All the Pretty Poses (Pretty #2)(53)
Author: M. Leighton

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.”