“I didn’t say any of those things!”
“Yes you did.” She repeated as she wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks. “The night before my appointment at the clinic, I went to the cemetery to talk to my grandpa. You were there. At your mom’s grave. I heard everything you said.”
Oh shit.
A large knot formed in Josh’s stomach. “I was telling her what my dad said when I told him you were pregnant. I was telling her how he flipped out and said the most hateful things. I’d never even think any of those things! How could you think I’d say that?”
“Because you did say them!” Bailey’s hands flew up. “That’s all you said!”
“What do you mean, that’s all I said?”
She took a breath through her nose and exhaled from her mouth. “In the emergency room, when we found out I was pregnant you told me we’d figure it out, but you didn’t say how. On the way home, when I was listing all of the reasons I was scared, you said it would be okay and when I asked how, you were quiet!
“You always had a plan, Josh! You always fixed things! You always took care of me! But when I needed you the most, you didn’t say anything! When I told you I made the appointment, you didn’t say anything! When you drove me to the city, you didn’t say anything. When you drove me home, you didn’t say anything. The only opinion I heard from you was what you said to your mom’s headstone.”
“Fuck!’ Josh wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Since he couldn’t do that, he opted instead to rake his fingers through his hair in frustration. All he’d been trying to do was be there for her and support her, but she was right. He hadn’t said anything.
Bailey was crying now, silently sobbing, and his heart shattered for her, for him, for the entire misunderstanding.
She sniffed as she continued, “I thought that maybe you didn’t mean it and that you were scared, but then you didn’t say anything the entire hour and a half drive to the city.”
“That’s why you told me to wait in the car, because you were having second thoughts?”
“Yes,” she confirmed as her shoulders shook. “I didn’t know if I could go through with it.”
“You must’ve thought I was the biggest asshole. That’s why you left town and didn’t return any of my calls. And why you told me the things you did when I showed up at your door. You must hate me.”
“No,” Bailey shook her head so hard her blonde hair whipped her cheek and stuck to the damp skin. She brushed it away. “No, Josh, we were so young. Kids, really. I left town because I didn’t want you to know that I kept the baby. And I didn’t return your calls because I knew if I talked to you, you’d figure it out. And I said the things I did because I knew it was the only way you’d ever give up. I lied because I knew that if you thought that there was any chance of us being together that you’d never stop. You’d never let me go. So, I said what I had to so that you would. I never hated you, and I never thought you were an asshole.”
He was an asshole. Josh couldn’t believe how blind he’d been. How sorry he’d felt for himself. He’d been punishing Bailey for years over something that was his fault. She dropped her head as the tears continued to flow, and on instinct, he reached out to pull her into his arms. He wanted to hold her and take away all of her pain, but she pulled away and his heart broke even more.
* * *
“I can’t…” Bailey stepped back. As much as she appreciated the support, she didn’t want to lean on him through this. She couldn’t. What he’d said made total sense to Bailey. She could hear Stan saying, or screaming, all of those things at Josh. She wanted to know more, about why he hadn’t spoken up and what he’d really felt, but first she needed to finish telling him her side of the story. “I just need to get this out.”
“Okay.” Josh put his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach for her again.
Bailey wiped her cheeks as she shifted from her left foot to her right. “When I got to New York, I knew that I couldn’t raise the baby. It wasn’t impossible and maybe someone else could’ve, but I didn’t feel equipped to go to school and have an infant.
“So, I researched adoption agencies and then I spent months going over files of potential parents. I kept coming back to one couple: Gloria and Timothy Stein. Gloria had a master’s in social work and Timothy was a lawyer. They were established in their careers, in their lives, but most of all, they had really kind eyes. At least, in their pictures, anyway.” She inhaled past the lump that was in her throat. “Once I chose them, I thought that was it, but it wasn’t. There were all these other decisions that I had to make. What kind of adoption did I want? Did I want to meet the couple in person? Was I going to hold the baby?
“After a lot of thought and more research I decided on a closed adoption and no meeting. I didn’t want them to know who I was. I didn’t want anyone to know. Obviously the agency knew, but with a closed adoption the records are sealed. The plan was for me to give birth, sign over all my rights, and they take the baby home the next day.
“Things didn’t quite go that way. After she was born, a nurse noticed that her coloring wasn’t right. She called in another nurse, and then a doctor, and then a specialist. Soon there were so many people with white lab coats in the room that I couldn’t even count them. It turned out that she was born with the same conditions Noah was, Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. It means she had a blocked valve and holes in her arterial walls.
“I wasn’t even supposed to hold her, and all of a sudden I was the person that was responsible for keeping her alive. I was making decisions about surgeries. I was signing papers saying that a doctor could cut her open.”
Emotions that Bailey had never allowed herself to revisit came flooding back to her. Panic and fear began to overwhelm her. It wasn’t logical, but physiologically and emotionally she was sixteen again. Alone and terrified. She closed her eyes and forced herself to pull it together.
Taking a deep breath, she launched back in. “Everything was a blur, I couldn’t process what was going on around me. So many people were talking at me but I had no idea what they were saying. I couldn’t understand them. They rushed the baby to the NICU and a doctor came to see me. She had this amazing, calm energy. She introduced herself as Dr. Singh and asked me if I had any family that she could call. I explained the situation I was in, and she didn’t look down on me or pity me. Instead, she sat down and talked to me like a person, not an irresponsible teenager that got knocked up. She walked me through the procedure that the baby needed to have and what the recovery time would be.
“When she left, I made a promise to myself that if the baby survived, I would be the person Dr. Singh was to me. She was an angel. She was my angel. The surgery was scheduled for two days later. I spoke to my adoption liaison and told them that I couldn’t leave the hospital or sign the papers until I knew that the baby was going to be okay.” More tears escaped from her lids, but she wiped them away. “The surgery was successful. I spent ten days with her. Ten days in the NICU, holding her, singing to her, telling her how much I loved her, praying, willing her to be okay. Then, when she was well enough to be released, I kissed her on the forehead one more time and I signed over all my rights to her. I gave up the most precious gift I’d ever been given because I wanted her to have the best life she possibly could, and I knew that I couldn’t give that to her.”
All of the energy drained from Bailey’s body as she continued, “I went back to school and tried to put the entire thing behind me. You showed up about a year later and I knew that there was no way we could be together. So I said the things I knew would make you give up on me, on us. When I moved back here, I didn’t push to be in your life because I knew that there was no way I’d ever be able to have a future with you and keep what I’d done a secret.
“I had no contact with Angie or her adoptive parents for eighteen years. Then today I got called in to perform an emergency surgery, the same surgery that had saved my baby, our baby’s, life. It went well. An
d when I walked into the waiting room to do the post-op consult, I saw her and I just knew. I knew that it was her.
“I’d passed an older couple in the hallway that seemed familiar but I couldn’t place them. As soon as I saw her, I remembered that they were the couple from the adoption file. They were Gloria and Timothy Stein. I was fumbling my way through the consult when I got the page that your father was in cardiac distress. I left thinking she had no idea who I was, and I went to care for your dad.”
“That’s why you were acting so strange when you saw me,” Josh interjected.
“Yeah, I wanted to tell you everything, but I knew that I couldn’t. Our daughter was here, in Harper’s Crossing, in the hospital, and I couldn’t tell you because I had no idea if she even knew that she was adopted. I had no idea what she knew. But then after you left, she asked to speak to me, privately.
“It turns out she knew exactly who I was. The Steins never kept it a secret from her that she was adopted but they explained that they had no information on her birth mother. Once she got her license at sixteen, she made it her mission to find out who I was. She visited the hospital she was born in to see if anyone remembered her, or her birth mother.” Bailey’s breath was shaky as her lips pulled up in a grin. “Dr. Singh is still practicing there. She didn’t give Angie my name, but she asked Angie if she’d ever requested her medical records. Angie explained that the only medical records she had from her birth were the ones that were in her adoption papers. Dr. Singh said that she might want to request the originals from the hospital.” Bailey didn’t bother trying to wipe the tears that were falling down her face. “My name was redacted from all of the records that the agency had, but when Angie requested the originals from the hospital, it was all over the place. Once she had my name, it took her less than five minutes to find out basically everything there is to know about me. She knew I lived in Harper’s Crossing, that I was a pediatric surgeon, she even created a fake Facebook account and friended me.”
“Smart.” Josh grinned.
“She is smart. She applied to Northwestern, University of Chicago, and Wheaton, all schools that were close enough she could do recon on me. She got into all three but decided to go to Northwestern. She found out she was pregnant the week before her first semester. She told Jacob, they’ve been together for four years. They got married, and moved here so she could go to school.
“When she had the baby and it had the same condition, my name was one of the names that came up as a specialist, so she asked for Noah to be airlifted here. Jacob and her parents don’t know that she found me,” Bailey sighed with relief. That was it. That was the entire story.
“Why didn’t she tell them?”
“She said that she wanted to meet me first. She seems very protective of her family.” Just like her dad. “She said that she didn’t want to bring someone into their lives until she was sure that that person was safe. But now that she’s met me, she’s going to tell them.”
“How’s Noah? Is he going to be okay?”
“I think so.” Bailey wished that she could say for certain, but there was no way that she could make that kind of guarantee. “The surgery went well. All indicators point toward a full recovery. He’ll most likely need to have another surgery when he’s a few months older, and he’ll need to be on medication, but he should have a normal, active life.”
They both stayed silent for a few moments. Bailey knew it was a lot of information for Josh to take in and she didn’t want to rush him. She felt so much better with this off of her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how heavy the burden of this secret had weighed on her.
For so many years, she’d felt like she was walking around with the truth chaining her to the past. But now, she was free. That freedom was short-lived, as guilt began to creep up again when she thought about how one conversation could’ve cleared all of this up years ago.
Visions of all the things that might’ve been different invaded her thinking, but she immediately pushed those thoughts out of her mind. There was nothing she could do to change the past, but now, for the first time, she thought she might have a future.
Chapter 18
“I’m so sorry, Josh.” Bailey apologized. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to y—”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Josh shook his head. “If anyone is sorry, it’s me. You were alone, having our baby. I should’ve been there. I should’ve known.”
“How could you know? No one knew. Not my parents, not CJ. I didn’t tell anyone.” The raw vulnerability in her eyes destroyed him.
“You shouldn’t have been alone. You should never have been alone.”
They stared at one another and the energy shifted in the room. There was a new understanding between the two of them. A new level of intimacy that they’d never shared before.
He wanted to hold her, he needed to be close to her, but he knew that might not be what she wanted or needed. He lifted his arms in offering. This time, instead of backing away, she stepped toward him. He wrapped his arms around her and she instantly exhaled into him. Her entire body melted against his.
The strawberry scent of her hair filled his nostrils as he kissed the top of her head and held her tightly. She let out a sigh and he gritted his teeth, trying not to notice the sensation of air gently blowing out between her lips, or the way she lost herself in his strong arms. His body responded without his permission, and he hardened behind his zipper.
This was not the time nor the place for him to get excited. It was totally inappropriate. But appropriate or not, his arousal was getting stronger by the minute. By the second even, or whatever unit of time you’d measure Bailey’s breaths by. With each rise and fall of her chest, each puff of air that flowed from her lips over his neck, his body responded. Every time he touched Bailey, held Bailey, it sparked a fiery arousal in him that only she could douse.
He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so he started to move away but her arms wrapped around him and she buried her face against his shoulder. His dick twitched as she did and a tremor ran through her body.
“I’m sorry. He has the wrong idea.” He spoke into her hair as he held her tightly.
“I like his idea,” she whispered against his neck.
A low growl emanated from deep in his chest and Bailey tilted her head up to meet his eyes. The same vulnerability was there but this time it was mixed with desire, which was more than he could take. He bent his head to hers and devoured her lips, claiming her as his own.
“Yes,” she murmured, and there was as much relief as there was lust in her voice. He understood that because he felt it, too.
When they touched, everything else faded away. There was no past to deal with, no present to talk about, no future to discuss. Obviously, those things would come flooding back later. But for that brief, brilliant moment when their bodies were pressed together, time stood still. The respite was intoxicating and Josh felt himself getting drunk off of it.
His tongue plunged into Bailey’s mouth like it had a mind of its own. It was the same every time with her. His body was controlling him rather than the other way around. His brain took a backseat, and his body took the lead. It seemed to know what was best for him in a way that his brain sometimes didn’t.
As he explored her mouth with his tongue and her body with his hands, lust raged in him. His head was spinning so fast that he almost forgot where they were.
Almost.
“How do you lock this thing?” he rasped, his voice gruff with both lust and urgency as he examined the doorknob. Still, it didn’t matter how turned on he was or how badly he wanted her, he’d never put her in a position where she might lose her job.
“Oh, right,” she said, her voice tinged with both amusement and relief. She stepped smoothly around him and reached further up to the top of the door, sliding a manual deadbolt into place, clicking it shut.
He smiled as she stepped closer to him and threaded her fingers through his. Leaning down,
he attempted to capture her mouth again, but she held her lips just out of his reach. He rested his forehead against hers and she took the lead, brushing her lips against his softly as she whispered, “I need you, Josh. It’s an emergency.”
That was all the encouragement he needed. He wasted no time as he reached down and pulled her shirt up over her head. Her long, blonde strands shimmered in the soft lighting as they fell over her shoulders. He brushed her hair back to reveal her bare skin and then leaned down to kiss her neck. His lips moved farther down her chest and lingered on the rise of her breasts, that lovely swell of flesh just above the lacy top of her bra.
Her body writhed against his as he kissed every inch of exposed skin. Then he moved onto the not-yet-exposed skin. Using the lace that covered her nipples to his advantage, he sucked her tight peaks in his mouth. His tongue lapped against the material, wetting it with saliva as her nubs hardened beneath his attention. The friction of the lace and his tongue had her gasping for breath as he went to work on both.
His hands spread across her backside and he kneaded her generous curves. He worked his leg between hers and her core settled on his muscular thigh. Her hips rolled in a seductive motion that caused her center to grind against the top of his thigh as he squeezed her ass and licked, bit, and teased her nipples. Her fingers gripped his shoulders as her gasps and breaths increased. He hadn’t gotten her off from dry humping since middle school, and as tempting as a walk down memory lane would be, touching her was more enticing.
As he continued sucking her breasts into his mouth, flicking her swollen beads with his tongue and nipping her flesh with his teeth, he slid one hand beneath her waistline and cupped her panty-covered vee with his hand. The material was just as soaked as her bra.
He moved his fingers, rubbing her through her dripping wet underwear. The lace slid along with his movements. When he felt the walls of her entrance begin to contract he shifted her panties to the side and pushed two fingers inside of her.
Just One Night - Josh & Bailey (Crossroads Book 13) Page 15