dibs (17 page)

“Good for her?” I shrieked…quietly. “Cheating is good for her?”

“Sometimes. What if it makes her realize how much she loves Brady and their life together?”

The stool flushed.

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Juls. If anything, she has sex with Cody and then wants more!”

“Do they live near each other?”

The bathroom door opened and the awkward silence made it obvious that we were talking about her.

“Mac left you a message in the bathroom.”

Juls and I scrambled off the bed. She may be a trainer and in tip top shape, but I shoved her ass out of the way, beating her into the bathroom.

“Oh my God, did you shit in here, Kat?” Juls hollered, covering her nose.

“Sorry. Wine shits from last night.”

I glanced around for a note, then Juls tapped me on the shoulder, pointing at the mirror.

You’re mine!

The two words were written in my lipstick and had a heart down below. There was no way I was going to survive Mac McAllister.

***

Totally disappointed that the guys weren’t with us, we continued to drink at the best damn tiki bar yet. All day I tried to keep Mac and Larissa far from my mind, but looked for them with every corner we turned. I bought him some whiskey and tequila made from blue agave, what ever that meant. I also bought him a cigar—I knew he didn’t smoke, but didn’t most guys on occasion toke a cigar?

The breeze coming off the ocean added a bit of a chill to the night… maybe because of my slight sunburn. I hadn’t used sunscreen today because I couldn’t stand being sticky even one more day.

“Juls, do you have Blake’s cell number?”

“Nope, you have Thor’s?”

“No.”

“You miss him?” Kat asked.

I hesitantly nodded and then threw back my drink. The more I drank, the harder it was to not think about Mac being with Larissa. In my head, I saw her hanging on him…attached at his hip. How could I go from not even knowing the guy to my heart hurting at the thought of him being with another woman? I motioned for another drink. God, my liver was going to need to detox.

The cruise ship horn sounded its first warning sound of boarding just a few minutes later. We chugged our drinks and tabbed out, giggling as we snapped a couple of selfies.

Walking through the sand was a funny thing…it started out as a cool thing, sifting through my toes and somewhat cool to the touch. But somewhere along the lines, it turned into a painful-increase-your-heart rate-sort of thing. After about 50 yards, my feet became raw and the sand was brutally biting my feet.

“Aaaah!” a long cry came from behind some bushes up next to an ocean side restaurant.

The three of us saw the young girl hunkered down…squatting… with a boy standing next to her. She was crying, I think. His body loomed over hers, but it was hard to tell if it was in a protective nature or aggressive. When she wailed out again, we all three sprinted in their direction.

The young girl’s swollen stomach filled the space between her legs as she crouched. The desperation in her eyes pulled at an integral part of my soul—at the heart of who I was. I guessed her to be five maybe six months along.

“How far along are you?” I asked handing my phone and bag to Kat.

“No, English,” the boy next to her said. Her boyfriend I would suppose. “You ask how pregnant she is?” His English was broken.

“Si.” I nodded as I patted the ground. Trusting me, the girls assisted her in lying down.

“This isn’t sterile,” Juls said.

“No shit,” Kat shot back.

Panic was clear in both of their voices.

“Sterility is overrated,” I said.

The girl bore down pushing and grunting at the same time.

“How old is she?” I asked the guy though he never answered about how far along she was.

The guy stared at me.

“Her age?”

“Sixteen?” he questioned me.

“Sixteen! Yes, is she sixteen?”

He nodded. “Si. Si.”

This poor kid was probably sixteen as well.

Once we had her down, I tapped her knees. She willingly allowed them to fall open.

“I’m a doctor. Doctor,” I repeated. “I need to put my fingers inside of her,” I said directly to the guy, not sure if he understood.

Immediately, he started talking to the girl softly in Spanish, in the most comforting tone. My heart inflated with his tenderness.

Frantically, she began nodding her head as big tears streaked her cheeks.

“Si. Si,” he said, kissing her knuckles.

The second horn for the cruise ship blew.

“Shit!” Juls said, but my eyes darted up to Kats.

“I’m not leaving her. Go! Both of you. Please. Try to see if they will hold the ship.”

Slowly, I slid one hand into her as the young girl grimaced.

“No man left behind, remember?” Kat stated.

“Juls. Listen to me. Make Kat go. Now. Please tell them this is an emergency. I can feel the baby’s head. She’s going to deliver.”

Juls quickly nodded. “OK. You know we won’t leave without you. Come on, Kat. We have a ship to stop.”

“Sam…” her voice trailed off.

The baby was crowning, and as I watched my two best friends take off sprinting for the ship I was supposed to be on, I offered a comforting smile to the desperate young girl in front of me.

For two hours I’d stood at the ramp watching for the girls to come back. The first horn had blown and yet there was still no sign of them. I’d be damned if I was going to go another day without getting Sam’s cell number. The agreement was to keep this…relationship…whatever it was, to the trip…but the damn woman had monopolized my every thought today.

The entire wedding party was pissed because I was so distracted. Finally, I bailed, came back to the ship and she wasn’t there. But I liked it. I liked that she went on with her day—sort of. Part of me wanted to know that she was waiting around for me…when she wasn’t, my thoughts changed to she couldn’t wait to get back to me. So, I waited.

When the second horn sounded, agitation crawled into every part of me. Swarms of people boarded the boat, chatting about their days. My eyes scanned faces at first and then moved to the beach. Now my eyes searched for her hair. Even in the dark, I would know it. That’s when I saw them. Kat. Juls. NO SAM! They were in an all out sprint. Terror streaked across their faces. Fuck!

Without hesitation, I barreled my way through the hoards of people trying to get on. A fish swimming up stream. I was a damn big fish.

“Excuse me. ‘scuse me,” I said, shoving anyone in my way, but also keeping Juls in my line of sight. She’d reached a crewmember and was giving him an earful.

“Juls!” I yelled, and her eyes shot up to me. I pointed at her to make sure she knew I saw her and was coming that way. Kat finally reached her and rested her palms on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

“Kat! Where is she?” I screamed. With wide eyes she pointed down the beach.

A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. What the fuck had happened? They wouldn’t leave each other. Something was so wrong. I was twenty feet away.

“Where is she?” I demanded angrily. Despair clung to my words.

“Mac,” Juls said, which definitely wasn’t good because she usually called me Thor.

From behind me, I heard the crewmember say something about a baby.

“There was a girl. She was having a baby. She was screaming and her boyfriend was there, but there was clearly no time. And the warning horns were sounding!”

Kat touched my arm. “Mac. She wouldn’t come. Not until she knew this girl was ok.”

“Where. Which way is she?” I gritted, trying to remain calm.

Kat pointed up the beach. “Between the tiki bar and the restaurant. There’s like some bushes and…”

That was all I needed before I was in a full on sprint. My Sperry’s weren’t the best running shoes but they worked. People certainly got the hell out of my way. There was no question I was a man on a mission. By the time I reached the general area, I heard the painful scream. My eyes darted every which way trying to determine where the cry came from. When I spotted her near the bushes, it stopped me in my tracks.

“Please tell her to stop pushing. Just for a minute,” Sam instructed from between a woman’s legs.

Jesus Christ. The head of the baby was filling the woman—girl . Never in my life had I seen anything like it. Two men stood on each side of her. One held her hand comforting her. The other translated for Sam. Why were they not at a hospital? Why the hell wasn’t an ambulance siren echoing in the distance?

Sam’s hands were a bloody, slimy mix. My stomach was still unsettled from the fear of something happening to her. Now that I’d found her, now that I was with her…that changed. I could take care of her now, at least after she finished her business.

Though I felt like a voyeur watching Sam slide her fingers inside the girl just beside the baby’s head, I couldn’t pull my eyes from what was happening in front of me. The boyfriend blew his breath over her face trying to cool her and brushed a kiss over her forehead.

“Ok,” Sam said, and instantaneously she had the attention of all of us. “I need her to push. Push hard.”

The translator guy spoke to the girl.

With her hand, Sam pointed. “Get behind her and help arch her up.”

The guy quickly scrambled around, gently lifting the girl. Sam still didn’t know I was there. I wanted to tell her to see if she needed anything more. But I was paralyzed. With fear. With astonishment. With respect. With love…

After being instructed to push, the girl did, bearing down hard with a painful expression scrunching her entire face. Silence hung in the air until a guttural groan ripped from her throat.

“Push!” Sam yelled.

A feral grunt so unnatural, so unreal, scraped up the young girl’s esophagus until finally silence fell again. My eyes swiftly shot over to Sam who held a mucous covered baby in her hands. Her. Bare. Hands. Sam rested the infant on her knees while she swept through its mouth with her fingers.

“It’s a boy,” she spoke so softly holding it in one hand and running a finger down its spine. The infant arched to the touch.

“Bebe nino.”

Why wasn’t the baby crying? Wasn’t she supposed to spank it? That forced it to take a breath and cry, right?

Sam leaned forward placing the little boy on his mother’s chest—the mother was just a child herself. The cord of the baby was still attached, and Sam continued to press on the girl’s stomach and work the cord out.

I wasn’t going to lie, watching the man next to her rest his forehead on the girls, and watching him drop kisses on her forehead and cheeks brought tears to my eyes. The entire scene that played out was overwhelmingly emotional. And yet all I could do is study Sam and watch the confidence she exuded as she pressed on the girl’s abdomen. They seemed blind to what she is doing.

The young boy next to the mother said something in Spanish.

“He wants to know if the baby is ok?” the guy interpreting asked.

Sam quickly slid around to the side of the woman lifting the infant. There was still no crying. After Sam lifted the baby’s arm, she placed two fingers near it’s underarm.

“No,” she huffed.

“Over here!” someone shouted. “I brought a doctor.”

A doctor? Sam was a doctor. I glanced back at the ship, which was thankfully still docked. When I turned around, Sam’s mouth was covering the infant’s nose and mouth as she blew oxygen into the tiny creature.

This fat, Mexican man shouted something in Spanish and without thinking I prowled up from out of the shadow.

“This is the doctor,” the other guy interpreted.

Sam’s eyes zoomed up to his. He was wet with sweat. Dirty

“The baby isn’t breathing,” she whispered.

As he stepped between Sam and the mother, he took the baby knocking Sam backward. There was no way to know if it was intentional or not, but automatically, I rocketed to Sam’s side.

Confusion scurried over her features as I helped her upright.

“Mac,” she said so softly.

The Mexican so-called doctor slapped the infant’s butt. Sam gasped.

“The baby isn’t breathing. Please, let me help,” Sam said calmly.

“Baby will be fine. Get her up,” this so called doctor demanded pointing at the mother. The boy, who had supported and helped the mother, quickly tried pulling the mother to her feet obviously scared of the man.

Sam reached for the infant just as another Hispanic man who wore a rusty, dime store badge stepped up. What the hell? The doctor shoved Sam’s hand away. A flash of anger shot through me but when I saw the so called police officer rest his hand on the holster near his gun, I grabbed Sam’s arm. We need no part of this.

“We need to go,” I directed at Sam.

“No. The baby.”

Taking full advantage of my size, I coerced her away from the scene, navigating her toward the beach.

“Mac,” she cried weakly fighting me to go back. “That baby needs help!”

I grabbed her arms, shaking her just slightly to get her to understand. I was winning this argument. “No, Samantha. Things were getting out of hand. Dangerous. There is nothing more you could do. You did your job. You delivered the baby and took care of things until the other doctor got there.”

Everything from that second on transitioned into a slow motion version of hell. Within an instant, I realized I’d just told her that I knew she was a doctor. I remembered that day at the airport as I looked for a magazine for the flight. The new mother that called out to the doctor…to Sam. Hell, I’d followed her over to the newsstand.

Within the time it took me to blink, she stared at me, a little V of confusion between her eyes.

“What?” I asked hoping and praying she understood.

“What did you mean, another doctor?”

Shit
. “I meant that you’d done all you could do in that situation.”

She lifted away from my grasp, picking up her pace to the ship. Though she was angry, at least we headed in the right direction.

“Are they waiting for us?” she pointed at the ship.

“I sure the hell hope so. Juls and Kat were pleading your case. I didn’t stick around to find out. I needed to find you.”