One Day, One Little Girl

Chapter One: Emergency Contact

Quinn Elizabeth Hollander had learned a lot of things in her life.

She had learned how to run an ER floor on four hours of sleep and iced coffee.

She had learned how to calm terrified parents with one hand while adjusting an IV pump with the other.

She had learned that toddlers could find danger in a completely empty room.

But she had not yet learned how to gracefully answer an emergency work call while her one-year-old daughter was wearing more banana oatmeal than she had actually eaten.

"Baylee Marie," Quinn said, staring across the kitchen table. "Are you eating breakfast or becoming breakfast?"

Baylee Marie Hollander blinked at her with wide blue eyes, cheeks round, lashes long, curls sticking up in every direction.

Then she smiled.

A full, gummy, sunshine-bright smile.

Oatmeal dripped off her chin.

Quinn sighed, already in love and already defeated.

"That's what I thought."

Her phone rang.

The ER.

Quinn's stomach tightened before she even answered.

"Hey, this is Quinn."

By the time the call ended, her coffee was cold, Baylee was clapping oatmeal-covered hands, and Quinn was already mentally packing a diaper bag.

The hospital was short-staffed.

A multi-car accident was coming in.

They needed her.

Now.

Quinn closed her eyes for half a second.

Not because she didn't want to go.

Because she did.

Helping people was stitched into her bones.

But leaving Baylee last minute always made her heart ache in that quiet, guilty place no one warned mothers about.

Baylee babbled happily and smashed one sticky hand against the tray.

"Mama!"

Quinn's face softened.

"I know, baby girl." She leaned down, pressing a kiss to Baylee's messy forehead. "Mama has to go help people."

Baylee offered her a soggy piece of banana.

Quinn took it like it was a sacred gift.

"Thank you. Disgusting. I love it."

Twenty minutes later, Quinn stood on Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov's front porch with a toddler on her hip, a diaper bag on her shoulder, a stuffed bunny tucked under her arm, and the exhausted look of a woman who had already lived three lives before nine in the morning.

Ilya opened the door.

Tall, calm, handsome, and far too confident for a man about to spend an entire day alone with a one-year-old.

"Emergency?" he asked.

"ER called," Quinn said quickly. "Bad accident. Shane said he has a photo shoot, but he told me you were home."

"I am home."

"Are you sure you're okay watching her?"

Ilya looked at Baylee.