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So I collect the radio, earpiece. Comms are back with me. “Donnelly here.”
“Check Jane,” Thatcher orders.
“Get Farrow back on,” I say, chest tighter, and my cool-as-a-cucumber doctor friend walks me through assessing Jane. Once I make a guess that Jane isn’t bleeding too much, I undo my shoelaces and take out a knife in my back pocket. Gotta cut the umbilical cord.
Everything goes smoothly, but it’s not like TV. It’s messier, more frightening because she still really needs a doctor and I’m not it. Thankfully, the paramedics arrive about four minutes after I cut the cord. Frog and Luna rush in beside them.
The girls all comfort Jane and grow teary-eyed seeing her newborn. I hang back a bit and let the professionals do what they’re good at.
While they put Jane on a stretcher with the baby and start taking vitals, I rub my palms together, trying to wipe off the blood.
“Here.” Luna digs in her backpack and passes me a few Kleenex.
“Thanks.” I smile over at her, not wanting to take my eyes off Luna. I do my best to clean my hands, but this is a job for soap and water. Balling up the dirtied Kleenex, I stuff the tissue in my pocket.
As we stare out, watching the precious moments before they’ll wheel Jane to the ambulance, I feel Luna’s hand slip into mine. Softly, quietly…secretly. Even though my palm isn’t clean, even though she knows we shouldn’t—she’s still holding my hand.
I encase mine around hers.
For a moment.
Before we have to let go.
10
PAUL DONNELLY
Healthy baby. Healthy mom. I hear the news before I personally go back to the hospital. It’s been a long day. Showered at the penthouse, squeaky clean now. Jane and Thatcher have big extended families, and I want to give the Cobalts and Morettis this time together. Don’t need to intrude, but Jane personally calls me and says, “Can you come here?”
It’s so late at night, the birth center looks like a ghost town. No other visitors, but I hear the teeny tiny baby cries. Once I find her room, I knock on the door, and Thatcher answers, towering four inches above me.
I smirk. “Good thing your baby didn’t come out six-foot and thirty-pounds.” She’s only five pounds, two ounces.
Thatcher widens the door, but he hasn’t shifted enough to let me inside the labor and delivery room.
My smile fades at the emotional look in his eyes. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “You delivered my daughter. You helped Jane.”
It tunnels into me, but I’m not used to barring so much tender emotion in front of people. So I’m staring down the hallway, left and right. “She did all the work. I just cracked Olive Garden jokes.”
Jane laughs inside the room. She heard me.
My lips rise, and Thatcher just nods to me, “I should’ve said it earlier—”
“Nah, man, you just had a baby. You only needed to think about her and Jane.” I know what he’s about to say. The gratitude is penned in the shiny browns of his eyes.
Still, Thatcher produces the words, “Thank you, Donnelly.”
I lift my shoulders. “Happy to be there.” I mean it. Being able to witness a new life coming into the world has reminded me why I love existing.
Plus, I’ve always loved being in positions where people depend on me and rely on me. It’s why I’m a bodyguard.
Thatcher ushers me further into the room. Jane is propped against the hospital bed, her baby cocooned in a swaddle and sleeping contently in her arms.
Jane is glowing, her smile brighter than last I saw. “You want to hold her again?” she asks me.
“Sure,” I breathe, and at Jane’s bedside, she passes over her little bundle of joy. I cradle her against my arm. The baby smacks her lips in a tiny yawn, and a wave of uneasy emotion crashes through me, clenching my stomach.
I have a dark childhood.
Probably worse than anything Thatcher even went through, and I have nothing against babies—but sometimes I do feel like they shouldn’t touch me.
I try to push past that. “She’s so small,” I murmur and start to smile when her thimble nose crinkles. “What are you gonna call her?” I ask since they’ve been flip-flopping on the name for months. “Olive is still on the table, you know. I’ve never known a single bad Olive, except for that moldy jar of kalamatas.”
Jane grins. “Olive is unfortunately off the proverbial table. We’ve already chosen a name.”
Thatcher nods. “Took long enough.”
“Oui.” Jane scoots higher on the bed, smiling over at her daughter. “We wanted to go with the letter M, preferably something Italian. Like Martina.”
“Martina Moretti,” I nod. “I dig it.”
“That’s not her name,” Jane says. “After what happened, after what you did for me”—I’m shaking my head, but tears are already flooding her eyes—“you did help me, Donnelly. You made sure Thatcher was there with me.”
