All a Man Is. Janice Kay Johnson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ