Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,108
guess I should tell you before I announce it to the world," she added, handing Aislynn her phone.
"Oh my God!" Aislynn said after looking at the screen, letting the phone fall from her hands like it had just electrocuted her. She turned to Jace and Ellie, her mouth forming a perfect O, her hand moving up to cover it.
"New York Times list. She made it," Lana said, holding up the phone for the whole group to see, which now included all the members of the Quinn family, Ellie, and Evan.
"Babydoc! You did it!" Jace said holding her in a tight embrace, while the others howled with excitement and took turns congratulating her.
"I’m so proud of you, honey," Nina said, tears in her eyes. Aislynn chest filled with love for this woman who, in a short period of time, had been able to prove to her that good enough mothers truly do exist.
Aislynn had cut all contact with her mom and made peace with the fact that their relationship was never going to be a healthy one. She caved in on one occasion and sent Pam an email for her birthday, but she never received a response back.
Aislynn looked around at the group of people that surrounded her, her new family, and her heart swelled with love and appreciation for the important roles they all played in her life.
"All right, screw the tea. This book signing needs some champagne!" Aislynn yelled and everyone cheered.
With a very successful last night of book signing behind her, Aislynn gathered the last of her things in preparation to leave the bookstore.
"I would like to have my book signed, please," Jace said, standing in front of the table, holding out a copy of her novel. Aislynn wondered how it was possible that the sound of his voice and the vision of him still made her heart race and her insides tingle.
"Certainly, sir. What would you like it to say?" she played along, flashing him her sexiest smile.
"Surprise me," Jace said, softly running his hand down the side of her face.
Aislynn opened up the book to the title page, where she was used to signing, but kept turning the pages until she reached the dedication page. Even though she had seen it a million times already, she read over it again. It felt as raw and real as the very first time she had seen it in print.
To my new family.
You are my real life characters.
Thank you for joining together to form the most perfect cursive handwriting with which I’ve been able to rewrite my life story.
"All right, I think I got it," Aislynn finally said, putting her pen to paper and reading aloud as she wrote. "To Jace…" she began, smiling up at him with loving eyes.
"Okay, you need to stay lying down for at least fifteen minutes. I’ll be back to check on you before you go."
"Thanks, Dr. Jones," Jace said, squeezing Aislynn’s hand.
"So, now we wait," Aislynn said and let out a sigh. She tried to readjust her position in bed, feeling uncomfortable with the rush of blood to her head caused by the way the exam table tilted to the back.
"Don’t move, babydoc. She just said you needed to stay like that," Jace complained, running his fingers gently across her forehead. "You’re so stubborn."
"I know. I’m sorry. I guess we need gravity to help them swim to the right place, huh?"
"We’ll take all the help we can," he said, and kissed the top of her hand. "How do you feel?"
"I don’t know. Exposed?" she said with a laugh, making sure the sheets covered the whole length of her legs and feet, which were still up on the stir ups.
"Do you feel pregnant yet?"
"No, not yet. Then again, I’ve never been pregnant, so I don’t have a frame of reference," Aislynn said, loving the adoration and excitement with which Jace stared at her.
They had started talking about babies after they returned from their Australian honeymoon, but decided to wait until after their first wedding anniversary and the end of her third book tour. It had taken eight months of evaluations, blood work, sonograms, and hormone shots, but the day had finally arrived. Aislynn had gotten a positive result on her ovulation test that morning, and they quickly rushed to the doctor’s office for the artificial insemination procedure using Jace’s frozen sperm.
They had tried to keep it from his family, but they were so lovingly nosy that everyone was now tracking their treatments. Nina and John were the ones most excited about the prospect of becoming grandparents and, even though they tried to hide it from Aislynn, she knew they had a closet full of clothes and toys already waiting for baby Quinn in their house. Ellie, of course, already had the nursery designed.
"What are you doing?" Aislynn asked as Jace lowered her sheets to expose her abdomen.
"Shh. I need to have a conversation with your belly," Jace said, placing his lips over her belly button. "All right, you guys. I realize you’ve been frozen for a while, but the doctor guaranteed me that you were still working, so you had better do your thing. Now, there’s only one tube and one finish line, so please get it together, and make it there. Eye on the ball, so to speak. You can do it."
"Stop making me laugh! It makes it harder for them to swim upstream," Aislynn pleaded.
"Oh, damn it! Sorry," he said and gently kissed her belly. He then moved over Fourteen and whispered a gentle "Hi, you," before kissing it again.
"You realize Fourteen may end up looking like a fourteen hundred when my belly gets huge and pregnant, right?" Aislynn said, the happiness in her heart so immense that it made it hard for her chest to expand to its full potential.
"And I will love it even more," he said, hovering over her still-exposed belly.
"Leave it to you to somehow make it romantic to get pregnant at the doctor’s office," Aislynn said, running her finger through his hair and down his neck.
"I’m special like that," he joked and moved up to kiss her softly on the lips.
"Yes, you absolutely are. And even if the baby comes from this round of treatments, or the seventeenth one down the line, we will love you forever."
This is the absolute closest I will ever get to giving an Oscar acceptance speech, so please bear with me. I have a lot of truly deserving people to thank.
I want to start by thanking my husband, who taught me how to dream big. Thanks for being all about the "we" and steering me away from the "I". To my kids, for being the best reflecting surface ever and for your ability to willingly share Mommy with her computer.
Thank you to my wonder-of-the-world girls for being the best cheerleaders a girl could ever ask for. Can you believe we have made it this far?
Thanks to my editing and publishing crew: Billye Johnson and her red "pen"; all the betas involved in tenderly molding this manuscript into what it is today, especially my BE; GC for my first official review; Kahlen Aymes for all her support and guidance; and Angela at Fictional Formats for taking this project on last minute. You are all rock stars.
Finally, I would like to thank Scott for pointing out how much I smiled anytime I talked about the book.
And now, on to the next…
Thanks dpgroup forum.
I’m emotionally dynamic and of peculiar mind which is code for "hormonal and crazy." Reading contemporary romance novels is my vice, and writing them is my most valued privilege.
I have a pretty average life. I wear the mom hat, the wife shirt, the daughter skirt, and the working woman peep-toe heels all day long. But when I strip all of that down, I am an author. I’m still amazed I get to say that.
I love to hear from readers.
This is where you can find me:
phoebelane.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Phoebe-Lane/499062340157067
twitter.com/Phoebe_44
http://www.goodreads.com/PhoebeLane
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author