by Caro Carson
“Mom, that’s what we docs do. I’d rather he ran tests than guess why you’ve had these periods of weakness.”
Her personal physician as well as Jamie and his brothers were all certain she had an autoimmune disease, one of those poorly understood conditions that would flare up, then nearly disappear. Just when everyone stopped fearing the monster, it would rear its ugly head and remind them that Mom was not invincible. She was getting over the worst of a flare now. Taking care of a baby all weekend would have wiped her out.
Still, she had some homemade sweet tea in a pitcher in the fridge, and she insisted on serving Jamie while he sat at her kitchen table. Affection warred with exasperation as he watched her moving a little too carefully to fill his glass with ice. “Mom, let me do that. You sit.”
“I’m just fine. I can pour a glass of tea. If you’d told me you were coming, I could have had dinner in the oven, too.”
“I can’t stay for dinner, but I wanted to talk to you.”
She set his tea down, then set herself down in the chair across from his. “Well, this sounds serious.”
She looked at him with 100 percent of her attention. She’d always been like that. No matter how little he’d seen of his dad, he’d always known his mother was there for him, like Sam would now always have Kendry.
“Mom, I got married.”
She blinked. “My goodness. I didn’t know you were dating someone. Do I know her?”
“She works at the hospital. I think Dad would have approved.”
“It sounds like you think I won’t. What makes you think your father in particular would have approved?”
“Quinn approves, and he thinks like Dad. I needed a wife, and I found a woman who fit all my needs, so I didn’t waste any time about it.”
“It sounds more like you hired someone than like you fell in love.”
“We’re not in love, not the way you’re thinking. But she’s everything I was looking for.” He used the side of his hand to make neat little karate chops on the kitchen table, punctuating each point. “She’s smart. She can handle a sick child. We work together well. Done deal. Problem solved.”
“What problem?” She sounded a bit faint.
“Sam needed a mother. I’m nearly as busy as Dad was. I chose the same career. I know I won’t always be there for Sam. If he doesn’t have a mother...” He reached across the table and touched his own mother’s hand. “I can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like without you.”
She started to tear up. Jamie thought she was tearing up at the compliment, so her sudden disapproval caught him off guard.
“Your father was devoted to you. He loved you every bit as much as you love Sam. How can you say he wasn’t there for you?”
Jamie didn’t want to bring up ugly memories. He wanted to break the news that he was married, and then he wanted to go home, to the new family he was making with Sam and Kendry. “I’m sorry, Mom. Forget I said anything.”
“Tell me how your father wasn’t there for you.”
Jamie felt his frustration build. He’d opened this can of worms. He only had himself to blame if he was late getting home. “Maybe because he missed entire football seasons when I was playing. Maybe because when he was home, he was always on the phone.”
“Oh, Jamie. Have you been thinking that your whole life? Your father hated missing your games. Hated it so badly, he gave up part of his own salary to get the board to hire another physician. The board took six weeks to approve a replacement, and I thought he was going to blow a gasket at the delay. Once they got the new doctor in, your father was at every one of your games.”
Jamie swallowed sweet tea as he thought back. He remembered running onto the field, completing a play, looking up at the stands, spotting his mother. Had his father been sitting right next to her? He supposed he had been, some of the time.
“I hated those camping trips.” To his own ears, he sounded like a sullen adolescent.
“Oh, those camping trips.” She drummed her fingers on the table, distracting the doctor in Jamie with the demonstration of dexterity that proved she was well into remission. “I tried to speak to your father about juggling his roles. We didn’t have work-life balance and all those catchphrases when you were little, but we faced the same issues. Your father, though, was all or nothing. He’d realized that being near a telephone meant he was always answering calls instead of spending time with you boys. His solution was as extreme as yours.”
She made little karate chops on the table, imitating him. “If the phone was a problem, then he’d take his boys where there was no phone. Problem solved.”
Put that way, Jamie was uncomfortably aware that maybe Quinn wasn’t the only MacDowell brother who thought like their father. Maybe Jamie tended to make decisions the same way.
He gently pressed his mother’s karate hand flat on the table. “I’m having more sympathy for Dad now that I’m in his shoes. Quinn wants me to do more, to take over the medical director position from him next year, or at least chair the emergency department. But every career yes is a Sam no.”
“Did you decide to say yes to the career? Is that why you married someone, to gain a full-time nanny for Sam? I don’t think you should criticize your father, then. Your solution is more extreme than anything he ever came up with, and it puts work before family, which he never willingly did.” She stood abruptly.
Jamie stood, too, defensive and more emotional than he wanted to be. “That’s not why I got married. I’m still refusing to take on more work, because I want to spend every minute I can with Sam. Marrying Kendry wasn’t extreme. It was rational.”
“Your father didn’t marry me because it was rational. He married me for love. Crazy, passionate love.”
Jamie winced. “Mom, please.”
“It’s true. You need that in your life.”
“I had that in my life. How do you think Sam came about?”
The memories came back to him in a rush, vivid and emotional, now that he’d opened the door a crack to discuss earlier days. He saw Amina clearly, dark eyes flashing, daring him to take everything she had to give. He covered his eyes with his hand and waited for the wave to pass.
It took a moment to be able to breathe again. “I will never, ever love anyone the way I loved Amina.”
His mother hugged him. “I’m sorry, son. I don’t want you to settle for anything less than that.”
Jamie took a deep breath, dropped his hand, blinked at the kitchen he’d grown up in. “Yes, well, that is gone. I’ll never feel for another woman that way.”
His mother frowned. “Not that precise way, no. But that doesn’t mean you’ll never fall in love again.” She pushed Jamie into the chair she’d been in, then pulled out the chair next to him. She put her hand on his knee. “The longer you stay married to this girl, the easier it will be for her to win alimony. Your share of this ranch could become hers, if her lawyer is good enough. Will she put up a fight, or can you end this quickly and quietly?”
Jamie froze at the thought of losing Kendry.
No.
All his earlier caveman instincts came back, full force. He’d lost Amina. No way in hell was he going to lose Kendry. He needed her, and she was his now. His.
“I’m not ending my marriage. Ever.”
“Oh.” His mother let go of him immediately, as if she’d gotten an electric shock. “I thought you married a girl you weren’t passionate about.”
“She’s not a girl. She’s my wife, and she doesn’t want this ranch. She doesn’t know it exists.” His mother was so off base, it was laughable. So, Jamie tried to laugh.
“Tell me about her, then.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You could start with her name.”
“Kendry Harrison.” And then, because he
’d learned the information on the marriage license, and because his mother was still looking at him strangely, he told her more. “Kendry Ann Harrison. She’ll turn twenty-four in December. That might sound young, but she grew up all over the world. She’s seen a lot. We eat lunch together, which is usually the only bright spot of sanity in my workday. There are times at that hospital when I’d swear Kendry is the only person I can talk to, the only person who gets me.”
His mother was silent.
Way to go. Way to hurt your mother’s feelings.
Tiredly, Jamie stood. His mother stood, too, using the table for leverage. Jamie saw tears in her eyes. They might have been from pain because her joints had stiffened while she sat, but he feared it was worse than that. He’d made her sad.
“Don’t cry, Mom. Please, I didn’t mean it that way. I know I can always talk to you, too.”
She accepted his hug, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. “Oh, I hope you did mean it, son. I hope this woman is the one who understands you. It’s very special when you find someone who doesn’t try to change you.”
She stepped back, keeping her hands on Jamie’s arms, and gave him a little shake. “So tell me, is she pretty?”
Jamie rolled his eyes. “I can’t tell you how sick I am of people talking about her appearance. She loves Sam. That’s what matters.”
His mother only raised an eyebrow at him. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. She’d never reminded him more of Braden.
Aw, damn it. Braden. He’d forgotten to tell Braden he was married. That was going to have to happen by phone. Jamie wasn’t going to fly to Manhattan when there wasn’t a thing Braden could say that would make him change his mind about Kendry.
Kendry. He wanted to go home, to his house, to his wife, to his child. Now.
“Okay, Mom. The top of her head comes to about here on me.” With the side of his hand, he touched his jaw. “She’s got brown hair, and she wears glasses that make her eyes look kind of hazel. But when she doesn’t have them on, if you brush her bangs away, her eyes are actually green. She’s waiting for me, Mom, so I’ve got to go now.”
His mother didn’t move, except to tilt her head a little as she continued to study him.
“She’s waiting for me. So...okay?”
“Okay. Go home to your green-eyed wife, then. I can’t wait to meet her.” His mother walked him outside to his truck. She seemed pretty happy now, and Jamie was relieved enough that he wasn’t going to question why.
He hadn’t backed up his truck five feet, however, when his mother waved at him to stop.
She leaned in the window, one hand on the ledge like she’d keep the truck in place that way. “You let me know when you’re coming with her. None of this dropping by without giving a person notice. Not when I’m meeting my new daughter-in-law for the first time. I’ve got to have a cake ready at the very least.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Jamie breathed in the late-afternoon air as he drove down the ranch road, watching the familiar scenery of his childhood roll by. He was exhausted by the conversation. Exhausted by the whole weekend. Yet he was leaving here with less anger toward the memory of his father, and a strange feeling that his mother agreed that the detention slip in his backpack wasn’t so awful after all.
Chapter Fifteen
Kendry heard Sammy wake up with his usual cry. Not a cry of distress, but the one she thought sounded like he was saying, “Hey, I’m bored in here. Come and get me.”
“I’m coming, my little alarm clock,” she muttered to herself as she stretched briefly in bed. She felt great after another night of satiated sleep, this time with a belly full of fried chicken.
Kendry swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, marveling as she did every morning at how rich the plush carpet felt under her arches. She tugged Jamie’s T-shirt into place and walked into Sammy’s room with her eyes still half-closed.
Jamie was already there, wearing his sweatpants. Nothing else. His back was to her as he bent over the crib, and the movement of his shoulder muscles under an acre of smooth, male skin penetrated her sleep-fogged brain in the most delicious way.
He’s got no shirt on, because I’m wearing it. It was a silly thought, of course. Jamie must own dozens of T-shirts, yet it seemed as if between the two of them, they were sharing one outfit. He was bare on top. She was bare on the bottom.
Her eyes popped open. She was really, really bare on the bottom. She tugged the hem of his shirt another inch lower on her thighs at the moment he turned around with the baby in his arms. “Good morning,” he said, flashing her an easy, friendly smile, clearly oblivious to her state of undress.
She only had one pair of underwear in the house, the pair she’d been wearing when Jamie had whisked her away from the city bus stop on his motorcycle. Every night, she’d been washing them and putting them in the dryer. Every morning, wearing nothing but the man’s T-shirt, she’d gone into the laundry room and put the freshly cleaned pair back on. No big deal, to sleep in a T-shirt only.
Only today, the T-shirt’s owner was standing three feet away from her, smiling, and she felt practically naked. He looked practically naked.
Kendry started backing out of the room, tugging the front of the T-shirt down while she swore she felt a breeze on her bare backside. “Yes, um, good morning. I’ll just, uh, go get ready, since you’ve got Sam.”
She backed up into the hallway bathroom and shut the door. Her heart was pounding. Her face felt hot. She glanced in the mirror. The T-shirt came all the way down to the middle of her thighs. Jamie couldn’t possibly have seen whether or not she was wearing underwear. She should have been more worried about her hair, which was falling in an uncombed pillow-mess down to her shoulders.
It only took a few moments to go through her morning routine. Teeth brushed, face washed, hair brushed and ponytail holder twisted into service, she cracked the door open again, hoping to get into the laundry room and back to her bedroom without any more awkward good mornings.
She stepped into the hall when the silence was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of the washing machine lid being opened. Good lord. The man did his laundry first thing in the morning. Kendry hurried through the kitchen toward the laundry room.
“Wait,” she called. “I’ll get my things.”
Too late. The release mechanism for the clothes dryer’s door made a distinctive noise. Kendry jogged the last steps into the laundry room. There Jamie stood, in all his bare-chested glory, with a handful of wet camouflage clothing in one hand and, in his other arm, a baby who was using his father’s naked shoulder as a teething ring. Jamie was staring in the dryer.
“Here, let me get my stuff.” Kendry nearly elbowed him out of the way. Sure enough, although she’d thrown her bath towel in with her unmentionables, her bra and underwear rested on top, in plain view. She snatched the clothes and held them to her front. “Sorry.”
“Sorry,” Jamie said at the same time. He gestured with the wet clothes in his hand. “Thought I’d get these uniforms washed before work.”
“Sure. My stuff’s all done.” Kendry retreated to her bedroom and didn’t emerge until she was fully dressed. Fully. From her old bra and underwear to her new socks and scrubs. Sneakers on, laces tied. Completely dressed.
When she walked into the kitchen, she saw that Jamie was dressed, too, in boots and slacks and a dress shirt. She seized the opportunity to talk about anything except laundry. “You’re expecting a slow day today, aren’t you? On nights and weekends, you wear scrubs.”
“You are one very observant wife.” Jamie had placed Sam in a bouncy chair and was shaking up a bottle of formula. He was an efficient man, all right. She supposed he’d had no choice, being a single parent.
&nb
sp; He looked over his shoulder at her. “You’re wearing your wedding scrubs.”
“I guess they are, aren’t they?” Kendry was wearing the pink pair that had set off her tears the day they’d gotten married. Her old glasses were firmly in place, still serviceable until the new ones came in.
“I didn’t realize you had to work today.” Jamie checked his watch. “What time does your shift start?”
“I’m off. I kind of assumed I’d be home with Sammy.” They should have discussed this over fried chicken. Instead, they’d told each other amusing stories about their separate weekends.
“I think Sam wants to be with you whether you are in the playroom or at home.” Jamie sat Sam upright in his lap and started to give him his bottle. “If you don’t have to go to the hospital today, why are you in scrubs?”
“They’re comfortable.” Kendry had been wearing his T-shirt and her scrub pants when he’d gotten home the night before, and Jamie had jumped to the conclusion that she’d gotten ready for bed early.
“You never went back to your place this weekend, did you? Not even to get some clothes?”
“No, I didn’t feel like it.”
Jamie seemed thoughtful as he watched Sam drink his bottle. “You didn’t go to the grocery store, either. We’re out of bread and cereal.”
“I’m sorry. I should have saved you some for breakfast today.”
“That’s not the problem, Kendry. I can grab something at the hospital. The problem is, what are you going to eat for breakfast if you’re not going to work today?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. We’ve got mashed potatoes left over from last night.”
Jamie sighed, then stayed silent.
Kendry bit her lip. It was hard to read his thoughts as he watched Sam finish his bottle, but Jamie clearly wasn’t relaxed or happy or any of the things she wanted him to be now that they were married.
“I like mashed potatoes,” she said. “Honest.”
Jamie looked up at her. “The real problem is trying to figure out why you stayed in this house for two and a half days. Do you feel like it’s not your place to use the money I gave you for groceries?”
