‘Logan, thank goodness. Someone said they’d seen you arrive, but I wasn’t sure. The rounds are done and we’re just squaring the last few tasks away so now’s about the perfect window for Santa to visi
t. I’ve got the suit, and the kids are so excited.’
‘Fine, I’m coming now.’ Logan shot her a warm smile before turning to call Jamie.
‘Come on, champ, time to go.’
As the little boy turned and spotted her, Kat wasn’t prepared for the way his face lit up with unadulterated happiness.
‘Kat!’ he cried joyously, as emotion slammed into her, stealing the breath from her lungs.
And then he was dashing across the atrium on his little legs and flinging himself at her. She scooped him up, swinging him around and hugging him tightly, breathing in that young-child scent. So like Carrie, yet so much his own person.
‘Come on, champ,’ Logan cut in gently. ‘Let’s get you to day care, I have to go and work.’
Was it just her imagination or was Logan’s voice different somehow? Because of Jamie’s reaction to her? It had certainly blown her away, so how had it made Logan feel?
Then again, it probably wasn’t anything to do with her. It was more likely that he was concerned about keeping the kids waiting. They both knew that in hospitals like this there were only limited windows for visits from Santa in between rounds, meals, medication and handovers.
Logan needed to get going now.
‘I have one quick errand to run, but if you like I can some back and pick Jamie up from day care in time for that ice cream,’ she heard herself offering quietly. ‘You know, when your alter ego needs to go in there.’
He cast her a sharp look and, for a brief moment, she wondered if he didn’t realise she was talking about when he had to play Santa to the children. But then he spoke.
‘I wasn’t trying to make you feel obligated.’
‘You didn’t.’ She toyed with a smile. ‘Jamie did that all by himself.’
Logan didn’t answer immediately, and when he did she heard the faint glow of pride and awe in his tone.
‘Yeah, the kid will do that to you.’
It was like being invited into the privacy of their father-son relationship.
Like family, a voice whispered, before she quashed it, nodding robotically instead. Not adding that she wasn’t entirely sure if it was Jamie who had sneaked past her defences or Logan.
Or, more likely, both. And if it took more effort than it should have done to turn around and walk away from the pair of them, well, that could stay her guilty secret.
* * *
Kat raced through her task list. Somehow the prospect of returning to the hospital to Jamie, and to Logan, made the long-overdue errands far more palatable. Soon she was hurrying back through the doors to the main entrance and stowing her bags under the reception desk with a grateful smile.
Threading her way through the visitors and mobile patients, Kat headed for the day care, only slowing down to soak up the sight of Jamie playing, happy and oblivious, with a little girl she recognised as the daughter of a cardiac consultant.
A single mother. The thought sneaked into Kat’s brain, torturing her with images of Logan and Jamie playing happy families with the consultant and her daughter.
What was wrong with her? She’d been over this. She wasn’t doing this because she wanted something more with Logan, she was just helping out a colleague who was trying to do a good Christmas deed for the kids. And the sooner she got Jamie out of there, the less chance there was that Logan would appear and his cover would be blown.
Picking up her pace, Kat knocked on the door to the day care and waited for one of the assistants to let her in. And then, suddenly, as the door was opened to her and Kat looked inside, everything seemed to slow down.
She saw the other child sitting on Jamie’s untied shoelace a fraction of a second before Jamie launched himself towards another toy. Instinct made her lunge forward, but she was too far away and he hit the floor with a thud, landing on his arm.
He went from shouts of glee to shouts of pain in a split second. His cry was heart-wrenching.
‘Okay, sweetheart, you’re okay. I’m here,’ she said, reaching where he’d fallen and instinctively beginning to soothe him.
But she could tell something was wrong. Just the way he was crying and holding his arm. It wasn’t quite right.