Mistletoe Cinderella. Tanya Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ phone and dialed.

      “Mistletoe Berries and Blooms,” Natalie chirped on the other end.

      “Hey, it’s me.” Chloe sagged into one of the straight-backed chairs that had been in the kitchen since the late eighties.

      “Chloe! I was going to call you later. You won’t believe what came in the mail.”

      “She sent you something, too?” Unusual but not unheard-of. Jane had been generous as well as spontaneous. “Because I have to tell you, I’m a little—”

      “She who? I was talking about a him.”

      “Oh. I got a package today. From Aunt Jane.”

      “Wow.”

      “Yeah.”

      “What did she send?”

      “I haven’t opened it,” Chloe admitted. “Knowing it’s the last one of these I’m going to get, it felt disrespectful to tear into it like a five-year-old at a birthday party. But treating it with a lot of pomp and circumstance seems silly when, for all I know, it’s an obscene T-shirt she thought was funny.” Chloe had two such ribald tops from New Orleans that she’d never wear in public. Heck, she practically blushed just sleeping in either of them.

      “I’ll close the store early and come over.”

      “You sure?” Chloe asked, grateful but feeling melodramatic.

      “Yeah. It’s been kind of slow today. We did some nice spring arrangements just before Easter, but it won’t get seriously busy again until prom, Mother’s Day and summer weddings. I’ll be so swamped in June you’ll forget what I look like. Give me about half an hour, okay?”

      True to her word, Natalie showed up right at the thirty-minute mark. She was holding a bag from the local grocery.

      “Provisions,” she declared. “They’re not perfect, but it was short notice.”

      Once inside the kitchen, Natalie pulled out a plastic container of macadamia-nut cookies and piña colada wine coolers. Chloe smiled at the impromptu tropical theme.

      Natalie opened a wine cooler and passed Chloe the still-cold bottle, then opened one for herself and held it aloft. “To Aunt Jane.”

      “To Aunt Jane.”

      They clinked the bottles together and each drank. Then Chloe slit the packing tape with one of the kitchen knives and pulled back the cardboard flaps. On top was a postcard, showing a beautiful white sandy beach and crystal-blue waters. Chloe flipped it over.

      I got you a card with a half-naked cabana boy, but then kept it for myself. Put this by your computer and daydream about future vacations. I saw the enclosed dress and thought of you—you still don’t know how beautiful you are. Give some local fellow a chance to show you! Or come with me to the tropics, and I’ll introduce you to a nice cabana boy. I’m proud of you, Wheezy, but don’t spend all your time at the computer and taking care of your parents! Shake things up from time to time.

      Love and mai tais,

      Aunt J

      Chloe had to blink away tears to read the end of it, but she grinned when she got there. She held the postcard out to Natalie.

      A second later, Natalie chuckled. “Think there are cabana boys in heaven?”

      “If not, Aunt Jane’s talking Saint Peter into it even as we speak.”

      “So what’s this dress look like?”

      Good question. Chloe pushed aside some plain tissue paper and got a glimpse of deep red. The silky material slipped through her fingers like water.

      “Whoa,” Natalie said, looking over her shoulder. “Now that’s a dress.”

      Chloe held it up, stunned. Her aunt had seen this and thought of her? Perhaps Jane had been under the influence of a mai tai at the time. The so-called sleeves were wide, off-the-shoulder bands, hardly more than straps; the skirt, while the same color, was a different material. It fell in gauzy, staggered layers to form a handkerchief hem. Even at its longest point, the skirt would barely reach her knees.

      “Try it on,” Natalie urged. “That’s what she would have wanted.”

      “I’m not convinced it’s my size,” Chloe said. The hours she did on the treadmill to improve her lung capacity kept her trim, but the skirt looked brazenly insubstantial. And the draped neckline—which wouldn’t come anywhere near as high as her neck—didn’t seem big enough to hold in generous C cups.

      Natalie rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I asked you to show up for dinner at the Dixieland Diner wearing it. It’s just us.”

      “All right, all right.” Chloe took the dress back to her room without further protest. She shrugged out of her clothes and eyed the red fabric. Here goes nothing.

      Not only did the dress fit, it looked as though it had been magically tailored to her body. Surprised, she turned in front of the mirror, enjoying the way the fabric moved. When Vonda had said she could see some of Aunt Jane in her, Chloe had dismissed it as a well-meaning fib. Now though…

      “This is not a Chloe dress,” she told her reflection. It was beguiling, just for this moment, to see herself as someone else, someone—

      “I’m going out of my mind with curiosity,” Natalie complained from the other room.

      “Come take a look,” Chloe called, doing mental inventory of her closet. What kind of shoes did one wear with an outfit like this? She doubted canvas sneakers would cut it.

      From the doorway, Natalie reiterated her earlier assessment. “Whoa.” Then she grinned. “We have so found your outfit for the reunion.”

      “Natalie—”

      “Explain to me why you won’t go,” the blonde demanded, her hands on her hips.

      Because high school had represented some of the most abysmal times in Chloe’s sheltered life. In elementary school, she’d been mostly invisible, the girl who sat quietly in class and read storybooks through recess; she’d never minded. The only child of a couple who hadn’t expected to be blessed with a baby, as well as being born premature and battling respiratory developmental delays as a kid, Chloe had received tons of attention at home. Not being the center of everyone’s focus at school had been a relief.

      Her teachers liked her well enough and she made good grades. Maybe she hadn’t been invited to a lot of roller-skating and swimming parties, but she wasn’t that coordinated anyway. She’d buried herself in descriptions of faraway places and made lots of fictional friends.

      Then came her teenage years. As a freshman, she’d had a significant growth spurt, and was suddenly several inches taller and filling out her blouses much differently. Also, there were far more extracurricular activities offered in high school. Teachers were no longer content to inconspicuously give her A’s—they asked her to peer tutor and courted her publicly for events like the Academic Decathlon. Although her parents’ official policy was that Chloe couldn’t date until she was sixteen, they’d allowed her to СКАЧАТЬ