“We were...” Jan broke off, registering the nurse’s enlarged abdomen. “You’re pregnant!”
Taking that as an invitation, Erica joined them at the table. Stacy did the same. “I got married. Something about this town seems to foster romance. I never expected it to happen to me, but here we are. I’m seven months along.”
As Zack tried to pretend an interest in the discussion, his thoughts kept returning to the question of Jan’s daughter. Had Jan really kept their child and denied him contact all these years?
He’d been angry at himself for betraying her trust. Now, it seemed, she might have betrayed his, and unlike him, she’d had full knowledge of what she was doing. Although he’d been quick to judge and arrogant in his refusal to listen to her side of the story, he hadn’t deliberately done her an injustice. Was this her idea of punishment?
A cell phone rang. Everyone instinctively reached for pocket or purse.
It was Jan’s. She listened, a worried expression crossing her face. “You’re sure she isn’t seriously hurt, Mrs. Humphreys? You must be concerned or you wouldn’t have called.”
Zack felt a snap of alarm. The second-grade teacher didn’t panic easily. When Mrs. Humphreys taught Berry last year, he’d admired her ability to stay calm.
“Yes, that sounds like her.... Oh, dear. I’d better come by. My mother will be picking her up, but she can’t deal with this. Thank you for telling me.”
After she clicked off, Erica said, “What’s happened to Kimmie?”
Kimmie. So that was Jan’s daughter’s name. His daughter, too?
Erica had obviously known the girl when Jan worked with Dr. T in Boston. Zack’s chest grew tight at the realization that, if this was his child, other people here at the hospital had watched her grow during the toddler years, while he’d remained ignorant. The thought burned inside him.
Grabbing her purse, Jan stood up. “On the playground she rescued a stray kitten from some dogs. That’s my little girl. She can’t stand to see an animal suffer.”
“Is she okay?” Zack demanded, more forcefully than he’d intended. Stacy frowned, clearly puzzled.
“A few scratches. The school nurse is cleaning and bandaging them.” Jan shook her head. “Kimmie won’t let go of the kitten. It’s clinging to her and she insists on keeping it.”
“Poor little thing.” Erica might have meant either the child or the kitten, or both.
“I’ll let the secretary know I have to run out. Thank goodness my staff meeting isn’t till tomorrow. Bye, everybody.”
Zack snatched his tray and took off in her wake. Never mind the questions on the nurses’ faces. If this was his daughter...
Damn. He had to find out before it drove him crazy.
In the cafeteria he set the tray on a conveyor belt and followed Jan, attempting to keep his manner casual. None of the other diners appeared to take special notice.
Jan was headed for her office. Lingering nearby, Zack checked the schedule in his phone. A surgery had been canceled after the patient suffered an allergy attack, freeing up the next two hours. He had office patients scheduled beginning at four o’clock.
When Jan emerged he fell into step beside her. “I’ll come with you.”
“Why?” she demanded. “There’s no reason for you to be there.”
“Isn’t there?”
She pushed open the side exit. “We can continue this discussion later.”
“Jan...” On the sidewalk, he paused to let a couple of workmen pass, trundling dollies piled with crates. The hospital hadn’t quite finished remodeling its basement laboratories for the fertility program.
Jan swung toward him, eyes brimming with worry. “You’re a parent. You should understand. It’s Kimmie’s first day at a new school and she’s upset. Plus, she’s stubborn. If she’s glommed on to that kitten, she’ll turn the whole place upside down rather than let go.”
“I’d like to understand. I have the disadvantage of not knowing her personally.” Zack hadn’t meant to be sarcastic. Under stress he instinctively used the tone his father had during his childhood.
She folded her arms. “I knew you’d react like this.”
“Excuse me?”
Instead of responding, Jan swung away and hurried along the sidewalk toward a row of spaces reserved for department heads. “Zack, this isn’t the time or place... Oh, damn!”
A double-parked panel truck was blocking several cars. One of them must be hers.
“They went that-a-way.” He indicated the path the workmen had taken. They’d disappeared around a corner. “The freight elevator’s back there.” Before she could figure out the men probably hadn’t had time to summon the elevator, he added, “We can take my car.”
“Don’t you have patients?” she protested.
“Right now I have more patience than you do.” The weak attempt at humor beat responding with further sarcasm. “To answer your question, I had a surgery cancel. Come on, Jan. Let’s talk in the car.”
Her dark eyes pierced him. Yet he didn’t miss the quirk of her mouth that hinted she might be yielding. “Well...”
Zack took her arm. “Watch where you step. Those trucks are rough on the pavement.” He guided her around a dip in the surface where he’d nearly tripped that morning.
He expected resistance. Instead, as they walked toward the parking structure, Jan’s shoulders sagged. “I’ve been dreading this.”
“Your daughter getting into trouble?” All he could see was the top of her head, the brown hair parted slightly off center. He’d forgotten how short she was, perhaps because she had such an oversize personality. “She must be a little firecracker.”
“I meant I’ve been dreading talking to you.”
A delivery truck rumbled past. “Is that because...” He hated shouting over the noise. Besides, there was no sense broadcasting their personal issues to anyone nearby. “To be continued when we’re in the car.”
“I hope Kimmie’s not freaking out. Moving from a house to a small apartment, being separated from her friends—it’s been hard on her.” Worry sped her pace.
Zack felt a spark of protectiveness. But he wasn’t sure who it was directed toward, Jan or the little girl.
Reaching his blue hybrid van on the lower level, he used the remote control to open the locks. As Jan jumped into the passenger seat, he slid behind the wheel. With the doors finally shielding them, he couldn’t hold back his painfully important question. “Is Kimmie my daughter?”
Jan gripped the armrest and gave him the answer he’d been both wishing for and fearing. “Yes, she is.”
In that moment, Zack understood his world would never be the same again.
Chapter Three
When Zack’s knuckles whitened over the steering wheel, Jan saw how badly she’d hurt him. But she couldn’t deal with this now, when she was so worried about Kimmie. Even a hint something might be wrong with her daughter threatened to shake her world.
“You promised to drive, so drive!” she snapped.
Jaw clamped so tight she could almost hear his teeth grinding, Zack backed out and headed toward the street. Jan braced for more questions, but he seemed caught up in navigating through hospital traffic and across congested Safe Harbor Boulevard.
“She loves animals.” It felt better to talk than to sit in silence. “That’s her passion. In Houston, we fostered kittens for a shelter until people adopted them.”
“I see.” His eyes
hardened into emeralds.
“By the time I decided to keep her you were engaged to someone else,” Jan said tautly. “I was hurt and angry, and figured it would just make more trouble for you.”
“All these years...”
“I can’t undo the past.”
“That’s no excuse.” He tapped the brake at a stop sign before shooting forward.
“What would you have done?” she challenged. “Would you have dropped your fiancée and come running to be a full-time daddy? Or kept me dangling on a hook with legal maneuvers, stuck in Southern California when I was offered a great job in Boston?”
“That isn’t the point.” He still didn’t meet her gaze.
“I was barely hanging on to my sanity and my career, thanks to... Oh, never mind. Let’s not fight.” They were approaching the school, anyway.
A little of the tension seeped out of him. “You’re right about one thing. Beating each other up emotionally won’t undo the past.”
“I’m glad we agree on that.” Jan braced for what lay ahead. In the next few minutes, she had to soothe Kimmie, decide what to do about the kitten and prevent the issues between her and Zack from spilling over in public.
What was going to happen when he recovered from the initial shock? He already had a daughter who depended on him, and he and Jan had to work together at the hospital. If only he were willing to keep this whole matter under wraps...
Except Kimmie kept pestering her for a daddy. And whether Jan liked it or not, Zack appeared more than ready to fill that role.
* * *
HARD TO BELIEVE he’d driven almost this same route a few hours ago with no idea of the jolt that lay ahead, Zack thought. Berry had been eager to see her old friends, missing them keenly even though he’d arranged visits with her best friend Cindy during the summer. Berry had also attended a day-camp program that took her to museums and theme parks. But going to school meant returning to home ground.
Now that same school loomed like alien territory. Zack was about to meet a daughter he’d believed out of reach and unknowable.
The prospect excited him. It was also intimidating. What was she like, this precious little girl? How would she feel about him?
He’d known of her existence—in the abstract—for seven years. As for Kimmie... “What did you tell her about her father?” he asked as they reached the school.
“That he lived far away and had another family.” Jan clasped her hands together. “Recently she’s started asking questions. I’ve been changing the subject a lot.”
“You couldn’t seriously expect to keep the truth from her forever.” He found a parking spot easily. In another half hour, parents would pour in to pick up their kids.
“I’ve been forced to live in the moment. Making ends meet, putting out fires. Raising a child by myself, I couldn’t see beyond the next few months.”
“In other words, you figured you’d deal with a serious issue like Kimmie’s paternity by the seat of your pants.”
“That’s right.”
She’d always been impulsive, relying more on instinct than reason. Years ago, he hadn’t minded their differences. He’d found her a refreshing change from his parents’ rigid perfectionism.
Together, they exited the car. “Visitors are supposed to sign in at the office,” Zack mentioned.
“We can skip that. The campus will be teeming with parents in a few minutes.” She set off at a rapid clip, clearly anxious to reach the classroom.
Zack supposed it didn’t hurt to break a rule once in a while, especially since the teacher was expecting them. Well, expecting Jan. He’d have to be careful what he said. He didn’t want to break the news of his identity to Kimmie in front of others.
They hurried along the walkway between classroom wings. The babble of children’s voices floated from a room to their left. On the right, Zack heard a teacher reading aloud, animating the story with different voices. He enjoyed doing that, too. It had been a letdown when Berry began reading books on her own, without daddy’s help. Of course, he was proud of her, too.
How was Berry going to react to this news? He’d never mentioned the daughter he gave up for adoption.
Concerned she might fear Zack would abandon her, too, he and Rima had agreed there was no point raising the topic until Berry was older. It had been tricky enough explaining her birth father’s death in a motorcycle accident, glossing over his struggle with alcohol. Another topic left for a later date.
Jan wasn’t the only person who postponed dealing with difficult subjects, Zack conceded.
Outside Mrs. Humphreys’s classroom, her pace slowed. “Do you suppose they took the kitty inside?”
“The teacher sometimes brings her pet chinchilla to class, so having an animal around isn’t unusual,” he recalled. “She might be treating this as a nature lesson.”
Jan tapped at the door. Mrs. Humphreys’s round, pleasant face glanced out a louvered window before she admitted them.
“I’m sorry for disrupting your class,” Jan said.
“This is a good opportunity to make the students aware of the problems of overpopulation among cats and dogs.” The teacher ushered them inside. “Dr. Sargent?”
“Ms. Garcia’s car was blocked, so I offered to drive her. We work together,” he explained.
A roomful of young faces peered at them curiously. Zack had no trouble picking out Kimmie. While the other kids sat around low tables, his daughter stood near the front, an orange-striped kitten clinging to her shoulder. Dark hair like Jan’s tumbled down to her rumpled pink blouse. Adhesive bandage strips sprouted along her arms and knees beneath a frilly skirt. Her mother ought to dress her in jeans and T-shirts as he did Berry, Zack thought. It was much more practical.
A pair of vivid green eyes swept past him and fixed on Jan. That elfin face with its pointed chin was almost a mirror of her mom’s.
Zack’s heart turned over. My daughter. Seven years ago, aching over the loss of trust in the woman he loved, he’d given Kimmie up in the belief it was the best thing for everyone. Here stood the proof he’d been wrong.
“I’m naming her Smidge,” Kimmie announced. “See how tiny she is?”
Jan’s mouth twisted. “She’s adorable, but our lease doesn’t allow pets.”
“Mom!”
Mrs. Humphreys intervened smoothly. “If my husband didn’t have allergies, I’d take her. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a pet carrier in my car I keep in case I spot a stray. You can borrow if you don’t mind scrubbing it carefully before returning it.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t solve the main problem,” Jan responded.
Rummaging in a drawer, the teacher produced a frayed business card. “This is for the Oahu Lane Shelter. It’s a small no-kill facility less than a mile north of the hospital. Ilsa Ivy is the driving force behind it. Just mention that I sent you.”
While Zack wasn’t keen on having a cat in his car, even in a carrier, he felt sorry for the little thing. Moreover, he didn’t want his first interaction with Kimmie to put him in a bad light. “We could drop it off on the way back to work.”
The little girl glowered as if he’d suggested doing violence to the creature. “I’m keeping her!”
“No, you aren’t.” Jan studied the card. “They’re closed on Mondays. Surely they have someone there to care for the animals?”
“I think a volunteer stops by in the morning,” Mrs. Humphreys said. “Could you keep it ov
ernight?”
“Please!” Kimmie begged, quivering with longing. Zack suspected she’d have dropped to her knees and clasped her hands in a melodramatic gesture had she not been holding the kitten.
“The landlord lives upstairs from us,” Jan said unhappily. “He was very firm on the subject. If we violate the lease, we’ll have to leave.”
Standoff. Zack saw a solution, even if he didn’t like it.
He’d never cared for having animals in the home. As a doctor, he’d observed the problems that could arise, from allergies and infected scratches to rare, serious disease transmission, sometimes resulting in birth defects. Of course, he recognized the work done by service dogs and the emotional value of animal companions. In his house, however, he maintained a strict no-pets policy.
Keeping a kitten overnight didn’t exactly violate that policy, though. Without time to think further, he said, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to keep it at my place. There’s a downstairs bathroom that should be safe enough.”
Jan looked grateful. “We can pick up cat food and a litter box on the way.”
“Who’s he?” Kimmie demanded, staring at Zack. Obviously she wasn’t about to relinquish her kitty to just anyone.
“This is Dr. Zachary Sargent, an old friend of mine.” To him, Jan added, “Zack, this is my daughter, Kimmie.”
He considered squatting to reach her level, but that seemed awkward. Instead, he simply added, “Call me Zack. I have a daughter in the third grade named Berry. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to play with the cat this evening.”
“I’ll get the carrier. Keep an eye on the class, please.” Seizing the moment, Mrs. Humphreys went out.
Left alone with the children, Zack tried to figure out what to say. What’s your favorite subject? struck him as lame. He was about to ask what their favorite books were when Jan leaped into the gap. “How many of you kids have pets?”
About half the hands went up. “Do turtles count?” one little girl asked.
SH Medical 09 - The M.D.'s Secret Daughter Page 3