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  Tatiana blinked. “You do speak English here?”

  “Last time I checked,” the teen replied.

  “Good,” Tatiana said with a sigh. “I know German and French, but I’m a little rusty. So, let’s go back to my first question. What is a pretty young thing like you doing out in the forest in the middle of the night?”

  “It’s not a forest. It’s a swamp.”

  Tatiana gave the air a tentative sniff. “Is that what that smell is?”

  “Hey,” Harper protested. “This is my home, okay? It’s really cool, once you get used to it.”

  Tatiana eyed the girl suspiciously. She had that whininess in her voice that Tatiana knew too well—the sound of someone trying to convince herself that she liked something better than she actually did.

  “Okay, the swamp is…cool,” Tatiana agreed, though in her estimation, the temperature was well beyond comfortable and more akin to sultry. “So explain why you were crying.”

  Harper swiped the residual moisture from her face. “I wasn’t—”

  “All right, all right,” Tatiana conceded, not exactly thrilled with how this was progressing. The girl was inordinately argumentative. And yet, she liked her. “You weren’t crying. But you were pretty angry, you can’t deny that. So why don’t you tell me what I can do to help.”

  “Why?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why are you going to help? I don’t know you. What are you doing here, anyway?”

  Tatiana rolled her eyes. Argumentative and inquisitive. She suddenly—and briefly—missed the self-absorbed princesses who accepted her magical presence without questions, told her what they wanted and let her get to work.

  “I’m lost,” Tatiana answered.

  “Oh,” the teen replied. Obviously, this answer satisfied her. “That doesn’t explain why you want to help me.”

  “Have you heard of quid pro quo?”

  “It’s Latin for ‘something for something.’”

  Tatiana raised an eyebrow.

  “My stupid, idiotic, overbearing, asshole of a brother makes me study Latin,” Harper explained.

  Ah-ha. Tatiana now guessed that said brother was the cause of the girl’s misery. But before she set off to right filial wrongs and ensure her freedom from fairy godmotherhood, she’d need the girl’s cooperation.

  “Well, if you know what it means, you understand why I want to help you. I solve whatever problem has you so angry and you show me the way out of your swamp.”

  Harper wiped her nose with the bandanna again. “You can’t help.”

  “You don’t know that. Just tell me what you need,” Tatiana encouraged. “I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make your wishes come true.”

  2

  JACK ST. CLOUD slammed the door to his sister’s room and bellowed for Mrs. Bradley. The cook and housekeeper took a full five minutes to respond, during which time he’d searched Harper’s room twice more, called her cell phone and sent her a text message. He was halfway down the stairs when the woman finally rounded the corner, her gray curls webbed by a hairnet and her bathrobe untied at her waist.

  “Yes, Mr. St. Cloud?”

  He stopped, inhaled and forced his words out slowly and calmly.

  “Where is Harper?”

  Mrs. Bradley leaned to the side, as if she somehow expected to see the teenager hiding behind him. An ex-pro football player, Jack could indeed shield someone as petite as his sister. If only protecting her was that easy. Only two hours ago, the fourteen-year-old brat had screamed, stamped her feet and pounded her fists on his chest when he’d forbidden her even to think about throwing herself into the sharp teeth and merciless cogs of the New York City theater machine. Which was why, he guessed, she’d run away.

  “She’s not in her room?” Mrs. Bradley inquired.

  Jack willed himself to remain calm. Four years ago, when Harper had turned ten and developed a penchant for playing her stereo at eardrum-destroying decibels, both Mrs. Bradley and Harper had begged—no, pleaded—for privacy. Reluctantly, he’d allowed the housekeeper to move out of the adjoining bedroom where the older woman, who’d acted as a nanny, had lived since Jack took over Harper’s guardianship when she was two. Now, he regretted that decision very much.

  “If she were in her room, would I have called you?” he asked.

  “Did you check her studio, sir? She puts those headphones on and turns up the volume and you could scream yourself hoarse—”

  “I checked.”

  Another concession he’d made in his quest to keep Harper happy—turning Mrs. Bradley’s old room into a music studio. He’d thought buying his sister all the latest in sound and video technology would quell her insatiable desire to run off to New York and become the next big Broadway star. Potential speculation in the gossip rags flashed across his mind. Harper St. Cloud, ingénue daughter of the famous (and now quite dead) Marina St. Cloud, debuts on the Great White Way. Will the sky be the limit for this St. Cloud? Will the bright bulbs of Broadway burn her out like they did her mother? Will her brother’s sacrifice of a championship NFL career to care for his orphaned sister turn out to be a complete waste of time and talent?

  Okay, Jack doubted Page Six would care much about his football aspirations, but damn it, he cared. He had not quit at the height of his profession just to watch his sister get fried to a crisp the way their mother had been. He’d promised himself as much after their mother’s suicide. With their father already dead from a heart attack at forty, he’d had no choice.

  Now that Harper was missing, Jack might suffer the same fate as his parents. Though his heart was slamming against his chest, he was in perfect physical shape. Mentally? That was up in the air when Harper got into one of her moods.

  The wily little pain in the ass had put the equipment he’d bought her to good use all right. She’d created an audition tape for Broadway producers who now wanted to meet her in person. Only four hours ago, they’d called to seek Jack’s permission for his minor sister to try out for the part of Cinderella in a revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s titular work. He, of course, had said no.

  She’d claimed she was adult enough to audition.

  He’d forbidden it.

  She’d insisted that this was the role she was born for and that if he didn’t let her try out, her entire future would be just as sad and empty as his.

  He’d unplugged her phone, disconnected her stereo and grounded her for two weeks.

  And now she was missing.

  “I’m sure she’s just gone out to cool off,” Mrs. Bradley said calmly. “This isn’t the first time she’s run into the bayou for some peace and quiet after you two had a row. I’ll turn on the outdoor lights and get dressed.”

  Damn, damn and triple damn.

  “No,” Jack said. He walked down two stairs, sat, and shoved his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bradley. I shouldn’t have woken you. Harper is my problem, not yours.”

  The older woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, she is that, sir. Your problem, I mean. Because with everyone else in the world, she seems to get on just fine.”

  “That’s because everyone else gives her what she wants.”

  “She’s charming,” Mrs. Bradley said. “Like her mother.”

  “Which is precisely why I have to put limits on her.”

  With a weary sigh, he stood, stretched out his long legs and tugged at his sweatpants. “Please hit the spotlights,” he asked the housekeeper. “Then go back to bed. I’ll find her.”

  “Try the boathouse first,” Mrs. Bradley suggested before breezing off toward the kitchen.

  Despite the inherent dangers of living in the middle of nowhere, Mrs. Bradley was right to be relatively unconcerned. Once the location of an old hunting cabin built by their great-grandfather, this land was in their blood. After becoming Harper’s guardian, Jack could think of no better place to live to protect his sister from the swarms of people anxious to exploit the tragic little heire
ss foisted on a brother who had no idea how to raise a kid.

  But at least he’d made sure that Harper could navigate the acreage around the bayou as easily as she could her bedroom, which, with piles of clothes, books, CDs, the occasional half-eaten box of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries, and mounds of various teenage-girl detritus, could prove just as perilous.

  As he turned to his wing of the house, the walls of windows that made up the entire first floor gleamed with bright white light. Anyone within a mile radius would think it was noon and not two o’clock in the morning.

  He grabbed a faded workout jacket from the peg in his bathroom and slipped into it, not bothering to zip it up. The night air was the same as the day air—hot. He gave a cursory glance to his own private studio and, noticing the door open, went back in and closed it. He’d indulged Harper’s need for her sanctuary because he had one, as well. And since there were just some things a teenage girl didn’t need to know about her brother, he locked the door before heading out into the night.

  “HOLY ILLUMINATED Night Parade,” Tatiana said, squinting her eyes against the glare pouring from the direction where Harper insisted her house was. “Does Walt know your brother stole his idea?”

  “Walt Disney? He’s dead.”

  Tatiana stopped walking. “I thought I hadn’t seen him in a while.”

  “What?” Harper asked.

  Tatiana cleared her throat. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge that authors like the brothers Grimm and creators like Walt Disney had made regular visits to Elatyria, which was why she wasn’t entirely disconcerted about how things operated here. She hadn’t been updated in a while, but she’d get the gist.

  “That is one serious night-light your brother has,” Tatiana said, changing the direction of the conversation. “Did someone lock him in a closet as a child or something?”

  Harper snorted. “Jack isn’t afraid of the dark. He isn’t afraid of anything.”

  It was Tatiana’s turn to sniff derisively. “He’s a man, isn’t he? They’re all afraid of something. Dragons. Peasant revolts. Women who require fidelity. The list goes on and on.”

  Harper did not look up. “You don’t know Jack. Slaying a dragon would be a piece of cake. He played pro football. He’s no wuss.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m sure there’s something that keeps him up at night.”

  Harper dug her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans. “The only thing that spooks my brother is not living up to his responsibility.”

  She said the last word with mock derision, but Tatiana had been around one too many spoiled young girls to fall for that.

  “Responsibility isn’t a bad thing,” she reasoned. “Once you understand his fear, however, you’ll be able to find the best way around it.”

  “You seem awfully sure of yourself,” Harper said, her doubt clear.

  “Watch and learn,” Tatiana said, though under her breath.

  On their walk back to the house, Tatiana had listened while Harper explained what had caused her fight with her older brother and guardian. Not everything she said made sense, but Tatiana was pretty good at faking things—as evidenced by the countless times she’d convinced intelligence-challenged princesses that she actually cared if they got their happily-ever-afters.

  But with Harper, she really did care. She was a little surprised by this, as much as she was by the kid herself. Harper might only be fourteen years old, but she had a smart mouth and an old soul. She wanted desperately to go to this Broadway place and sing. She had a group of powerful people called “producers” who wanted to hear her just as urgently. Unfortunately, her brother was standing in her way.

  “Jack’s okay, except when he’s keeping me from pursuing my dream. He already lived his,” Harper said with a whine that could only be perfected by someone who had not reached adulthood. “It’s my turn.”

  Before they stepped through a break in the trees that would spill them onto the expansive lawn in front of Jack St. Cloud’s bayou home, Tatiana took Harper’s arm. Tatiana had been lucky to find Harper St. Cloud on her first night in the “other” world. She couldn’t waste her one shot at freedom. Spells and magical bargains were full of loopholes and tricky clauses. If she wanted out of the fairy-godmother business—which she did—she had to do this right.

  “Make your wishes.”

  “What?”

  Tatiana instinctively reached for her wand, but it wasn’t there. She blew out a quick breath, remembering she had to fulfill Harper’s dreams without the use of magic. By the next full moon. If she failed, she’d be stuck as a fairy godmother for all of eternity.

  “I could have been lost in the bayou for days if I hadn’t found you,” she said as preamble. Joe Stiltskin hadn’t said she had to keep her situation a secret from the girl whose wish she would fulfill, but somehow, Tatiana didn’t think Harper would cooperate with a stranger if she rattled on about her former occupation. “I owe you my life. Tell me precisely what you wish to happen when we confront your brother and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure your wishes come true.”

  Harper didn’t hesitate. “I wish to sing on Broadway,” she said enthusiastically, then she grabbed Tatiana’s hands and tugged her close. “And I want to do it with Jack’s approval.”

  Tricky as a troll, this one. Tatiana narrowed her eyes, but grinned at the hopefulness in Harper’s voice. “Okay, then. Let’s meet Jack St. Cloud and convince him to give us both exactly what we want.”

  3

  “‘FEE, fie, foe, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead…Should I grind his bones, or get him in my bed?’” Tatiana whispered, her insides liquefying at the sight of Jack St. Cloud vaulting from the porch to the lawn. The ground shook, though whether the effect was literal or figurative, she wasn’t sure.

  Yelling behind him for someone named Mrs. Bradley to douse the overpowering lights, Jack marched across the expansive lawn with strong, measured steps, like a man who could crush a mountain with his heel. The lights flicked off except for twin golden globes at the top of the porch. The blinding effects of sudden shadows lasted until he stood directly in front of them.

  Like his mansion on stilts in the midst of the bayou, Jack St. Cloud towered over them. His hair was thick and long, the ends sweeping over shoulders that seemed to be chiseled from the same stone as his square jaw. His pants, made from some magical material that clung to every impressive curve and bulge, emphasized the muscles on his thighs and slim, tapered hips. His unzipped jacket revealed pecs and abs she couldn’t tear her gaze from.

  Walt’s disciples might have borrowed from her universe to create characters like the book-loving Belle, but for the brute, Gaston, they’d clearly looked no further than Jack St. Cloud.

  “Explain,” he demanded of his sister.

  His voice rumbled over the silent yard and for the first time in four hundred years, Tatiana knew the heated, weakening effects of lust. Her center core compressed into a pointed spike that drove straight down through her pelvis. She blinked, suddenly aware of his gaze raking down her body.

  Instinctively, she pulled the cloak closer.

  “And who the hell are you?” he snapped.

  Bravely, Tatiana thought, Harper stepped in front of her. “This is…Ana. She was lost in the bayou and I found her.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What were you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

  The question was for Tatiana, not Harper.

  “She got dumped,” Harper replied. “By some asshole ’cause she wouldn’t put out.”

  “Can’t she speak for herself?”

  Jack’s volume dropped, but his gentler tone was even more dangerous.

  Tatiana cleared her throat. “Of course I can. I’m just—”

  Harper tossed Tatiana a cautious look over her shoulder, reminding her to stick to the cover story they’d devised on their way to the house. The girl was clever. Of course, the fact that this talented, manipulative and bright g
irl hadn’t yet come up with a way to convince her brother to give her what she wanted did not bode well for Tatiana’s chances at success.

  “I’m shaken up,” she continued, trying her best to look at least slightly simpering. She’d certainly witnessed the emotion enough times. “I went to a ball—an event—with the brother of a friend and on our way home, he said he knew a short cut. Suddenly, we were in the bayou and his hands were everywhere and I just got out and—”

  As Harper had predicted, Jack’s eyes instantly softened, and he held out his hand in welcome. White-knight syndrome. She’d seen it a million times. Usually in knights.

  “Bastard,” Jack said. “Are you all right? Do you need to call someone?”

  She forced herself to look rattled, but resilient. “I’m fine, now that Harper found me. I’m not accustomed to this…environment. There’s no telling what might have happened if your sister hadn’t heard me crying and come running.”

  For emphasis, she shivered visibly, then nearly lost her ability to breathe when Jack shrugged out of his jacket and slipped it around her shoulders. “Let’s get you inside. Both of you.”

  He might have thrown a derisive glare at his sister, but Tatiana was too overwhelmed to notice. Masculine and musky and so heady she feared she might fall into a swoon worthy of a pin-prick on a spinning wheel, his scent put the rest of her senses on instant alert. Suddenly, it wasn’t so dark outside. The grass beneath her feet seemed soft enough for her to float over even without her wings and her mouth watered for a taste of something…anything…that might be lingering on Jack St. Cloud’s lips.

  Suddenly, she understood those princesses more than she ever had before. This love-at-first-sight phenomenon was powerful stuff. Luckily, Tatiana had been around the kingdom enough times to know this wasn’t love. It was attraction. Sexual awareness. Lust, pure and simple.

  And it was divine.

  He looked down at her, concern etching his bone-melting features. “You sure you’re okay?”