Paula tried, anyway, pitching her voice to a falsetto coo. “Come on, Sam, let Miss Paula hold you.” She started prying Sammy’s small fingers off Kendry’s neck, which only served to make the child more desperate to cling to the adult of his choice.
Dr. MacDowell hung up the house phone and came over to intercede. “Hey, buddy, come see Daddy.”
Sam was in full-pitch tantrum mode now. He wanted to cling to Kendry’s neck, and by God, that’s what he was gonna do.
“He usually comes to me,” Dr. MacDowell said, frowning.
Kendry patted the baby’s back and fought her urge to back away from Paula and Dr. MacDowell. She interjected a deliberate note of cheerfulness into her voice. “That’s okay—it’s okay. Shh, Sammy.” She gave Paula’s arm a pat to get her to stop clawing at the child’s fingers, then started bouncing Sammy gently. “Just let him catch his breath. He’ll be fine. He needs a second to decide what to do next.”
Paula dropped her hand.
Dr. MacDowell spread his large hand over his son’s back and stayed that way. “Okay, buddy,” he said to Sammy. “Okay.”
“I think he picked up on the tension. He knew I was worried about Myrna. Thank you again for taking a look at her.”
“That was a good catch on your part. You were going to tell me something about Sam’s bottles?”
From the corner of her eye, Kendry saw Paula turn away and start the closing routine for the playroom, although it would be a couple of hours before she’d bring the last children back to their regular beds for the night.
“It takes Sam a lot longer to finish a bottle than the other kids.”
“It does?” His hand stilled on Sammy’s back.
Kendry nodded. “I don’t think he’s just a slow eater. I think he has a hard time swallowing. I tried feeding him almost sitting up today, and he got that bottle down so much faster. You might want to try it yourself and see if that works for you.”
“I will. Thanks.” The man was really frowning now. Kendry could tell he was mentally recalling feeding sessions with his son, reviewing them for anomalies.
Such a doctor.
“I had no idea he was slower than the other kids,” he said, sounding less like a doctor, more like an apologetic, perhaps a little bit defensive, father.
“I guess if you’d never fed another baby, you wouldn’t.” Kendry smiled at him, not wanting him to feel badly about himself. Sammy helped her out by choosing that moment to decide to turn his face toward his father. The steady, adult conversation had given Sam the chance to calm down enough to realize that he did, indeed, want Daddy.
“Da-da,” he said, and twisted his whole little body away from Kendry to grab his father’s lapel.
Dr. MacDowell easily took the child’s weight from Kendry. “Hey, son. Let’s go home. Can you say ‘bye-bye’ to Miss Harrison?”
But as Dr. MacDowell shifted a step back from Kendry, Sammy reached his hand out for her. “Me,” he said. His little fist opened and closed, stretched out toward her. “Me.”
“Bye-bye, Sammy. I’ll see you again real soon.” Kendry wished she could drop a kiss on his soft hair, but she wasn’t supposed to kiss the children. It was against hospital policy, for health-related reasons. Besides, she’d end up with her face way too close to the doctor’s face. She imagined the sensation of brushing cheeks with him—
That was best saved for another time.
No, that was best saved for never. It would never be a good time to imagine the feel of Dr. MacDowell’s skin.
It would be warm.
Stop it.
Kendry settled for a smile, then bent to pick up her bag. When she straightened, Dr. MacDowell hadn’t left, but looked like he was waiting on her. For a second, for one insane second, Kendry thought that the handsome man with that adorable child was waiting to spend more time with her.
“Can I walk you to your car?” he asked.
Kendry wanted to melt on the spot. He was such a gentleman. Too bad she didn’t have a car for him to walk her to.
No, she was Kendry Ann Harrison, minimum-wage-earning hourly employee, the girl who rode the city bus because she’d once been too stupid to go to college when she’d had the chance. She didn’t belong with the guy who’d devoted a decade of his life to learning all the medical know-how that allowed him to save people’s lives.
“Thanks, but I have to go clock out. Have a good night.”
She slung her tote bag over her shoulder and headed out of the room with what she hoped was a cheerful, unembarrassed, jaunty attitude.
“Me,” Sammy said, drawing out the syllable in a high-pitched voice of distress.
Kendry almost stopped. She knew that when Sammy wanted something, he said “me” instead of “mine.” But since she was Kendry, and his father was Dr. MacDowell...well, she wasn’t his mother, and he wasn’t her baby.
Still, she turned to blow her favorite baby a kiss over her shoulder.
* * *
The juggling routine never varied.
Jamie thought he ought to be getting better at it by now, but he still felt like a caricature of a single parent, the kind on TV commercials who dropped briefcases and seemed incapable of balancing babies and bottles. If only there were a solution at the end of thirty seconds of failure, like on TV. If only Jamie could press a door-opening button on the key to a certain car, or spot some golden arches that would magically make his day easier.
The juggling only got worse in real life. This evening, it was raining, but Jamie couldn’t pull his car into the garage, which was still full of boxes from his deployment. He dashed with Sam from the driveway to the side door, but the door refused to open. The days of uncharacteristic rain had made the wood swell, so Jamie ended up kicking open the door while Sam cried and the rain pelted them both.
“I know, Sam, I know. We’ll get you out of these wet clothes ASAP. They get cold real quick when they’re wet, don’t they?” Jamie kept his monologue running as he tried to keep the arm that was holding Sam inside the house while reaching out into the rain with his other arm to retrieve both his briefcase and the fallen diaper bag. “I can fix the clothes thing, son. Give me a second to shove this door closed, and I can fix that one problem. Thank God.”
Sam didn’t seem convinced, judging by the misery on his face and the volume of his cries.
Jamie applied some force to get the door to shut. In the still of the house, he could hear the rain dripping from the bottom of the diaper bag. The denim was soaked. One more thing he’d need to fix before his next shift at the hospital. Unpack the diaper bag, throw it in the dryer, repack it before work.
Damn. He let his head drop back to rest on the wall, let the denim drop onto the wood floor, which was wet, anyway.
His daily life wasn’t difficult, really, just a constant to-do list of tasks. So why did he feel so overwhelmed by it all sometimes?
Maybe his brother was right. Maybe having a nanny waiting for him now would be the solution. A grandmotherly woman, ready to put the diaper bag in the dryer for him. A gray-haired lady who would have had the lights on in the house while she waited for him to come home. One of the nanny services he’d consulted had specified light cooking as an option in their contract. There could be supper waiting for him now, made by a sweet old lady.
Even when he was dripping wet and tired, Jamie didn’t like the image. He didn’t want a grandmotherly person in his house, someone to accommodate, someone to adjust to.
He wanted a partner, a peer, someone who would love Sam like her own,