“Jazmine’s great,” Ali assured her.
“I know, but—but…” she stammered. Shana wasn’t sure how to explain. “The thing is, I’m at a turning point in my own life and I’m probably not the best person for Jazmine.” Surely there was a relative on her brother-in-law’s side. Someone else, anyone else would be better than Shana, who was starting a new career after suffering a major romantic breakup. At the moment, her life still felt disorganized. Chaotic. Add a recently bereaved nine-year-old to the mix, and she didn’t know what might happen.
“This isn’t a choose-your-time type of situation,” Ali said. “I’m counting on you, and so is Jazmine.”
Shana nibbled on her lower lip, trapped between her doubts and her obligation to her widowed sister. “I’ll do it, of course, but I was just wondering if there was someone else….”
“There isn’t,” Ali said abruptly.
“Then it’s me.” Shana spoke with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, although she suspected it must sound pretty hollow. Shana hadn’t had much experience as an aunt, but she was going to get her chance to learn. She was about to become her niece’s primary caregiver while her sister went out to sea on an aircraft carrier for a six-month deployment.
Shana truly hadn’t expected this. When Ali filled out the “worldwide availability” form—with Shana’s name—she’d explained it was so the Navy had documentation proving Jazmine would have someone to take care of her at all times, ensuring that Ali was combat-ready. It had seemed quite routine, more of a formality than a possibility—and of course, Peter was alive then.
Ali had been in the Navy for twelve years and had never pulled sea duty before now. She’d traveled around the world with her husband, a Navy pilot, and their daughter. Then, two years ago, Peter had been killed in a training accident and everything changed.
Things had changed in Shana’s life, too, although not in the same unalterable and tragic way. Brad—Shana purposely put a halt to her thoughts. Brad was in the past. They were finished. Done. Kaput. She’d told her friends that she was so over him she had to force herself to remember his name. Who was he, again? That was how over him she was. Over. Over and out.
“I don’t have much time,” Ali was saying. “The Woodrow Wilson’s scheduled to leave soon. I’ll fly Jazmine up this weekend but I won’t be able to stay more than overnight.”
Shana swallowed a protest. For reasons of national security, Shana realized her sister couldn’t say any more about her schedule. But this weekend? She still had to finish unpacking. Furthermore, she’d only just started training with the former owners of her restaurant. Then it occurred to Shana that she might not be the only one upset about Ali’s sudden deployment. She could only guess at her niece’s reaction. “What does Jazmine have to say about all this?”
Ali’s hesitation told Shana everything she needed to know. “Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath. She remembered her own childhood and what her mother had termed her “attitude problem.” Shana had plenty of that, all right, and most of it was bad. Dealing with Jazmine’s moods would be payback, she supposed, for everything her poor mother had endured.
“To be honest, Jazmine isn’t too excited about the move.”
Who could blame her? The little girl barely knew Shana. The kid, a true child of the military, had lived on Whidbey Island in Washington State, then Italy and, following the accident that claimed her father’s life, had been shuffled to San Diego, California. They’d just settled into their Navy housing, and now they were about to leave that. In her nine years Jazmine had been moved from country to country, lost her father, and now her mother was shipping out for six long months. If that wasn’t enough, the poor kid was being foisted on Shana. No wonder she wasn’t thrilled.
“We’ll be fine,” Shana murmured, doing her best to sound positive. She didn’t know who she was kidding. Certainly not her sister—and not herself, either. This was going to be another in a long line of recent disasters, or life-changing events, as she preferred to call them.
“So it’s true you and Brad split up?” Ali asked with a degree of delicacy. She’d obviously been warned against bringing up his name.
“Brad?” Shana repeated as if she had no idea who her sister was talking about. “Oh, you mean Brad Moore. Yes, it’s over. We were finished quite a while ago, but either he forgot to tell me or I just wasn’t paying attention.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ali said.
The last thing Shana wanted was Ali’s sympathy. “Don’t worry, I’ve rebounded. Everything’s great. My life is fabulous, or it will be in short order. I’ve got everything under control.” Shana said all of this without taking a breath. If she said it often enough, she might actually start to believe it.
“When Mom told me that you’d decided to leave Portland and move to Seattle, I thought it was job-related at first. You never said a word.” She paused. “Did you move all those plants, too? You must have about a thousand.”
Shana laughed. “Hardly. But yes, I did. Moving was…a spontaneous decision.” That was putting it mildly. One weekend Shana had driven to Seattle to get away and to consider her relationship with Brad. She’d finally realized that it wasn’t going anywhere. For five years they’d been talking marriage. Wrong. She’d been talking marriage. Brad had managed to string her along with just enough interest to placate her. And she’d let him until…
Unexpectedly, Shana had stumbled on Brad having lunch with a business associate. This so-called associate just happened to be a willowy blonde with a figure that would stop a freight train. It was a business lunch, he’d claimed later, when Shana confronted him.
Yeah, sure—monkey business. Shana could be dense at times but she wasn’t blind, and she recognized this so-called associate as someone Brad had once introduced as Sylvia, an old flame. Apparently those embers were still very much alive and growing hotter by the minute, because as Shana watched, they’d exchanged a lengthy kiss in the parking lot and drove off together. She was embarrassed to admit she’d followed them. It didn’t take her long to see where they were headed. Brad’s town house—and she didn’t think they were there to discuss contracts or fire codes.
Even when confronted, Brad insisted his lunch date was a client. Any resemblance his associate had to Sylvia was purely coincidental. The more he defended himself, the more defensive he got, complaining that Shana was acting like a jealous shrew. He’d been outraged that she’d question his faithfulness when she was the one so often away, working as a sales rep for a large pharmaceutical company. He’d been so convincing that—just for a moment—she’d wondered if she might’ve been wrong. Only when she mentioned that she’d followed them to his town house did Brad show any hint of guilt or regret.
He’d glanced away then, and the righteous indignation had been replaced by a look of such sadness she had to resist the urge to comfort him. He was sorry, he’d said, so sorry. It had been a fling; it meant nothing. He couldn’t lose her. Shana was his life, the woman he intended to marry, the mother of his unborn children.
For a few days, he’d actually swayed her. Needing to sort out her feelings, Shana had driven to Seattle the next weekend. After five years with Brad she felt she knew him, but it now seemed quite clear that she didn’t. He wanted her back, he told her over and over. He was willing to do whatever it took to reconcile, to make this up to her. He suggested counseling, agreed to therapy, anything but losing her.
That weekend, Shana had engaged in some painful self-examination. She desperately wanted to believe the afternoon rendezvous with Sylvia was a onetime thing, but her head told her it wasn’t and that they’d been involved for months—or more.
It was while she sat in Lincoln Park in West Seattle, analyzing the last five years, that she concluded there was no going back. Her trust had been destroyed. She couldn’t build a life with Brad after this. In truth, their relationship had dead-ended three years ago. Maybe sooner; she could no longer tell. What Shana did recognize was that she�
��d been so caught up in loving Brad that she’d refused to see the signs.
“I was feeling pretty miserable,” Shana admitted to her sister. Wretched was a more accurate description, but she didn’t want to sound melodramatic. “I sat in that park in West Seattle, thinking.”
“In West Seattle? How’d you get there?”
Shana sighed loudly. “I took a wrong turn when I was trying to find the freeway.”
Ali laughed. “I should have guessed.”
“I ended up on this bridge and there wasn’t anyplace to turn around, so I followed the road, which led to a wonderful waterfront park.”
“The ice-cream parlor’s in the park?”
“No, it’s across the street. You know me and maple-nut ice cream. It’s the ultimate comfort food.” She tried to make a joke of it, but at the time she’d felt there wasn’t enough maple-nut ice cream in the world to see her through this misery.
“Brad drove you to maple nut?”
Shana snickered at Ali’s exaggerated horror. After her decision to break off the relationship, she’d grown angry. Okay, furious. She wanted out of this relationship, completely out, and living in the same city made that difficult.
“Actually, West Seattle is a charming little community. The ice-cream parlor had a For Sale sign in the window and I got to talking to the owners. They’re an older couple, sweet as can be and planning to retire. As I sat there, I thought it must be a nice place to work. How could anyone be unhappy surrounded by ice cream and pizza?”
“So you bought it? Shana, for heaven’s sake, what do you know about running any kind of restaurant?”
“Not much,” she said, “but I’ve worked in sales and with people all these years. I was ready for a break, and this seemed practically fated.”
“But how could you afford to buy an established business?”
Shana had an answer for that, too. “I had a chunk of cash in savings.” The money had originally been set aside for her wedding. Saving a hundred dollars a month and investing it carefully, she’d managed to double her money. Just then, she couldn’t think of a better way to spend it. Buying this business was impulsive and irrational but despite everything, it felt…right.
That Sunday in the park she’d admitted there would be no wedding, no honeymoon with Brad. Shana drew in her breath. She refused to think about it anymore. She’d entered a new phase of her life.
“It’s a cute place. You’ll like it,” she murmured. She had lots of ideas for fixing it up, making it hers. The Olsens had promised to help transfer ownership as seamlessly as possible.
“You rented a house?”
“That very same Sunday.” Once she’d made her decision, Shana had been on a mission and there was no stopping her. As luck would have it, there was a house two streets over that had just been vacated. The owner had recently painted it and installed new carpeting. Shana had taken one look around the 1950s-style bungalow with its small front porch and brick fireplace and declared it perfect. She’d given the rental agent a check immediately. Then she drove home, wrote a letter resigning her job—and phoned Brad. That conversation had been short, sweet and utterly satisfying.
“Making a move like this couldn’t have been easy,” Ali commiserated.
“You wouldn’t believe how easy it was,” Shana said gleefully. “I suppose you’re curious about what Brad had to say.” She was dying to tell her.
“Well…”
“I called him,” Shana said without waiting for Ali to respond, “and naturally he wanted to know where I’d been all weekend.”
“You told him?”
Shana grinned. “I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He was pretty upset. He told me how worried he was, and how he’d spent the entire weekend calling me. He was afraid of what I might’ve done. As if I’d do something lethal over him,” she scoffed. Shana suspected that his concern was all for show, but none of that mattered now. “When he cooled down, I calmly explained that I’d gone for a drive.”
“A three-day drive,” Ali inserted.
“Right. Well, he got huffy, saying the least I could’ve done was let him know I’d made plans.” What came next was the best part. “So I told him I’d made plans for the rest of my life and they didn’t include him.”
Ali giggled and it sounded exactly the way it had when they were girls, sharing a bedroom. “What did he say then?”
“I don’t know. I hung up and started packing stuff in my apartment.”
“Didn’t he try to phone you back?”
“Not for the first couple of days. He e-mailed me on the third day and I immediately put a block on his name.” That must have infuriated him—not that Shana cared. Well, she did, a little. Okay, more than a little. Unfortunately she didn’t have the satisfaction of knowing what his reaction had been. In the past, she’d always been the one who patched any rift. That was her problem; she couldn’t stand conflict, so she’d done all the compromising and conciliating. Over the course of their relationship, Brad had come to expect her to make the first move. Well, no longer. She was finished. Brad Moore was history.
Instead of kicking herself for taking so long to see the light, she was moving ahead, starting over…and, to be on the safe side, giving up on men and relationships. At twenty-eight, she’d had her fill. Men weren’t worth the effort and the grief.
“I never was that fond of Brad,” Ali confessed.
“You might’ve said something.” Shana realized her tone was a little annoyed. In the five years she’d dated Brad, there’d certainly been opportunities for Ali to share her opinion.
“How could I? We just met once, and you seemed so keen on him.”
“If you’d stayed in one place longer, we might’ve gotten together more often.”
Ali’s sigh drifted over the phone. “That’s what happens when you’re in the Navy. They own your life. Now honestly, are you all right?”
Shana paused to consider the question. A second later, she gave Ali her answer. “Honestly? I feel great, and that’s the truth. Yes, this breakup hurt, but mostly I was angry with myself for not waking up sooner. I feel fabulous. It’s as if I’ve been released from a spell. I’ve got a whole new attitude toward men.”
Her sister didn’t say anything for a moment. “You might think you’re fine, but there’s a chance you’re not totally over Brad.”
“What do you mean?”
Again her sister hesitated. “I remember what it was like after Peter died. The shock and grief were overwhelming at first. I walked around in a fog for weeks.”
“This is different,” Shana insisted. “It’s less…important.”
“It is and it isn’t,” Ali fired right back.
“But you feel better now, don’t you?”
“Yes. One day, out of the blue, I discovered I could smile again. I could function. I had to. My daughter needed me. My patients needed me. I’ll always love Peter, though.” Her voice wavered but eventually regained strength.
“I’ll always love Peter, too,” Shana said, swallowing hard. “He was one of a kind.” Her brother-in-law had been a loving husband and father, and her heart ached for her sister even now. The situation with Brad didn’t compare.
“I’ll give you my flight information for this weekend,” Ali said, changing the subject.
Shana had nearly forgotten that she was about to become a substitute mother. “Oh, yeah. Let me find a pen.” Scrabbling through her purse, she dug one up and found a crumpled receipt she’d stuffed in there. Good—she could write on the back.
She was looking forward to some time with her sister. They saw each other so rarely, thanks to Ali’s career. This upcoming visit would be a brief one, but Shana hadn’t seen Ali—and Jazmine—since the funeral.
“You and Jazmine will do just fine,” Ali said warmly. “Jazmine’s a great kid, but be warned. She’s nine going on sixteen.”
“In what way?”
“Because she’s an only child, she’s rather…precocious. For inst
ance, she’s reading at ninth-grade level. And the music she likes is sort of—well, you’ll see.”
“Thanks for warning me.”
“I’m sure this’ll be easy for you.”
Shana had her doubts. “If I remember correctly, that was what you told me when I asked if I could fly off the top bunk.”
“What did I know? I was only six,” Ali reminded her. “You’ve never forgiven me for that, have you?”
“I still remember how much it hurt to have the wind knocked out of me.” It felt the same way now. Despite the assurances she so freely handed out, Shana was still struggling to recover her equilibrium—to reinvent her life on new terms. No Brad, no steady paycheck, no familiar Portland neighborhood. Now, her niece was about to complicate the situation. The next six months should be very interesting, she thought. Very interesting indeed.
She vaguely recalled an old Chinese saying, something about living in interesting times. Unfortunately, she also recalled that it was intended as a curse, not a blessing.
Chapter Two
Alison Karas couldn’t help being concerned about leaving her nine-year-old daughter with her sister, Shana. This wasn’t a good time in Jazmine’s life, nor was it particularly opportune for Shana. Her sister sounded strong and confident, but Ali suspected otherwise. Despite Shana’s reassurances, she’d been badly shaken by her breakup with Brad, even though she’d initiated it. Jazmine hadn’t taken the news of this deployment well, and was reluctant to leave her newfound friends behind and move to Seattle.
But Ali really had no other option. Ideally, Jazmine would go to either set of grandparents, but in this case that wouldn’t work. After the sudden loss of her father ten years earlier, her mother hadn’t done well. She’d never recovered emotionally and was incapable of dealing with the demands of a young girl. Peter had been an only child and his parents had divorced when he was young. Both had gone on to other marriages and other children. Neither set of paternal grandparents had shown any great interest in Jazmine.
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