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waiting for him.
    It was a good thing Jack’d been scheduled off tonight; something told J-Mart he wouldn’t have appreciated the groupies.
    J-Mart, on the other hand, loved groupies.
    Baby Blue came up to the counter and handed him a ten. “Great pie.”
    J-Mart rang her up and got the change out of the register. “You’ll have to come back and see us again.”
    “I might just do that.”
    Flashing a smile that had parts of his body sparking with the kind of interest he hadn’t felt in years, she turned and went to the coat rack for her jacket.
    If only he were thirty—no, forty—years younger.
    Sighing, he watched her leave and turned to the only remaining customer.
    Amara.
    That one had balls of steel. He’d commanded a soldier or two who hadn’t shown one-eighth of the courage she’d shown last night. She also had a wounded streak a mile wide, and it had gotten wider when she realized Jack wasn’t coming in tonight.
    Edging around the counter, he stood at the end of her booth and gave her a kindly smile as he watched her pack up her briefcase. Truth was: he felt sorry for her. If there was anything going on in her life other than work, he’d never seen any sign of it.
    Something was brewing between her and Jackthough, and J-Mart intended to fan that flame as much as possible. Lord knew Jack needed somebody in his life. In all his seventy-four years, J-Mart had never met a lonelier soul than Jack Patterson.
    “You get a new laptop already?”
    Amara grinned and reached for her scarf. “This one is fine, believe it or not. My files are so thick, I think they made a nice cushion for the computer.”
    “Heard you got that snot-nosed senator’s kid off scot-free.”
    Her grin widened.
“Allegedly
snot-nosed.”
    J-Mart laughed. Yeah. This one was perfect for Jack. She’d keep him laughing and Jack needed to laugh. “He’ll be back tomorrow.”
    Amara ducked her head, flushed until her ears glowed and made a production out of tying her scarf. When she looked up again, the grin was gone. “Who?”
    “Don’t kid a kidder, girl. You know damn good and well who I’m talking about.”
    “J-Mart,” she said sourly, “I know you’re older than dirt and you make the best pie in the city, but if you call me
girl
again, I’m going to have to take you off at the knees.” She hefted the briefcase for him to see. “Don’t make me use my computer on you.”
    This time he roared, his heart lighter than it had been in what felt like years.
    “He likes you, girl. Don’t let him fool you.”
    An unmistakable flare of interest lit her eyes but she tried to hide it behind a scowl.
    “If anything, Jack wants to screw me. There’s a difference.”
    “I thought you didn’t know who I was talking about.”
    “Funny.” Her lips thinned with enough irritationthat he knew he’d hit a sore point. So she wasn’t immune to Jack Patterson. Good. “You’re a regular Richard Pryor, aren’t you?”
    Chuckling, he took her elbow and steered her to the front door, where he paused to flick out the lights, flip the black and white sign to the CLOSED side and snatch her jacket off the coat rack and his from behind the counter before he locked up.
    As always, he felt a surge of affection for the Twelfth Street Diner, his tiny kingdom. No one would ever mistake it for a five-star restaurant, but the food was good and the Formica and linoleum were his and his brother’s, bought and paid for. The work was hard and the pay pitiful, but it sure beat the hell out of getting shot at in the jungles of Vietnam.
    “I’ll walk you out.”
    “I don’t need a babysitter, J-Mart.”
    “Great. Think of me as your bodyguard then.”
    For a second he thought he was going to feel the business side of her briefcase for sure, but after huffing and glowering she gave up the fight and let him lead her down the steps to the sidewalk. Maybe last night’s experience made her thankful to have an escort to her car even if she was too proud