Anger emanated from Adam. “You tell Dad to get someone else. I tried. He won’t listen to me.”

  Although Adam’s voice was firm and authoritative, for the first time since she’d met him fifteen years ago she saw naked fear in his eyes. He was afraid of losing his father. She understood that fear all too well, since she’d already walked that lonely path. But she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable again. She might not make it out with her sanity intact this time.

  She pushed away thoughts of the dark days after the wreck, of a cold, clammy hand and blood...so much blood.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she repeated and scrubbed her palm against her pants.

  Tires crunched on the gravel driveway of her farm followed by the low rumble of a diesel engine pickup truck. Panic clawed up Madison’s spine. June, her friend and tenant, was home, and knowing the curious deputy, as soon as she parked her vehicle by the cottage she rented from Madison, she’d come over to investigate the strange car beneath the pecan tree.

  She had to get rid of Adam before the tight-knit community of Quincey found out about the atrocity Madison had committed. No one here knew about her unforgivable sin—and she wanted to keep it that way. Otherwise the townsfolk might turn against her and cast her out of the sanctuary she’d created for herself.

  Maybe all Danny needed was someone outside the family to make him see reason. She could afford to drive down to Georgia once. Then she’d come home and life would return to normal.