My One and Only (Ardent Springs Book 3) Read online

  “Emma,” Jessi said softly. “Emma Rose Rogers.”

  “A pretty name for a pretty little thing.” Cooper ran one finger gently over the baby’s head, and a pulse beat rocked Haleigh’s womb.

  What the hell was that? In more than four years of delivering babies, she’d never felt the slightest urge to have one. In fact, thirteen years ago, she’d taken extreme measures to avoid being in Jessi’s current situation.

  But one glimpse of Cooper Ridgeway going all soft over a newborn and her maternal clock wakes from dormancy?

  No freaking way.

  Clearing her throat, she attempted to move this scene along. “Jessi, I need to know who to contact to let them know you and the baby are here.”

  The new mother’s smile faded. “There’s no one to call.”

  “What about your parents?” Haleigh asked. “I’m sure they want to meet their new granddaughter.”

  Jessi shook her head as she pulled the sleeping baby tighter against her chest. “No.”

  What did she mean no? The girl hadn’t fallen out of the sky. And she surely hadn’t gotten herself pregnant.

  “What about the baby’s father? Don’t you want to call him?”

  “Bobby doesn’t want anything to do with me and Emma,” she said with a tight jaw. “He says he has plans and he isn’t giving them up for a kid. When I refused to get an abortion, he got pissed and took off.” Tucking the blanket around her daughter, she added, “Doesn’t matter anyway. We don’t need him.”

  This scenario sounded way too familiar, except back in the day, Haleigh had been the one with the plans. Having a baby would have ruined everything. She couldn’t have gone to college with a baby in tow. And she sure as heck couldn’t tell her staunchly Catholic mother that not only had her daughter had sex before marriage, she’d been stupid enough to get pregnant.

  Haleigh gave herself a mental shake. Jessi’s story wasn’t remotely the same as hers.

  “Real men don’t walk away from responsibility,” Cooper stated, repeating the words he’d once spoken to Haleigh. “Tell me where to find him and I’ll teach the little pecker a lesson.”

  He’d made a similar threat thirteen years ago, but then he hadn’t been much of a threat to the class jock, and Haleigh hadn’t wanted to see him get hurt on her behalf. Today, she had no doubt Cooper could beat the stuffing out of anyone stupid enough to take him on. She almost wished she knew where to find David Stapleton now.

  “Let’s stay rational here,” she said, speaking as much to herself as to Cooper. “Are you sure there isn’t anyone we can call? Where are you staying here in town?”

  “I didn’t make it far enough to find a place to stay before I went into labor,” Jessi said. “That’s why Cooper found me where he did. It was pouring rain when the pains hit, so I ducked into the first dry place I could find. I thought they’d go away, and then once it stopped raining, I’d move on.”

  “Move on to where?” Did the girl realize that you didn’t tuck a baby into your purse and wander off to parts unknown?

  Jessi shrugged. “A motel, I guess. I had a couple weeks to go. I thought I had more time to figure this stuff out before she got here.”

  “Figure what stuff out?” Haleigh asked. “Jessi, what are you doing in Ardent Springs if you don’t know anyone here?”

  The teen toyed with the end of the sheet. With her eyes locked on the foot of the bed, she said, “I’m here to find my father.”

  “Great,” Cooper said. “Give us his number and we’ll call him.”

  The stubborn chin jutted out again. “I can’t. I haven’t found him yet.”

  The mystery of Jessi Rogers grew more complicated by the second.

  “I’m confused.” Haleigh propped a hip on the foot of the bed. “What do you mean you haven’t found him yet? Do you have an address?”

  “All I have is a name. Well,” Jessi hedged, “initials. Mama said he went by J.T. and that he was from Ardent Springs, Tennessee.”

  Cooper leaned a hand on the bed rail. “You mean you’ve never met your father?”

  Bright red locks swung as Jessi shook her head. “I always thought Calvin was my dad. He was married to Mama when I was a little girl, and it wasn’t until I got pregnant that she told me the truth. She didn’t remember much about my real father, except for the J.T. part, where he was from, and that he was older and had a family already before getting Mama pregnant.”

  “How old was your mother when she had you?” Haleigh asked.

  “Eighteen.”

  Great. To an eighteen-year-old, twenty-five was ancient. This mystery father could be anywhere from forty to seventy by now. Whoever he was, they weren’t going to locate him before Jessi and the baby were released, and Haleigh was not about to let this girl leave the hospital without having a safe, stable place to stay.

  Haleigh contemplated solutions. There were no shelters for miles, and a newborn couldn’t be exposed to the germs present in a group home anyway. Haleigh caught a glimpse of Cooper in her peripheral vision and an idea formed. He’d put himself in the hero role once this evening. It was time to see how heroic he was willing to be.

  “Cooper, I need to see you in the hall,” she said, motioning for him to follow.

  “Where are you going?” Jessi asked.

  “This will only take a minute,” Haleigh answered, pulling the door closed after Cooper stepped into the hall. When she turned to once again find him looming above her, she took a step back. “We can’t let that girl leave this hospital without someplace to go.”

  “Agreed,” Cooper said, carrying none of the flirtatious nature of a few minutes ago. “I doubt she has enough money to afford more than a night or two at a motel.”

  “She can’t take a newborn to a motel.”

  “Then where else can she go?” he asked.

  Here went nothing. Haleigh took a steadying breath and said, “You need to take Jessi and the baby home with you.”

  He could not have heard her right. “Are you crazy?”

  Haleigh didn’t flinch at the outburst. “You found her. You helped her give birth. And you’re apparently the only person she knows in this town.”

  “Well,” Cooper said, floundering. “She knows you, too.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You know I can’t take her home with me.”

  “And I can’t take her home with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “How about because I’m a grown man and that’s a young girl? And that doesn’t even touch the fact that she comes with a newborn baby.”

  “You’re being unreasonable,” Haleigh said, sounding as if she were suggesting he take home a plant instead of two vulnerable females. “There’s no other option. We can’t let her leave this hospital without making sure she has a safe place to go.”

  Cooper whipped the ball cap off his head to jam a hand through his thick curls. He couldn’t argue that Jessi needed someplace to land, but he’d stepped up enough for one night. Other than the fact that she was a kid, he didn’t have space for the high-maintenance pair. Spending time with Carrie Farmer and her four-month-old had taught Cooper how much crap the little buggers required. Crap he didn’t have room for.

  And then inspiration struck. Someone he knew well had plenty of room.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said, slamming the hat back on his head. Without waiting for a response, Cooper charged off toward the elevator.

  Haleigh yelled after him. “Where are you going?”

  “I thought of another option,” he yelled back, and then stepped into an open elevator before she could demand more details.

  Less than a minute later, the elevator opened to the neurology unit, and by a stroke of luck, Cooper found his target at the nurses’ station.

  “Abby, I need your help,” Cooper said, giving his twin sister a pleading look.

  “What are you doing here, Cooper? Did something happen to Mama?” Abby was out of her chair and rounding the desk before he could answer.
r />   “Mama’s fine,” Cooper hurried to clarify. “I said I need your help.”

  Abby’s black ponytail swung as she tilted her head, concern replaced with curiosity. “What did you do now?”

  “A good deed. And it’s coming around to bite me in the ass, as usual.”

  “Betty, I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” his sister told a fellow nurse as she motioned Cooper back to the bank of elevators. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

  On their way to the cafeteria, Cooper brought Abby up to speed on the Jessi situation. As they stepped off, he stated the obvious. “You have to agree that I can’t take the pair home.”

  “That would be weird,” she said. “But what do you want me to do?”

  While attending nursing school at Austin Peay University in Clarksville, Abby had met a soldier six years her senior stationed at Fort Campbell and fallen hard for the army infantryman. Kyle Williams had been a nice enough guy, though a little too hard-core for Cooper’s tastes. Still, he made Abby happy, so the family accepted him.

  Seven months ago, while serving in Afghanistan, Kyle had taken an extra duty shift, and with it a roadside bomb. Abby was devastated by his death and immediately withdrew from life. She worked her shifts at the hospital and volunteered with veterans’ organizations, but the rest of her world seemed to have stopped the day she’d gotten the news.

  No one expected her to finish grieving at some designated time, but that didn’t mean people weren’t worried about her. Last week their mother had suggested that Abby needed something else to focus on. A project to get her out of the past and moving forward again. Jessi and the baby could be that project.

  “Let her stay with you.”

  His sister froze in place. “What?”

  “You agree that I can’t take them home, but I can’t drop them at the edge of town and drive off either. You have that big four-bedroom house—there’s plenty of room for both Jessi and the baby.”

  “Oh no.” Abby shook her head as she marched toward the coffee machines. “You are not putting some strange girl in my house. She could rob me blind. Or worse, leave the baby and take off for good.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.” Cooper may not know the teenager well, but the protective way she’d held the bundle to her chest told him she’d never leave her little girl. “She’s on some mission to find her birth father and thinks he might live here in town. Based on what she told us, I highly doubt he’s still here, if he ever was, which means she’ll be moving on in no time. Probably won’t stay for more than a week.”

  Abby remained silent as she poured three helpings of hazelnut creamer into her cup.

  “Please, Abby. You know I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I could think of any other way.”

  Tossing her stirrer in the trash, she continued to hold her tongue. Abby always did need an extra minute to process things, and he could practically see the wheels turning in her head. He just hoped they were turning in his direction.

  “You do remember that I have one boarder already, right?”

  He sure did. And that boarder was not going to be happy about his solution.

  “You still have two other bedrooms,” he reminded her. “Help me out here.”

  “I’ll need to meet her before I agree.”

  Relief washed through him, and Cooper thanked his lucky stars that the sucker gene ran in the family.

  “She’s still down in the ER. You can come meet her right now.”

  With a glance at her watch, Abby sighed. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

  “It’ll be good for you to have someone else to focus on.”

  Giving him the evil eye, his sister said, “Now you sound like Mama. Did she put you up to this?”

  “Abbs, this all happened in the last hour,” Cooper said. “I haven’t had time to talk to Mama.”

  “Right. Sorry.” After a brief hesitation, she asked, “Is the baby cute?”

  “She’s beautiful. And I think Jessi has a good heart. She was staring at little Emma as if she were the eighth wonder of the world.”

  His sister shook her head. “Why can’t you stick to saving lost dogs and random barnyard animals?”

  Repeating Haleigh’s words, he slung an arm over Abby’s shoulders. “Where would be the fun in that?”

  Chapter 3

  “So how long have you and Cooper been a thing?”

  Haleigh looked up from Jessi’s chart. “Excuse me?”

  “Is no one supposed to know?” the youngster asked. “Are y’all just having an affair or something?”

  For a kid reluctant to share her own personal details, Jessi sure didn’t mind prying into other people’s lives. Flipping the chart closed, Haleigh hugged it to her chest. “Cooper and I went to high school together, and his twin sister is my best friend. What makes you think we’re having an affair, as you put it?”

  Pencil-line brows shot up a wrinkle-free forehead. “I’m not stupid. You look at him like I used to look at Bobby. Like you want to rip his clothes off and take a ride on the Cooper train.”

  That was absurd. He may be big, but Cooper was a man not a locomotive. Though he did have a nice caboose. And a man who worked out probably had impressive endurance.

  “See?” Jessi said. “That look is what got me Emma.”

  Glancing down at Emma’s cherubic face, Haleigh couldn’t help but wonder what a little version of Cooper would look like. Dark hair most likely. Happy and long-limbed.

  Haleigh gave herself a mental shake. Had someone laced her coffee with extra estrogen or something?

  Anxious to change the subject, Haleigh said, “Dottie should be in with your room assignment any minute, and then we’ll get you both settled upstairs for the night.”

  Refusing to cooperate, Jessi said, “So where did lover-boy go?”

  Offering a counterstrike, Haleigh asked, “So why won’t you call your mother?”

  Blue eyes narrowed, conveying a clear eff-you, but she didn’t hurl the insult. “I don’t know where she is, okay?”

  “You said she told you about your father. How could she do that if you don’t know where she is?”

  With a nonchalant shrug that did little to hide her true feelings, Jessi replied, “A week after sharing the biggest news of my life, she picked up a trucker and skipped town. Her cell stopped working a few days later.”

  Haleigh’s heart ached for this young girl fighting to be strong while her world spiraled out of control. Who could abandon her daughter like that? Especially when that daughter was about to have a child of her own? The violent urge to find Jessi’s mother and shake some sense into her vibrated down Haleigh’s spine.

  “What about grandparents?”

  “Don’t you think if there was anyone to call, I’d do it?” Jessi asked, showing a sudden burst of anger. Something she had every right to feel. “I’m not stupid. Emma deserves a home and a family.”

  “So do you,” Haleigh pointed out. She was all for selfless parenting, but this girl needed a dose of self-preservation.

  “I have Emma now.” Her stubborn chin jutted forward. “She’s all the family I need.”

  “And yet you’re here looking for your father.”

  The fight went out of the teenager, and she stayed quiet long enough that Haleigh considered apologizing for prying into something that wasn’t any of her business.

  Breaking her silence, Jessi asked, “Do you have a good mom?”

  Talk about a loaded question. The word no nearly escaped before Haleigh chose a more diplomatic answer. “My mother and I don’t always agree on how I should live my life. She has high standards and expects me to live up to them. But she loves me.” In her own way, she added, keeping the disloyal sentiment to herself.

  “What about your dad?”

  A slightly less chilly feeling filled her chest. “Daddy was different. Where Mother pushed, he encouraged. He offered unflinching support instead of constant judgment.”

&nb
sp; “That sounds nice,” Jessi said with wistful longing.

  Haleigh took a mournful breath. “He died when I was sixteen. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. Daddy never saw it coming.”

  “Wow,” Jessi whispered. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah,” Haleigh agreed. “Big time.”

  Lost in her memories, Haleigh startled when the door to Jessi’s room swung open. A tall brunette followed Cooper into the room, and his newfound solution became instantly clear.

  “You cannot be serious,” Haleigh said, cutting off the introduction Cooper was about to make.

  “Relax, Haleigh Rae,” the newcomer said. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

  In her youth, Haleigh had gone by both her first and middle names, but dropped the Rae during college. Unfortunately, few people in her past ever adapted to the change.

  “Who is she?” Jessi asked, the rebel teen back in full force. “Are you my new nurse or something?”

  “Or something,” Abigail said. “I’m Cooper’s sister. You can call me Abby.”

  “Why would I call you anything?”

  Gesturing toward the patient, Abby turned on Cooper. “This is the child you want me to take home?”

  “What?” Jessi bristled. “I am not a child.”

  Cooper ignored the outburst. “Abby has a big house with plenty of room for you and Emma.”

  “But I don’t even know her.”

  “You don’t know me, either,” Cooper pointed out.

  Haleigh couldn’t believe that Cooper would ask this of his sister. The woman was still mourning her husband. Still reeling from having her entire future pulled out from under her. Didn’t he understand how badly Abby wanted a baby? Having Emma around would be a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

  Abigail Ridgeway and Haleigh had been best friends since the first day of third grade when Abby had saved a scared little blonde girl from the clutches of Constance Beauregard, the class bully. From her father’s death to Haleigh’s downward spiral in her college years, Abby had been her rock. Watching her grieve for Kyle these last six months had been heartbreaking, made even more frustrating by the fact there was nothing Haleigh could do to help.