A Charm Like You

by Sharla Lovelace

  “Yes, please, make my husband never want to go near it again,” Lanie breathed.

  “That could never happen,” Nick said, leaning in and then backing out a bit. “Holy shit.”

  “I’m gonna kick all of you!” Lanie cried. “Seriously?”

  Bash laughed, and patted her knee. “There’s the Lanie we know and love.”

  Pillows were stuffed behind Lanie’s back, and towels all around her.

  Thatcher squeezed her hand, and nodded to Bash. “Okay, Mama, get ready to push.”

  The seconds to follow were a blur of sweat, tears, blood, shrieking swear words, and slimy baby, as Bash guided it out, Thatcher talked her through, and Nick went to hold Lanie and help her push. There wasn’t much required. It was surreal. I’d never experience it for myself, but for one moment I was part of the miracle as a tiny human slid right into Bash’s hands.

  Everyone was crying as a beautiful baby boy filled his lungs with air and belted out his first cry. Micah hugged an emotional Leo as he witnessed the birth of his nephew. Lanie laughed through her tears as Bash laid the baby on her chest and both she and Nick kissed their brand-new son.

  A horn sounded nearby, and Sully looked out the window.

  “The wedding boat’s announcing their passing,” he said, running for the door. “I’ll stop them!”

  “Oh my God,” she sobbed, as Allie gentle cleaned the infant’s face with a wet towel. “He’s so beautiful.”

  “What’s his name?” Leo asked, his voice choked.

  Lanie looked up at Nick and he pushed wet hair from her eyes.

  “What about Bailey?” he asked.

  She laughed and closed her eyes. “That’s perfect.”

  I heard Sully calling out to someone, and I turned to look. It was Bart. Out on the glittery white deck, trying to hear what Sully was yelling over their music.

  Awesome. Of course it would be Bart, stealing my love of the moment.

  “Lanie?” Nick’s voice was saying over the sound of the infant crying. “Lanie!”

  The tone jerked me back, alarm ricocheting through my system. My eyes darted from the baby in Lanie’s arms to Nick’s white pallor, to Lanie’s closed eyes. She was asleep. But—

  “Lanie!” Nick yelled again, adjusting himself out from under where she lay against him, taking her head in his hands. “She’s not breathing, Thatcher!”

  “Take your son,” Thatcher said, his tone short and sharp.

  Nick scooped baby Bailey up in his arms, and moved aside, still calling her name as Thatcher lifted her eyelids and felt for her pulse.

  “Lanie!” he said sharply. “Shit, I don’t feel anything.”

  “No!” Carmen cried. “Lanie!”

  Everything that had been so full of love just seconds earlier was now blanketed in horror. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t—

  “Bash, clamp and cut that cord,” Thatcher said, removing the pillows and laying Lanie flat. “Now.”

  He started compressions as Bash took care of separating the baby from his mother with shaking hands and two binder clips.

  Sully ran back into the room. “They’re pulling up next to us. Dartwell’s a doctor—” He stopped short at the new scene in front of him. “What’s going on?”

  “Get him in here!” Thatcher yelled, pumping her chest. “Lanie stopped breathing!”

  “Hold him,” Nick cried, shoving the baby into my arms before I could respond.

  He ran outside with Sully, yelling at Mr. Dartwell, his voice cracking as he tried to form the words. To the older man’s credit, he acted immediately, yanking off his jacket and diving into the water. Within seconds, he was being hauled onto The Diamond. But all I could see was the crying baby in my arms, tiny and helpless and needing his mother. Nothing in my entire life had felt as important as this little boy did right now.

  “Lanie, you can’t leave us,” Nick pleaded, dropping back to her side and pressing his head to hers. “You don’t get to leave our life, damn it. None of this works without you.”

  I pivoted in place, tears streaming down my face as I watched Thatcher compress Lanie’s chest and Nick beg her to fight. Mr. Dartwell checked her for bleeding, and took over compressions, as Thatcher felt for a pulse and Bash sat back on the floor, his still-bloodied hands in his hair, looking ready to lose it.

  I looked back down at the tiniest McKane, face scrunched up in anger and shock at the noise and chaos of the new world he was in. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t be given this blessing and then be taken away from him.

  “Bailey,” I whispered, my breaths hitching. “He knew you were a boy. You’re connected.” I shut my eyes tight and gave all the focus I had. “Mr. Bailey, if ever there was a time to touch someone.”

  Running over to her, I laid the baby against Lanie’s neck. It was crazy. It was a long shot. It was all I had.

  “What are you doing?” Nick asked, his words broken.

  “Shhh,” I said. I stared down at them, her face relaxed and at peace next to his crying one, both of them jostling with the compressions. “Please,” I whispered. “Please.” I closed my eyes. Please.

  Carmen’s gasp made my eyes shoot open.

  Lanie was stirring, her face nestling against her son’s body.

  “I’ve got a thready pulse!” Thatcher exclaimed. “Getting stronger.”

  “Lanie?” Nick cried, his hands on his son and in her hair. “Baby, can you hear me?”

  “You’re three inches away,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering open. “I’m not deaf.”

  “Oh my God,” he breathed, pulling both of them into his arms.

  Thatcher stood and walked away a few steps, taking deep breaths as everyone hugged and cried in relief. Dartwell assured an in-shock Bash that it was a blood pressure spike and possibly passing of a blood clot that caused Lanie’s heart to stop, and nothing he had done. Arrangements were made to bring the two boats together to move everyone over and get Lanie and the baby transported to the hospital. Life was moving again, and everyone appeared to be okay.

  I couldn’t quit shaking. Watching the new family struggle to stay in existence, and that sweet innocent little human just needing his people—it hit me to my core. And Bailey. Both Baileys. I couldn’t even explain that. I hadn’t even known how to ask for it, but something—or someone—had known my mind without me voicing it.

  Thatcher looked like he’d been hit with a wrecking ball. He engaged with everyone, and Nick hugged him at least 750 times, but it was all for show. I could tell. Something was stabbing at him, and I understood that, because being able to look at him and know he was bothered was stabbing at me, too. I shouldn’t know that. I shouldn’t care to know that.

  Lanie was carried across by Nick and Leo, and we all followed, me tailing behind as the caboose as we trooped onto the glittery love boat. I offered to carry Bailey, suddenly head over heels in love with the look and the smell and the sheer existence of him.

  Standing under the giant heart photo of Bart and Dixie, ironically, were Bart and Dixie. Not looking nearly as happy as advertised.

  That felt par for the course, as we had a brand spanking new baby boy in our possession, and none of us were as happy as advertised, either. Lanie had almost died. Died. Doing something as simple as having this baby. In this day and age, that shouldn’t come with a death warning.

  If Bash hadn’t dived between her legs and Thatcher hadn’t jumped on her chest…

  One day, that might be a funny joke to tell around the table at Rojo’s. Right now, it was too close. I felt wrung out, and that was just me. I couldn’t imagine what they were feeling.

  “Thank you,” I said, passing Mrs. Dartwell as she stepped out onto the main deck, followed by Katrina Bowman. “Thank you for stopping. I know it interrupted your—thing.”

  The recognition in
her eyes registered. “Gabi,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, snuggling Bailey closer to me and continuing to follow behind Micah and Leo, wherever it was we were going. “Just—thank you.”

  “What happened to Lanie that everything had to cease and go running to save her?” Katrina asked.

  I gaped at her and held up the very evident infant. “Well, she had a baby on a boat and then stopped breathing, but hey, sorry for your inconvenience.”

  “Is she okay?” Mrs. Dartwell asked, laying a hand on my arm.

  “I think so now,” I said. “According to your husband.”

  Kat looked sufficiently embarrassed, so I felt that my work was done enough to move on.

  “Gabi,” said another voice behind me. One that made me groan. “Gabs.”

  I turned as he pushed past some curious party guests.

  “Go away, Bart,” I said.

  “Wait,” he said, his eyes dropping to the infant in my arms, stopping him short. “Wow,” he breathed.

  I looked down, and there for one frozen second, I saw what he saw. Our dream. Once upon a time, anyway.

  I blinked quickly and looked back up at him, then turned to keep walking.

  “I have to get him to his parents,” I said.

  “Gabs, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, not stopping.

  Micah circled back and scooped the baby from my arms so she could put him in Lanie’s, and I instantly felt the void. I understood it then. What Mr. Bailey had told me. Don’t give up on what you want.

  I’d never believed that could be enough for me, but right there, right then, I knew without question that it would be. Bart and I had never been able to afford the option, but—oh my God.

  I gasped aloud, and Thatcher was suddenly in front of me, turning around.

  I had money. We all had money. A shit ton of it.

  “Gabi, please,” Bart said behind me.

  “What’s wrong?” Thatcher asked.

  I shook my head, my eyes filling with unexpected tears as I looked up at him. At his eyes still reeling from shock, and the exhaustion mixed with something else that was emanating off of him. A buzz. A high. Something like satisfaction. Bart’s voice was yapping behind me like a pestering dog, but Thatcher’s presence was overwhelming.

  “We have—we can do whatever we want,” I said softly.

  The glaze in his eyes that had been there all morning lifted a bit, and my stomach flipped over at the glimpse of reality. Of feelings.

  Shit.

  “Meaning?” he said.

  Detour! Detour! The way he looked at me made my knees go weak. I grabbed the railing so that I didn’t go flopping over the edge like a wounded seal.

  “Meaning what you just did back there, Thatcher,” I said. “That’s who you are. It’s what you do. You’re meant to help people. You should go back to paramedic school, you have the means now to—”

  “Gabi, I need to talk to you,” Bart said, his tone rising.

  “Whatever,” Thatcher said, waving a hand and turning to join the rest. He glanced over my head to Bart, and I saw the walls go back up.

  You wake up every day and let him do it again.

  “Thatcher—” I said, reaching out for his arm.

  “Gabi,” Bart repeated for the five hundredth time.

  I spun around. “What?”

  Hands I’d recognize the feel of in my sleep gripped my shoulders, and a face I’d once pledged a lifetime to pleaded with me.

  “It’s not too late,” he said under his breath.

  I blinked, not expecting that. I could feel Thatcher walking away, and it took everything in me not to look over my shoulder or run after him.

  “What?” I asked distractedly.

  Bart blew out a breath and closed his eyes, opening them as his hands moved up to my face. “I made a mistake,” he said softly. “I was frustrated, tired, unhappy, whatever you want to call it, but I never should have—” He shook his head, looking at me like I was the holy grail in his hands. “I was so wrong, Gabi. I should have worked on the problem, not run from it. I made a mistake. But it’s not too late.”

  I had no words. My mouth gaped open.

  “You—you just married Dixie, Bart. How the hell—”

  “We’re not married yet,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bart’s eyes went misty. “It was about to start when the boat stopped and her dad had to go. Don’t you see? It’s fate.”

  “Fate,” I mumbled.

  “It’s the universe saying we have another chance,” he said. “Kicking me in the ass and telling me to wake up.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So—Lanie McKane nearly dying in childbirth was all about you getting your shit straight?”

  “You know what I’m saying,” he said.

  “I know you made your bed,” I said. “And put a baby in it. Now you’re stressing out and feeling your age and realizing that sparkly young hoohahs aren’t necessarily golden after all.”

  “No! Gabi—”

  “And you want to come back where it’s easy,” I said. “Well, here’s easy for you. You don’t want to get married and raise your kid like a man? Go park your sorry ass in your car somewhere, because there’s no house to go back to, thanks to you. But leave me the hell alone.”

  I turned to walk away, and my breath stuck in my chest as I came into an eye-lock with Thatcher. Leaning against the railing several feet away with his arms folded over his chest.

  Listening. Waiting.

  For what? To see if I was truly so gone that I’d be that gullible? Or to see if I needed help? It didn’t matter. He had stayed.

  “I know you don’t mean that,” Bart said, turning me, backing me up to the rail.

  “Seriously, I do,” I said, pushing him back.

  “We have ten years of history, Gabi,” he said.

  “Which you threw away for ten minutes of fun,” I said. “So, move on. Your bride is—”

  His mouth was on mine before I ever saw him coming, cutting off my words in a desperate kiss that I knew instinctively was a last attempt at something good. He’d lost me, and now he’d made all this it’s not too late business a little too public. On the wedding boat. Chances were pretty slim that this wedding day was still on the books.

  I pushed him back gently, keeping my hands on his chest.

  “Bart,” I said, looking into his eyes. I shook my head. “No.”

  “Gabi.”

  “No,” I repeated. “I’m done with this. All of it. You can’t do what you did and then slide back in when it’s not fun anymore. I’m done, Bart.”

  I couldn’t stand the pleading in his eyes or voice any longer. Moving sideways and out of his hold, I tried to ignore what felt like six hundred eyes on me, choosing instead to walk toward Thatcher. I’d taken one whole step when a blur of white to my left caught my eye. I looked that direction just in time to hear something akin to a banshee screaming, right as a large silver platter slammed into my forehead and we both went over the railing.

  * * * *

  It was surreal, how fast something like that can go down, and yet the details went in slow motion. I felt every inch of the fall, heard every gasp, every yell, every shriek. I heard Bart cry Dixie’s name, and Thatcher yell mine, and yet while I didn’t have time to draw a good breath I still had time to ponder that irony.

  The cold water knocked what breath I did have from my lungs, making me suck in a mouthful of it. My nose stung, my throat burned, as I coughed and flailed around for the surface. Bubbles were everywhere and I couldn’t find up, my head spinning in panic. My forehead throbbed. Did she break my brain?

  A sharp-heeled boot landed in my shoulder, shoving me farther down, and survival—primal and beastly—woke up. This bitch destroyed my life
, and now she was going to take it?

  Oh, hell no.

  Bubbles go up.

  I was upside down. Follow the bubbles. I kicked to go up but something was wrong with my right foot. It wouldn’t kick. It was stuck. And then I saw it was more than bubbles clouding the water, it was the train on Dixie’s dress and I was hung up in it.

  My own scream of frustration filled my ears in the water around me, as I tried to untangle my leg. I yanked harder and pulled Dixie under. I saw the panic on her face as she saw me. I reached out to her, my fingers spread wide.

  Grab my hand! Pull me up!

  Her hand floated toward me, but it was too far away, and an odd clarity dawned in my hazy throbbing head. I was going to drown, four feet from the water’s surface, by means of a silver platter and a wedding dress. How was this fair?

  The water exploded to my right. Arms went around my middle, hauling me up effortlessly as my face broke the noisy surface in an incredibly sexy burst of air-sucking, gagging, and coughing up water from the depths of hell.

  A million voices assaulted my senses at once, shrieking and calling out, but only one sunk in.

  “Gabi,” Thatcher was saying next to my ear. “I’ve got you, stop fighting me.”

  One hand held my head against his shoulder, his mouth moving against my ear. I immediately stopped flailing, not realizing that every limb was still on panic mode.

  “Oh my God,” I rasped, turning and wrapping my arms around his neck. “Oh my God, thank you.”

  He squeezed me tighter, and I buried my face against the side of his. I’d never been so happy to breathe. I’d never take oxygen for granted again. Or him. His smell. His everything that I never wanted to let go of.

  “I wouldn’t be anywhere else, babe,” he said against my cheek.

  “She’s in my dress,” Dixie cried, being pulled to us now that I was on the surface, reminding me that we had an audience.

  “And why is that?” I choked, turning around. “You idiotic bitch!”

  “I’m sorry!” she cried, her hair plastered to a face smeared with layers of fancy makeup that was now dripping down her chin. Her teeth were chattering. She was a mess. “You were kissing Bart!”