Caro Carson - Doctor, Soldier, Daddy

“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.