www.millsandboon.co.uk

      My Domino Diva writing buddies,

       without whose support I’d never have ventured

       into writing romance.

      You gals rock!

      CONTENTS

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      The little girl with the purple ribbons in her hair held tightly to the man’s hand. He was taking her to the place of mirrors, he said. And the mirrors were the best place for playing. She would run in and out, between them and behind them and make funny faces. She’d stick out her tongue, and laugh and laugh. Then she’d sit on the floor and undo her purple ribbons and press them flat against the mirror. Sometimes Mommy leaned the mirror back and when she did that it made their faces look all funny and fat like plates or really skinny like crayons.

      If she got up really, really close, her nose got big. And the way she got her nose to look even fatter was to squish it up against the mirror until it looked like a pig nose. When she breathed hard it left a dark place on the mirror that she could draw lines on with her finger.

      But the man told her not to do that. It smudges the mirrors. It makes the mirrors no good. And he would take a handkerchief out of his pocket and back and forth, back and forth, he would wipe them clean. But Mommy never minded when she wrote with her fingers on the mirror. Sometimes Mommy would take her up in her arms and they’d twirl in bare feet around the mirrors and laugh at their reflections, while Daddy looked on and smiled. Then he would open his arms and they’d both go into that special and safe place.

      Before the man came for her that day, the little girl had been in the living room where everyone was quietly sitting on chairs. Mommy and Daddy weren’t there.

      “Where’s Mommy?” The little girl looked around her.

      “Child,” someone said.

      “You poor, poor thing.” A lady she didn’t know but who smelled like mashed potatoes ran her hand through the little girl’s hair.

      “Such a poor, poor thing.”

      The little girl sat down on the floor, her coloring books spread out all around her. She would wait for Mommy.

      “Such a shame,” someone said. “She doesn’t understand, poor thing. She doesn’t know.”

      “How can she know? She’s too young.”

      “Such an honest to goodness tragedy.”

      “An orphan at such a young age. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

      The little girl had gotten up from her coloring and followed Scrapples the cat into the kitchen, and the man was there. He bent down to her level and put his fingers to his lips. He told her quietly that he was going to take her to the place of mirrors where she could be happy again.

      “Is Mommy there?”

      “Yes, of course. Mommy and Daddy both, and if you come now you can be with them forever.” And he smiled at her.

      She had to hold his hand tightly, very, very tightly and walk outside with him. Could she promise to do that? Could she keep a secret? She nodded solemnly.

      He gave her a cookie and they walked out the back door, and no one saw them leave. It was raining.

      Later, much later, they would ask her how it was that she had wandered out here and ended up asleep at the bottom of the root cellar. It was the cat, they said, that alerted them, the crying of the cat from the bottom of the root cellar. But how had she managed to open the heavy door all by herself?

      They would wrap her up in a blanket and give her hot chocolate at the table and cluck their tongues.

      “Poor child. So cold.”

      “Such a cold, cold day.”

      “Poor thing followed the cat outside.”

      “And clear down to the root cellar. But how had the hatch been up?”

      They shrugged and looked amongst themselves. But on this strange and awful day, someone, they reasoned, had gone down for a can of peaches and left it open distractedly. Anything was possible on a day like today.

      And no one thought to ask the little girl.

      ONE

      23 Years Later

      “Mom, Dad,” I whispered. “Things are good here. I want you to know that. I’m even sort of happy. The shop is doing well and I found a nice church to go to and I’m making a few friends. And there’s even this guy who smiles at me.”

      Why did I just say that? I’m not ready for any man to smile at me. Especially not after the fiasco of my engagement. “Of course, you know my doubts because I’ve told you all of this in great detail, but it’s still nice to know that I’ve still got it, whatever ‘it’ is. And in a couple of minutes, I’m heading downstairs for my class. I can’t believe eleven people signed up for my mirrors class. I think you’d be proud of me.”

      I sighed and placed the framed photo of my parents back down on my end table. I let my fingers glide along the top and rest there for a moment. The thing was, I had no idea whether they would be proud of me or not. I don’t know my parents. They were killed in a car accident when I was three and a half. All I have is this one picture. And yes, I talk to it. It’s one of my quirkier habits, but it’s one that gives me a strange sort of comfort.

      “Hey, Marylee, hi.”

      I gasped, turned. Johanna, my best friend, or as best a friend can be after only half a year of knowing someone, was standing in my bedroom doorway. I stood up and straightened the photo on my nightstand.

      She said, “Your door was unlocked.” She motioned toward my kitchen and to the door that led out of my apartment and down the back stairs. “So I came in. I knocked on the doorjamb. Guess you didn’t hear me.”

      She saw the look on my face. “Sorry. I should’ve knocked louder. I didn’t mean to startle you. You were on the phone?”

      “No.” I offered no explanation. Not a lot of people know that I regularly talk to my dead parents.

      She was still in the doorway, nervously urging one side of her hair up into a small jeweled barrette while she talked. “Oh, I can’t get this—sorry for barging in—does this look all right?”

      “You look fine.” I moved away from the picture. “Your hair is beautiful.” And it was. My friend always looks fine; petite and pretty.

      “It’s a hopeless frizz mop in this weather,” she said. “Call me Medusa lady. Snakes for hair.” My friend Johanna teaches English lit