All the Pretty Poses

by M. Leighton

  “This is for you,” she says, handing it to me. “And for you, Harrison.”

  I raise the heavy lid and there, lying in the pale pink velvet interior, are the birth records for Mary Elizabeth that Hank had told me were lost. I take out the white paper with her tiny foot print on it and I stroke it, my thumb so large beside it, even through my blurry vision.

  “Where did you find these?”

  “After Hank died, I cleaned out the groundskeeper’s cottage and found them hidden under a loose board in the floor.”

  I don’t try to stop the tears that spill down my cheeks. “I named her after the only people that I’ve ever cared about. Mary for Malcolm’s wife. He loved her so much. Elizabeth for you. You were like the mother that I never had. And Spencer. Because…she was. She’ll always be.”

  Reese walks around behind me and wraps his arms across my chest, setting his chin on top of my head. Just showing me his love and support, letting me feel his presence.

  “I’m sorry I never told you, Tanny.”

  She waves me off. “It was none of my business.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t want you to know. It’s that I felt like I couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  I turn my head to glance up at Reese. He nods, agreeing that we should tell Tanny the whole story. She’s like family, even more so than actual family.

  I’m calmer now as I revisit the events that took place all those years ago. I’m not surprised when Tanny cries. She cries for me and for Reese and for the baby that never had a chance to live and fight.

  Tanny comes to fold her arms around us, giving us all the comfort that she’s capable of. It’s when she leans away that I suspect her tears run much deeper than just our story.

  “You two have been through so much, but you finally have each other. You’re finally healing and moving on from the past. That’s why I want to tell you something. Because I know that you’re strong together, stronger than your father, Harrison, and stronger than your past, Kennedy.”

  Reese still holds me as Tanny walks through the room, stroking the baby bed and the rockers, letting her fingers trail over the letters on the wall that spell “baby.”

  “I was just a few years older than you were when you met Harrison, Kennedy when I met him. I met a man who was just as handsome and dashing, just as charming. It didn’t take me long to fall head over heels in love with him. But like most of the men in his family, he had a drive in him, an ambition that couldn’t be stopped. Not for anyone or anything.

  “I got pregnant and it wasn’t until I told him about the baby that he told me he was set to marry a girl from better stock, one that could bring good blood into the family line. I was heartbroken, of course, but as long as I had my baby, I knew I’d be all right. It wasn’t until I, too, gave birth that I got my last visit from Henslow Spencer.”

  I drown my gasp with a hand to cover my lips, but nothing drowns Reese’s. I feel it as much as I hear it. He stiffens all around me, hugging me tighter to him.

  “My father?”

  With sad eyes, Tanny turns to us and nods. “Yes. Henslow Spencer, your father. The father of my son. That was when that I learned he could be as ruthless as he was charming. He gave me two choices that day in the hospital. I could either never see my baby again or I could see him Henslow’s way.

  “He’d filed papers declaring me an unfit mother and he’d put the full weight of the Spencer name behind it, which was considerable even back then. He had been granted full custody. He told me that if I ever wanted to see my baby again, that I must never tell anyone he was mine. He’d gotten me a job with Malcolm and Mary where I would work as a housekeeper so that I could see my son when he came to visit them. Henslow assured me that he would bring him here often. And he did. It was either that or never see my child again. And I knew I couldn’t live with that. So I went along with him and, until today, I’ve never told another living soul that I’m the mother of his firstborn.”

  Reese has stopped breathing behind me. I can feel a light tremble in the arms that hold me and I know his world has just been rocked…again. Only this time with gentleness and love.

  “I wanted you to know because I don’t want you to go forward in your life not knowing that there has always been someone in this world who would give up everything she has for you. Who did give up everything she had for you.”

  Reese’s arms fall slowly away from me and I feel his body heat recede as he moves around me toward Tanny. As I watch the scene unfold with fresh eyes, with aware eyes, I see for first time the shape of Tanny’s eyes echoed in Reese’s. I see the square set of her shoulders in the strong ones of her son. And I see the special light shining in her face for what it is—love. Maternal love. It’s been there all along, watching quietly. Waiting. Steadfast and true, like a mother’s love.

  As Reese gently folds his strength around the frail form of his mother, I realize that our world has come full circle. That, for all the pain and suffering, for all the lies and deception, that everything is as it should be. That the journey doesn’t dictate the end. We do. Our choices determine the shape and path of our life.

  Reese’s strength and goodness has led him here. Finally. Just like his mother’s. And just like mine. We all defied the odds and did what needed doing for those we loved and, in the end, it all worked out. In the end, love won.

  It always does.

  And it always will.

  I needed rescuing. Even when I thought I didn’t, I still did. We all do in some way or another. And Reese was my Superman. He was my hero before he even knew it. And maybe I was his. Maybe I got to rescue him right back. Maybe we’ll rescue each other every day of forever. And if we do, that’s all right by me.

  EPILOGUE- Reese

  Like everyone else, I’m breathless as I watch my wife spin, her long, graceful body twirling like she’s on a string. She’s mesmerizing to behold. She was born to dance. And I was born to watch her.

  Nearly a year ago, I gave her the news of my latest investment.

  “Would you stop cleaning and look at me?” I asked in mock exasperation. “Babies don’t have to have a completely sterile environment, you know.”

  She stopped scrubbing the rails of the crib and looked up at me, that ever-present twinkle in her eye, her hair mussed from her vigorous cleaning. “Why? You got something else you’d like me to do with my hands?” She held up her gloved hands and wiggled her fingers, her tongue tucked into one corner of her curved lips. For a second I actually forgot what it was that I was going to tell her.

  I let my eyes run over her beautiful face, over the extended curve of her pregnant belly and I was reminded of the gift, the gift I’d gotten her for the birth of our baby. The gift of her last unfulfilled dream.

  “Maybe I should just wait and tell you after they induce you tomorrow,” I teased.

  She tore off one glove and slapped me with it. “Don’t you dare!”

  She hopped up and came to plop down in my lap, like she’d done a million times as we sat in the rocker in the baby’s room, imagining what it would be like to rock him to sleep there.

  “Well, since you’re gonna get all ugly about it…” I winked up at her and she grabbed my face and gave me a rough peck.

  “Tell me or risk the consequences.”

  “Fine,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “I never told you what I planned to do with the money I made from the sale of my businesses.”

  “You mean other than shower me with things that I could never have a need of?”

  “Yes, besides that.”

  “Then no, you didn’t.”

  “Well, I had a friend who was open to the idea of an investor. You might’ve heard of him. Chance Altman.” I watched Kennedy’s eyes go wide and her mouth drop open into a perfectly round O. “I thought you might know the name. Well, he was pretty keen on the idea of having a partner, as well as having a troupe based in Chicago. I was also able to give him the name of an extremely talented dancer t
hat I happen to know. There was even an opening at the Steadman Theater that some charming and resourceful man was able to procure for the shows. Three nights a week, starting this summer.”

  After staring at me for at least sixty full seconds, Kennedy leaned her forehead against mine and I watched the tears—her “happy as hell” tears as she calls them—drip from the tip of her nose onto the front of my shirt.

  “I didn’t need anything else in life to be happy, to be complete, Reese.”

  “But I needed to give you this. I want to see you dance, beautiful. I want to see you dance until your dream isn’t to dance anymore.”

  She lifted her head and gazed into my eyes with her big, teary green ones. “You are my dream. He is my dream,” she said, touching her belly with one palm.

  “But you’re mine. And I know you’ve always wanted this. And I wanted you to have it.”

  That was followed by some pretty rigorous lovemaking, especially for a pregnant lady. It turned out to be a good idea, though, because she didn’t have to be induced after that. Malcolm Harrison Spencer came along just fine on his own.

  I can remember with absolute clarity the way it felt to hold him in my arms—my child, a part of me and a part of Kennedy, together in the most perfect baby I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think many moments in life could compete with the moment that I stood across from her and watched her lips move when she said “I do” in the front of the church, but holding our son for the first time was right up there with it.

  Every day since then has been just about as ideal as I could imagine life being. We’ve fed him together, bathed him together, watched him take his first steps and say his first words together. I wouldn’t change a single second of it.

  It’s been ten months to the day since I witnessed the miracle of our son’s birth. Now I get to witness another incredible event—the first day his mother got to dance the dance of her dreams, on a stage for the whole world to see.

  The smile she’s wearing as she twirls and bends takes my breath away. And the satisfaction I get from knowing that I helped put it there…priceless.

  I’m living a life I never thought I’d have, happier than I ever thought I could be. My son is at home with my mother. My wife is on stage where she belongs. And my empire is being expanded for our children. I couldn’t ask for one more thing out of life.

  But if I could, I might ask for a little girl.

  Just one more little girl.

  THE END

  Up next in the Pretty Series is Sig’s story

  Stay tuned to my social media sites for updates on release

  Read on for an excerpt of the next

  Wild Ones novel

  SOME LIKE IT WILD

  COMING March 4, 2014

  A FINAL WORD

  A few times in life, I’ve found myself in a position of such love and gratitude that saying THANK YOU seems trite, like it’s just not enough. That is the position that I find myself in now when it comes to you, my readers. You are the sole reason that my dream of being a writer has come true. I knew that it would be gratifying and wonderful to finally have a job that I loved so much, but I had no idea that it would be outweighed and outshined by the unimaginable pleasure that I get from hearing that you love my work, that it’s touched you in some way or that your life seems a little bit better for having read it. So it is from the depths of my soul, from the very bottom of my heart that I say I simply cannot THANK YOU enough. I’ve added this note to all my stories with the link to a blog post that I really hope you’ll take a minute to read. It is a true and sincere expression of my humble appreciation. I love each and every one of you and you’ll never know what your many encouraging posts, comments and e-mails have meant to me.

  http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-thanks-is-not-enough.html

  I’d also like to take a moment to thank every single one of you who has taken the time to leave a short, honest review of this book, or any other for that matter. Reviews are more important to authors than you could imagine and I’m forever grateful to all of you who have shared your thoughts. This seemingly small mechanism is second only to word-of-mouth in ways that you can profoundly impact an author and a book. So thank you. So, so much.

  Again.

  Always

  Other books by M. Leighton

  All the Pretty Lies

  Down to You

  Up to Me

  Everything for Us

  The Wild Ones

  Wild Child

  Some Like It Wild (March 4, 2014)

  There’s Wild, Then There’s You (June 3, 2014)

  Fragile

  Madly

  Madly & the Jackal

  Madly & Wolfhardt

  Blood Like Poison: For the Love of a Vampire

  Blood Like Poison: Destined for a Vampire

  Blood Like Poison: To Kill an Angel

  The Reaping

  The Reckoning

  Gravity

  Caterpillar

  Wiccan

  Beginnings: An M. Leighton Anthology

  Follow me

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  Twitter: mleightonbooks

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  Contact me

  m.leighton.books@gmail.com

  Some Like It Wild

  How far will a good girl go for the bad boy she loves?

  Laney Holt is a preacher’s daughter. A good girl. Her only goal was to get married, have babies and live happily ever after, just like her parents. Only that didn’t happen. With the betrayal of two people closest to her, Laney’s dreams came crashing down. Now she’s left with an empty space she doesn’t know how to fill. Until she meets Jake Theopolis, a daredevil with a death wish who has heartbreaker written all over him.

  Jake has no interest in thinking beyond the here and now. All he wants out of life is the next rush, the next “feel good” thing to keep his mind off the pain of his past. His latest rush? Showing Laney there’s more to life than being a good girl—and that going bad can be so much fun. Her only concern now is how she can ever hope to satisfy the wild side of a boy like Jake. She’s looking forward to trying. And so is Jake.

  CHAPTER ONE- Laney

  Four years ago, Summer

  “Come on, Laney. You gotta live a little. You’ll be eighteen in a few weeks and then you’ll be leaving for college. This is the last fair you’ll ever attend as an adolescent. Don’t you want this summer to be memorable?”

  “Yes, but that does not include getting busted for drinking under age.” My best friend, Tori, gives me that look that says I’m hopeless. “What?” I ask defensively. “Daddy would kill me.”

  “I thought preacher’s kids were supposed to be wild as hell?”

  “I can be wild,” I tell her, avoiding her disbelieving blue eyes. “I just don’t want to be wild right now.”

  “Then when? When are you gonna do something? Anything? You won’t make it a single semester away at college if you don’t learn some of this worldly stuff now, Laney.”

  I chew the inside of my lip. I do feel ill-prepared for college. But the thing is, I don’t want to do wild things. All I’ve ever really wanted out of life is to find the perfect man to sweep me off my feet, get married, have a family and live happily ever after. And I don’t have to get wild to achieve any of those things.

  Looking at Tori’s expression, however, makes me feel like some kind of freak for not wanting to break the rules. At least a little. But she doesn’t understand my dreams. No one does, really. Except my mother. She was the same way when she was my age and she found everything she wanted in life when she met my father.

  “Come on, Laney. Just this once.”

  “Why? What is the big deal about getting it here? Getting it now?”

  “Because I want to get it from him.”

  “Why?” I ask again. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I’ve had a crush on him for year
s, that’s what the big deal is. He went off to college and I haven’t seen him since. But now he’s here. And I need a wing woman.” When I don’t immediately relent, she presses. “Pleeeeeease. For meeeeee.”

  I sigh. I have to give Tori credit for being one seriously gifted manipulator. It’s a wonder I’m not wild as a buck. She talks me into doing things I don’t want to do all the time. It’s just that, so far, they’ve been fairly innocent. Being the preacher’s daughter and living with such strict parents makes it hard for me to get into too much trouble. Tori ought to be happy about that. If it weren’t for the restrictions being my friend has placed indirectly on her, she’d probably be a pregnant, drug-addicted criminal by now.

  But she’s not. Partly because of me and my “taming” influence. And it’s those stark differences in our personalities that make us such good friends. We balance each other perfectly. She keeps me on my toes. I keep her out of Juvie.

  “Fine,” I growl. “Come on. But so help me, if he tells on us, I’m blaming you.”

  Tori squeals and bounces up and down, her ample boobs threatening to overcome the extremely low neckline of her shirt.

  “Why don’t you just go over and do that in front of him a couple of times? I’m sure he’d give you anything you want.”

  “That’ll come later,” Tori says, ruffling her blond bangs and waggling her eyebrows.

  I roll my eyes as we start off across the fairgrounds. As we near the farm truck where the shirtless guy is unloading crates, I ask Tori again, “Now who did you say he is?”