Page 136 of Moonshine Kiss
Her name was Melinda Leigh. Melly for short. I remembered the birth announcement delivered to the police station. There was a welcome wall that we pinned all the baby pictures to. My father liked to say he and his deputies knew everyone in town from birth on.
Because they were family. We were family.
“Please! Please!” Melly’s mama sobbed. Sybil Crabapple, at least she had been until she married Cody Wyatt a few years back. They’d gone through fertilization treatments for three years before being blessed with little Melly.
She couldn’t be more than four months old.
“Everybody back up a step. Give Cass some room,” Scarlett ordered shooing everyone back before hunkering down next to Sybil and wrapping the woman in a hard hug.
“Ambulance is six minutes out,” Mrs. Morganson said, holding her phone to her ears.
“Goddammit.” I shed my jacket. Six minutes was infinity when there was no oxygen. “Stay on the line with the dispatcher,” I told Mrs. Morganson. “Someone call Cody for Sybil.”
As quick as I could, I unzipped Melly’s powder pink snowsuit.Shout Tap.My training kicked in as I called Melly’s name and tapped her shoulder. No response. I freed one of her tiny feet from the suit and flicked it. Nothing. No breath.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Sybil was silent now, tears rolling down her cheeks, hands clasped under her chin as Scarlett rocked with her on the sidewalk.
It was up to me and the man upstairs. And I was gonna do everything in my power to make sure Melly got whatever was in her stocking from Santa. Thirty compressions.One, two, three…
I could feel the crowd around us growing, could hear the growing concern, but my focus was Melly and her blue lips.
Thirty.
I stopped, checked for breath.Nothing. Nothing. Ten seconds of nothing.
I delivered two rescue breaths. God, it was so different doing this on an actual human baby instead of the weird dolls we certified on. I was infusing her with my breath, my prayers, every fucking ounce of hope I had left in my body.Please, Melly. Please, God.
“You got this, Cass,” someone whispered tearfully above me.
It was raining tears in this tiny circle. A half-dozen hands rested on Sybil’s back and shoulders. I heard a commotion. Cody was here. But it was time to count again.
Thirty compressions.One, two, three…I never took my eyes off Melly’s face. Nothing in this world existed but me, her, and my desire to see her take a breath. It was hard and fast. Was it too hard? Was it fast enough?Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
I was sweating. It was running down my back. Steaming off my head.
“I’ll spell you if you need it,” Scarlett said. She was the calm in the center of a circle of fear.
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
Two rescue breaths. Gentle.Goddammit. Why didn’t we have AEDs in storefronts?
Wait! Was that—
“She took a breath!” someone hovering above me said, confirming what I thought I saw.
I leaned down, listening.
“Shut the hell up, everyone!” Scarlett ordered, and I swear the entire town held its breath with me.
A second later Melly gave a little gasp followed by another. In another second, she was shrieking and crying like she’d just been born. A roar went up around me, and Sybil and Cody were sobbing all over their beautiful, breathing baby girl. I could hear the sirens now, feel the pats on my back.
But all I saw were little Melly’s teary brown eyes.
This was why I was here. To serve my town, my family.
I sat down on the concrete, and someone draped my coat over my shoulders. I needed a drink and a hug. A pair of boots approached me, and then someone was crouching down in front of me.
