by Caro Carson
“Call me Jamie.”
For a split second, she looked at him like he’d just suggested they go somewhere and get naked. Dropping titles could indicate that kind of intimacy in a hospital setting, he knew. The next second, she turned her head and sneezed. Loudly.
Her nose seemed to be perpetually runny, although it was a nice enough nose, besides being red most of the time. She turned away from the table and blew her nose rather unbecomingly. With purpose. Force. Her bangs fell over her face, got tangled with the napkin she was using to mop up.
Jamie pushed aside his mashed potatoes and congealed gravy.
“Excuse me,” she said, when she was done with a second napkin.
“No problem.” Physical attraction to her would make their co-parenting awkward, anyway.
She was having soup and crackers. Lots of crackers. She had a tower of those little oyster cracker packets on her tray. He tried to see through them to the photo ID that hung on the lanyard around her neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of her first name. It seemed awkward to have to ask a woman her first name when she already knew his child as well as he did. Better than he did, in some ways. Her name tag stayed wrong way out.
“Have you worked here long, Miss Harrison?”
She turned away and sneezed again. At least it flipped her name tag around.
Kendry. Kendry Harrison. Jamie waited for a feeling of great portent to settle over him. Waited for a thunderbolt to strike, for a feeling of destiny, for something.
“Amina. Amina Sadat.” She’d laughed, and in a voice that blended foreign tones with British enunciation, she’d said, “At least, that’s the Westernized version of my name.” She’d then recited a sentence-long string of syllables, her true Afghani name, one he would later learn included her father, her grandfather and nearly her whole family tree. Every syllable had sounded like exotic music...
Jamie cleared his throat. “Kendry? That’s an unusual name. What country is it from?”
She dabbed at her nose with her crumpled napkin, an apologetic motion. “I think my parents made it up. They’re kind of free-spirited like that.”
Free-spirited parents? Not the kind of people he expected, somehow, to produce the plain, serious person in front of him.
“But to answer your first question, I’ve been working here for nearly six months.”
Another point for her. She wasn’t distracted easily. Which reminded him that he needed to keep his head in the game. He was here to gauge their compatibility. “Do you enjoy working in the hospital?”
“Yes, I do.” Her eyebrows drew together, frowning at him as she met his gaze. Her eyes were sort of a nondescript greenish hazel. “Why do you ask?”
“I couldn’t imagine working in any other environment, but not everyone feels the same.”
“How does it compare to working in a hospital in the Middle East? Is it true that you were in the military?”
He hadn’t intended to talk about himself, but fifteen minutes later, when Kendry stood and said her lunch break was over, Jamie realized she’d learned more about his life history than he had about hers.
“Can we do lunch again tomorrow?” he asked.
Her water glass rattled on her tray as she jerked to a sudden standstill. “Was there something else you needed to talk to me about? Something about Sam, maybe?”
He hoped his smile was casual. “Sam is my favorite topic. Let’s meet tomorrow and discuss Sam.”
She hesitated, looking oddly vulnerable in her plain green scrubs, holding her tray tightly with two hands. “Is there any trouble? Anything I should be aware of?” she asked.
“Trouble?” He hadn’t meant to worry her.
“Am I doing something that could...that could mean I might be...” She took a deep breath and stoically asked, “Dr. MacDowell, am I in danger of losing my job?”
The way she asked it—the fact that she would ask such a thing at all—set some kind of alarm off inside him. Why would she jump to a conclusion like that?
Damn, he was going to have to hire a private investigator. It would have been the first thing his brother Quinn would have done, long before any kind of getting-to-know-you lunch. Jamie was a fool to begin by simply spending time with the woman his son preferred.
Kendry was waiting for his answer, her whole posture stiff and solemn.
“You’re not in any trouble that I know of,” he said. “Are you on probation for any misconduct?”
“I’d never do anything to jeopardize this opportunity. Not intentionally. But Paula told me I overstepped my bounds by asking you to check on Myrna Quinones yesterday.”
Jamie leaned back in his plastic chair and studied her. Judging by the way her brows were drawn and her eyes watched him intently, she was either terribly concerned or terribly offended. The emotion brought a spark to her eyes, and he noticed now they were much more than a plain hazel. They were sharp, intelligent, expressive.
“I’m glad you did. You made a difference in Myrna’s outcome. Any child would be fortunate to have someone like you watching out for him.”
“Oh. Well, thank you.” She stood there for another moment, tray in hand, and Jamie wondered if she felt as awkward as he had. “I’ve got to go. If I don’t clock in on time, I really could be in trouble.”
“See you tomorrow, then,” he said, and he watched her walk away. She blended easily into the crowd of scrub-wearing personnel.
Yet, Sammy had singled her out.
Jamie glanced at the paper pumpkin decorations dangling from the cafeteria ceiling. Four weeks. He had four weeks to get to know Sammy’s favorite caregiver. And maybe, just maybe, he had four weeks to persuade her to marry him.
* * *
What on earth had that been all about?
Kendry dumped her tray on the cafeteria conveyor belt and made a beeline for the elevators. She had to get to the hospital’s basement and clock in within the next three minutes.
Her thoughts raced as she practically speed-walked down the corridor. Dr. MacDowell had eaten lunch with her. Sammy’s daddy, the one who made her heart race when they accidentally touched while passing Sammy between them at pickup time. Physicians rarely ate in the main cafeteria, for starters, but for the hospital’s most handsome and eligible doctor to single her out, to choose to sit at her table, was truly odd.
Kendry waved the bar code on her ID tag in front of the time clock’s scanner with seconds to spare. According to the list tacked to the employee bulletin board, she was needed in the pediatric ward’s playroom this afternoon. Dr. MacDowell had eaten lunch with her, so Sammy would be in the playroom. There was a silver lining to today’s bizarre lunch.
She rode the elevator to the pediatric floor of the hospital, feeling her spirits rise at the prospect of spending the afternoon with Sammy and the other children.
Dr. MacDowell had wanted to update her on Myrna’s condition. That was all. She wasn’t in trouble. She hadn’t broken any rules or done anything wrong.
Thank goodness. For a few heart-stopping moments, she’d been afraid Paula had been right, and she’d caused a problem by asking a doctor to check on a patient who wasn’t officially his. She only had weeks to go until her insurance coverage as a hospital employee would begin, and heaven knew she needed that insurance. She wasn’t ill, except for her annoying allergies, but she’d learned the hard way that living without insurance was risky, indeed.
She’d dropped her car insurance to pay her rent for one month, one lousy month after her previous job had crashed and her roommates had moved out without paying their share. It was perfectly legal in the state of Texas to not carry car insurance. The problem was, shortly after her job crashed, her car had crashed, too. Into a Mercedes-Benz. The judge had ruled her to be at fault, and until she paid for the cost of replacing that Mercedes, her money was not her
own. It belonged to the state of Texas, practically every dime of it, thanks to the high monthly payment the judge had set.
The prospect of losing her hospital job was awful on every level, but the idea that she’d be fired just as she was about to have insurance was unbearable. She never wanted to be without insurance—auto, home, medical, dental, any insurance—again. The year she’d planned to take off before college had become the year that a lack of insurance had derailed her entire life.
By the time she walked into the playroom, her heart was pounding. Her thoughts were as much to blame as the speed-walking.
Relax. You’re not losing your job. Dr. MacDowell is a polite man who knew you’d be curious about Myrna’s health, so he filled you in and sat with you for twenty minutes. No big deal.
So why did he want to meet her for lunch tomorrow?
“Hi, guys,” Kendry called to a trio of preschoolers as she entered the playroom. Paula sat at the tiny table, monitoring their serious coloring. Since the Myrna Quinones incident, Paula treated Kendry with more courtesy.
It was Sammy, however, who was really happy to see her. He pulled himself to a stand using the bars of his playpen, babbling his baby noises and bouncing in excitement.
“And hello to you, too, my special guy.” Kendry scooped him up and gave him a squeeze, just as she caught sight of their reflection in the playroom’s window.
“What’s up with your dad?” she whispered. She’d never been what her grandfather called “a looker,” but the stress of the last few years—the stress she couldn’t blame on anyone but herself—had taken its toll.
She rested her cheek on top of Sammy’s head. Even in the window’s reflection, Sammy’s black hair was glossy. Her own hair was a little dull. Her diet was pretty limited while she watched every penny, but she didn’t think she was missing that many nutrients, not enough to make her hair less healthy, surely? She’d run out of shampoo and had been making do with bar soap to wash her hair. That probably made it dull, but still clean.
The dark circles under her eyes hadn’t gone away in months. Even if she got enough sleep, she had terrible allergies, so the dark circles were here to stay. The bottom line was, she didn’t look like the kind of woman a man went out of his way to spend time with.
Whatever lay behind Dr. MacDowell’s sudden interest in her was a mystery.
None of it mattered, anyway. Her hair wasn’t shiny, but it was clean. Her scrubs were faded, but clean. The important thing was, she was working in a hospital, where she’d always wanted to be. She wasn’t a nurse yet, but she had a plan, and the first step had been to become a bona fide employee of the best hospital in Texas. She enjoyed being with the children so much, she might even specialize in pediatric nursing some day.
Sammy grabbed her glasses and succeeded in pulling them off. He chortled in glee. Sammy spent time with her because he liked her.
His father’s motives were a mystery.
* * *
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
How many times had Jamie wished for boredom on the job? While he was deployed, he’d fantasize about what his civilian life would be like. He’d work in an emergency room and treat patients whose medical needs were not truly emergencies, not like the carnage that he’d patched up after firefights. There would be a lot of children with runny noses and slight temperatures, a lot of adults with sprained ankles, and an affluent, overweight businessman getting the wake-up call he needed with a mild first heart attack. For an E.R. doctor, it would be monotony. While in Afghanistan, Jamie had craved monotony.
Now he was getting it. For two weeks, he hadn’t had a single challenging case. He told himself that was good.
The E.R. at West Central Hospital had a small locker room for physicians. Off the main E.R. was a kitchenette for the staff, and off the kitchenette was a tiny space euphemistically called the physicians’ lounge. It contained a plethora of lab coats, a few metal lockers that no one bothered to put locks on, and a cot that transformed itself from uninviting to nirvana when he had been on his feet for twenty-four hours straight.
At least Sam was happy today. Kendry had been on duty in the playroom, so Jamie could set his worried-parent hat aside for today’s shift. She was still far and away Sam’s favorite on the list of possible women. In fact, Sam didn’t seem to have any particular affinity for any other nurse or medical assistant he came in contact with.
Jamie had made a point of speaking to each woman, anyway. He’d bought one nurse a cup of coffee, shared a slice of cold pizza with another woman while he worked the midnight shift. Quinn had made a point of introducing him to a nurse from the ICU. They were all the same, though, either flirtatious or flustered. The first he had no interest in, the second he had no patience for. He was starting to believe that Kendry Harrison was the only woman in the hospital who could carry on an intelligent conversation without batting her eyelashes.
Jamie half closed the door to the locker room, looking behind it for the dry-cleaning bag that held his white lab coats. Some women entered the kitchenette, and their voices carried into the tiny locker room. “He’s a total hottie, even if he seems angry most of the time.”
“Hot angry. Hawt. Where’d he come from?”
“He’s from Dallas, I heard.”
“I heard Austin.”
“Whatever. He’s a Texas boy, coming back after getting out of the army, or some say he’s not out yet.”
“The army? OMG, imagine him in camouflage and boots. Totally off the hotness scale.”
Jamie jerked with surprise. They were talking about him. Had to be. Crap—now he was stuck in here. If he walked out, he’d embarrass the hell out of those women. He crossed his arms and leaned against the lockers. Looked like he was going to stand here and stare at the wall while they made their coffee. He had no choice but to listen to them talk about his hawt-ness.
“You didn’t see his butt, Terry. He’s always in his lab coat.”
“I did so see his butt. In the parking lot. No lab coat, just a stethoscope around his neck as he got in his truck.”
“Nothing but a stethoscope on? The man drives in the nude?”
Jamie rolled his eyes at the ceiling as the women giggled like girls. Still, it would have been gratifying to have one of his brothers hear him being drooled over. Jamie was the youngest. He was the baby of the three, four years younger than Quinn, six years younger than Braden.
That had been a huge age gap when he’d been in fifth grade while his brothers played high school football. The moms on the football stadium benches had cooed over Jamie, but his brothers had worn helmets and shoulder pads and attracted cheerleaders like flies. Jamie might have been in elementary school, but even then, he’d watched the cheerleaders in their very short skirts with their very long legs. They’d patted him on the head and watched his brothers.
It was an interesting switch, to be the big man on campus instead of the little brother. Apparently, at this hospital, he was the football star.
“Jamie MacDowell. Scottish sounding. Imagine him in a kilt.”
“You’re torturing us. It’s no use. He’s not interested in anybody. Dr. Brown even wore a miniskirt the other day, so it looked like she had nothing on under her lab coat. She looked like a freaking stripper.”
“He didn’t go for it?”
“Nope. She was pissed. It was one of my more entertaining shifts, I’ll tell you that.”
“Maybe he goes for men.”
“I’d bet money he’s not gay.”
And you’d win. Now, could you ladies—and he mentally snorted in derision at that last word—now could you ladies take your coffees and go?
Jamie’s cell vibrated silently. He checked the text. Time to get back to work. These women were going to hate him if he walked out of the room now, but the fifth-floor nurse ne
eded alternate pain med orders for a patient he’d admitted.
“The only woman he ever talks to is some homely girl. I’ve seen him eat lunch with her in the cafeteria. He doesn’t even go in the physicians’ lounge. He sits at her table, wherever she is.”
“Who? Do we know her?”
“She’s nobody. An orderly or something.”
They were talking about Kendry, of course. He should have anticipated that sitting with an orderly in the cafeteria would feed the grapevine. This particular grapevine didn’t need to be fed further. He already didn’t care for the tone of their gossip. Kendry might not be a nurse, but she still contributed to the well-being of this hospital’s patients.
“What’s this nobody got that Dr. MacDowell likes?”
She’s kind. She respects children.
“I can’t imagine. She’s pitiful-looking. I swear, she wears the same scrubs every day.”
“Oh—that girl. I think she decided to make herself over for the new doc. Did you notice she cut her bangs?”
Jamie glared at the door. He’d count to twenty, then he’d leave this little jail cell whether those women were still here or not. He was feeling decidedly less considerate of their feelings.
“Ohmigod, yes. She had to have cut those bangs herself. With children’s safety scissors.”
“All right, guys, enough. You’re being mean to the poor thing,” one of the gossiping harpies cut in to defend the absent Kendry—about damned time. Jamie could tell they’d been revving up to pick her to shreds.
“She probably can’t afford a decent haircut,” the woman defending Kendry said. “She’s can’t be making more than minimum wage.”
“If I made minimum wage, I’d still work a couple hours extra, cut a coupon from the Sunday paper and at least get my hair done at one of those walk-in places. I think she just doesn’t care.”
“If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have cut her bangs at all, would she?”
“Well, of course she cares about Dr. MacDowell. You can’t be female and not notice him. Could you imagine them together, though? It’d be like a Greek god and a street urchin in bed.”