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

by Melanie Shawn

  “Sort of. I mean, that’s why I saw the situation the way I did. I knew that you were carrying around a huge secret and I always thought that must be hard for you. So, when mom dropped the bombshell that dad wasn’t my dad, that’s where my brain went.”

  Bailey wasn’t sure how she felt about being the reason that her brother had let her mother off the hook. But she didn’t have the emotional ram to process it so she pushed it aside for another time.

  “Okay, well, that’s not all.” Bailey went on to fill CJ in on the events of the past day.

  This time she got the reaction she thought she would’ve gotten the first time. He was shocked. Speechless, even. The only words he could muster were, “What?” and “Holy shit.” He asked if it would be okay if he got Angie’s phone number. He wanted to text her and let her know that he’d love to meet her, and her husband, and Noah. Bailey said she’d give Angie his info and also ask if she could pass hers along.

  As they were wrapping up the call, he asked, “Have you told Mom yet?”

  “Um…” It was so strange, but Bailey hadn’t even thought about calling her mom. “No.”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

  “Well, at least you know she can’t be mad at you about it.”

  Despite herself she smiled. “Do you ever think you’ll look for your birth dad?”

  What if, just like Josh, CJ’s biological father had no idea that he had a son?

  “I’ve thought about it, but I have no idea where to start.”

  “What about starting with Mom?”

  “She says she doesn’t remember.”

  Right. And if she believed that she was sure someone had some oceanfront property in Arizona that they could sell her.

  Someone that Bailey couldn’t see called CJ’s name and he looked away from the screen. “I gotta go. My trainer is here.”

  “Talk soon. Love ya.”

  “Love ya.”

  Bailey disconnected the call and thought about what CJ had asked. Would she tell her mom about Angie? About Noah? Was her mom a safe person to bring into their lives?

  A knock on her door snapped her out of her inner thoughts.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened and her friend Ginny appeared in the doorway. “Hey, chickadee!”

  “Hey!” Bailey smiled brightly as she scrambled to remember if she’d forgotten a lunch date. Things had been so crazy lately, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities. “Did we have plans?”

  “No, I’m on my way to the studio but I just wanted to come by real quick because I was visiting a friend in the PICU.”

  “Oh, was it Lily?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lily Swanson was a seven year old who suffered from cerebral palsy. She also happened to be Virginia Valentine’s self-proclaimed number one fan.

  Virginia “Ginny” Valentine was a world-famous country artist who had moved to Harper’s Crossing to work on an album and ended up falling in love with her bodyguard, Dax. The couple made a home in the small town and since then, Ginny was at the hospital at least once a month cheering up fans or friends. Ginny never used the word fan when she spoke about her adolescent admirers. They were always her friends.

  “How is she doing?” Bailey was familiar with her case, but hadn’t been by to see her since she’d been admitted two days ago.

  “She’s tough and smiling, like always. That girl is an inspiration,” Ginny enthused.

  Bailey always marveled at the resilience that kids had. She was often asked if it was difficult working in pediatrics, and in some regards, yes it was. Seeing a child suffer and losing a child so young can be devastating. But kids were also so optimistic and they had a fight and spirit in them that people tended to lose as they got older.

  “I wanted to check and see if you’d be good to move coffee to the middle of next week? I’m going to have to head down to Nashville this weekend.”

  “Mid-week works for me.” Bailey had been waffling on whether or not she was going to go to the monthly get together. She’d been concerned about seeing her friends with everything so up in the air. This would give her a few more days to figure things out.

  “Great! Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

  “I’ll walk you to the elevator, I’m headed that way.” Bailey grabbed her cell phone, slid it into her pocket, and joined her friend in the hall. She wanted to find out if Noah’s morning labs were back. Overnight, his readings were stellar. That kid was a fighter, just like Angie had been after her surgery.

  “Oh, I got your text and I love it!” Ginny exclaimed.

  “My text?” Bailey couldn’t remember what she’d texted her friend about. Her mind felt like Swiss cheese.

  “Barefoot in a ball gown?”

  “Oh, right.” She’d totally forgotten that she’d sent Ginny that text.

  “I already have the chorus.” Ginny began to quietly sing what she had of the song and Bailey was blown away. Not only did her voice sound like an angel, the lyrics were heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.

  It was so strange to have a friend as talented as Ginny.

  When she finished, she scrunched her nose. “That’s all I have. It’s a work in progress.”

  “No,” Bailey stared in awe at her friend. “That was incredible. I just forget sometimes that you’re you. What you do is so amazing.”

  “What I do?!” Ginny shook her head. “Hello, pot meet kettle. You are the amazing one. You save lives. Little tiny lives.”

  To Bailey, what Ginny did seemed a lot harder than what she did.

  “So, what’s new with you, lady-loo?” Ginny sing-songed as she smiled in a way that made Bailey feel like the question she was asking was loaded.

  Did she know about Angie?

  That would be news traveling fast even by Harper’s Crossing standards. It was a small town, but everything had gone down only twelve hours ago. She’d let her boss, the Chief of Pediatric Surgery know for ethical reasons. Bailey would’ve never operated on Noah if she’d known that he was her biological grandson. And she’d filled CiCi in, since she’d assisted during the surgery. But Bailey knew in her heart of hearts that CiCi wouldn’t have said anything.

  Maybe Josh had told Brian and Brian told Becca. But that would mean that Becca would’ve had to say something and as sure as she was that CiCi wouldn’t have said anything, she was sure that Becca wouldn’t either.

  “Word is that you and Josh Scott looked pretty cozy at the fundraiser.” Ginny nudged Bailey with her elbow before pressing the button for the elevator.

  The fundraiser.

  Right. So much had happened in the past week, the dance-a-thon felt like it was a lifetime ago.

  “Oh…well…” she stammered, unsure of what to say to her friend. Just then, the double doors that led to the NICU opened and Angie walked through.

  “Hi!” Angie’s face lit up when she saw Bailey and it made her heart swell with emotion.

  She’d spoken with her when she went on rounds this morning and it had been just as surreal as speaking with her the first time had been. It still felt surreal now. Bailey wondered if that would ever change.

  “Hey!” Bailey noticed that Angie’s attention had turned toward Ginny. “Angie this is—”

  “Virginia Valentine,” Angie finished, her voice tinged with wonder.

  “My friends call me Ginny.” The elevator arrived and Ginny stepped in. “It’s nice to meet you, Angie. And don’t forget, coffee next week.” Ginny pointed to Bailey, who nodded in return. Then her friend’s eyes bounced back and forth between Angie and Bailey. She pointed at them, waving her finger. “Wow, you two look like you could be sisters,” she observed as the doors closed.

  Angie and Bailey stared at one another in the reflection of the steel doors, then looked at one another and chuckled.

  “I was just going to grab coffee, but I’m glad I ran into you. I
told everyone about you…and Josh. My parents said they’d like to take you both out to dinner.”

  “Oh,” Bailey wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. “Sure, of course.”

  Bailey hadn’t really thought about what they might be feeling right now. But she guessed she’d find out soon.

  Chapter 20

  “Wow.” Brian stared at Josh in disbelief as the two men sat at a table tucked in the corner of the hospital cafeteria.

  When his cousin had shown up to visit Josh’s dad that afternoon, Josh asked him if they could grab a cup of coffee so that he could fill him in on the past twenty-four hours. It was strange hearing everything out loud. Brian was the only person he’d told so far.

  “So Bailey had no idea when she was operating that he was her—”

  “Nope. No idea.”

  “And you had no idea this whole time?”

  “I knew that she was pregnant, but I didn’t know she kept it. When she left for school she stopped talking to me.”

  “It’s so crazy but also, it sort of makes sense,” Brian reasoned. “Why she shut you out. Why you guys didn’t talk for years. I mean, I thought for sure that you two would get back together when she moved back to town, but now I see why you didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Josh agreed.

  After Bailey was paged back to work around two a.m., he’d left and gone home. He’d tried to sleep, but instead he spent the night running it all over and over again in his head. Now that he had all the pieces of the puzzle, Bailey’s behavior made perfect sense. Looking back, Josh felt like an idiot for not seeing the signs. He should’ve known.

  “And how’s the baby?”

  “He’s good. Bailey texted me this morning that he’s doing better than expected. She said he’s a fighter.”

  “So what’s going to happen now? Have you talked to…?”

  “Angie. Well, that’s what everyone calls her but her name is Evangeline.”

  “Whoa,” Brian’s eyes widened. “That’s freaky. Talk about a coincidence.”

  “No, it’s not. Bailey named her when she was in the hospital and she requested that the adoptive parents keep her name.” Josh couldn’t put into words what it meant to him that Bailey had done that. Especially since she’d done that when she’d thought that he’d said such horrible things.

  “Your mom would’ve loved that.”

  “Yeah,” Josh knew that wondering how different things would’ve been if his mom was around was senseless, but it was hard not to let his mind go there.

  “Angie and I haven’t talked but we’ve texted. She actually sent me this.” He pulled out his phone and showed Brian the cartoon GIF that she’d sent him. It was of a stork dropping a white bundle that opened up and had a baby with a pink bow on it that said, Surprise! It’s a GIRL!, across the top.

  His cousin smiled.

  Josh put his phone away, not sharing the message that she’d sent with the meme. She’d told him that she appreciated him being so kind when they met and apologized for the entire thing being sprung on him and that she was excited to get to know him.

  He’d told her that meeting her was the best surprise he could’ve ever gotten. And that he couldn’t wait to get to know her.

  “So you two are going to stay in touch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.” Brian repeated again. “So in the span of five minutes you found out that you’re a dad and a grandpa.”

  Josh wasn’t quite sure how to wrap his head around either of those things. Nothing about this situation felt real.

  “Did you want me to get you some Ensure to go with your coffee?” His cousin joked.

  Josh flipped him off.

  “But seriously, that means that in this hospital there are four generations of Scotts.”

  Josh hadn’t thought of it like that.

  Everything was so new, he had no idea how he’d fit into his daughter’s life, or if he’d fit at all. He felt so naive about the entire situation. Angie was his and Bailey’s daughter, but she had parents. So what was he to her?

  He’d had friends who adopted kids and they used the terms birth mother, or biological father. Was that how he’d introduce her to people? He figured he’d ask Bailey. He was sure that she’d done research.

  “So how are you and Bailey?”

  “We’re okay.”

  They were more than okay, but he wasn’t quite ready to share that with his cousin yet. Bailey was adamant about putting them on hold for now. And he agreed with her. There was enough going on without adding that to the mix. But that didn’t mean that all day he hadn’t been tempted to arrange a rendezvous with her in the on-call room.

  “So you’re not upset that she never told you about the baby?” Brian asked.

  “No. I said terrible things that she overheard. I was just repeating what my pop said, but she had no way of knowing that. And she was so young, we both were.”

  This entire situation was just an epic miscommunication. And if anyone should hold a grudge, it should be Bailey. She was the one who had to go through the pregnancy, the delivery, and the medical issues with Angie. She’d had to make the decision to put the baby up for adoption on her own. Josh would give anything to go back in time and change that, but he couldn’t.

  “So what about your pop? How did he take the news?”

  “I haven’t told him yet. I was worried about what the shock might do and since he just had—”

  “The heart attack,” Brian interjected, his eyes wide. “That’s right. How did I forget about that?”

  With everything Josh had laid on his cousin, he understood why his pop’s condition would slip his mind.

  “I’m going to wait until he’s a little more stable.”

  “That makes sense.” Brian nodded.

  Josh’s phone buzzed and he saw that it was a text from Angie. She asked if he wanted to come see Noah and meet her husband, Jacob. He instantly typed back, yes.

  He looked up at his cousin. “I’m going to go meet Noah and Jacob.”

  “Now?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you want some moral support?”

  Josh wondered if that would be too much. So, he texted Angie again and let her know that he was downstairs in the cafeteria with his cousin and would she mind if he came up as well? He’d barely pressed send when the words, of course, lit up on his screen.

  “Let’s go.”

  Josh stood and he and Brian tossed their disposable coffee cups in the trash as they exited the cafeteria. As they stepped onto the elevator, Josh wasn’t sure how he was feeling. He had so many emotions flowing through him and yet, he felt sort of numb. It was strange to feel like nothing had changed and everything had changed all at the same time.

  “You know this would make a great documentary,” Brian commented as they rode the elevator to the third floor.

  “No,” he immediately nipped his cousin’s idea in the bud.

  His cousin lifted his hands in mock-surrender. “I’m just saying.”

  “No,” Josh repeated. He knew that if he gave his filmmaker cousin an inch he’d take ten miles.

  As the elevator doors opened, Josh felt his palms dampen. There was no more ambiguity about what he was feeling. He was full-blown nervous. Brian, who was more familiar with the hospital since his wife worked there, pressed the buzzer that was beside a set of double doors.

  A voice came over the intercom. “Who are you here to see?”

  “Hey CiCi, it’s Brian and Josh Scott. We’re here to see…” Brian looked over at Josh.

  “Noah,” both Josh and CiCi said at the same time.

  There was a buzzing sound and a loud click before the doors opened. He was glad his cousin was by his side as they entered the pediatric unit. Even though he’d been invited, he didn’t feel like he belonged there. They walked down a corridor and came to an intersection. Josh looked down both hallways, unsure of where he was headed, when Angie appeared from a doorway.
>
  “Hi!” She said brightly.

  Brian sucked in a breath, “Wow, she looks exactly like—”

  “I know.” She truly was the spitting image of Bailey. The shocking resemblance added a very Twilight Zone layer to the equation.

  A young man stepped out beside her, who Josh assumed must be Jacob.

  Josh took several steps forward and reached out his hand. “Hi, I’m Josh.”

  “Jacob, nice to meet you.”

  Josh had always considered himself a fairly good judge of character. Ninety-nine percent of the time his first impressions of people proved to be correct. The kid had a firm handshake and looked Josh straight in the eyes. He had a good feeling about him.

  Not that his opinion mattered. He wasn’t really her father. But he also wasn’t just some guy off the street. He honestly wasn’t sure where he fit in her life or what role, if any, he would have.

  “Hi, I’m Brian.”

  “This is my cousin.”

  Angie pointed at Brian. “You’re from Fairytale Love.”

  “Yep.” Brian’s shoulders tensed slightly.

  His cousin still wasn’t comfortable with people recognizing him. Brian had gone on a reality show to help pay for debt that the auto shop had accrued after Brian’s dad’s health had deteriorated. It had ended up pretty well for him, not only had he won the show, but he also won the heart of his lifelong best friend, Becca. It was the definition of a win/win.

  “You and Becca got married, right? I saw the pictures.”

  “We did.” Brian beamed at the mention of his wife.

  Angie looked between Josh and Brian. “And you two are cousins?”

  “Yep,” both men confirmed.

  “So,” Angie connected the dots. “I’m related to Brian from Fairytale Love?”

  Josh cut a quick glance to his cousin and saw that he was actually enjoying this. Brian would definitely be giving him a hard time about Angie being star-struck.

  “I met Virginia Valentine earlier.” Angie shook her head in wonder. “How many celebrities live here?”

  Josh didn’t consider Brian a celebrity.

  “Chase Malone lives here,” Brian offered.

  “He does?” Jacob was the one who seemed impressed this time. His expression now matched the one Angie wore.