Her Kind of Man: Navy Husband / A Man Apart / Second-Chance Hero

Shana could hear Jazmine whispering up a storm, but hard as she strained, she couldn’t hear what was being said. Working as fast as her arm muscles would allow, she hurriedly dished up a second bowl of ice cream. When she’d bought this business, no one had mentioned how hard ice cream could be. She was developing some impressive biceps.

She smiled as she carried the second dish over to their booth and hoped he enjoyed the bright teal-blue bubblegum ice cream. After she’d set it down in front of him, she waited. She wasn’t sure why she was lingering.

Jazmine beamed with joy. Seeing her niece this happy about anything made Shana feel a pang of regret. Doing her best to swallow her pride, she continued to stand there, unable to think of a thing to say.

Her niece glanced up as if noticing her for the first time. “I was telling Uncle Adam about my backpack. He’s the one who said those other girls just wanted to be friends. I didn’t believe him, but he was right.”

“Yes, he was.” Shana might have been able to fade into the background then if Adam hadn’t chosen that moment to turn and smile at her. Ignoring him would be easy if only he’d stop smiling, dammit.

“The girls gave it back?” Adam’s gaze returned to Jazmine.

Her niece nodded. “Madison asked me to sit next to her at lunch today and I did.”

Adam reached across the table and the two exchanged a high five. “That’s great!”

“Can I get you anything else?” Shana asked, feeling like a third wheel. These two apparently had a lot to discuss, and no one needed to tell her she was in the way. Besides, she had a business to run. Several customers had come in; at the moment they were studying the list of icecream flavors but she’d have to attend to them soon.

“Nothing, thanks.” He dipped his plastic spoon into the ice cream. Then, without giving her any warning, he looked at Shana again and their eyes met. Shana felt the breath freeze in her lungs. He seemed to really see her, and something about her seemed to catch him unawares. His brow wrinkled as though he was sure he knew her from somewhere else, but couldn’t place her.

“How long can you stay?” her niece asked.

Adam turned his attention back to Jazmine.

Shana waited, curious to know the answer herself.

“Just a couple of hours.”

“Two hours!” Jazmine didn’t bother to hide her disappointment.

“I’ve got to get back to base for a meeting.”

“Right,” Shana said, diving into the conversation. “He has to go back to Everett. We wouldn’t want to detain him, now would we?” She didn’t mean to sound so pleased about sending him on his way, but she wanted him out of there. Shana disliked how he made her feel—as if…as if she was on the brink of some important personal discovery. Like she’d told her sister, she was off men. For good. Okay, for a year. It would take that long to get Brad out of her system, she figured. Now, all of a sudden, there was this man, this uncle Adam, whose smiles made her feel hot, then cold. That wasn’t a good sensation for her to be having. It contradicted everything she’d been saying—and it made her uncomfortable.

“I’ll stop by again soon,” Adam promised, looking directly at her as he said it.

“I want to know what happened to your arm,” Jazmine insisted.

“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…”