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Important notice: All excerpts have been submitted by the author.

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Author: Laurie Creasy

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time in a land much like this one lived a princess named Susan.

Not that you would have recognized her as a princess. Susan's eyes were green--not the rare shade of emeralds, just ordinary green. Her hair was dark, not black as a moonless midnight. Her mouth was kissable, but not irresistibly so. No one would have described her skin as delightful as peaches and cream, just as plain, everyday, okay skin. Her figure was good but not Vogue quality.

For years Susan trudged to her job and from her job, down subway escalators and back up, trading walking shoes for high heels, high heels for walking shoes, and both for blisters.

"I'm a princess under an evil spell," she'd sigh.

But no one believed her.

And after years and years of frogs, frogs, and more frogs who never turned into princes, she stopped believing it herself.

Oh, every once in a while she'd catch sight of herself in the bathroom mirror--usually while she scuffled with some dustballs--and think, "I don't deserve this; I'm a princess. And someday a handsome prince will sweep me off my feet and take me to his mansion--no, not just a mansion, more like a palace, the biggest palace in the world, bigger than a sultan's palace and with solid gold everything--and I'll have a kingdom of servants and I'll never have to dust again."

Then she'd shake her duster at the mirror and shout, "Abracadabra-alpha-hydroxy-acids-retin-A!"

But the spell remained.

Until one day...
CHAPTER ONE

Susan felt good straight through to her bones, rested for the first time in weeks. What a great day! Smiling, she stretched. An errant sunbeam edged through a crack in the curtains.

A high, late-looking sunbeam.

"Oh, hell!" She broke the stretch and leaped out of bed to check her alarm. Its flat, blank gray face stared back at her. Sometime during the night, the battery must have died. She grabbed her watch. An hour late.

"Double damn and a plague on it," she muttered, and hurried into the shower. Without warning, the steaming water turned icy. Susan slammed off the shower and stood in the cubicle, shampoo dripping into her eyes. Cautiously, she turned the water back on. Still cold enough to build igloos.

Swearing and shivering, she rinsed her hair, dried herself, dressed, picked up her hair dryer, and switched it on.

It clicked.

She swatted it with her palm. "Come on, damn it."

It clicked again.

She shook it. The dryer flew out of her hand, slammed into the wall, and shattered. Several dozen pieces of plastic and wire slithered with a ping and whimper across the floor.

Though she combed out her hair and tried to fingerstyle it, it hung limp and unhappy just above her shoulders. She made a face at her reflection. "Great, wet hair and it's freezing out today."

With a practiced move, Susan scooped up her high heels from the bedroom floor and ran into the living room to put on her walking shoes.

They weren't beside the door where she always left them.

They weren't under the table.

They weren't under the sofa, in the closets, in the bathroom, in the dirty clothes hamper, under the bed, in her lingerie drawer, on the kitchen counters, in the refrigerator, in the oven, or in the freezer, either.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Susan yanked on her high heels and winter coat and tottered out the door to the subway, stopping only long enough to treat herself to a large, steaming cup of coffee.

When she reached the top of the escalator, the whoosh and breeze of an incoming train surprised her. She started to run down the stairs, but her heel caught in the steps and came off with a crunch, knocking her off balance and slamming her against the metal side. Runners tickled her legs as her stockings met the step's jagged edge, but with an acrobatic move worthy of the Olympic games, she kept her coffee from spilling.

She limped to the platform and was six inches from the door when it slid closed and the train pulled out of the station.

"Hell and witches' tits." Bending down, she pulled off her damaged shoe, one of the best pair she owned. Had owned. Tiny nails protruded from the torn, scuffed leather.

Susan hobbled over to a bench and sat down.

Something crackled underneath her. Startled, she dumped her coffee--two creams and a sugar--on her best silk blouse.

"Why the hell don't you watch where you're sitting?" the man beside her shouted.

Susan jumped up and pulled out what had been an architect's model of a house.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he shouted after her as she wobbled on her one remaining high heel to another bench. "A damned princess that you can sit wherever you please?"

She wanted to cry--would have cried, but this was the subway. No one cried in the subway. Then what was that burning sensation in her eyes? Angrily, Susan brushed away the tears. "What else could possibly go wrong?" she mumbled.

Beside her, she heard a faint jingle. "Hello, luv," a loud, cheerful voice said. "I'm your fairy godmother."

Atop her frizzy, carrot-red hair, the woman wore a screaming purple hat bedecked with a scarlet silk sunflower and an acid yellow velvet ribbon that hung in wrinkles to the middle of her back. Bells jingled from the hem and sleeves of her long, loose lime muslin dress, and tiny mirrors glittered from the neckline and empire waist, their effect multiplied by the rhinestones embedded in her lavender sneakers. In deference to the December cold, she wore black-and-purple checked leggings, and her plaid wool cape matched her legwarmers. Exactly.

"For some bizarre reason," Susan replied, "today I don't doubt you at all. Yesterday, yes. Tomorrow, probably. Today--of course you're my fairy godmother. Why should I get a good one? But because I know someone somewhere is going to write a story about all this--after all, I am a princess under an evil spell--I'd better ask you to prove it."

"Abracadabra-alpha-hydroxy-acids-retin-A," the woman said and held out a hand covered by a white glove printed with shamrocks. "My name's Tiffany. Sorry about this morning. I just got out of training and sometimes I forget my checklist." She dug into a red-white-and-blue striped purse the size of a duffel bag. "Want a juice box? I could probably find you some breakfast, too--"

"Thanks, but people are starting to look."

Tears welled in Tiffany's wide gray eyes.

Ashamed that she'd hurt the woman's feelings, Susan sighed. "Oh, all right, give me the juice box."

"It's wonderful." Tiffany smiled, and the yellow ribbon on her hat danced a jig. "A nice carrot-prune-cranberry combination. They were on sale."

"Imagine that." But her coffee was gone and she hadn't had any breakfast, so Susan poked the straw into the box and sipped gingerly. "You just got out of training?"

"Oh, yes." Tiffany opened a juice box for herself, and took a long swallow. "I had the best trainer. Phyllis. She used to be your fairy godmother, you know, but she got you just before she retired and she took you on the condition that she could train someone to take over when you were thirty."

"But I'm not thirty." Grimacing, Susan put the box on the bench beside her, hoping Tiffany wouldn't notice she wasn't drinking from it. "I'm thirty-six. Almost thirty-seven."

"Yes, well, remember Kevin?"

Susan nodded. "How could I forget? I thought for a while his boss would throw me in the adjacent jail cell just for knowing him."

"Yes. Well." Tiffany blushed. "He was my first mistake, and I had to stay in training a little longer after that."

"I...see. So, Tiff, what's the game plan?"

"Well." Tiffany leaned forward. "You really are a princess under an evil spell, you know, so our first order of business is to find you a handsome prince."

Susan snapped her fingers. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"I'm thirty-seven next week, and now I find out I could have a handsome prince"--she snapped her fingers again--"just like that." She leaned over and shook Tiffany's shoulders. "What took you so damned long?"

"My, Phyllis was right. You will take some work. Handsome princes don't like women who swear, you know."

"How would I know? I've been waiting to meet one for twenty years. Phyllis couldn't have mentioned something about this twenty years ago? Maybe slipped me a message in a dream or written it in burning letters across the sky?"

"Bitter, too. Oh, dear." Tiffany patted Susan on the knee. "Well, that's all right. You'll meet your handsome prince today."

"Today? Today!" Susan lifted her lank, clammy hair. "Look at me! I'm having a bad hair day to end all bad hair days because you screwed up my alarm clock and my shower, I've broken the heel off my shoe, both my stockings have runners in them--not just little tiny genteel runners, big huge what's-that-ladder-leaning-against-your-leg-lady runners that I got when I fell on the escalator after it ate my very best pair of shoes--I've spilled coffee on my silk blouse, and now today I'm going to meet my handsome prince? Gee, Tiff, thanks so much."

"And ungrateful. Well, never mind. I believe in positive thinking, so I just know this is going to work out fine. Phyllis said that was my greatest strength, you know, my ability to think positive." Tiffany grabbed Susan's elbow and jerked her to her feet, propelling her toward the train that was pulling into the station. "So let's have some happy, positive thoughts. Remember the little engine that could?"

"It's hell, isn't it?" Susan muttered as they found a seat. "I did something really bad and now I'm in hell."

"Happy, positive thoughts," Tiffany repeated. "Repeat after me: My handsome prince is just around the corner. My handsome prince is just around the corner. My handsome--"

Susan opened her newspaper and began to read.
***
"Not so fast," Tiffany said. She hoisted her duffle purse higher on her shoulder and puffed as she struggled to keep up with Susan.

"Maybe they should start a fairy godmother aerobics class," Susan snapped, aware that the people who passed sneaked double takes at them. Dark gray slush seeped into her heelless shoe, and the colder her foot got, the smaller her store of patience grew. Not that she had a lot to start with.... "A little positive jumping up and down to go with all that positive thinking couldn't hurt."

Tiffany blotted at her face with one corner of her plaid cape, setting the bells at her hem jingling. Several passers-by turned to stare, and one reached into his pocket and dropped a quarter into Tiffany's duffle bag.

"Merry Christmas!" he called as he walked away.

"And a bright, positive new year to you," Tiffany shouted back. "People are so generous this time of year."

"He thought you were one of those bell-ringer Santas." Susan jumped as a speeding car sprayed slush onto the sidewalk. Tiffany was in her way, though, and Susan's stockings took the brunt of the cold water.

Tiffany paused to assess the damage.

"Hurry up!"

"Really, Susan, I don't see what the rush is."

"I'm late, you--you--fairy godmother, and it's all your fault."

"Well, no, not really. I mean, the battery in your alarm clock was old--"

"As my official fairy godmother, isn't it your job to make sure I'm awake on time?"

Tiffany looked dubious. "Sometimes, yes, but--"

"And that my batteries are working?"

"Batteries--hmm. I'd have to look that up. They're a split jurisdiction."

Susan let that cryptic comment pass. "That my walking shoes are where they're supposed to be?"

"Shoes--well, shoes, yes, that would be me."

"And that I'm not late for work?"

"Well, actually, that's not--"

"I never had any problems when Phyllis was my godmother."

Tiffany's sniffle echoed off the glass store windows, and she paused to pull a bright red bandana from the neckline of her dress.

"Oh, no, don't cry. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but I don't have time for this. Listen, are you going to follow me around all day?" Susan stood at the corner, tossed a dollar into the kettle of a real bell-ringing Santa, and then checked her watch. "Oh, God--"

"Uh-uh-uh," Tiffany warned.

"--look at the damned time."

"Handsome princes--"

"--don't like women who swear. Yes, thank you, we've been on this merry-go-round already." Susan stepped off the curb.

"No, Susan, wait--"

"I said I don't have time--" But the city hadn't had its finest hour during the latest snowstorm, and under the slush was a patch of solid ice. Just as Susan noticed it, Tiffany stopped at the corner and sneezed.

The last thing Susan remembered, her feet flew up as though Tiffany had tied wings to them, and she bounced off something hard.

But she woke up to a ringing in her head and to blue eyes filled with concern. Beautiful blue eyes. So blue that if she hadn't known she was in hell and her leg hadn't felt as though a thousand bees had ganged up on it for a mid-morning snack, she would have believed she was in heaven.

The ringing resolved itself into a flustered Tiffany and a nervous bell-ringing Santa.

It took some doing after her eyes were assaulted by the juxtaposed lime green and Christmas red, but Susan focused on the lean male face that owned those heavenly blue eyes. Black brows slashed above them. Long dark lashes shadowed them. Under them, high, clean cheekbones slanted toward an elegant nose and a mouth so tempting she wanted to test its textures and tastes.

"Are you all right?" His voice was as velvety as devil's food cake.

"If you wouldn't drive like a bat out of hell, Greg, you wouldn't have hit her."

Susan tried to sit up to see the owner of the second voice, because if Greg's voice was devil's food cake, this one was as hot and sinful as skinny dipping in a vat of rich, bittersweet chocolate, all dark and sharp and deep with secrets.

"Cut me a break. I had a damned green light, Noah." Greg stood up, and the damp wind feathered his thick dark hair over the collar of his jacket. "She stepped off the curb. There was no way I could have stopped."

"Do you have any family we should notify?" Noah demanded.

"Tiffany--" Susan propped herself up on one elbow.

"I'm right here, luv. You've got to start watching where you're going." Her fairy godmother looked at the two men and waved a shamrock-covered hand. "Oh my, you asked about family, didn't you? The poor sweet dear doesn't have any--"

"Lucky woman," Noah muttered, to Susan's surprise.

"--and I keep telling her she needs a keeper."

"An ambulance is on the way," Noah said, and he pushed Greg aside and looked down at Susan from what seemed an enormous height. This was a man made of winter, from the dusting of snow in his hair to his ice-sculpture face, honed with highlights and shadows, but expressionless around the eyes and mouth. His stance said he had complete control of the situation. "We'll take care of everything. Don't worry."

"Gay," Susan muttered. "They both have to be gay. I can't be this lucky."

"What?" Noah's hair was brown, too, but straight and short, and when he moved, the dusting of snow turned to silver. Instead of jeans and a leather jacket, he wore a gray wool suit that had been pressed within an inch of its life and ordered to stay that way or else. Intelligence fired his gold-flecked hazel eyes, but frowns had carved stern lines around his mouth.

"I said it's been a hell--"

"Susan!"

"--heck of a day."

Noah's intelligent eyes studied her. "Actually, he's my brother. Certifiably straight, both of us."

Susan wondered if she'd be unlucky--or lucky--enough to slide down an open manhole.

"Is there blood?" a woman asked. "I think I see blood!"

Susan turned her head toward the voice. A crowd had gathered in the intersection.

"Maybe she's dead!"

"She's dead?"

"Quick, someone call the TV stations," a man ordered. "She's dead!"

"TV? No!" Susan shouted. She tried to cover her limp hair with her hands and arms. "Tiffany, don't let them--"

"Well, actually," Tiffany told the man, "she's alive and there's very little blood, so maybe--"

"Get the hell out of here," Noah snarled, and the man backed off. Most of the crowd did, too.

"That's it, Noah. You take care of the rabble, and I'll make sure our damsel in distress gets to the hospital." Kneeling beside her on one jean-clad knee, Greg picked up Susan's hand and stroked the backs of her fingers with his thumb. His touch sent warm tingles through her hand. Or maybe it was just the contrast of his touch with that of the cold pavement. "Your leg must hurt."

"Of course it hurts, Greg," Noah snapped. His dark chocolate voice sent hotter tingles through her body. "It's probably broken."

Sirens wailed down the street and the ambulance screeched to a halt nearby. An eyewitness news truck pulled in behind it. His eyes narrowing, Noah strode over to talk to the camera crew.

"Don't worry." Greg patted her hand again and winked at her, his long dark lashes a startling contrast to the blue of his eyes. "I'll ride with you to the hospital."

"That would be very nice," Susan managed.

"Oh, good," Tiffany said. "Then I'll ride with Noah and we'll meet you there."

"No, Tiffany--" With Greg's help, Susan propped herself up to talk to her fairy godmother. She'd bet a month's salary she could take things from here herself. All she saw was a flutter of lime green muslin as Tiffany slammed her dress in the door of a sleek, dark Jaguar.
***

"You're one lucky young lady." Curtain rings jingled as the doctor shoved back the drape that surrounded Susan's hospital bed. "We'll get a cast on that leg and you can go home."

"You do realize," Susan said to her fairy godmother, "that I can't go home. I can't climb three flights of stairs with a cast on my leg, and the elevator still hasn't been installed in my building."

"I'm working on it. Want some candy?" Tiffany fumbled in her duffel bag.

"I want my life back!"

"Basically an illusion." Her fairy godmother peeled the red foil from the candy and bit into a chocolate-covered caramel. "You didn't really have a life in the first place."

"It might not have been a great life, but it was mine, and I want it back."

"Better have some chocolate. It'll make you feel better." Tiffany held out another caramel, and Susan took it. "Victimized princess, remember? Handsome prince, remember?" Her gesture set her dress jingling. "Is anything ringing a bell here?"

"Speaking of ringing bells, Tiff, just which one is my handsome prince? Noah or Greg?"

The other woman's blush clashed furiously with her hair. "Well, um, I don't really know."

"You don't--" Susan pushed herself up on the pillow. "What the he--"

"Uh-uh-uh." Tiffany waggled her forefinger.

"What do you mean, you don't know? Let's just run through the facts again. You're my fairy godmother. You tell me I'm to meet my handsome prince today, the worst bad hair day I've ever had in my entire life. Sure enough, bam, he knocks me off my feet. Trouble is, Tiff, there are two of them. Two. Gorgeous. Men. So I ask you a simple question: Which one is Mr. Right? Because, you see, you're my dam--"

"Susan--"

"--my fairy godmother, and you're supposed to know these things. One of the tricks of the fairy godmother trade, a woman might assume."

"Normally, yes. Yes, it would be."

"So I'll ask you again. Which gorgeous man is the gorgeous man?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know." Susan leaned back against the pillows. "It, like, wasn't in the training book? Or did you skip that chapter?"

"There's so much to learn," Tiffany mumbled.

"What?"

"I said there's so much to learn. So I forgot this one little thing--"

"Where's Phyllis?"

"Right now?"

"I want Phyllis back!"

"Well, you can't have her. She was scheduled for a long holiday on Cloud Nine--you know, sipping nectar of the gods and nibbling on an ambrosia bonbon now and again." Tiffany sighed and sounded wistful. "Maybe even swimming in the Sea of Love."

"Get on a phone or something and get her back."

"Don't be silly. There are no phones on Cloud Nine. And she's retired."

An orderly walked in. "You Susan Reeder? I'm here to take you to casting." He let down the wheels on the bed and steered her out of the room.

"Dr. Jones has quite a sense of humor," the orderly said as the trio passed under a hand-lettered sign that read Central Casting. "At Halloween, he dresses up as Dracula and calls himself the complete blood count."

"Wonderful," Susan muttered.

Greg sat slouched under a sign that read Casting Couch. When he saw them, he smiled and stood, handing Susan a long white box. "I brought you some flowers as an apology, Susan."

"Some flowers," she said, her voice weak as she opened the box and counted two dozen long-stemmed red roses.

"He's the one," Tiffany whispered.

Noah strode in, a burgundy leather briefcase in his hand. "I checked your apartment complex. There's no way you can go up and down those steps, and you're going to need lots of help until the cast comes off. So as an apology for the inconvenience we've caused, Greg and I want put you up at a hotel--"

Tiffany whipped out her red bandanna and sneezed. The roar echoed around the room and down the hall.

Noah blinked and shook his head. "What was I saying? I mean, Greg and I want to invite you to stay at our house."

Tiffany bit her forefinger. "No, maybe he's the one," she whispered.

"I couldn't, really."

"There's, um, plenty of room." Noah's forehead furrowed as though he wasn't sure who was speaking.

"Why, Mr. Gordon," Dr. Jones boomed, his voice twice as big as his body. "Good to see you here."

The blood rushed out of Susan's face, leaving her cheeks icy. "Gordon? Noah Gordon?"

Noah nodded.

"Can we hope for a large donation to central casting? We'll make sure you're well cast for life." He looked at Noah over his glasses and chuckled.

"We'll see, Art. First I want to make sure Miss Reeder is all right."

"We'll cast her with the greatest care," Dr. Jones assured him. "A starring role, you might say. If you'd just wait here--it's sort of a cast and carry proposition."

"Of course." Noah sat down in the hall, opened his briefcase, and pulled out a cell phone.

"I'll just go get some coffee," Greg said.

"One of the Gordon brothers is the one?" Susan whispered the question while Dr. Jones was out of the room. "Or is it the orderly?"

"Well." Tiffany nibbled her forefinger again. "It might even be Dr. Jones."

"You still don't know?"

"It was a joke, Susan." Tiffany shook her head, and the battered silk sunflower wriggled closer to the brim of her hat. "Of course it's one of the Gordon brothers. You are a princess under an evil spell--though I'm sure the orderly and Dr. Jones are wonderful men. You know, luv, I don't see why you're so tense." Tiffany tugged on the wrinkled yellow ribbon, and the flower somersaulted back into place. "I know. We'll work on some meditation exercises. Meditation is so good for a positive outlook--"

"Tiffany." Susan injected as much warning into her voice as she could.

"Oh. Oh, am I getting off the subject again? I'm so sorry, luv. Phyllis always did say I went around by the neighbor's henhouse to get to the--

"Tiffany!"

"Oh. Oh, yes. Well, they're both wonderful men."

"Are we talking Greg and Noah or the orderly and Dr. Jones?"

"Greg and Noah." Tiffany put her hands on her hips. "Any sane woman would be happy about this. Accept Noah's invitation."

"I can't." Susan plucked at the grease mark on the skirt of her suit. "Remember Kevin?"

"I thought we'd agreed on happy, positive thoughts."

Susan glanced into Tiffany's gray eyes. "Noah Gordon was Kevin's boss."

"Oh." Tiffany sat down hard on the room's only chair. "Oh, dear, Phyllis didn't tell me that. So that's why..." She twirled a strand of frizzy red hair around her shamrock-covered forefinger. "I think we should try it anyway. Noah and I got to be quite friendly on the way to the hospital--"

"I'll bet."

"--and he seems nice."

"Nice? Sort of in the way structural steel is nice--cold but useful?"

"My, my, my. Maybe meditation won't be enough. I may have to consult the--"

"Tiff, even if he's forgotten Kevin, the Gordon brothers are out of my orbit. Noah's a zillionaire or something like that. He has more money than God."

"Victimized princess," Tiffany muttered. Then she snorted. "Well, Phyllis got it half right." ©1997 ***

*About the author: Laurie Creasy began writing at age 10 and went at it haphazardly for the next, oh, quarter century. In 1993, she received Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart award for romantic suspense. Her other wins include: 1996, first and third place in San Francisco's Heart to Heart contest, third place in the Aloha Chapter's Describe a Hunk; 1995, first and second place in Southwest Florida's Where Do You Go From Here?, first place in the paranormal category of AOL Romance Group's short fiction contest; 1994, second place in San Francisco's contest, first place in Valley Forge's Try A Little Tenderness; 1992, second place in contemporary and second place in gothic/paranormal in San Francisco's contest, first place in NYC's Love and Laughter contest; 1991, first place and best overall hero in the River City Showdown. She has also received regional awards in newspaper feature writing and poetry, and holds a degree in creative writing. CHARMED is aimed at Berkeley's new line that features magical characters, but at this point, Laurie's not being picky. Write to Laurie Creasy .

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