With a heavy heart she read her daughter’s chatty e-mail next.

Sent: June 30

From: [email protected] /* */

To: [email protected] /* */

Subject: Update—sort of

Hi Mom,

Aunt Shana said we could plant a garden! She said we could grow vegetables and flowers. I don’t want to plant green beans because then I might have to eat them. Zucchini would be all right, though. Will you give Aunt Shana your recipe for baked zucchini? Tell her to add more cheese than what the recipe calls for, okay? You had a good recipe for green peppers, too, didn’t you? I could even eat those raw, but I like them better stuffed.

I think a garden will be lots of fun, don’t you? Uncle Adam said he’d help. Isn’t that great?

See you soon.

Love,

Jazmine

Alison didn’t know where Shana would find time to start a garden. As it was, her sister worked from dawn to dusk, but the plans for this latest project showed her how hard Shana was trying with Jazmine. Somehow, the two of them had managed to talk Adam into helping. How much he could do was questionable, since he couldn’t risk damaging his shoulder again, but he seemed a willing participant.

The last e-mail came from onboard ship. Not until she opened it did she see that it was from Commander Dillon. Ali stared at his name for a moment before she read his message. Five words said it all. Thank you for your excellent care. Commander Frank Dillon.

“No,” she whispered. “Thank you, Commander.” She had much to be grateful for. Because even if this was as far as it went, Frank had shown her that her heart was still alive.

Sheer weakness had prompted him to send Alison Karas that e-mail, Frank thought as he returned to his stateroom at the end of his shift. Frank was not a weak man, and he was irritated with himself for more reasons than he wanted to count.

He knew he wasn’t a good patient. He just couldn’t tolerate lying around in bed all day. He wanted to be back on the job, doing what he enjoyed most, contributing his skills where they were needed. If his appendix was going to give out on him, he would’ve preferred it to happen while they were in port.

The worst part of his ordeal wasn’t his ruptured appendix and the subsequent surgery. That he’d come through with only minor difficulties. But he wasn’t sure he would survive Lieutenant Commander Karas. After all these years on his own, without female companionship, committed to the Navy, he was finally attracted to a woman. Strongly attracted. She invaded his dreams and haunted his waking moments. Every day for damn near a week she’d been at his bedside.

He didn’t like it. Just when his mind had started to clear and his system was free of those drugs they’d given him, he saw something he hadn’t noticed earlier. Her wedding ring. It shook him.

That first time they met, Alison Karas hadn’t denied being married and she’d worn a wedding ring—on her left hand. He stared at the computer screen. Married. He’d forgotten about it until this week. Then, when he’d remembered—and realized he was fantasizing about a married woman—he’d lost it. Even worse, she’d moved the ring to her right hand. What did that say about her?

He’d been impatient to get back to his duties before, but after he saw that wedding band, he was downright desperate to escape the infirmary. There’s no fool like an old fool, as they said.

His anger had turned on Alison and he wanted her as far away from him as possible. Later he regretted that outburst. She’d done nothing to deserve his tongue-lashing. But he found it difficult to be civil, and all because he’d realized there was no hope of any kind of relationship, let alone a permanent one.

He could accept that, but he wasn’t a man who enjoyed temptation and this woman definitely fit that description. Still, he felt compelled to apologize for his rudeness. Seeing her again was out of the question, so he’d decided to send an e-mail. He wrote a dozen versions before he settled on the brief and simple message, then hit Send before he could change his mind.

For better or worse, she had it now, and that was the end of it. He made his way to the first deck and lifting his head he scanned the horizon. All that stretched before him was ocean—a huge blue expanse of emptiness. He saw his life like that and it bothered him.

Until now, it never had.

Chapter Thirteen

Adam was charmed by Jazmine’s excitement about their little garden. He’d managed to find someone to turn over a small patch at the back of Shana’s rental house. Then Jazmine and her aunt had planted neat rows of red-leaf lettuce, peas, green peppers and three varieties of tomato. Although they’d been warned by the man at the local nursery, they’d purchased a number of zucchini plants, too. Apparently it did exceptionally well in the Seattle area and supplied an abundant crop. Jazmine claimed her mother had fabulous recipes for zucchini. Baked zucchini and zucchini bread and something else.

“Around September if you see anyone buying zucchini in the grocery, you’ll know that’s a person without a friend,” the nursery owner had joked as he hauled their plants out to the vehicle.

Once they were back at the house and the plants were in the freshly tilled soil, Adam watched Jazmine with amusement. Every five minutes, the girl was out in the garden checking on the plants’ growth, making sure there were no slugs in the vicinity. God help them if they were. Just to be on the safe side, she carried a salt shaker.

The flower beds—well, they were another story. He’d lost track of all the seedlings Shana had purchased. Most of them he didn’t even recognize. Pink ones and white ones, purple and yellow. They certainly made the yard look colorful. Pretty but…Women and flowers—he never could understand what they found so fascinating. For himself, he thought practical made more sense than pretty, although he hadn’t shared that reaction with Shana.

True, he’d had a jade plant once but it died for lack of attention. Shana, predictably, had clusters of house plants—on windowsills and tables—but he couldn’t begin to guess what types they were. Knowing Jazmine, he wouldn’t have thought she’d be too interested in this kind of thing, either, but apparently he was wrong. The kid loved it as much as Shana did.

“Aunt Shana said she’d be home around eight,” Jazmine informed him on Saturday at five. They’d spent a quiet afternoon together. While he watched a Mariners baseball game on television, Jazmine tended the garden. He’d found it relaxing, but he missed being with Shana. He would’ve stopped at the ice-cream parlor, but he knew that Saturdays, especially in summer, tended to be busy.

Jazmine had patiently watered the rows of newly planted seedlings, being careful not to oversaturate the soil. She’d examined every inch to check for weeds and had ruthlessly yanked up a number of small green plants; Adam suspected they were actually vegetables.

He glanced up from the post-game analysis and saw that Jazmine was standing in front of him. “We should make dinner,” she announced. “A real, proper dinner.”

“We?” he muttered. In case Jazmine hadn’t noticed, he wasn’t the domestic type. Besides he had to protect his shoulder. Every meal in the last few weeks had come out of a microwave or in a pizza box.

“We could do it,” Jazmine insisted, as if putting together a three-course meal was no trouble at all.

“Really? I wouldn’t mind getting takeout. Or maybe Shana could bring home a pizza. Wouldn’t that be easier?”

Frowning, Jazmine shook her head. “She has pizza all the time. Besides, home cooking is better for you.”

Adam wondered when she’d become such an expert. “You’re sure the two of us can do this?”

“Of course.”

Ah, the confidence of the young. Still, Adam had his doubts. “You should know I’m kitchen-challenged.”

Jazmine giggled. “I cook a lot. I’ll do it.”

If Jazmine knew her way around the kitchen, then perhaps this wouldn’t be so complicated. He could supervise from in front of the TV.

“You’ll have to help, though.”

He should’ve known she wouldn’t let him off scot-free. “What do you want me to do?”

“The grocery store won’t sell me wine, so you’ll have to buy that.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Wine?”

Jazmine nodded. “And flowers,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Yes, ma’am. Any particular kind?” He resisted mentioning that there was a yard full of flowers outside, although they were mostly quite small.

“I want you to buy roses and we’re going to need candles, too. Tall ones.”

“You got it.” He bit his tongue to keep from reminding her that it wouldn’t be dark until ten. “Should I buy red or white wine?” he asked.

Jazmine stared at him blankly.

“Red generally goes with meat and white wine is served with chicken or fish.”

“What goes with everything?”

“Champagne is good.”

She grinned then, her decision made. “Buy champagne and make it a big bottle, okay?”

“Have you decided what you’re cooking?” he asked.

“Of course I have,” she told him scornfully.

“And that would be?”

She sighed, as though she was a master chef dealing with obtuse underlings. “I’ve decided to cook my specialty.”

“Which is?”

“A surprise,” she said without pause, using her hands to shoo him out the door. He watched her march into the kitchen. From the corner of his eye, Adam saw her pull several cookbooks off the shelf.

After he’d finished his errands, Adam decided to visit the ice-cream parlor, after all. It was just too hard to stay away. As he’d expected, Shana was doing a robust business. Catherine worked on the pizza side with a young assistant, while Shana and another part-time student served ice cream. They had at least a dozen customers waiting their turn. Adam took a seat and when Shana saw him, she blushed, fussed with her hair, then went back to helping her customers. Her self-conscious reaction pleased him. Ten minutes later, she had a chance to take a break.

After washing her hands, she joined him. “Hi,” she said, offering him a shy smile.

He hadn’t known there was a shy bone in her body until he’d kissed her. That kiss had been a revelation to him. Their feelings weren’t simple or uncomplicated, although he hadn’t deciphered the full extent of them yet. He did know their kiss had changed them. Changed their relationship.

He’d been attracted to her from the beginning and was sure she’d felt the same way about him. They’d skirted each other for weeks, both denying the attraction, and then all of a sudden, after that day in Victoria, it was there. Undeniable. Unmistakable. He no longer tried to hide his feelings and she didn’t, either.

“Where’s Jazmine?” she asked. “In the park?”

He shook his head. “At home, cooking dinner. Her specialty, she says. I don’t suppose you have any clue what that might be?”