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!”
“He was kissing me!” I yelled, my voice scratchy and shaking now that the shivering was setting in. “Why didn’t you try to kill him?” I pointed a hand up to where Bart knelt at the railing, holding out a hand like that would help anything. “I didn’t see him jumping in.”
“Somebody go get the damn ladder!” Thatcher snapped. “She’s pregnant, get her dumb ass out of this water.”
When Dixie tried to swim around to the back of the boat and pulled my leg with her, Thatcher let go of me to grab something. Moving his hands down my leg to where my foot was knotted into her train, he flipped a knife open and sliced the material, separating us.
It was the hottest thing anyone had ever done for me.
“What—what did you do?” Dixie cried. “My dress!”
I went under for a second as I untied the loosened material from my ankle while treading water, coming back up with it in hand.
“Get your ass to that ladder,” I seethed, blowing water out of my nose. “Don’t make me strangle you with this.”
Dixie huffed and made her way to where Bart was putting the ladder down, slapping at his hand when he reached for her.
“I didn’t see you jumping in,” she spat, echoing my words.
“I didn’t throw anybody off a boat, either,” he growled back.
“Should be fun at their house, tonight,” Thatcher said, helping to boost me to the ladder after Katrina hauled her up, the high-heeled cowboy boots Dixie had on making it hard for her to climb.
All my people methodically moved her out of the way to get to me, and that made me happy.
“Too many near-death experiences today,” Micah said, pulling me up and hugging me in spite of my sogginess.
“How is Lanie?” I asked.
“She and Nick and the baby are curled up in a pullout bed, and if people quit jumping overboard, we can get to the park,” Micah said, peeling off my hoodie jacket and wrapping a blanket around me.
“Give me the blanket,” Thatcher said, declining his leather jacket as Leo handed it to him. He peeled off his shirt, and I had to look away before his sister saw my tongue fall out. “Give Gabi my jacket, it’s warmer.”
He met my eyes, and I knew it was pointless to argue. Plus…his jacket. It was a thing. Good God, help me, it had become a thing. I put it on, and tried to keep my expression neutral, but it was difficult. The leather was soft and buttery and worn. The inside smelled like Thatcher. I could have curled up in the fetal position right there on the floor and fallen asleep.
“That was quite the little show out there,” Micah said, giving us each an amused look. “Diving in to save the damsel? Wrapping yourself around the hero? It was like an old romantic movie. Something y’all aren’t copping to?”
It was the perfect time. Our opportunity to come clean.
Take a leap, Gabi. Take one for me.
Mr. Bailey’s words squeezed at my chest, and all I could do in response was chuckle and shake my head. I shook my effing head. I was no less of an idiot than Dixie was. As I met Thatcher’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, I saw that same thought. Right before the wall came back up.
What the fuck did I just do?
Dread washed over me, chilling any warmth his jacket could bring. Everyone went about something as we moved underway. Micah busied herself with wet clothing. Most of the others went to check on Lanie and the baby, now that I wasn’t drowning. Thatcher moved to a window and watched the water, looking like he would walk on it if it would get him there faster and away from this. From me. From any of it. Back to Cherrydale, before joint ventures and divorce groups and friends of sisters could complicate his life.
We got to the park, us staying to ourselves and glaring at anyone who looked like they agreed with Dixie. The bridesmaids in their Daisy Duke shorts and boots had left to comfort Dixie after all the craziness was over. Even Mr.—Dr. Dartwell stayed with us, monitoring Lanie for the short ride over after he deemed my head solid and apologized quietly for his daughter’s lack of good judgment. I had the feeling that he had more in mind on that topic than just her lapse of sanity earlier, but that wasn’t my business.
To all of their credit, the entire wedding party and guest grouping just looked solemn, and I was good with that. If anyone was going to have the nerve to say anything out loud, or get mouthy about delays or postponements, I still had a soggy piece of jewel-encrusted wedding dress train nearby and I was ready to use it.
The second we dropped anchor at the Lucky Charm, Thatcher went to help Nick get Lanie and the baby out and to a waiting ambulance that Dixie’s dad must have summoned. I grabbed her bag and my hoodie and followed them all, my feet squishing in my sneakers. When Thatcher said his goodbye and Nick grabbed both him and Bash around the neck for a rough hug, my heart tugged. And then jumped, when he walked off to his car.
I tossed Lanie’s bag to Nick and took off at a jog after Thatcher.
“Wait,” I called, shrugging out of his leather jacket.
“I need to go, Gabi,” he said, not pausing in his stride.
“Thatcher.”
“Take your jacket,” I insisted, handing it to him.
He stopped and turned so suddenly, I had to stop short, myself. Looking down at the garment in my hand, his eyes moved slowly back to me.
“You did good today,” I said, wanting to stomp on my own foot. You did good today? “I mean—my God, you saved two lives today, Thatcher. You’re meant for that.”
“That was your big take-away?” he said. “What kind of job I should do?”
No.
No.
Damn it.
“I—I’m just saying—”
“You’re saying nothing,” he said. “As usual.”
“I can’t,” I said through my teeth, anger flashing at hearing the same tired argument. “We can’t.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “We can do whatever we want.”
My words echoed back at me.
“Cute.”
“I’m just saying,” he continued.
My eyes narrowed. “You’re infuriating.”
He gripped the jacket still in my hands and used it to pull me to him. In under a second, I was chest to chest with his hands holding my face.
“I know the feeling,” he said, the breath from his words brushing across my lips before his mouth touched mine.
It was like tumbling over the rail again. I felt every nuance of the fall in slow motion, my body melting against him before I could form a coherent thought. It was soft, sensuous, simple. Just a pressing of lips that didn’t let go. That said a million or more things without one word or look. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want it to end. Then a car door closed somewhere in the distance behind me. Probably Nick’s. Or Bash’s.
I breathed in quickly and pushed away, but he held fast.
“Thatcher, we’re—”
“I don’t care,” he said under his breath.
“I don’t care,” he repeated slowly, running his thumb under my lower lip.
I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to feel the heat of a thousand eyes burning through my back, imagined or not, but I did. All I could picture was Micah’s face, and her saying, “Something y’all aren’t copping to?”
It wasn’t those eyes, however, that hit me square in the chest. It was Thatcher’s as he read my thoughts all over my face and backed up. He leaned down to pick up the jacket we’d both dropped, backed away a few more steps, and then turned and walked to his car. I watched him, unmoving, the sound of my breathing and my pounding heart in my ears. I watched him drive away.
I watched him drive away.