Cinderellie!

by Carol Grace

  There were good days, too, mostly the ones with children's parties scheduled, when she knew she'd done the right thing. When the kids were so cute and so appreciative that she lingered longer than she was supposed to, telling stories and playing games. It was probably the closest she'd ever get to having kids of her own, so why not enjoy them?

  Another week passed, and she was in the office by herself, taking bags of shrimp out of the freezer in back to make a paella for a fiftieth birthday party in Diamond Heights, when a man walked into the office.

  "Anyone home?" It was Jack's father.

  Ellie wiped her hands on her apron. "Hello, Mr. Martin."

  "I hope I'm not disturbing you," he said, looking around the shop.

  She shook her head. "Is this about a party?"

  "No, I'm afraid I have nothing to celebrate at the moment. Although one can always hope…" His mouth twisted as if he'd already said more than he intended to. "No," he continued. "I've come to see you. To apologize."

  "There's no need to apologize for telling the truth," she said stiffly.

  "But I wasn't exactly telling the truth," he said. "Or rather, I didn't know what the truth was. Oh, it was true the deal fell through. Jack lied to you about that. But the part about why he lied, well, I jumped to conclusions there and I'm sorry."

  "Excuse me?" Ellie's knees were so weak she had to sit down in a swivel office chair. She had no idea what the man was talking about. Or why he was there. Nothing made any sense.

  "What I'm trying to say, and probably getting it all wrong, is that I was mistaken about Jack. I don't understand him or why he's doing what he's doing. He's not like me at all. Just when you think you know your children, you find out they've grown up and you don't know them at all. And what's worse, you have no control over them."

  Gwen would agree with you on that. He sounded so sad, Ellie felt sorry for him.

  "I'm sorry for any inconvenience or misunderstanding I may have caused," he said, and then he left before she could say anything else or ask him what he meant or how Jack was.

  She went back to work, totally confused as to the purpose of Spencer Martin's visit. Now, besides the cooking and the shopping and the planning, she was doing the billing, as well. Gwen was too upset over May's engagement to drag herself out of bed most days. In a way Ellie appreciated the freedom to do things her way, but she needed help badly. Most days she got April and May to help her, by bribing them with the promise of catering their weddings. Though April still hadn't met Mr. Right, she was encouraged by May's success. As for May, she was so much in love, she'd even agreed to be a clown at a birthday party on Saturday for which Ellie would be her usual Cinderella.

  But Saturday afternoon May was late. The pizza had been delivered and devoured by a dozen little seven-year-old boys and girls followed by cake and ice cream. They'd played games for an hour, and now it was time for the clown. Where was she? May had never been a clown, so Ellie didn't have high hopes for her performance, but Ellie had coached her and provided her with a wheelbarrow filled with prizes. Since she'd fallen in love, she seemed more willing to act silly and wasn't so worried about looking put together. Since her fiancé thought she was perfect as she was, it was a big boost to her ego, and she seemed like a different person.

  May was busy planning her wedding, and since her mother didn't want anything to do with it, May had to step up to the plate and make all the arrangements. Well, except for the food, which Ellie had promised to take care of. Falling in love, albeit to the wrong person, according to her stepmother, was the best thing to ever happen to May. Now if only April could have the same good luck. As for herself, she'd already fallen in love with the wrong person. She had finally admitted it to herself after many sleepless nights and much soul searching.

  She loved Jack for the motherless child he once was and the man he'd turned out to be. She loved him for the way he worked, wholeheartedly and intensely, and especially for the way he'd learned to play, on the trampoline and at the circus, with wholehearted abandon. But she did not love the way he'd lied to her, even though she knew now he thought he was doing her a favor.

  Unfortunately he hadn't fallen in love with her. He liked her. He'd felt sorry for her. He'd offered her money and he'd kissed her. But that wasn't good enough.

  Just as Ellie was about to give up, May arrived in the clown suit, jogging merrily around the manicured lawn. The children went crazy, following her as if she were the Pied Piper.

  But the clown was much taller than May. The clown suit was too short for whoever was in there. A red wig, a huge red nose and white painted face disguised the imposter. He ran much faster than May. He did a back flip and a summersault. He juggled balls in the air. He tossed presents from a huge bag and had the kids scrambling to pick them up.

  Ellie stood and watched, bewitched, befuddled and bemused. This was not May. May hadn't come. May had sent someone in her place. Typical May. Getting someone else to do the work for her.

  Parents started arriving in their Lexus's and SUV's to pick up their kids. The clown continued his antics. Parents stopped to watch. No one wanted to leave. Finally the clown took a bow to thunderous applause, and the kids and their parents finally left.

  Ellie walked slowly across the lawn while her heart beat irregularly against her ribs. She stopped only a foot from the six-foot, three-inch clown with the broad shoulders and bright blue eyes.

  "Still mad at me, Cinderella?" he said.

  "After that performance, how could I be?" she asked lightly. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking he meant that much to her. "How did you get here?" she asked.

  He grinned, the huge red-painted mouth tilted upward making him look even crazier than before. She giggled helplessly, in spite of her shock at seeing him.

  "In my car."

  "I mean…"

  "I know what you mean. Can we go somewhere and talk?"

  "I don't know what we have to say to each other. Except, thanks for filling in for May."

  "You're welcome. Do you think there's any future for me?"

  She held her breath. It was the way he was looking at her, so intense, so riveted that, try as she might, she couldn't look away, couldn't pretend she didn't understand the double meaning in his question.

  "As a clown?" she asked.

  "As anything. I'm looking for a new job."

  "What happened to your old one?"

  He took off his wig and shook his head. "Didn't work out for me."

  "They didn't fire you, did they?" she asked, shocked and worried that she'd been the cause of his leaving a job he clearly liked.

  "No, no. I quit. You asked me once what I wanted. What my goal was."

  "You said, 'more of the same.'"

  "Well now I want less of the same. No, none of the same. I've been doing some thinking these past few weeks. I want something different."

  "How different?"

  "I was thinking of opening a restaurant."

  "What?"

  "A little place on the wharf where I can tie up my boat outside."

  "Your boat?" she said, feeling dazed and dizzy.

  He took her arm. "Sit down," he said. "And take off those glass slippers before you faint."

  She slipped off the slippers and sat on the grass breathing deeply until she got her brain in gear. It was all too much to understand. Jack here. Jack as a clown. Jack leaving his job. Jack buying a sailboat. He sat next to her. When she finally looked up, he was watching her. The look of concern on his funny face made her give him a reluctant watery smile.

  "Ellie," he said. "This is going to come as a shock to you, but I' in not the same guy who hired you a few weeks ago. Something happened to me that night…maybe it was the knock on the head. That's what my dad thinks."

  "He said not to believe you, not to listen to you. That you tell all the women the same thing."

  "It used to be true. But then I met you and you knocked some sense into my head. Literally. But I can't have my new life w
ithout you. You and your restaurant. Our restaurant. I figure I can do the books when I'm not out sailing or catching fish for lunch. It won't be charity, it will be community property."

  She sat there staring at him as tears flooded her eyes, unable to move or speak. She knew what she'd always known. He was the man for her. The man she'd fallen for the first day she'd seen him. Despite what he'd said. Despite how he'd hurt her feelings. He was blunt, he was frank and he was almost always honest. And, God help her, she loved him.

  He brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of his thumb. "Don't cry, Cinderella. Say something. You deserve Prince Charming, I know that. And I'm not him."

  Ellie's heart overflowed with love. She leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of his red nose. She wiped her tears away and cleared her throat. "You are a prince. My prince. You're also a clown and a darn good one."

  "But could you love a clown?"

  "If he loved me."

  "It's a deal," he said, his ridiculously silly, lovable clown face lighting up. He grabbed her hand, shook it and pulled her close. "For the rest of your life. I love you, Cinderella. With or without your glass slippers, you'll always be my princess."

  "And you'll always be my prince. I love you, Jack." She choked, but the words came tumbling out. "Thanks for coming after me. Thanks for taking a risk on me."

  "There is no risk. Not with you. You're a sure thing. My sure thing."

  The next thing she knew, her tiara had slipped off her head, but she had a diamond ring on her finger. And red clown paint all over her face.

  Epilogue

  The opening of the new restaurant on the wharf was cause for celebration and acclaim. It was small but charming, with real fishnets hung from the ceiling, photographs of vintage sailboats on the wall and long tables where food would be served family style.

  The place was packed. Jack and Ellie, who'd gotten married only a few months earlier, warmly greeted customers arm in arm at the door. May and her fiancé poured champagne. April circulated through the crowd with trays of crab cakes and shrimp puffs, smiling hopefully at any and all single men.

  Ellie couldn't believe how much her stepsisters had changed since Gwen had moved to Florida to re-tire. May's engagement had taken years off Gwen's life, or so she said, and she didn't want to waste any more years stuck in an office or kitchen, so she closed Hostess Helpers and both May and April had new jobs.

  They'd been surprised and pleased to be included in Ellie's wedding as bridesmaids. The three sisters weren't inseparable, but they were closer than they'd ever been, and Ellie was delighted they'd volunteered to help out at the grand opening.

  "April, I want you to meet my fairy godmothers," Ellie said, when Hannah and Clara arrived. "They're the ones who made this fairy tale come true."

  "We did our part," Hannah said modestly. "But it was meant to be. The prince finds the glass slipper, it fits Cinderella and he marries her. And they live happily ever after."

  A few minutes later Ellie crossed the room with a glass of champagne in her hand to where Jack was eating a shrimp puff. "What do you think?" she asked.

  "I think you're the world's greatest chef. And the most beautiful. And the sexiest." He wrapped one arm around her. "Have I mentioned I want to spend the rest of my life with you?"

  "As in happily ever after? That's the way the story ends."

  "For us it's just the beginning. I love you, Cinderella."

  Still dazed, still dazzled that he was hers, her heart brimming with happiness, Ellie raised her glass. "Here's to love," she said. "And happy endings."

  And turn the page for an excerpt from Carol Grace's next heartwarming fairy tale,

  HIS SLEEPING BEAUTY,

  coming in Fall 2005 only from Silhouette Romance…

  There it was again, the flutter of white shimmering in the moonlight. This time he was going to get to the bottom of this mystery and find out who the mysterious figure floating around his back fence was. He set his coffee cup down and strode across the damp lawn until he stopped suddenly and stared.

  There under the fragrant eucalyptus trees was a woman in a white gown only ten feet away from him. Her dark hair was tousled by the breeze and her sheer gown billowed, giving her an ethereal look. Under the gown he could make out the outline of her breasts and hips. His body reacted as if he'd been given a shot of adrenaline, and he felt a sharp quickening of his senses.

  She was slender, this vision, but had curves in all the right places. He tilted his head and watched as the figure moved a little closer. Who was this ghostly creature who was seemingly unaware of his presence? As he stood there, she bent over and picked up a handful of eucalyptus nuts.

  "Hello?" he said.

  She murmured something and looked past him as if he wasn't there. It couldn't be Mary's niece—the woman who was so shy she had to be coaxed outside—out for an evening stroll in his yard, could it? If it was, maybe she didn't know she was outside, because she was sleepwalking. Thank God he'd put a fence around the pool.

  He put his arm firmly around her shoulder and gently turned her toward her house. She continued to clutch the eucalyptus nuts in her hand, but she didn't resist. He murmured what he hoped were soothing words about how he was taking her home, but she didn't appear to be listening.

  Somehow he knew enough not to wake her. He'd read somewhere that it could be disturbing to a sleepwalker. So he walked her into the house and up the stairs, clumsily bumping against the polished railing on one side and her hip on the other. The first bedroom door was open and he could see a rumpled bed. She'd obviously been tossing and turning.

  "Is this it?" he said more to himself than to her.

  She didn't answer, he didn't expect her to, but she headed straight for the bed, as if on autopilot, put the eucalyptus nuts on the bedside table, lay down, put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  He stood there for a long moment wondering what to do. Did sleepwalkers walk more than once a night? If so, should he lock her in or post himself at the door downstairs? He stared down at her pale heart-shaped face, at the dark hair that was spread out on the pillow and felt totally bewildered. It didn't make sense. How could the shy, introverted woman he'd heard about have turned into an enchantress from another world? He should really leave. Go out and lock the door behind him and check her out tomorrow.

  Instead he just stood there, wondering if, like Sleeping Beauty, it would take a kiss to wake her. Sure, she might jump up and whack him over the head with that vase of flowers on the dresser, but what did he have to lose? A lump on the head. An embarrassing explanation. He'd always been a risk taker. So he leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. Soft, full lips. Tempting lips.

  She didn't wake up. She didn't leap up and smack him one. She smiled. That was it. Just a smile. But what a sleepy, sexy smile it was.

  Was she dreaming? Or was he? Did she know what had happened? Would she remember this tomorrow? Should he tell her? Was he crazy? He pulled a blanket up to her shoulders and ran his fingers over her bare shoulder where her nightgown had slipped down. She was safe, and he realized there was nothing more he could do for her tonight.

  Tomorrow he'd have to alert Sleeping Beauty that, in case she didn't know it, she had a problem. Or rather, if she kept coming to his place in the middle of the night, they had a problem.