“Surgery.”

“Does Mom know?”

Adam shook his head. “She’s got enough on her plate without worrying about me.”

“You’ve talked to her?” Shana demanded. She forgot that she was pretending not to listen to their conversation. Catherine, the woman who worked part-time, arrived then and immediately began taking orders while Shana handled the cash register.

Adam shifted toward her. “She e-mailed me.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed, Shana glanced away. “Of course.”

“I wish the base were closer,” Jazmine muttered.

“Everett isn’t that far and with light duty, I’ll have more time to spend with you.”

“Exactly how soon do you have to leave this afternoon?” Jazmine pressed. “Couldn’t you please, please have your meeting tomorrow?”

This kid wasn’t easily put off, Shana thought. While she was more than ready to usher Adam Kennedy out the door, her niece was practically begging him to stay.

“It’s not really up to me. I’ve got to go soon, but I’ll visit as often as I can.”

“He’s busy, I’m sure,” Shana said before his words sank into her consciousness. He’d be back…often. In other words, she’d better get used to having him around, and judging by that smirk, he intended to smile at her some more. Oh, great.

“As often as you can?” Jazz repeated. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll make sure I’m here at least once a week to check up on my favorite girl.”

Instead of shouting with happiness, Jazmine hung her head. “Only once a week?”

Once a week? That often? Shana’s reaction was just the opposite. As far as she was concerned, weekly visits were far too frequent.

Ali’s little sister seemed oversensitive, Adam observed with some amusement as Shana returned to the ice-cream counter. That wasn’t the only thing he’d noticed, either. She was beautiful with classic features, dark hair and eyes and a face he found utterly appealing. Ali was a beautiful woman, too, but in a completely different way. Although both had dark brown hair and eyes, the resemblance stopped there. Shana was the taller of the two and model-thin, whereas Ali had more flesh on her. If he were ever to say that out loud, she’d no doubt be insulted, but it was the truth. Ali wasn’t overweight by any means, just rounded in all the right places. In his opinion, the little sister could stand to gain a few pounds. He wasn’t sure why he was concentrating on the physical, because his reaction to Shana was much more complex than that. He was attracted to her. Period. He liked what he saw and he liked what he didn’t see—what he sensed about her. Attraction was indefinable, more about the sum of a person than his or her parts. People called it chemistry, sparks, magic, all sorts of vague things. But whatever you called it, the attraction was obviously there.

Something else was obvious. She felt it, too. And she didn’t want to. In fact, she seemed determined to make sure he knew that. He didn’t go around ravishing young women, willing or unwilling, but he definitely got a kick out of her reaction to him. He couldn’t keep from grinning as he headed into the heavy freeway traffic on I-5 North.

On second thought, he might be overreacting. Perhaps it was all those musings about his lack of female companionship following his release from the hospital. Pain could do that to a man. Maybe he was wrong about Shana’s interest in him; maybe he’d simply been projecting his own attraction and—Damn, this was getting much too complicated.

That same evening, when Adam logged on to the Internet, he discovered two messages from Ali. In the first, she was eager to know if he’d made contact with Jazmine; in the other, she asked if he’d be able to give her sister a break now and then. He immediately e-mailed back that he’d seen Jazz and everything seemed to be fine with her and Shana. He also said he’d visit as often as he could. Several questions regarding Shana went through his mind, but he didn’t ask them, not wanting Ali to get the wrong impression. He also feared she’d relay his interest to her sister—and he just wasn’t ready for that.

An hour later, his phone rang. It was Jazmine, who spoke in a whisper.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In the closet.” She was still whispering.

“What’s the problem?” So Jazmine wanted to talk to him without her aunt listening in. Interesting.

“I hate it here and—oh, Uncle Adam, it’s just so good to see someone I know.”

Adam wished he could be there to wrap his arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. “It’ll get better.” He didn’t mean to sound trite, but he couldn’t come up with anything else to say. “Didn’t you tell me you’d made friends with those two girls who took your backpack?”

“Yeah, I guess, but it isn’t like California. Seattle isn’t like anyplace I’ve been. I miss my mom and…I just don’t like it here.”

“I feel that way whenever I’ve got a new duty assignment,” he said, wanting to comfort her and not knowing how. “I’m in a new work environment myself and to be honest I’d much rather be in Hawaii. It’s the perfect duty station. But you do get used to wherever you are, Jazz….”

“I just want to be with my mom,” Jazmine said, sounding small and sad. “I wouldn’t care where it was.”

“Are you getting along with your aunt?”

Jazmine hesitated. “She tries, and I appreciate everything she does, I really do, but she doesn’t know that much about kids.” As if she felt bad about criticizing her aunt, the girl added, “It’s not as bad as it was on Monday, but…”

Adam wanted to continue asking questions about Shana, but he preferred not to be obvious about it. “She seems nice.”

“She is, but she’s got issues, you know.”

It was difficult for Adam not to laugh outright at Jazmine’s solemn tone. “What kind of issues?” he asked gravely.

Jazmine snickered. “Where would you like me to start? She has this old boyfriend that she dumped or he dumped her—I don’t know which—but she won’t even say his name. I heard her talking to Mom, and every time she got close to mentioning his name, she called him that-man-I-used-to-date. Is that ridiculous or what?”

Adam murmured a noncommittal reply.

“That’s not all. Shana used to have a regular job, a really good one for a drug company. Mom said she made fabulous money, but she quit after she broke up with this guy. Then she bought the ice-cream parlor. She doesn’t know a thing about ice cream or pizza or anything else.”

Still, Adam had to admire her entrepreneurial spirit. “She seems to be doing all right.”

“That’s only because she phones the former owners ten times a day, and I’m not exaggerating. She finally figured out she can’t do everything on her own and she hired a lady to come in during the afternoons to help her. I’m only nine-going-on-ten, and I figured that out before she did.” Jazmine stopped abruptly, as if something had just occurred to her. “You’re not attracted to her or anything, are you?”

Adam relaxed in his chair and crossed his ankles. “Well…I think she’s kinda cute.”

“No, no, no!” Jazmine said, more loudly this time. “I was afraid this would happen. This is terrible!”

Adam loved the theatrics. “What is?”

“Shana,” Jazmine cried as if it should all be perfectly logical. “What about Mom? If you’re going to fall in love with anyone, make it my mom. She needs you, and you’d be a great stepdad.”

“Jazmine,” he said, the amusement suddenly gone. “I think the world of your mother. She’s a wonderful woman, and I love her dearly, but—”

He had no idea how to put this without upsetting her. “Your mother and I, well…”

“You love her like a sister,” Jazmine finished for him. She sounded resigned and not particularly surprised.

Adam almost wished he could fall in love with Ali. Perhaps if he’d met her before Peter did, things would’ve been different. But he hadn’t, and now it was impossible to think of Ali in any other way.

“That’s pretty astute of you,” he said.

“What’s astute?”

“Smart.”

Jazmine sighed heavily. “Not really. I said something about you to Mom, and what she said is she loves you like a brother.”

So it was a mutual feeling, which was a relief. “Did your mother tell you she was ready for another relationship?” he asked.

“I think she is,” Jazmine replied after a thoughtful moment. “But I don’t know if she knows it.” She hesitated, and he could almost see her frown of concentration. “Mom’s been different the last few months.” She seemed to be analyzing the situation as she spoke. “She’s less sad,” Jazmine went on. “We talk about Dad a lot, and Mom laughs now and she’s willing to do things and go places again. I guess someone mentioned that to the Navy, because they decided to give her sea duty.”

“I’m grateful your mother’s feeling better about life. When the time’s right, she’ll meet someone special enough to be your stepdad.”

“But it won’t be you.”

Adam heard the sadness in her voice and regretted it. “It won’t be me,” he said quietly.

“You are attracted to Shana though, right?”

“Maybe.” That was all he’d admit. He found himself wondering about the man Shana had recently dumped or been dumped by.

“So this guy she used to go out with—”

“They were engaged, I think, but she won’t talk about it.” There was a pause. “She didn’t get a ring, though.”

Engaged? Even an unofficial engagement suggested this had been a serious and probably long-term relationship. Which could explain why Shana had seemed so skittish.

“Are you gonna ask her out, Uncle Adam?”

Adam wasn’t prepared to make that much of a commitment, not yet, anyway. “Uh, we’ll see.”

“I think she’d say yes,” Jazmine said brightly. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. Some women seem to need a man in their lives, but…” His voice trailed off; he wasn’t sure how to complete that thought.

Jazmine muttered a comment he couldn’t hear.

“Pardon?” he said.

“Just remember, she’s got issues—lots and lots of issues.”

Adam managed to stifle a chuckle. “I’ll do my best to keep that in mind. Listen, Jazz, do you feel okay now?”

“Yeah…I guess I should come out before Shana finds me in here. Oh!”

That small cry was followed by some muffled words, but he caught the drift of what was happening. Shana had just discovered where Jazmine had taken the phone.

Chapter Six

“You don’t like him, do you?” Jazmine asked the next day as they drove home from the restaurant. She sat next to Shana with her arms defiantly crossed.