More Than Words: Acts of Kindness: Whispers of the HeartIt's Not About the DressThe Princess Shoes

by Brenda Jackson

  No one wants the stigma of being a child “in need,” so Roni ensures that all donations are given in private. The kids are simply asked to leave their class early at the end of the day and receive their new shoes away from the prying eyes of others. The next morning they’re ready for school in a new pair of comfy shoes, just like all the other students in their classes.

  The Shoes That Fit staff and volunteers provide new athletic shoes that are attractive and comfortable. Brand names are great, but flashy shoes are out. Shoes should have simple styling that will appeal to the widest range of children, says Roni.

  All this work and attention to detail pays off.

  “When the kids get their shoes, they skip. They’re so excited,” says Roni. “They want to keep their boxes. But you know, it’s sad. Many have never had a shoe box before.”

  The joy of giving back

  Not surprisingly, letters from teachers, parents and students pour in each year.

  “I just wanted you to know what joy it brings to me to see the look in the children’s eyes when I tell them someone cared enough to get them shoes that fit. We have many children who come to us while living in a shelter. New shoes, underwear and socks give them a chance at making friends and coping with what is happening in their lives,” wrote one school nurse.

  Or as a little boy, Eduardo, put it so succinctly, “I like my new shoes. They feel so good when I walk in them. I am happy. Thank you.”

  Letters like these keep Roni going. So does all the support she receives from her daughters, Lacey and Emily, who still help out at Shoes That Fit each week. Roni says one of the things she’s most proud of is how her work at the nonprofit has shaped her own children’s sense of volunteerism.

  “My girls are very, very compassionate. It’s important as parents to pass that on to our kids so they can pass it on to theirs and this can keep going,” she says.

  While successes mount each day, Roni says the next goal is to partner with more corporations and cover other states to reach out to as many children as possible, particularly as the economy staggers and more families need help.

  It’s imperative that Shoes That Fit keep moving forward, because for every child forced to wear pink jelly shoes or shoes much too small for comfort, there is a solution.

  “We hear the sad stories, but at the same time, we can take those stories and make them better for somebody,” Roni says. “People think they have a calling...and I think this was mine.”

  For more information, visit www.shoesthatfit.org, or write to Shoes That Fit, 1420 N. Claremont Blvd., Suite 204A, Claremont, CA 91711.

  THE PRINCESS

  SHOES

  Maureen Child

  MAUREEN CHILD

  USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child is a native Californian now living in the mountains of Utah. Experiencing a change of season for the first time is exciting, but living with snow is quite the adventure! As the author of more than one hundred books, Maureen loves a happy ending and still swears that she has the best job in the world. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading or traveling with her husband.

  Visit Maureen’s website, at www.maureenchild.com, or her Facebook page.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dear Reader

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  “I’LL HAVE MY assistant fax you the numbers this afternoon.” Noah Fielding smiled into the phone and mentally congratulated himself on the deal he’d just struck.

  In one month he would be adding another shopping mall, this one in Seal Beach, California, to his list of holdings. Which would bring the total so far to six. And this was merely the beginning. He’d spent a lifetime building his plans and now, seeing them all come to fruition was... Satisfying was the wrong word. Perhaps anticlimactic was the right one.

  Frowning, he nodded as the man on the other end of the line continued to talk, but Noah was already distancing himself from the conversation. Deal was done. End of business. Finally he interrupted. “Fine, Matt. Once your people draw up the contracts, I’ll have my lawyers go over them and I’m sure everything will be settled.”

  Another minute or two and he hung up, thinking that he should be happier about all of this. Ten years ago he’d started on his empire by buying up a dying mall in Crescent Bay, California, and putting his own stamp on it. Now that shopping center—Fielding Center Mall, his headquarters—was a small, but thriving, center on the coast between Orange County and San Diego. He’d tapped in to exactly what people wanted—small-town feel, big-city wares. And because of his success here, he’d been able to expand far faster than he’d expected.

  And still something was missing.

  Which was irritating in the extreme.

  Still scowling, he stood and paced the confines of his office. He couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, but the feeling remained, like an uncomfortable itch at the back of his neck. He stopped in front of the window opening into his assistant’s office and peered between the partially opened blinds at Annie Moore.

  Six months she’d been working for him, and in that time he’d found her efficient, friendly and all too distracting. She was tall, with short blond hair, pale blue eyes and a figure he shouldn’t even be noticing.

  “Never should have hired a beautiful woman,” he muttered as he watched her fingers fly over her keyboard. But then, he hadn’t hired her because of her looks or even her office skills, though they were impressive. No, he’d offered her a job because she was a single mother and he recognized worry when he saw it. She’d come to him looking to make a fresh start for herself and her daughter. And she’d clearly been anxious about finding a job that would pay for the kind of life she wanted to give her child.

  That Noah understood. And respected.

  It was merely coincidence that his own dissatisfaction with his life had become noticeable at the same time she’d started working for him.

  Then the outer office door opened, one of his security guards walked in escorting Annie’s young daughter, and Noah’s thoughts scattered. The girl was crying and Carlos looked grim. Noah’s curiosity got the better of him. Quietly he partially opened his office door.

  * * *

  “MS. MOORE,” A DEEP VOICE announced, “I think we have a problem.”

  Problems were nothing new to Annie Moore. She was the first line of defense at the Fielding Center Mall in Crescent Bay. As Noah Fielding’s executive assistant, Annie had been called on to unravel dilemmas and resolve crises almost daily since she first got the job six months before. Still, she’d been hoping for a respite so she could finish typing up Noah’s correspondence and clear off her desk early for a change.

  No such luck.

  She turned from her computer monitor to glance at the doorway where Carlos Miranda, one of the mall security guards, stood, one hand on the shoulder of Annie’s six-year-old daughter, Kara.

  Fear settled in the pit of her stomach. Tears were still tracking down Kara’s cheeks and Carlos looked troubled. Annie jumped up and came around her desk, throwing a quick, uneasy glance at her boss’s door.

  One of the perks of her job was being able to bring her daughter to the office after school. Kara didn’t have to go into day care and Annie didn’t have to worry about her little girl’s safety. At least she never had before. Now, though, the fear inside her was making her stomach jitter as if it held a thousand bees flying in formation.

  “Kara, honey,” Annie whispered, going down on one knee in front of her daughter. Automatically she ran her hands up and down Kara’s arms and legs, as if making sure she was all in one piece. When she was satisfied for the moment, she asked, “What is it? What happened? Are you all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Carlos assured her in a deep, rumbling voice. “Just a little scared.”

  “Scared?” Annie’s mind picked up on that
one word and ran with it. Just half an hour ago she’d given Kara permission to go to the cookie shop for an after-school snack, with instructions to come right back. It was a small-town shopping center. Everyone in the mall knew Kara and looked out for her, so Annie had thought her daughter was safe. Clearly she’d been wrong. Obviously she was a terrible mother. She never should have allowed Kara to go off alone. “Scared of what, baby?” she asked, almost afraid to hear. “What happened?”

  “Mommy, I’m really sorry.”

  Kara’s tears erupted then and her small body shook with the force of her sobs. She threw herself into her mom’s arms and as Annie held her, nearly frantic now, she looked up at Carlos, her mind dredging up all sorts of horrible things and hoping to heaven she was wrong about all of them. “What’s going on? You said she was all right. Was she hurt?”

  “Kara’s fine,” he said, reassuring her even as worry of a different sort began to mount.

  If she hadn’t been hurt, then why all the tears?

  Carlos clasped his hands in front of him, looking as though he were a soldier standing at parade rest. His gray-streaked black hair was cut short, and though his mouth was firm and tight, his dark brown eyes were soft as he looked at her. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk to Mr. Fielding. The owner of the shoe store, Mrs. Higgins, called my office. It seems Kara was caught shoplifting.”

  Kara cried even louder and seemed to shrink into herself.

  “Shoplifting?” Shock colored Annie’s voice as she set Kara back from her so that she could look into her daughter’s eyes. This she hadn’t expected at all. “Is that true? Were you stealing?”

  The little girl’s blond braids were messy from a day of playing at school. Her white blouse carried a jelly stain and her jeans had grassy marks at the knees. Her pink sneakers were scuffed and one shoe was untied. Her big blue eyes overflowed with tears again as she nodded and gulped in air.

  “I didn’t mean to....” she said, her words trailing off into another heart-wrenching sob.

  Annie didn’t even know what to say. Kara had never done anything like this before and she couldn’t understand why the girl had done it now. What could possibly have motivated her to steal? “Kara, baby, you know better. Stealing is wrong.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Annie said quickly, cutting off whatever excuse Kara might have offered. “There is no ‘but.’ Stealing is wrong. If you want something, you have to save your allowance until you have enough to buy it.”

  “I couldn’t wait, Mommy,” she said on a rising wail of misery. “It’s important.”

  Fear had drained away and even her initial shock was starting to fade, leaving Annie feeling mostly stunned and like a failure as a parent. She could see it all now. Her six-year-old daughter was already beginning a life of crime.

  She shook her head and said, “Nothing is so important that you do something you know is wrong, Kara. If you wanted a new pair of shoes so badly, you should have come to me and asked for them.”

  “But the shoes aren’t for me.” She swiped tears away with her dirty fingers and sniffed loudly. “I was only trying to help Gracie.”

  Now Kara was more confused than ever. Of course, she knew Gracie O’Malley was Kara’s best friend. The two little girls were inseparable, even sitting beside each other in their first-grade class. Annie had seen them together on the playground, but since she and Kara had lived in Crescent Bay only six months, there hadn’t been much time to settle in and meet the families of her daughter’s friends.

  Clearly she should have made the time.

  Frowning now, Annie asked, “Did Gracie ask you to steal something for her?”

  “’Course not. She didn’t even know. It was going to be a present. A surprise.”

  “Is it her birthday?” Annie was trying to make sense of something that made no sense.

  “No....” Kara blew out a breath and rubbed her nose.

  This was one of those times when Annie wished she weren’t a single mother. She wished Kara’s father had lived long enough to help raise their daughter, because right now she’d really appreciate a little backup.

  But the truth was, Annie was on her own. And usually that was fine with her. When Kara’s father died, Annie had promised herself that she wasn’t going to be one of those moms who had a steady stream of “uncles” moving in and out of her daughter’s life. She’d vowed to give Kara a good, steady upbringing. Which meant, for Annie, that romance wouldn’t be a part of her life until Kara was at least a teenager. Not that she was besieged by offers of dates anyway. After all, single moms weren’t high on the dating food chain.

  Still, she’d tried to give Kara enough love and support for two parents, so that her daughter would never miss out on having a father. But at moments like these Annie wondered if she’d succeeded.

  Sighing, she looked up at the security guard, realizing he was still standing there, observing all the drama. No doubt he was waiting for the hysterics to end so that he could report this to Noah Fielding. Just the thought of that made Annie pale. Her boss was a fair but cool and distant man. What would his reaction be to his assistant’s daughter becoming a thief? She didn’t want to think about it. If he was angry enough, he could fire Annie, and then where would they be?

  No, she had to get to the bottom of this situation so that she could have as much information as possible before facing Noah. And knowing her daughter, Annie had the feeling she wouldn’t be getting any answers out of Kara until they were alone. “Do we really have to bring this to Mr. Fielding right now? Couldn’t I take care of this myself by speaking with Mrs. Higgins?”

  “Well...” The big man hedged a bit and looked even more uncomfortable than Annie felt. After another long moment or two, though, his kind brown eyes settled on Kara briefly and he said, “All right, then. I’ll tell Mrs. Higgins to expect you this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” When Carlos left, Annie looked at her daughter. Keeping her voice low, she said, “Now, Kara Elizabeth Moore, I want you to tell me what on earth you were doing by trying to steal those shoes for Gracie.”

  Kara huffed out a breath, sniffed loudly and said, “Gracie doesn’t have good shoes, Mommy. Today she was wearing her big sister’s and they fell off during recess and the other kids laughed at her and Gracie cried.”

  Fresh tears accompanied that statement and Annie’s heart twisted in sympathy with her daughter’s misery.

  “They really hurt her feelings, Mommy, and I got mad, but they wouldn’t stop laughing and—” The little girl ran out of words and flung herself into her mother’s arms again.

  Her sobs reverberated through Annie’s body as she felt both pride and disappointment. Of course she hated that her daughter had tried to steal something, but how could she not be proud that Kara had been trying to do something wonderful for her friend?

  Sometimes, she thought, being a parent was like trying to dance on a tightrope.

  She’d had no idea that Gracie’s family was having such a hard time of things. But Kara had known and had done what a six-year-old child felt was necessary.

  Taking a deep breath, Annie plunged into suddenly deep parental waters and, like all parents everywhere, sent out a silent prayer hoping she was saying the right thing. “Honey, I’m so proud of you for wanting to help Gracie. But you really went about it the wrong way.”

  “But I don’t have enough money,” Kara wailed, burrowing closer to her mother.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s all right to take what doesn’t belong to you,” Annie chided. “You should have come to me, sweetie.”

  All at once Kara pulled back, looked into her mom’s eyes and thrust her bottom lip out. It was a stubborn expression Annie was all too familiar with. “Gracie’s all embarrassed and I didn’t want to tell anybody else so I thought I could fix it myself and now it got worse and Gracie still doesn’t have the shoes and I’m in trouble and—”

  “Baby, I know you were trying to help. But to steal something
?” She shook her head. “That’s wrong no matter what the reason is. Besides, Mommy works for the man who owns the mall. He’s not going to be happy when he finds out about this.”

  “Will he be mad?”

  “What’s going on in here?”

  A new voice entered the conversation, interrupting Kara’s stream of chatter, and Annie’s stomach did a quick nosedive. Noah. She supposed it was inevitable that he would have heard the commotion and come out to investigate. Nothing got past that man. He had his finger on the pulse of everything that happened in his world.

  They were about to learn the answer to her daughter’s last question. Annie closed her eyes briefly. What if he fired her? What would she do then? She and Kara were happy in Crescent Bay. They were settling in, making a home. What were the chances she could find another job making the same kind of salary in such a small town? And she doubted she’d find another position that allowed her to have her daughter with her after school.

  As these and a million other wild thoughts raced through her mind, she muffled a sigh. Taking hold of Kara’s hand, Annie stood up to face her boss.

  He was tall, with broad shoulders, a square jaw and midnight-black hair. His pale blue eyes looked almost icy against his tanned skin, and the fact that he wasn’t smiling didn’t make Annie feel any better.

  “Noah...”

  Kara scuttled behind her mother as if trying to hide, and Annie really couldn’t blame her. Ordinarily, Noah wasn’t the warmest human being in the world. And to a child who knew she was in trouble, he probably looked even more forbidding.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Annie said, “but something’s come up and I need to go and handle it.”

  He ignored her, which Annie was used to. In the time she’d worked for him, he’d made a point of maintaining a safe, polite distance between them. He was always courteous, but remote. As if he was deliberately trying to keep her at arm’s length.

  So it was a complete surprise when he came forward until he was standing right beside her. With a stern look on his face, he looked down at Kara and asked, “Were you stealing?”