Kiss and Run

“Your eyes delight me,” Sally began in a Miss America voice, gazing passionately into Gus’s eyes, which shifted away uneasily. “Your lips excite me,” she continued, and Gus’s mouth tightened. “Your love ignites me…”

Oh, for chrissakes. Sally’s father should have hired somebody to write that poem. Maybe he had. A very bad poet. Mr. Shipley should ask for his money back, because—

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” The voice came like thunder from the back of the church, and Cecily whirled against an imminent lightning bolt.

“Will!” Sally shrieked. “You’re late, you turkey. Where’s Muffy?”

“She didn’t make it. She’s having the baby. I need help. Fast.”

Mrs. Shipley’s moan was audible from the back of the church.

Cecily felt as if she might moan, too. Eros had shot an arrow straight to her crotch. One look at Will and her heart had dropped to the tips of her unpedicured, possibly not even clean, toenails. God help her, had he ever aged well.

Memories flooded back as he gave Sally a warm hug and Gus a manly slap on the shoulder. That hair, short and tousled now, the silky red-brown of a fine Santa Gertrudis bull. His shoulders had actually broadened and they held up a loose-fitting, short-sleeved white polo shirt that showed off muscled arms and a spectacular tan. Stone-colored pants hung casually off tight buns. The pants had a logo across one pocket. It said Ralph Lauren.

As he talked to Sally, Cecily got a profile view of his eyelashes, as long as the bridesmaids’ skirts. Unlike the groomsmen, his only facial hair was his thick, glossy chestnut eyebrows. Not a fashion victim, even if he was wearing pants with a logo, which she’d forgive.

A shiver ran down her thighs. She felt hot and wet, and swayed rhythmically from a sudden attack of heavy, dreamy lethargy. Here he was, the prize bull of her dreams, and she’d lassoed him too late. He wasn’t merely married, he was about to be a daddy.

She wanted to burst into loud sobs.

“Call the po-po,” chirped the bridesmaid with the perfect navel. Cecily swiveled to stare at her. She’d meant 911, surely.

Will swiveled, too. “I did that already. I’m telling you the baby’s coming right now, in my car, in the church parking lot!” He raised his voice to include everybody in the church. “Is there a doctor in the house? Anybody with medical experience or first aid—”

“Cecily,” Sally said, grabbing her arm and pushing her toward this frantic Will person. “Cecily can deliver the baby.”

“Cecily?” Will said in a suddenly hushed voice, and his gaze locked directly on her. “From the Green Trails Stable?” His hazel eyes glinted with gold and they were filled with some emotion Cecily didn’t care to explore. She hated to think what her eyes were saying to him.

It was more than she could bear. Cecily spun away from those marvelous eyes to hiss at Sally. “No, I can’t. I’m a vet, not a—”

“Don’t tell Muffy,” Sally snarled back.

“Cecily Connaught,” Will went on in that distracted voice. “I can’t believe it really is you. After all these—”

He’d remembered her name, her entire name. Cecily leaned toward Sally’s ear, anything to keep from looking at Will. “It might even be illegal.”

Sally practically spat into Cecily’s opposite ear. “Muffy’s a bitch. You’re a vet. What’s illegal?” Then she wheeled them both into positions flanking Will. “How nice you’ve already met. Get going.”

Mrs. Shipley sped forward, wringing her hands even more violently. “But Sally—”

“Chill, Mama.”

“So, you’ve become a doctor?” Will didn’t seem inclined to move.

“Catch up on old times later! Have you forgotten the baby? This is an emergency!” Sally sounded a lot like Miss Peach.

“Right,” Will said, taking his eyes off Cecily at last. “It is an emergency.” Suddenly purposeful, he grabbed Cecily while Sally—the snake—slithered back up to the altar and Mrs. Shipley shrank into a pew and sank limply onto the cushion. “All of you stay here,” Cecily said over her shoulder quite unnecessarily, since nobody seemed to be rushing forward to help, either from the wedding party or the mob in the foyer. “The fewer spectators, the better.” Her words trailed away on the breeze she and Will made as he propelled her through the foyer crowd and out the doors of the chapel into the glaring sun. “Wait a minute, wait a minute—”

“We don’t have a minute.” He sounded grim.

“My bag’s in the church foyer. I need it.”

Cecily felt the jolt when he halted. “You brought your medical bag to the wedding rehearsal?”

“Had to come here straight from the airport. I never travel without it.” She spared a second to wonder why. Had she thought a horse might turn up in first class needing a tracheotomy?

“Oh.” They reversed direction and he whizzed her back into the church, where she swooped down and gripped the bag without losing speed, and then they were off again toward the parking lot, racing past limousines, the florist’s van and enough BMWs to start up a dealership.

Her shoes weren’t made for running. She was in agony. “Has it been a normal pregnancy?” she said, thinking ahead.

“Far as I know.”

“Full term?”

“Apparently. The baby is coming.”

It was clear he hadn’t taken the proper interest in his wife’s pregnancy. Maybe he’d grown up to be one of those men who only looked good. But oh, wow, did he ever look good.

“Here she is.” He flung open the back door of a still-running luxurious gray sedan. A blast of icy air emerged along with a piercing scream.

“Where have you been? I’m about to drop a baby all by myself onto a church parking lot from the back seat of a freaking car!”

Together Cecily and Will leaned into the car. Cecily was shoulder to shoulder with the muscles, hip to hip with the tight buns, smelling the scent of a deliciously clean, very hot man. He turned to her with a desperate glance. They were nose to nose, eye to eye, and Eros was shooting arrows like a madman, zigzags that shot down through the center of her body. Move over, Muffy, I’m the one who needs the back seat of this car.

She felt the heat rise to her face. It had been an inappropriate thought, and fortunately no more than a thought. Will was looking at Muffy now, oblivious to anything other than the crisis at hand.

“Muffy.” She could tell he was trying to be firm, but his voice wasn’t totally steady. “I said let’s go to the hospital, you said it was a false alarm, you said—”

Cecily whacked him on the elbow and, wonder of wonders, he got the message.

“Here’s the doctor,” he said, calm now and very gentle. “She’ll take care of you.”

Muffy raised herself up on one elbow and left off screaming long enough to puff a few times and then say, “You don’t look like a doctor. Have you ever delivered a baby?”

“Many,” Cecily said, taking a second out to put her hand on Muffy’s flailing one, trying to make a connection with the woman before they got to the hard part. It worked with cows and horses in distress. Maybe it worked with bitches. “Keep up your breathing while I prep.”

“Forget prep. Wash your hands and get on with it!” A long, pitiful wail emerged from a wide, carnivorous mouth as another contraction consumed her.

Cecily glanced at her big, chunky, utilitarian watch, starting to time the contractions. “Breathe, that’s right, breathe. Puff, puff, puff…” She dived into her bag, wincing at the sight of the huge syringes, the Veterinary Purposes Only medications and the oversized forceps, got out the antibacterial wash, poured it over her hands and slid them into sterile gloves, then slid a sterile apron over her sundress. “I’m doing a quick exam. Don’t push.” In spite of herself, she’d said it pretty sharply, because Muffy was pushing like mad.

“Are…you…insane?” Muffy’s words came out sporadically between puffs of breath. “If I don’t push, how the hell am I going to get this thing out of me?”

Cecily reflected on the advantages of delivering calves. No cow had ever mooed at her in that tone of voice. Nor had she ever delivered a calf with the bull running around in tight little circles, clutching a cell phone to his ear. Nor had she ever lusted after the bull, but that was another story. Soothing, that was what she had to be. Calm and soothing. “If everything’s fine, I’ll tell you to push. Just hold back for a minute, okay? You,” she said to the father-to-be, “hold her hand, help her with her breathing.”

“Yeah, sure, that will do a lot of good, him holding my hand, helping me with my breathing. He tried to smother me once. Tell him to go away. He’s making me dizzy.”

“What do you mean if everything’s fine?” That was Will, looking for something else to worry about.