Just One Night - Josh & Bailey (Crossroads Book 13)

by Melanie Shawn

  “Bailey,” he said as he caught up to her.

  Her gaze remained trained straight ahead and her steady gait turned into a speed walk. “Dr. Burns can answer any of your questions, Josh.”

  “Bai—”

  “I can’t do this right now,” she cut him off, shaking her head as she opened a door with a small placard beside it that read, On Call Suite 2. She stepped inside and grabbed the handle to shut the door.

  Josh placed his hand on it to prevent her from shutting him out. He could hear the desperation in his voice. “If it’s bad…just tell me. I’d rather hear it from you.”

  * * *

  Bailey stared at Josh. She was at a total loss for what to say or do. It wasn’t bad. At least, Stan wasn’t bad. It looked like Josh’s dad was going to be okay.

  But Bailey wasn’t sure she was going to be okay. Her head was spinning. The entire world was spinning. And now she wasn’t even going to get to go home and figure any of this out because Dr. Lee had a family emergency so she was on call tonight.

  I’m having a family emergency, she’d wanted to scream.

  The shock of coming face to face with her daughter had been too much for her. And then to see Josh, here, was the final straw that she feared would break the thin thread of sanity that was keeping her together.

  Somehow, as she looked into Josh’s eyes, she was able to pull herself back from the edge of the nervous breakdown she was teetering on. She realized that her behavior was leading Josh to think that there was something serious going on with his dad.

  At this point, no matter what Dr. Burns told him or how he reassured him, Josh wouldn’t believe any of it because of how she was acting. She decided against having the conversation in the hall, though, just in case someone like, oh, maybe their daughter, wandered by. So, she opened the door for him.

  Josh walked in.

  Bailey’s chest was tight and her palms damp as she shut the door behind her. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak, and even if she could, she wasn’t sure she trusted what she was going to say. Part of her wanted to just blurt it out. Tell him that she’d kept the baby and that baby wasn’t a baby anymore and was upstairs with a baby of her own. That her name was Angie and she was beautiful and that she had his eyes. But she knew she couldn’t.

  She wasn’t worried that he’d be upset with her. After seeing Angie, after seeing Noah, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d made the right decision. She wasn’t afraid of Josh being mad or upset with her anymore.

  No, now she held her tongue because it wasn’t her story to tell. It wasn’t her right. She’d signed that right over to Gloria and Timothy Stein.

  If she told Josh, she knew that he’d have to go see her and talk to her.

  What if Angie didn’t know she was adopted?

  Or even if she did know, they didn’t have the right to just go insert themselves in Angie’s life like that. Gloria and Timothy didn’t know who she was. She’d watched them take her daughter home from the hospital when she was just ten days old, but they had no idea Bailey was there. One of the nurses had arranged for Bailey to sit in the nurses’ station behind the glass in the nursery. She just had to see that her baby was going to be taken care of with her own eyes.

  It had been a closed adoption. She kept her identity anonymous. She didn’t want anyone to find out that she kept the baby. She left for school when she was only six weeks pregnant. Her mother didn’t know. Her brother didn’t know. Only her college roommate knew, but she never asked many questions. She was so wrapped up in her own social life she barely noticed when Bailey went into labor and called a cab to go to the hospital.

  “What is it? Just tell me. The nurse said I couldn’t see him. Why can’t I see him?”

  “Stan is sedated. He needs rest. We believe he had low-grade CAS—”

  “CAS?” Josh questioned.

  Bailey never used terms that relatives and family members wouldn’t understand. It was a golden rule she lived by. She was beyond rattled and it was showing.

  “Sorry.” She took a breath. “A mild heart attack. The type we believe he suffered from is a coronary artery spasm, CAS, which unlike a STEMI or NSTEMI where the artery is blocked or partially blocked, in a CAS the arteries spasm, which caused the blood flow to stop. He’ll need more tests to be sure, but right now he’s stable.”

  “He’s stable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so what else?”

  What else? Well, let’s see, your daughter and grandson are upstairs.

  “What do you mean what else?” Bailey heard her tone get defensive.

  “What’s the bad news? You can barely look at me.”

  “There’s no bad news.” She met his gaze and could hear the exhaustion in her voice. She hoped that he would hear it, too. “I’m tired, Josh.”

  He stared at her, searching for any sign of deceit no doubt, and she forced herself to maintain eye contact. She knew that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t leave. He’d keep digging if he thought there was something more going on with his dad or with her.

  Worried that he’d be able to tell if she lied, she went with the truth. Or, at least the truth about his dad. “Stan is okay. For now. If nothing changes, he’ll have to be on some medication and will need to change his diet.”

  Josh must’ve surmised that she was being honest, because his shoulders relaxed slightly and he slowly nodded.

  Bailey felt like the walls in the on-call room were closing in on her. Sweat was beginning to form on her brow and the back of her neck and her hands were shaking so she shoved them in her pockets.

  She was on the brink of having a full-fledged panic attack. She’d only had one other one in her life, it was at the clinic the day she went to terminate her pregnancy. She was being prepped for the procedure and, just like now, the walls began to close in on her, her chest constricted, and beads of moisture sprung up at her hairline. Her hands were shaking so badly that day that she could barely fill out the forms.

  “Are you okay?” Josh’s brow wrinkled in concern.

  “I’m just tired. I’ve been on my feet all day.”

  “I’ll let you get some rest.” He turned to leave but hesitated and lifted the bag he held in his hands. “I brought this for Pop. It’s the hamburger you told me about at the country club. I don’t know when the last time you ate was, but I’ll leave it here.”

  He set it down on the small table at the end of the cot before leaving the room.

  As soon as the door shut, Bailey sank down onto the mattress and curled up in a ball. When she was a kid and the world was too scary, she used to lie on her bed in the fetal position and cry. That’s exactly what she found herself doing now. There was no way that her body could compete with the warring emotions inside of her.

  Her entire existence had just been turned inside out and she had no idea what to do about it. It was one thing to compartmentalize her daughter when she’d been an abstract person that Bailey knew was out in the world. But now she’d seen her. She’d spoken to her. She’d held her in her arms.

  How in the world was she going to compartmentalize that?

  She had no idea how long she’d been there, like that, when there was knock at the door.

  Josh.

  She should’ve known better than to think he’d leave well enough alone. She sat up and grabbed a napkin from the bag of food that Josh had left and wiped her face, hoping to erase any signs of the emotional breakdown she’d just endured. With no mirror in the tiny room, she had to trust it did the trick. When the knock sounded again, she stood and opened the door.

  When she did, relief replaced anxiety. It wasn’t Josh. It was CiCi. And she was smiling, which meant there was no emergency.

  “Hey, I thought I might find you here.”

  There were three on-call rooms in the hospital but Bailey preferred number two, even though it wasn’t on her floor, because it was the most secluded. Tucked away at the end of a hall lined with maintenance and st
orage rooms. No nurses’ stations. No break rooms. No patient rooms.

  “Mrs. Carter is asking for you. She’s insisting that she needs to talk to you.”

  Bailey felt herself staring blankly at her friend. She was at a complete loss as to how to respond. Being born with a higher than average intelligence had been a blessing and a curse. There was something to be said about ignorance being bliss. Bailey’s mind was constantly working, calculating all potential outcomes of any given situation. It was exhausting. But because of that, there hadn’t been many situations in her life that she’d felt unable to navigate.

  Until now. She had no idea what to do or say.

  “Baby Carter’s mom, Angie, says that she needs to speak to you,” CiCi repeated.

  “Is No—” Bailey stopped herself. She never used patients’ first names. “Is baby Carter okay?”

  “He’s the same. No change. He’s still in recovery,” CiCi assured her. “I’m not sure what this is about. She’s waiting in your office.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nerves danced in Bailey’s stomach as she left the on-call room. The last time she’d come face to face with her daughter, it had been a complete surprise. This time she knew what, or who, she was going to face. It was going to be a much different experience.

  CiCi pushed the elevator button and when the women stepped on, Bailey tried to prepare herself. She had no idea what to expect when she walked into her office. A tiny, nagging voice in the back of her head said that Angie must know the truth, but she dismissed it.

  There was no record that Bailey was her birth mother. It wasn’t on the birth certificate, and all of the adoption papers were sealed. There was no way that anyone knew.

  “I know I sound like a broken record, but are you okay? You really seem off today.” CiCi commented with concern.

  Since saying that she was fine or tired wasn’t cutting it, Bailey tried, “I’ll be okay,” instead.

  “I’m here if you need anything.” Her friend squeezed her hand as the elevator doors opened.

  “Thanks.” Bailey appreciated the offer, and loved that she’d found such incredible friends, but she had no plans on sharing what she was going through with any of them.

  CiCi and Bailey went opposite directions as they stepped onto the third floor. Her friend went to the right and used her badge to open the electronic doors that led to the NICU. Bailey veered left, heading down a hall where there were some admin offices and doctor’s offices, and a small parents’ room that housed two vending machines, a fifty-inch flat screen, and several couches.

  With each step she took, she grew more anxious. She tried to tell herself that all she was doing was meeting with the parent of a patient. That’s it.

  Move along, nothing to see here panic.

  But her attempts to downplay the scenario proved utterly useless. Her heart rate was accelerated. Her breathing was shallow. And she could feel her cheeks heating from the adrenaline that was spiking in her system.

  As she approached the open door to her office, she saw that Angie was sitting with her back to her. Before she walked in, she closed her eyes and took as deep a breath as she could manage with the giant elephant-in-the-room sitting on her chest. Then, she did what she’d done her entire life: she sucked it up and put one foot in front of the other.

  Bailey didn’t make eye contact with the teen as she rounded her desk to sit down. It wasn’t unusual behavior from physicians. Patients always complained to her about other doctors they’d had never looking up from the charts they studied. It wasn’t how Bailey normally did things, but it seemed like the easiest way to get through this.

  “Hi Mrs. Carter, CiCi said you wanted to—”

  “You can call me Angie,” the girl cleared her throat. “It’s short for Evangeline.”

  Bailey’s heart plummeted to the floor and her eyes shot up to meet a pair of blue eyes that looked as nervous as she felt.

  “Evangeline?” Bailey whispered.

  The only stipulation that she’d made in the adoption, other than it being closed, was that the baby legally keep the name that Bailey had chosen when she was born.

  Evangeline.

  It was Josh’s mother’s name and Bailey had always felt close to her even though she’d never known her. She’d thought it only right that if there was going to be a piece of Josh walking around that she be named after her.

  Her adoption liaison allowed her to request it, but she’d explained that it was only that. A request. Once the baby was legally Gloria and Timothy’s, they could name her whatever they wanted.

  “Everyone calls me Angie for short, but my name is Evangeline. It was the name my birth mother gave me. I was born on March ninth…”

  Bailey was only half-listening as Angie listed her date of birth, the hospital that she was born in, the condition that she was born with, and then finally the words that Bailey never dreamed that she’d hear.

  “And I believe that you’re my biological mother.”

  Chapter 16

  Dr. Burns was adamant that Josh go home and get some rest and that’s exactly what he was trying to do. He’d been standing next to the information desk in the lobby for five minutes but he just couldn’t bring himself to walk out the door.

  He’d found Dr. Burns shortly after he left the on-call room and the man had said basically the same thing that Bailey had. He’d explained that his dad was stable, he was sedated, and they were monitoring him. Josh wouldn’t be able to see him until the morning. He also assured him, several times, that if there were any changes he’d notify Josh immediately.

  There was no reason that Josh should remain at the hospital, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that leaving the hospital felt so wrong. Everything in him, every cell in his body, was screaming at him to stay. He tried to pinpoint the source of his unusual reluctance.

  He knew his dad was in good hands. And even more important, he trusted that he’d be contacted if there was, God forbid, another emergency. He lived only a few miles away from HCC and he could be back here in less than five minutes if needed.

  His pops wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to leave. It was Bailey. Something had been off with her. She might be tired but that’s not why she was acting the way she was with him. He’d considered that it could be because he hadn’t spoken to her since they spent the night together, but Bailey wouldn’t let that affect the way she interacted with him at a time like this.

  No. She wasn’t just tired. She wasn’t just upset with him because he hadn’t texted or called.

  There was something else going on. He knew it. He just had no idea what it was.

  Now that he realized what was bothering him, he determined there wasn’t anything he could do about it. She wasn’t his to worry about and even if she were, she’d made it clear with her tone and body language that she wanted him to leave her alone.

  He walked toward the glass doors when something caught his eye. The television that was mounted on the wall was playing a commercial for a flower delivery service.

  The gift shop.

  He didn’t have to know what was going on with Bailey to bring her a bouquet of her favorite flowers. Or at least the flowers that had been her favorite when they were younger. He crossed through the maze of chairs in the waiting room to the boutique nestled in the corner. They didn’t have a huge selection, so he was surprised that sitting front and center of the refrigerated glass case was a cheery bouquet of blue irises.

  When he took them to the counter, the elderly woman with the volunteer vest on looked just as surprised to see them as he was. “Where did you find these?” she asked.

  He pointed to the glass case.

  “Oh, I’ve never seen these before. We don’t carry this type of flower. They must’ve been delivered to a patient that was allergic. Sometimes, when that happens the patient donates them to the shop so they don’t go to waste.”

  Lucky break for him.

  “Did you want to fill out a card?” the woman
asked as she rang him up.

  “Sure.”

  She handed him the card as she said, “That will be twenty-five sixty-two.”

  Josh gave the woman his bankcard.

  “Did you want to donate a dollar to the ASPCA?”

  “Sure,” Josh automatically answered as he stared at the blank space, wondering what he should write.

  His shoulders grew tense from the pressure to make it special. But then he heard his mother’s voice telling him to “stop overthinking it.” He’d always been a perfectionist and she’d say that to him when he got stuck. He’d be paralyzed in a project or homework assignment, overwhelmed with the need to make something perfect. So, she’d tell him, “Some things don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be done.”

  He hadn’t agreed with her then and he didn’t today. In his mind, things did need to be perfect, but he did see the lesson she was trying to teach him.

  He settled on signing his name. There was so much that needed to be said between the two of them. There was no way that he could fit it on a tiny piece of paper.

  “Are these for Dr. Rossum?” the woman asked as she handed him back his bankcard and receipt.

  “Um…” Josh hadn’t said anything about who he was giving them to and he hadn’t written her name on the envelope.

  “I saw you two on the internet.”

  “Oh, right.” Harper’s Crossing had always been a small, gossipy town, but Josh would’ve never guessed that so many people would’ve watched the live feed of a charity benefit.

  Her soft, wrinkled hand covered his and she patted it lightly. “I was married for close to sixty years before my Walter died. It wasn’t always easy, but Walter was always there loving me through whatever we faced. That man loved with everything in him. It’s been six years since I lost him, but when I saw how you looked at Dr. Rossum, it was like Walter was looking at me. You love the same way my Walter did, with everything in you. I hope you and Dr. Rossum will be as happy as Walter and I were.”

  Josh thought about correcting her but realized that he didn’t want to. He wanted that for himself and Bailey as well.