Prognosis: Romance

The sudden silence around the table was rather jarring after so much chatter.

“You never had a birthday party?” Virginia asked. “Surely you had a few friends over for cake.”

“Well, no. But my parents always took me to a nice restaurant on my birthday.” Uncomfortable with that conversational direction, he picked up the last segment of his sandwich. “This hamburger is delicious. What seasonings did you use, Hollis?”

“That’s a family secret,” Hollis replied with a grin. “We don’t share it with anyone who isn’t born a Gambill or married into the family.”

“It’s Cajun seasoning and Worcestershire sauce,” Shannon said with a roll of her eyes. “So, you can make your own hamburgers without proposing to anyone here.”

“Now you’ve done it, Shannon,” Stu scolded her with mock outrage. “Now we have to kill him.”

“Stu’s only joking, of course, James,” Lois said in a stage whisper.

He smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I know.”

“When do we get the ice cream, Mama?” one of the twins called out.

Hollis climbed out from behind the picnic table. “The ice cream is ready. Who wants strawberry and who wants peach?”

“Strawberry!”

“Peach!”

“Chocolate!”

Karen sighed. “We don’t have any chocolate, Jack. You’ll get peach.”

The kids went crazy when the rich homemade ice cream was spooned out of the stainless-steel tubs. The adults attacked the dessert with almost as much enthusiasm. James accepted a bowl of strawberry ice cream, which he enjoyed very much.

Shannon jumped a couple of feet when one of her little nieces dropped a scoop of strawberry ice cream down the front of her top.

“Holy kamoley, that’s cold!” she said, her voice suspiciously high-pitched as she snatched frantically for paper napkins. Rather than helping, her family laughed heartlessly as she did a funny dance trying to swipe the sticky, ice-cold mixture from her skin.

“Since she started her kids’ party business, Shannon’s taken to saying holy kamoley in place of any curse words,” Stacy explained to James with an indulgent, big-sister smile. “It’s rather annoying, but we’re getting used to it.”

He thought it was sort of funny, himself. Never having had an older sibling—or a younger one, for that matter—he wondered if Shannon minded being treated like one of the little kids dashing around the tables.

It was an interesting family, he mused, continuing to study them as they finished the dessert. Noisy, freewheeling, outspoken, good-humored, they gabbed and joked and argued and teased. So very different from his own family. He wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a family like this one, how he might have turned out.

An argument erupted among some of the children, and though it was dealt with quickly and firmly, everyone had to laugh when little Sammy piped in with a gusty, “Holy ’moley!”

James grinned, thinking how much his friend Ron would enjoy hearing about this eccentric clan. Ron usually had a funny anecdote to share when the study group managed to get together these days; next time, James would have a story of his own.

“Can we go swimming again?” one of the kids asked when the ice cream bowls had been scraped clean.

“No more swimming today,” Stacy said firmly. “But we can play ball. We brought the plastic bats and balls and the little rubber bases and there’s plenty of room on the grass over there to play.”

“Will Uncle Stu be the pitcher?”

Stu nodded. “Gladly. Aunt Shannon can be the catcher.”

“We don’t actually form teams,” Shannon explained to James. “We just let each kid bat and run the bases. That keeps them entertained for a while.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Want to join us? You can play shortstop. Aunt Lois tends to get distracted and wander off during the game.”

He chuckled, but shook his head. “Thanks, but I’d better head back to Little Rock. I have to be at the hospital early in the morning.”

The entire family protested when he announced he was leaving. He shook hands with the men again, waved off another round of thanks for his rescue of young Kyle, accepted hugs and cheek kisses from the women—and was less surprised when they were offered this time, since he’d gotten a bit more familiar with their demonstrativeness.

Lois insisted on giving him a handful of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies wrapped in a paper napkin. She told him she intended to bring them out after the ball game, in case anyone could possibly still be hungry by then.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll enjoy these.”

“Good. I hope to see you again sometime,” she replied. Tugging at his arm to get him to bend closer to her, she whispered, “My niece is single, you know.”

He smothered a smile and evaded the comment by saying, “It was very nice to meet you, Lois.”

“Shannon, why don’t you walk James to his car?” Virginia suggested.

He supposed he should have insisted he didn’t need an escort, but he figured he’d be wasting his breath. Not to mention that he didn’t mind spending a little more time with Shannon, even if only to walk to his car.

Once again he couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking when she nodded in response to her mother’s hint and turned to walk with him. Maybe she was simply thinking along the same lines as he—that it would be useless to protest. Not particularly flattering, if that were true.

He let her walk a couple of steps ahead of him toward the parking lot. Her thin white cover-up fluttered when she walked, floating around her slender body to end at midthigh. He could just see the outline of her yellow bikini through the now-dry fabric. Her hair had dried into a mop of soft red curls that looked temptingly touchable.

When she glanced back at him with a smile, it occurred to him that she wore no makeup, but she didn’t need enhancement. He found the splash of golden freckles across her nose and cheeks intriguing and couldn’t imagine why she would want to hide them. While she probably wouldn’t be described as a true beauty, he couldn’t imagine anything he would change about her fresh, pretty features.

He realized abruptly that he didn’t want to tell her goodbye and drive away without any prospect of seeing her again.

James cleared his throat as they reached his car, and Shannon braced herself, wishing they could skip past what she sensed was coming. She had hoped he would be immune to her relatives’ heavy-handed hints.

“I enjoyed the meal with your family,” he said, giving her one of his intriguingly faint smiles. “Thank you for inviting me to join you.”

“The least we could do,” she assured him. “And everyone enjoyed meeting you.”

She hoped that sounded casual and generic enough.

He frowned just a little, as if it had indeed caught his attention that she hadn’t referred specifically to herself, but he smoothed the expression almost immediately. “I’d like to hear more about your business sometime. It sounds very interesting.”

“You should check my Web site. Kid Capers dot com. All the details are there.”

His frown lasted a bit longer this time. “Um, yeah, I’ll check that out. But what I meant was, I’d like to hear more from you. Maybe we could have dinner sometime?”

He really was an attractive man. His dark hair was so thick and temptingly touchable. His elusive smile made her want to go to extra lengths to earn it. She liked the way he moved—with a deliberateness that was both elegant and masculine all at the same time. Her prided instincts told her this man was actually a study in contrasts—cordial, yet reserved; friendly, yet private; open to others, yet somehow closed on a personal level.

It was the latter quality that made her smile regretfully and shake her head. “I’m afraid I’m very busy right now, between my part-time job and getting my new business off the ground. I know you’re quite busy, too, so perhaps it would be best if we just say goodbye. It was very nice meeting you, James.”