It’s just been a few hours since I’ve given birth—in the middle of the conservatory of my mother’s B&B of all places, or at least what used to be my mother’s B&B before she foolishly sold it to a couple of airheads and promptly gave all the money to her con artist of a boyfriend. But here we are, this little dark-haired cutie and me.
Her skin glows a bright pink, and her features are dainty with a tiny button nose and perfectly shaped bowtie lips. Her eyebrows are neatly feathered and her chin comes to a slight point. I can’t stop gazing at her as she sleeps bundled in my arms.
She is perfect.
The door to the room slowly opens as my handsome husband steps in apprehensively. I had sent Everett down to get us some snacks, but my appetite seems to have tempered itself since then.
“Hey.” I sit up as best I can, happy to see him. “Thank God it’s you. I find it unnerving that they don’t have locks on the doors to these rooms. Any nutcase could just wander right in here while I’m sleeping and try to make off with Lyla Nell.” Okay, so that was most likely totally unwarranted, but I’m right regardless.
Everett’s jaw redefines itself as if the idea made him livid.
“I’m here now. Nobody is going to hurt you or Lyla Nell. I can promise you that. Happy birthday, Lemon.”
Everett has almost always called me by my surname, and I don’t mind it one bit. It’s sort of our thing.
“Thank you.” I wince. “I almost forgot all about my birthday. But now that I have a birthday buddy to share it with forever, I will never forget anything about this precious day ever again.” I land a sweet kiss to the baby’s forehead. “She’s still sleeping,” I whisper with a tiny giggle in my voice. “Oh, Everett, I’m over the moon.”
“I’m right there with you.” A heavy breath presses out of him as he takes in the tiny peanut with nothing but love in his cobalt blue eyes. “She’s beautiful, Lemon. Just like her mother.” He lands a pile of clothes onto the chair in the corner, and I recognize my sweater and a robe in the jumble.
“Did you go home?” I ask. “No wonder it took you forever.”
“No.” He looks pained at the idea as he brandishes a bag of chocolate chip cookies. “I ran into Carlotta out in the hall. I guess she wanted to drop them off herself. I think she said something about Noah taking a shower.”
“That’s fine,” I say as Everett moves the recliner right next to the bed and takes a seat. “Both Nell and my father dropped by while you were gone. Can you believe it? I got to see my dad!” Tears fill my eyes at the thought of it. Both Nell and my father have been dead for a good long while, but I’ve seen them both several times since they’ve crossed the veil. Although, Nell has appeared to me more than my father has.
“I guess seeing the dead does have its perks.” He lands a warm kiss to my lips and I take a moment to take in his warm cologne.
“It sure does.” But not in the way one would think. It’s not like I see dead people everywhere I go. The only ghosts I see regularly are the ones taking up residence in my mother’s old B&B, a happy family of four—if you include the ghostly cat. Other than that, the only time I see the disembodied as of late is if someone has been killed—and I’m not talking about the deceased. The dead in question is typically someone or some creature that the deceased truly loved. They generally come back to help solve the crime of a person who was near and dear to their hearts. That probably explains why so many of the dearly departed that come back to help are animals. It makes perfect sense; loving a pet is the purest love of all.
“Unbutton your shirt,” I whisper to Everett. “I want you to bond with the baby.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” Everett does just that and I carefully unwrap Lyla Nell and hand her over to him. Everett lays the sleeping babe over his chest and covers her back with the blanket. “Get some rest, Lemon.” He drops a kiss to the top of Lyla Nell’s head, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s just shed the softest smile. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
But I don’t sleep. I plow my way through that bag of cookies and all the while I try my best to soak in the sight of this gorgeous man holding our daughter. And she is Everett’s daughter no matter if Noah turns out to be the father.
The door cracks open slowly and in strides Noah with a baby bag in his arms that looks to be overloaded with far too many things, and I giggle at the sight. I probably should have packed a bag for the hospital months ago, but there never seemed to be any time. And now she’s here and it feels as if everything in my life before her didn’t really exist.
“Hey, beautiful.” Noah comes over and lands a kiss to my cheek before pulling over the other recliner in the room.
The three of us catch maybe an hour of sleep. And even in that narrow window I manage to fall in and out of fevered dreams. When I wake up, Noah has the baby on his chest with his shirt unbuttoned so he can get that precious skin-on-skin contact with her, too.
I look from Everett to Noah and marvel at how wonderful they’ve been through all of this, how very civil they’ve been to one another, and I wonder if they’ll remain civil once we find out the paternity results—on live TV no less.
Why does everything always have to be so complicated?
But on the bright side, maybe this paternity nightmare will be the very last complicated thing in my life.
I’ve got Lyla Nell to think about now. I can’t land myself in hot water the way I’ve been prone to do these last few years.
No, it’s time for the chaos that my life has devolved into to come to an end.
It’s time for peace and calmness, just like the way it is now in this room with a tiny angelic being lighting up our world with all her sugar cookie glory.
But deep down, I wonder exactly how long this peaceful moment will last.
Something tells me, it’s just the calm before the storm.
Lottie
Three weeks later…
“Whose harebrained idea was this?” I grunt as I look out at the crowd of spectators getting ready to watch my life implode like a watermelon with a stick of dynamite in it. The studio is ice-cold, buzzing with far too many bodies—and at the risk of sounding like my sister, Lainey, laden with germs.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight and force myself to think about the positives, such as the heady vanilla scent of my heavenly chocolate chip cookies emanating from the refreshment table. I couldn’t come to the show empty-handed, so I stopped by my shop, the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery, this morning and boxed up as many of my chocolate chip cookies as I could for the host and crew.
Little Lyla Nell and I, and just about everyone we know, have gathered to witness the spectacle at hand. And now here we are on the set of Getting Candid with Candace, a live afternoon talk show that’s broadcasted to all of Vermont, filmed just south of my cozy little town of Honey Hollow.
Carlotta chuckles. “That was your harebrained idea, Lot. But I don’t expect you to remember. You’ve got little Lyla Nell sucking your brain cells right out of your boobs. You’ve made stupid mistakes before, but you’re bound to make far more stupider mistakes that will make the ghost of mistakes past seem like pure genius. And I can’t wait to see ’em all.”