Jamie pushed aside his mashed potatoes and congealed gravy.
“Excuse me,” she said, when she was done with a second napkin.
“No problem.” Physical attraction to her would make their co-parenting awkward, anyway.
She was having soup and crackers. Lots of crackers. She had a tower of those little oyster cracker packets on her tray. He tried to see through them to the photo ID that hung on the lanyard around her neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of her first name. It seemed awkward to have to ask a woman her first name when she already knew his child as well as he did. Better than he did, in some ways. Her name tag stayed wrong way out.
“Have you worked here long, Miss Harrison?”
She turned away and sneezed again. At least it flipped her name tag around.
Kendry. Kendry Harrison. Jamie waited for a feeling of great portent to settle over him. Waited for a thunderbolt to strike, for a feeling of destiny, for something.
“Amina. Amina Sadat.” She’d laughed, and in a voice that blended foreign tones with British enunciation, she’d said, “At least, that’s the Westernized version of my name.” She’d then recited a sentence-long string of syllables, her true Afghani name, one he would later learn included her father, her grandfather and nearly her whole family tree. Every syllable had sounded like exotic music...
Jamie cleared his throat. “Kendry? That’s an unusual name. What country is it from?”
She dabbed at her nose with her crumpled napkin, an apologetic motion. “I think my parents made it up. They’re kind of free-spirited like that.”
Free-spirited parents? Not the kind of people he expected, somehow, to produce the plain, serious person in front of him.
“But to answer your first question, I’ve been working here for nearly six months.”
Another point for her. She wasn’t distracted easily. Which reminded him that he needed to keep his head in the game. He was here to gauge their compatibility. “Do you enjoy working in the hospital?”
“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