Without Josh, the hospital would’ve forfeited nearly fifty thousand dollars. It was not lost on her, either, that if Peter had been the one in Josh’s place, their chances of finishing would’ve been greatly reduced. There were moments, particularly in those final ninety minutes, where even she was ready to give it all up. The only reason they made it was because of the man who held her tightly now.
Once Josh had lifted the talking ban, and moved beyond her recent sleeping habits, she nearly ruined it all. She almost told him the one thing that would forever change the way he looked at her. That would forever change who she’d been to him. Thankfully, she’d caught herself before any permanent damage was done.
Josh had always been the one person that she’d told everything to. But she couldn’t tell him this. After that near lapse in her sanity, she’d remained quiet and he had, too.
For hours, they’d gone back to dancing silently. That is, until she began to fall asleep on her feet. When he noticed her nodding off, he started talking and kept talking to her. And instead of convincing her to stop, he told her she could do this. He cheered her on. He even reminded her of some sage advice from his mother; advice that he’d always used as a coping mechanism for dealing with her death.
When Evangeline knew that her time was short she’d told Josh, “When I’m gone you might feel overwhelmed, or scared, or sad, and it might be hard for you to think about the future without me in it. But don’t worry about getting through the next year, or month, or even the next week. All you have to do is focus on making it through the next second. Because seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, hours turn into days, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. And pretty soon you look back and it might not all be good, but at least it’s all behind you.”
She appreciated the reminder of his mom’s words of wisdom, not that she’d ever forgotten them. There were so many times in her life that she’d one-second and one-minuted her way through. But hearing him say it, telling her just hold on until the next minute had been as comforting as it was sustaining.
But now she was exhausted. Fatigue was pulling everything around her into soft focus. She knew she and Josh were in the ballroom of the country club, but she couldn’t tell if people were around them. Or what time of day it was or if she was awake or if this was a dream. She felt delirious. The only things tethering her to reality were Josh’s arms.
“Thanks,” she breathed.
The lopsided grin he gave her had her heart doing double backflips. It was the same grin he’d given her all those years ago when he’d asked if she would be his girlfriend.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she admitted, trying not to read too much into the time they’d shared together.
“I told you you could do it.” The pad of Josh’s thumb rubbed in a counter clockwise circle on her lower back and caused tears to spring to her eyes.
That tiny movement was something that he’d done all the time when they were together. She’d always loved the way it made her feel, so loved and so connected to him. It didn’t matter where they were, an assembly at school or hanging out with friends, whenever she’d feel his thumb circling her lower back, it was just the two of them. Nothing and no one else existed.
She closed her eyes and melted against him, not wanting the moment to end. But all too soon, it did.
“Can I get a picture?” the event photographer asked.
Bailey opened her heavy lids and looked up just in time to see a flash go off.
“Great, got it!”
When the photog moved on to the couple beside them, Josh’s arms lowered once more. Slower this time, as he cautiously determined whether or not she was able to stand on her own two feet. She was. Just like she’d always been able to do. And even if he hadn’t been there to catch her, she would’ve fallen and then picked herself right back up. It was what she did.
The warmth that had momentarily been shining down on her was quickly shadowed as his eyes dropped to the floor.
“I know I sound like a broken record, but thanks again, Josh. I know you did it for the hospital and not for me, but I really appreciate it.” She could tell she had said the wrong thing from the tense nod he responded with. Any connection they’d had instantly evaporated.
She wasn’t so naive as to think that one night of dancing would fix everything between them, but she realized in that moment that she’d let herself think that they might at least be friends. It seemed even that was wishful thinking.
She could sense the inevitable disappointment that she’d feel once her brain was functioning again. Luckily for her, the only thing she could focus on right now was getting home and going to bed. Her feet and back were aching. She could barely keep her eyes open and she had to be at the hospital at five a.m. If she remembered the math correctly, if she got into bed in the next thirty minutes, she’d only get seven hours of sleep.
She needed every second.
Deciding to abandon her mission to thank Josh because it was like putting a square peg into a round hole, she turned and trudged to her table to retrieve her bag. Even in her fuzzy state, she couldn’t help but notice that all the people left at the event were walking around like zombies. It was like the Night of the Living Dead up in there.
In pursuit of a hasty exit, she avoided eye contact with her fellow walking dead as she grabbed her purse and began digging inside of it for her phone. She plodded out of the ballroom with her head down, through the lobby, and finally, blessedly, out into the crisp, night air.
Her not-so-nimble fingers brushed the side of her phone when a loud beep startled her. She glanced up and saw Josh standing beside her holding keys in his hand.
“Hey.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see him standing there, but it was. She assumed he’d gotten out of there as fast as he could. All of his hero duties were over. She was no longer a damsel in distress. She wasn’t Cinderella at the ball with no prince to dance with. Josh Scott was under no obligation to be in her presence.
But there he was.
“You ready?” The deep rumble of his voice had certain parts of her body, her lady parts, wide awake. She told her lady parts that they might as well go back into hibernation because they would not be seeing any action tonight. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
Bailey wasn’t sure if it was an offer or a command but either way, she had to refuse. Her motives for declining were not born out of the misplaced pride that had fueled her turning down his ride the night before. No, this refusal was for safety reasons. “I can’t, Josh. I can’t ride. I don’t think I could hold on.”
“I have my truck.” He held up the key ring and pressed the fob that had made the loud beep alerting her to his presence moments before.
“What? How?” She was so confused. He’d been with her the entire night. When had he gotten his truck there?
“I had Ralph drop it off.”
“Oh.” Mr. Ramos had worked at Scott Automotive since they were teens.
“Let’s go.” The authority in his voice was something she hadn’t known she’d missed until that moment. He’d always been self-assured but not arrogant. In control but not controlling. Protective but not dictatorial.
He’d loved her the way every woman deserved to be loved.
This time it was her turn to give him a nod. Unlike his, there was no tension in hers. If anything, it had a more of a rag-doll quality to it.
His hand rested on her lower back and she really wished it didn’t feel so right. He ushered her the short distance to where his truck was parked and helped her inside. His large palms covered her hips and his fingers flexed as he boosted her up. He waited for her to get settled before he wrapped the seatbelt around her and clicked it into place.
She closed her eyes for a moment and the next thing she knew the sound of the driver’s side door shutting had them springing open.
They sat in silence as he pulled out of the country club. O
ut of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn on the radio and “Amazed” by Lonestar filled the cab.
“Hmm, I luff dis song.” She recognized that she’d slurred her words. She opened her mouth to speak more clearly, but her eyes shut and she felt herself slipping into oblivion. She thought about fighting it, but then she realized that she didn’t have to.
She didn’t have to be awake, aware, or functioning like a normal human being. Because she was with Josh. And he would take care of her. He always took care of her.
* * *
Josh pulled up the driveway of the one-story Tudor cottage Bailey had inherited from her dad. It had a red door, gable roof, exposed wood framework, an elaborate chimney, and a porch with a swing. As a kid, he’d ridden his bike by the house with the red door because it was a shortcut to the river and it had always reminded him of something he’d read about in fairy tales. When Bailey moved in, he’d been there almost every day. Since she left, he hadn’t even driven down the street.
The entire ride home from the country club, he’d been trying to prepare for this moment, when he had to tell her goodbye. Unsure of what he would say, he shifted toward her, torn between wanting to apologize for being a jerk the first half of the night, and telling her that nothing had changed between the two of them and the temporary truce had expired. He didn’t get a chance to say either.
Bailey was out cold. Her head had fallen back against the headrest and her mouth was wide open.
He grinned to himself. He’d always been in awe of the fact that she could fall asleep anywhere. When Josh laid his head on his pillow at night, his mind wouldn’t stop running. Sometimes it took him hours to finally drift off. And if he took a nap, forget about it, he was up for the entire night. But not Bailey. She shut her eyes and she was out.
A deep ache settled in his chest as he watched her, knowing what he was going to have to do. Damn. His life would be so much easier if being with her, taking care of her, loving her didn’t feel as natural, easy, and necessary as breathing.
He shut off the engine and went around to the passenger side of the truck. Before he grabbed the door handle, he took a moment to tell his brain that taking care of her didn’t mean anything. Just like the ride on his bike, and anything that had transpired between them on the dance floor didn’t mean anything. The past twenty-four hours didn’t change anything.
The night air filled his lungs as he inhaled deeply and then opened the door. He grabbed her purse and tucked it beneath his arm and reached across her. The seatbelt released with a soft click and he held it, making sure that it retracted without disturbing her.
His heart pounded wildly as he gently wrapped his fingers around her wrists and positioned her arms around his neck before lifting her from the seat and cradling her into him. As he stepped back and shut the door, he worried the noise would wake her. Instead, she shifted and curled into him and her lips brushed the side of his neck. He’d always loved when she would kiss his neck. Back then, she would follow the kiss with a whisper of things that she wanted him to do to her or things that she wanted to do to him.
Bailey had always had a way with words. She could say the dirtiest things and all the while maintain the grace and poise of an angel. Bailey had what he’d heard described as an old soul. She always possessed a self-confidence, intelligence, and maturity of someone twice her age.
“Anmm.” An incoherent noise rumbled from her chest and the sound caused her lips to vibrate against his skin.
“Damn,” he rumbled in a low groan.
His jeans tightened and the boner he’d been keeping at bay all night came out to play. At least he wasn’t in a room filled with people anymore.
Thank God for small miracles, he thought as he walked up to the front door.
It was something that his mom used to say. Being with Bailey tonight had made Josh miss his mom even more than he normally did. Not just because he’d mentioned her when trying to get Bailey through the last hour and a half of dancing, but just being around Bailey made him think of his mom.
Which, was strange. He’d lost his mom two years before he met Bailey. Maybe it was because when he met Bailey, it was the first time since his mom had passed that Josh felt like everything was going to be okay. Being with her felt like he had a family again.
As he stepped up on the front porch, he swallowed emotion that he had no plans on entertaining. With a little finesse, he managed to get the keys from her purse, unlock the door, and open it without waking the sleeping beauty he held. As soon as he made it inside he noticed that there was an alarm blinking on the wall facing the door.
Shit.
Josh had made it this far, and though he really didn’t want to wake her up, he also really didn’t want to have to explain why he was there and she was unconscious to the police.
Thankfully, he knew Bailey talked in her sleep. When they were younger, he used to tease her that he was going to find out all her secrets when she slept because he could carry on conversations with her.
One time in particular, right after they started high school, Bailey had been acting strange all week and she wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. Then she fell asleep while they were watching a movie, and he’d asked her if she was mad at him. After a few minutes of deciphering her mumbled words, he’d figured out that she’d been jealous of a girl that Josh had first period with. When she woke up, he’d asked if she was jealous of Camilla and he knew from the look in her eyes that the shot he’d taken hit the bullseye. She hadn’t denied it outright, instead she’d grilled him about why he would ask her that. He told her that he’d asked her if she was mad at him and why, and her only response was, “sleepy-time confessions would never hold up in a court of law.”
“Bay,” he said softly into her ear. “Your alarm, what’s the password?”
“Ammmivernarrry,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Anniversary,” she spoke more clearly.
Anniversary.
What anniversary?
Their anniversary?
He doubted that that was it, but he adjusted her so that his right hand could reach the panel and he punched in the eight digit date that they officially became girlfriend and boyfriend. The small light stopped flashing red and turned to a steady green.
What the hell?
If all he’d ever been was a distraction, then why on earth was their anniversary her alarm code?
Chapter 9
The buzzing of Bailey’s alarm infiltrated her hazy state. She managed to pry one eye open and lift her arm to hit the home button on her phone to stop the sound that was keeping her from drifting back into blissful slumber.
As soon as the wah-wah-wah stopped, she sniffed as she snuggled back down into the pillow and sighed with contentment. Her relaxation was short-lived, because the next thing she knew, her phone was buzzing again. This time the noise penetrated through the fog and triggered her brain to wake up. She managed to get both eyes open as she pushed off the pillow and grabbed her phone from the nightstand.
That’s when she saw that it wasn’t her alarm. It was the hospital calling her.
“Dr. Rossum,” her voice sounded like she was doing a Kathleen Turner impression.
“Dr. Rossum? Are you okay?”
She recognized the voice on the other end of the line as Ezra Jasper one of her residents.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Are you coming in…or…?”
Bailey pulled the phone from her ear and checked the time. It was 4:32. She wasn’t due in for another twenty-eight minutes. She typically arrived a bit early, but still. “What’s wrong? Is it baby Whitman?”
Two-week-old Laura Whitman was in the NICU. She’d had open-heart surgery a week ago and things had been touch and go since.
“No. Whitman is fine. Vitals are strong and she’s gained a quarter of a pound.”
“Then what is it?”
“What?”
“What is the emergency?” Bailey’s patience was sl
ipping.
“There’s no emergency.”
Bailey closed her eyes. She could hear the nerves in Jasper’s voice. It didn’t bother her at all that her residents were a little scared of her. Instilling fear in her residents was intentional. They had people’s lives in their hands, if she spooked them or made them break, then they weren’t cut out for surgery.
“Then why are you calling me, Jasper?” she snapped.
“It’s four thir—”
“I’m aware of the time. It’s four-thirty-three a.m.”
“P.m.,” Jasper corrected. “It’s four-thirty-three p.m.”
Bailey shot up out of bed. “What?!”
She’d missed an entire shift?! How was that possible? How long had she been asleep?
“We finished our rounds and I was just checki—”
“Why didn’t someone call me sooner?” It was by no means her residents’ fault that she’d slept through her shift, but it would’ve been nice to get a call a little earlier.
“It was quiet today. We figured you might be tired from the fundraiser. We all watched on the live stream and—”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay, but—”
She hung up the phone, not waiting for him to finish his sentence. Her feet hit the floor and she was halfway across the room when her brain absorbed her surroundings. She was home. She’d been in her bed. The last thing she remembered was being in Josh’s truck and a song coming on the radio that she liked…
Glancing down she saw that she was wearing a gray T-shirt and her red dress was draped over the oversize, floral chair that sat in the corner of her room.
Just One Night - Josh & Bailey (Crossroads Book 13) Page 7
