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