by Caro Carson
He’d failed to convince Kendry.
He faltered, letting go of the motorcycle’s throttle. The bus moved on without him.
He couldn’t go through this again. He couldn’t chase a woman and beg her to let him protect her, plead with her to stay where he could keep her safe.
He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, endure the heartache when the woman refused his offer of help.
Don’t lose it, Jamie. This is Kendry you’re thinking of, not Amina. Kendry isn’t going to die if she refuses to live with you.
No, but she’d go hungry. Jamie would be damned before he’d let Kendry go hungry any longer.
The feelings were new, yet familiar at the same time. He’d felt this way about Amina when she’d told him she was pregnant, an absolute surety that he accepted the responsibility for one woman. He couldn’t feel this protective of Kendry, too.
Sam’s second mother? You don’t think you should feel protective of her?
Put that way, it made perfect sense that he needed to take care of Kendry. If they married, he’d be the provider, after all. He felt protective of Sam, so he was feeling protective of Sam’s new mother.
Jamie turned the throttle, caught up to the bus. This possessive feeling was completely different than his feelings for Amina.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket again, as it had at least a half dozen times during this low-speed, pollution-filled pursuit. He wouldn’t answer it while he was in traffic. He’d sewn up the aftermath of too many drivers checking their cell phones while on the road.
At last, in an obviously low-income neighborhood, Kendry stepped off the bus.
She looked as pitiful as the hospital grapevine said. The new pink scrubs hung too loosely on her frame. Her eyes were downcast, her ponytail drooped, and it looked like raising one hand to shield her eyes from the Texas sun took all her energy. Jamie felt a twisting emotion, deep inside.
He pulled over to the curb and silenced his bike. She’d turned on the sidewalk and was headed toward him, so he took off his helmet and waited until she came closer. She didn’t see him, shading her eyes the way she was. It sickened him to realize she couldn’t afford sunglasses.
“Kendry.”
“Dr. MacDowell! What are you doing here?”
For a second, his mind went blank. He was here because she was here—but that wasn’t what he was supposed to say. He’d come to tell her one hundred things. He started with the most important one. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kendry. You were right. My proposal came out all wrong.”
She walked closer to him, so he stayed seated on the bike, keeping their faces on the same level.
“You didn’t have to follow me home for that,” she said. “I knew you’d change your mind. You’d have to be crazy to really want to marry me for any reason.” She held her bag of old scrubs away from her body.
“I haven’t changed my mind about anything.” Homeless people leaned against the wall of the gas station behind her, making an apathetic audience. “Sam hasn’t changed his mind about you, either. I still want you to marry me.”
She made something of a little squeaky sound at that, and looked away. The incessant vibrating of his cell phone was getting to him, so he impatiently took it out of his leather jacket’s pocket, glancing at the screen as he silenced it.
Sam.
Jamie had left him safely at the hospital’s playroom, of course. He wasn’t due to pick him up for hours yet, because he’d been scheduled for an after-lunch staff meeting—a meeting he’d blown off to follow a city bus. The message on the phone’s screen made his heart stop for a second. Finances and soup and scrubs were wiped from his brain.
“What’s wrong?” Kendry asked.
“Sam,” he managed to say. “He’s in the E.R.”
“Oh, God.”
“Let’s go.” He gestured toward the back of the bike, and Kendry only hesitated for a second before she got on. It was all so obvious. He needed to be with Sam, and he needed Kendry to be there, too, by his side—or rather, his son needed Kendry to be by his side.
He handed her the helmet. “Put that on.” He stood to kick-start the bike.
Over the roar of the engine, Kendry hollered, “You wear it.”
He shook his head impatiently. It wasn’t against the law to ride a bike without a helmet in Texas; it was just a foolish risk. Desperate times called for desperate measures. As imperative as it had been to get to Kendry, it was now to get back to Sam—but he was taking Kendry with him, no question. He’d not leave her to starve for the rest of the day.
“Put the helmet on, damn it.”
When she tried to balance her plastic bag on her thigh in order to take the heavy helmet, he picked the bag up and hurled it toward the gas station’s open trash can. “I’m getting you new scrubs.”
He was a jackass for giving her orders. He shrugged out of the leather jacket, then twisted toward her, holding it open so she could put her arms in it. “Please. Put this on, please.” She was fragile. He didn’t want her hurt. Period.
“Be extra careful,” she said, as she tentatively set her hands at his hips.
“Hold on tighter. Like this.” He pulled her hands all the way around his stomach, then let go and pulled away from the curb, hands on the handlebars.
Hang in there, Sam. I’m on my way. Kendry and I are on our way.
Chapter Ten
Kendry clung to Jamie hard and prayed even harder. They were parking under the eaves by the E.R.’s sliding glass door in half the time it took the city bus to get there. It was startling how close she lived to the hospital, really. Commuting by bus took so much time, Kendry had always felt so far away.
Jamie had not sped nor broken a single traffic law the entire way back, but Kendry had felt his tension in her body, pressed as she’d been against his back. There was nothing she could do to comfort him, nothing she could say to reassure a man whose child was in his own E.R. Maybe she’d kept her arms wrapped around him a little too tightly, wanting things to turn out okay for him. Maybe he’d assumed she’d been scared to fall off the motorcycle.
The security guard leaped up to stop him as Jamie headed through the sliding glass doors like he owned them. With a curt nod at the guard, Jamie kept walking. Kendry wasn’t swift enough, so the guard held out his hand and stopped her before she could enter the building. “Who’s he?”
“That’s Dr. MacDowell,” Kendry answered, looking through the glass door, watching Jamie’s back recede as he strode swiftly down the linoleum aisle toward the nurses’ station. Toward Sam. She felt ill with worry.
“And who are you?”
Kendry hesitated, unsure what to say. Confessing she was an off-duty orderly who was unrelated to any patient in the E.R. wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
The security guard crossed his arms over his chest in something of an aggressive stance. “You can’t leave that bike here.”
Kendry still wore Jamie’s leather jacket. It swallowed her whole rather than lend her any biker swagger, but she decided to act like Jamie, anyway. She nodded once at the guard like Jamie had. “I’ll tell him to move it,” she said, and walked toward the doors like a woman with a purpose.
It worked. The guard didn’t reach out to stop her, the doors whooshed open, and Kendry walked purposefully down the aisle, shrugging out of the leather coat as she went. She got close enough to Jamie to almost make out what the nurse was saying to him, picking out words like cyanotic and oxygen.
“Which bed?” Jamie demanded impatiently.
Kendry wanted to shake the nurse. He’s not this baby’s doctor; he’s his father. He wants to hold his son, not hear a medical report.
Jamie headed for bed three. So did Kendry, but another hand reached out to stop her. “There you are,” the nurse said. “We’re low on linens
.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m off the clock.” Kendry watched Jamie disappear into one of the private cubicles that had a door. Bed three.
The nurse was looking at Kendry’s scrubs and frowning. “Where’s your ID?”
“I’m off the clock,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go see a patient.”
“Who?” the nurse asked, as though it were a fantastical improbability that Kendry might know a single patient personally.
It burned. Kendry had never felt so impatient in her life. Sam was here, sweet little Sam, and she had no idea how he was doing. Jamie wanted her to be with him—with Sam, that is. The guard and now the nurse were stopping her.
“Sam MacDowell,” she said through gritted teeth. “He was brought down from the peds ward.”
The nurse frowned harder. “His father just got here. It’s family only back here. You know that.”
“But...it’s Sam. I want to see him.”
“If you’re not here to work, you can leave through the waiting room. HIPAA regulations are very clear about—”
“Kendry.” The voice that spoke her name was quiet, authoritative, male.
She and the nurse turned toward Jamie. He was standing just outside the door of bed three, his hand held out to her. Feeling like the out-of-place orderly she was, Kendry thought he wanted his jacket back. She put it in his outstretched hand.
Jamie frowned at her, like the guard and the nurse, but he took the jacket and very deliberately held out his other hand. Kendry ignored the heat in her cheeks as she put her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers, warm and firm, and he tugged her with him into the room.
Sammy, so tiny, lay in the middle of an adult-sized treatment bed. The side rails had been raised, and some additional padded buffers had been placed around him to keep him from rolling off.
Sammy didn’t look like he was in any condition to roll anywhere. One of his arms was being held straight by a green plastic splint, a tiny needle and thin IV tube coming out of the crease at his elbow. A pediatric-sized oxygen mask still looked too big on his little face, covering his nose and mouth—and his whole chin, too.
“Oh, Sammy,” Kendry cooed, tears blurring her vision as she dropped Jamie’s hand and bent over the bed, clutching the rail’s cold metal in both hands. “How’s my favorite guy?”
Sammy turned toward the sound of her voice immediately. After one blink, his mouth opened wide in a big, mostly toothless smile behind the clear oxygen mask. Kendry thought her heart would burst at his cheerful attitude in his dismal situation. She couldn’t help it; she had to touch him.
“I’m so glad to see you, too,” she said, trying to keep her voice even as she placed her hand on his belly. Sam wriggled a little and lifted his splinted arm a fraction, but the effort apparently reminded him that he was somewhat pinned down, and he frowned.
Just like his father. As clear as day, Kendry saw Jamie’s facial expression on little Sammy’s face. Her favorite little guy looked just like her big dream guy. Emotions filled her, too many to name.
Jamie cleared his throat. “I think he wants you to pick him up.”
As she’d done a hundred times for other patients, Kendry dropped the side railing to the bed. As she had never done before, she picked up the patient, kissed him on his soft hair and closed her eyes in gratitude that she could hug him close. “You scared us, Sammy.” She kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, then stole another kiss. Sam settled into her heavily, and she could tell he’d be asleep in moments. She sat on the bed with him in her arms.
Not looking up from Sam, she asked Jamie, “Why is he here?”
“Respiratory distress.”
“But he’s breathing okay now?”
“Time will tell. Someone left him on his back in his crib with a bottle.”
Appalled, she looked up at Jamie. “That’s against policy for all the infants, let alone one with Sammy’s swallowing problems.”
“I know.” The mattress gave a little as Jamie sat down next to her, their thighs touching as he patted Sam’s back. After the motorcycle ride, she found it wasn’t so unnerving to be near him physically. It was even comforting. Sheltering. It made her feel better when the sight of Sammy in his medical gear had her shaken up.
Jamie gently took the oxygen mask off Sam. “He probably choked on the formula. He may have inhaled a bit of it into his lungs. Between the choking and the coughing, he was screaming, of course. Given his heart defect, he started to turn blue from lack of oxygen.”
“Oh, Sammy.” Kendry rested her cheek on the top his head. She didn’t want to put him down ever again. “What happens next?”
“We wait and see if he develops pneumonia from the formula getting in his lungs—if it got in his lungs. His coughing and gagging may have kept it out, like reflexes are supposed to. The respiratory distress could have been from the heart defect, not from liquid in the lungs. We’ll find out this week. The hard way.”
“Poor baby,” Kendry whispered. “If only I had been on duty.”
Jamie raised his eyebrows a little at that. “If only I hadn’t been on duty.” He surprised Kendry by standing suddenly, looking like he wanted to pace. The treatment room was too small for a man his size to take more than a half step. “Don’t start feeling guilty about anything, Kendry. It will eat you up. God knows I’ve already screwed up enough things for ten parents to feel guilty about.”
“You didn’t screw up anything.” She kept her voice low as Sam fell asleep. “It’s not your fault someone gave Sam a bottle while he was lying flat on his back.”
Jamie nearly laughed. “Yeah.”
“This isn’t your fault.” Kendry studied him, worried. He looked a little wild, a little bit like a man on the brink, not like the controlled doctor she knew.
“I should have caught that cleft palate the day he was born.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure—” She stopped, catching herself as she was about to blunder into what was probably painful territory.
“You’re sure of what?”
“I’m sure that had to have been the least of your worries the day he was born.” Kendry bit her lip and watched him anxiously, but Jamie didn’t seem fazed by her statement. She’d only learned two nights ago that Sam’s mother had died during his birth, but Jamie had been living with that horrible knowledge for nine months.
“Sam shouldn’t have been born in that situation to start with. I got him out of Afghanistan, at least, and I’ve been pretending I know what I’m doing, but hell, Kendry...I don’t know anything. I’ve failed him in a million ways. I didn’t know how to hold him to feed him, for God’s sake.”
“But you learned. That’s the important—”
“I haven’t been able to get his Social Security number yet. I know he needs these surgeries, but I keep putting them off, because I don’t know how to handle his recovery and my job at the same time. Hell, my family thinks I’m crazy not to hire someone else to take care of him. Maybe they are seeing the obvious. Maybe they can see that I can’t take care of a baby.”
“You can so. You’re a wonderful parent.”
“I can’t give him all he needs. He needs so much. He needs a mother, too, not just me, but I—” He gestured toward her. “I can’t even make a friend without screwing everything up for her. I’ve made you the object of gossip. I threw away your clothes an hour ago.”
The scrubs were going to be a problem, but she wasn’t about to lay her burdens on this man. “I’ll deal with it, Jamie.”
“I don’t want you to. Can’t you see that?”
He loomed over her, intense and serious. She kept Sammy in her arms between them.
“I don’t want you to handle it,” he said. “I want to take care of it for you. I want to take care of Sam, to provide for both of you, to
do something right for once. I’m so tired of things going wrong. The war, Amina getting pregnant when she shouldn’t have, dying when she shouldn’t have, Sammy needing emergency care when he shouldn’t, you needing a damned meal when you shouldn’t. If I was half the man I should be, none of that would happen.”
“Oh, Jamie.” Kendry hadn’t realized his pain, the depth of his feeling of letting everyone down. The past year of his life had to have been harrowing. Like everyone on earth, he needed a break. He needed something to go right.
“You have a wonderful little boy here,” she began.
“Yes, I do,” Jamie said, and the old Jamie was back. At least, the determined and confident man was back, the one who saved strangers’ lives in the E.R. Only now his cool and clear focus wasn’t on a patient. It was on her.
“My son is a wonderful boy. He’s fallen in love with you, because you are a wonderful woman. Whether you marry me or not, Kendry Harrison, you are not going to go hungry again, and you aren’t going to struggle for material things, because you deserve better than that. Sam thinks so, and so do I. But I’d rather marry you. I want to do something right. I want to be normal, and have a family, and have the legal and moral right to care for you and Sam, to build something real.”
He moved toward her, as if he wanted to pull them both into his arms, but stopped short and instead stood over them, arms open, empty.
“But you’re not in love with me.” Kendry whispered the words as she met his clear gaze, wishing with all her heart she weren’t stating a simple truth.
Very slowly, very slightly, Jamie shook his head. “My heart was buried with the woman I gave it to.”
He reached out to lift her face with a touch of his warm fingers under her chin. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not offering you something good. Something real. I’m offering you all I have left in me to give, and that includes my son.”
Jamie dropped his hand to lightly touch Sam’s hair. “I’m not offering you an easy child to love. I’m offering you one with a lot of health problems. A future of surgeries and therapies and rehab. The more you love Sam, the more it will break your heart when he’s in pain. But I—I think he’s worth it. I can’t imagine living without him.”