Caro Carson - Doctor, Soldier, Daddy

Jamie wondered how the MacDowells would have reacted if the local sheriff suddenly had the power to walk onto their ranch and start shooting. His family probably would have been as defiant as Amina’s family had been. Perhaps that was one reason he and Amina had hit it off so quickly. They were kindred spirits. She could have been a MacDowell.

She should have been a MacDowell.

Instead, even while she was pregnant with Jamie’s child, she’d chosen to stay in a country where prenatal care was nonexistent. Hell, indoor plumbing was still a sign of personal wealth. Against Jamie’s medical advice and personal plea, she’d obstinately traveled with a documentary film crew. In a remote village, she’d gone into premature labor while on her crusade to persuade Afghanis to let their daughters attend school. She’d died not from a Taliban bullet like the rest of her family, but from a lack of medical care, like too many women in her country.

Tonight, Jamie was angry at a woman who’d lost her entire family years before she, herself, had died.

More guilt.

Sam worked greedily at his bottle.

No, Amina’s family weren’t all dead. Sam was here, and Jamie would do everything to ensure one member of that brave family had a life that didn’t end in tragedy.

Jamie bent his head as he lifted Sam’s tiny hand and planted a kiss on the perfectly formed fingers. If they weren’t his fingers and they weren’t Amina’s fingers, whose were they? A bit of DNA passed on from a great-grandparent? Or did those fingers, perhaps, come from another man, a man who had come into Amina’s life before Jamie?

More guilt for even thinking such a thought.

Jamie had too much time to think about things in the safety of his quiet ranch house. Afghanistan had been intense—life outside the wire more so. Emotions ran high, bonds were formed quickly, and Amina, his unit’s translator and general ambassador to the local population, had literally slipped into his bed after they’d worked together for only two short weeks.

At the time, he hadn’t been surprised. They’d had chemistry and a connection from their first meeting. For the first two weeks, they’d spent nearly every moment together, seeking out the smallest villages and encampments, offering medical care to the local population. Amina’s intelligence and her determination to better her fellow countrymen had made an impact on Jamie, if not on the villagers.

He hadn’t been surprised that Amina was sexually experienced, either, because she’d lived in London longer than she’d lived with her family in Afghanistan. Her appearance was Afghani, but her personality was Western. He’d fallen for her and she for him. When, in the dark hours before dawn, she’d silently come into the hut he used as both clinic and bedroom, he’d had no doubts as she’d slipped into his bed.

Now, however, thousands of miles away and a year and a half later, he wondered. Had she already been pregnant? Had she wanted Jamie to believe he was the father, so that her son would have an American protector?

Sam gurgled down a few swallows of formula and patted Jamie’s hand with his own. Jamie clutched the baby closer to his chest.

If Amina had wanted an American soldier to protect her coming baby, she’d gotten one. Jamie would never let Sam go, whether they shared DNA or not. The feel of this child in his hands was essential to his life. It had been from the moment a local midwife who’d trekked miles on foot stood outside the barbed wire and handed him a dehydrated newborn and the news that Amina was dead. Dead and already buried, in accordance with their laws.

And so Jamie had sworn on a legal document that Sam was his biological child. He’d gotten the required signatures of others in his military unit, fellow soldiers and civilian contractors who could vouch that they’d seen Jamie working with Amina the eight months before the birth of the child, an appropriate period of time that could make it possible for Jamie to be the father. If any of those witnesses had wondered how an infant born at only eight months of gestation had appeared to be full-term, they’d kept that to themselves as they’d scrambled to help Jamie find formula and bottles—a futile search.

IVs had kept Sam alive those first critical days. Jamie had still had a week left on his tour of duty, but he’d literally wheeled Sam’s stretcher onto the next medical flight to Germany. No one had questioned him. Jamie had gambled that forgiveness would be easier to gain than permission, and that gamble had paid off.

So far.

But in the quiet of nights like tonight, as Jamie looked at the son who looked nothing like him, fear crept into his chest. What if the State Department got around to that paperwork and a diligent clerk decided to order medical tests to prove the baby biologically belonged to the soldier?

The blood-type test would be ordered first. If the blood types were incompatible, then the soldier could not be the father of the child. If the blood types were compatible, it only proved that it was possible for the soldier to be the father, but the paternity was still in question.

Jamie knew his blood type. He knew Sam’s. It was possible that he was Sam’s father. But it was not a fact, not without further DNA testing, and if the State Department chose to order those tests...

He willed the fear away. Jamie sat Sam up to pat his back, hoping that air bubbles would come up but formula would stay down. It was a struggle at every feeding. The nurse at the hospital playroom had said that Sammy had more problems with the bottle than other babies in her care. That nurse seemed particularly bright, the one with the ponytail and glasses.

No—the young woman was not a nurse. She was an orderly. Jamie had noticed her before, when she’d worked in the emergency room. The orderly was certainly working in the right field; she had a natural talent for noticing patients’ needs. She’d been working in the pediatric playroom more and more often, something Jamie had been glad to see. Sammy was in good hands when that particular woman was on duty.

“Come on, Sammy, give me a burp to make any college frat boy proud.”

Instead, Sammy vomited a substantial amount of formula over the blanket that Jamie had laid over his lap. The formula wasn’t curdled, not even partially digested. What went down came right back up, every feeding.

Sammy had been born with a birth defect, a hole in the wall of his heart. It would be repaired soon, and Sam would grow up never knowing it had been there. That particular birth defect shouldn’t cause feeding issues. Jamie had assumed all this spitting up was normal, but now the orderly—Miss Harrison was her name—had said Sam needed to sit up to drink his bottle.

As he soothed Sam by rubbing his back, Jamie’s medical training kicked in automatically. Consider the options. Eliminate them one by one.

What conditions caused a baby to need to be fed upright? Cleft palate? Jamie tapped his index finger to Sam’s perfect, bow-shaped lips. Obviously, Sammy didn’t have a cleft palate.

Jamie tried to feed Sam a few more ounces of formula, this time sitting him far more upright. It did make a difference. He could feel Sam’s body relaxing as the ounces went down with less struggle. Was this how most babies fed, then? Settling in, relaxing, not fighting to get each swallow?

This time, when Jamie burped Sam, he slipped his finger in his son’s mouth and felt the palate. The roof of the baby’s mouth was there, intact. Of course, this had been checked early in Sam’s life, part of the routine exam American doctors gave all newborns. Jamie had flashed his penlight down his son’s throat more than once. The roof of his son’s mouth was fine, intact on visual inspection. This time, Jamie pressed a little harder, moved a little more slowly, working his way toward the throat, millimeter by millimeter.