Doctor, Soldier, Daddy. Caro Carson
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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 needed alternate pain med orders for a patient he’d admitted.
“The only woman he ever talks to