Doctor, Soldier, Daddy. Caro Carson

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СКАЧАТЬ trips.”

      “Yeah, once a year we’d saddle up the horses and pack up the tents and come out here to spend, what? Four days? With a guy we barely knew.”

      “Still, he tried.”

      “Yeah, he would have made a fine uncle. Not my idea of a father. My son is going to have a real parent, someone there for him every day, not just for a camping trip now and then. If something happens to me, he’s going to have another parent to finish raising him. I’ll be damned if I’ll leave him alone in this world. I’m getting married, and that’s it.”

      “Slow down, Jamie. What happens if you find this perfect mother, but then you fall in love with another woman, someone you want for something besides mothering? Are you going to divorce the mother of your child to marry the woman you’re crazy about? An affair won’t cut it. I don’t care what this ‘perfect mother’ agrees to, she’s not going to be a Mrs. MacDowell and willingly turn a blind eye to her husband having an affair.”

      “I’m not going to cheat on my wife, even if we aren’t in that kind of a marriage.”

      “You need to think this through. I’ve been in love, Jamie.” Braden rarely talked about it, but he’d been engaged once. “It can hit you like a lightning strike.”

      Jamie stood up and pulled the keys to his truck out of his pocket. “It already did, Braden, it already did.”

      “But, then—”

      “She died. Her name was Amina. She was brilliant. Beautiful. An Afghani woman who translated for me on medical missions. She died during the birth and she left me a son.”

      Jamie dumped the rest of his beer onto a struggling scrub plant, then chucked the bottle into the bed of his pickup truck. “Lightning won’t strike twice.”

      The shocked silence wasn’t what Jamie had intended to cause. He clapped Quinn on the shoulder and used the side of his boot to push his still-full beer cooler toward his brother’s camp chair. “You finish these for me this weekend. Mom’s been watching Sam long enough. I’m gonna run.”

      Jamie had been away from his son for nearly two hours, and that was too long.

      Braden followed him to the pickup. “Jamie. You never told us about the mother of the baby. Sam is really your child, then? Your biological child?”

      Damn it. Even his own brothers hadn’t believed Sam was his son. How would he convince the State Department? He needed to be married and have Sam legally adopted by his wife, in case they started asking.

      “I’m not in the mood for a big-brother lecture, Braden.” He loved his oldest brother. Braden had filled more of a father role for him than their father had, but when it came to his own life, Jamie knew what he was doing. He’d come to the ranch today to let his brothers know what his plans were as a courtesy, not so they could tell him he was wrong to want to secure a second parent for Sam as quickly as possible.

      “I’m not lecturing,” Braden said in a voice made for lecturing. “When do we meet this not-really-a-wife of yours?”

      “I don’t know who she is yet.” Jamie opened the truck door and stepped up on the running board. “No woman I already know fits the bill.”

      “No woman will. I can’t imagine who is going to want your son and not want you.”

      Ah, the blind loyalty of family. Braden was certain women would fall all over his little brother. He didn’t know that most women gave up pursuing Jamie nowadays. His mourning for Amina showed somehow, he was sure.

      His son was the only thing that brought a smile to his face now. As he thought of Sam, Jamie felt himself start to grin. “This isn’t about me finding a wife. This is about Sam finding a mother. That’s why I’m letting him choose her.”

      Jamie closed the truck door. As he drove away from the old homestead, a new feeling settled over him. A certainty that he was on the right course. Contentment, almost. He’d loved Amina, and now he loved their son. Building his life around his son’s needs was the right thing to do.

      He wondered whom Sam would fall in love with. He wondered whom his son would choose for him to marry.

      Chapter Two

      Kendry Harrison was a general dogsbody. It wasn’t the loveliest term, but it accurately summed up her career at West Central Hospital. She’d like to think that she was at least a gopher, but that would imply she worked for someone important who needed her to run errands. No such luck. She was just a general dogsbody, plugged into whatever entry-level job needed doing. Today, she was working in the pediatric ward.

      Kendry loved the pediatric ward, even if it broke her heart half the time. Kids were kids, though, and even when they sported IV tubing and wore hospital gowns, they tended to be adorable. Kendry loved their earnestness when they described their little lives. She loved their willingness to play as hard as they possibly could, even when they found themselves forced to use their wrong hand or unable to climb out of a wheelchair.

      Unlike the adult patients, the kids were still eager to grab life with both hands—unless they were in pain. Although an infant named Myrna was due to be discharged today, Kendry wondered if the little girl was in pain. Hour after hour, Myrna had been growing quieter and quieter. Kendry’s shift was over in only minutes, but she couldn’t leave Myrna without trying, one more time, to get the nurse to pay attention to the change in the baby’s behavior.

      She pushed the button to call the nurses’ station. Again.

      “What is it this time, Kendry?” The voice over the speaker was clearly irritated.

      “I’d like a nurse to check on Myrna Quinones for me, please.” If she kept her voice cool and factual, the way the doctors and nurses spoke, then she would be taken more seriously. Unfortunately, her nose was stuffy, and she barely grabbed a tissue in time for a sneeze.

      “We’ve checked on her every hour. She’s fine. She’ll be going home when her mother gets off work today.” And then, with the most sarcastic version of sugary sweetness the nurse could muster, her tinny voice came over the speaker. “And you’re officially off work now, so go on home, darlin’. Take something for that cold, or you’ll get all the children sick.”

      “I’m fine, thank you,” Kendry said through clenched teeth. “It’s just allergies.”

      She was the only adult in the pediatric ward’s playroom, making it impossible for her to leave, but she resisted the urge to point that out to the nurse. Instead, she released the intercom’s talk button and went to the sink to wash her hands for the fiftieth time of the day.

      Every young patient who was able spent a good part of his or her waking hours in the ward’s colorful playroom. There were hard plastic chairs and tables that could be sprayed down with bleach, plenty of floor space for children to play while they tugged along their wheeled poles with their hanging IV bags. A few of the children were not patients, but were the children of staff members. As long as the child wasn’t contagious, staff members could pay a small fee to have their child spend the day in the playroom when their regular childcare fell through—a benefit that made West Central Texas Hospital one of Austin’s top-rated employers.

      For doctors, the policy was even more lenient. If it meant doctors would СКАЧАТЬ