Mistletoe Cinderella

To take risks and reap the rewards. Now here she was, practically in the arms of the most alluring man she’d ever known. All it would take was a step forward…. She stretched up to press her lips to his, although she might have lost her nerve if he hadn’t leaned down to meet her.

After one stunned second of paralysis, she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the moment, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to live out cherished fantasies. Wrapping her hand around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, dizzy with sensation.

Carpe Dylan.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wanted to be someone else, just for a day? That’s the premise I started with for Mistletoe Cinderella and the character of Chloe Malcolm. She’s brilliant, gifted with computers and has a wry sense of humor (once you get to know her). But back in high school she wasn’t the kind of girl who could catch the eye of baseball star Dylan Echols.

Ten years later, at her high school reunion, Chloe shows up with a makeover courtesy of her fairy godmoth—Er, best friend. Dylan notices her, all right, but confuses her with somebody else entirely. When midnight strikes, will she turn back into plain old Chloe?

My mom, who has a great sense of humor, raised me on funny, romantic films of mistaken identity like Doris Day’s Lover Come Back and the more recent While You Were Sleeping. I hope you enjoy Mistletoe Cinderella as much as I’ve always enjoyed those charming, feel-good movies! And I hope you’ll watch for the summer installment of my 4 SEASONS IN MISTLETOE miniseries, Mistletoe Mommy.

Happy reading!

Tanya Michaels

Tanya Michaels started telling stories almost as soon as she could talk…and started stealing her mom’s Harlequin romances less than a decade later. In 2003 Tanya was thrilled to have her first book, a romantic comedy, published by Harlequin Books. Since then, Tanya has written nearly twenty books and is a two-time recipient of the Booksellers’ Best Award as well as a finalist for the Holt Medallion, National Readers’ Choice Award and Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award. Tanya lives in Georgia with her husband, two preschoolers and an unpredictable cat, but you can visit Tanya online at www.tanyamichaels.com.

This book is dedicated to all of you

wonderful readers who e-mailed to ask, “Will there be more Mistletoe stories?” Enjoy!

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

It was a bad sign when you were feeling envious of the person in the casket.

Chloe Malcolm winced at her own thoughts, which were highly inappropriate and completely out of character. Chloe was always appropriate; it was one of the things Aunt Jane had teased her about. Swallowing a knot of emotion, Chloe smiled at her aunt’s peaceful face. As far as Chloe knew, Jane Walters had never once in her sixty-three years worried about decorum. It was that free-spiritedness Chloe envied.

Aunt Jane had appalled Chloe’s parents by nicknaming her niece “Wheezy,” making the childhood asthma Chloe later outgrew seem like more of an in-joke than a handicap. I’m going to miss you. Jane hadn’t spent much time here in Mistletoe—too busy running with the bulls in Pamplona or, more recently, hot-air ballooning over Flagstaff—but each of her visits had been memorable.

“How are you holding up?”

Chloe turned to see blond and beautiful Natalie Young, her best friend and manager of the town’s flower shop. “Okay. I know she wouldn’t have any regrets and wouldn’t want any of us moping. She was just so full of life that it’s hard to believe…”

“Yeah. She was a force all her own.” Natalie grinned. “I’m amazed at some of the stories I’ve heard this afternoon, but I guess you grew up with them.”

Not exactly. Chloe’s parents had loved Jane, but they hadn’t minded her keeping a geographical distance from their impressionable daughter and had deemed some of Jane’s exploits unfit for young ears.

Back in the sixties, Aunt Jane had shocked her own parents and her older sister when she’d eloped with a local boy who’d left shortly after for Vietnam. When he’d come back, he’d been unable to assimilate to small-town Georgia life; he and Jane had restlessly roamed the country for the remainder of their marriage, part of which she’d spent dancing in a Vegas show and perfecting her blackjack skills. Chloe’s mother, Rose, had commented more than once that her younger sister had the devil’s own luck. She’d said it with neither jealousy nor censure, but worry. Fear that Jane’s exuberant, outrageous ways would catch up to her one day.

But Chloe believed Jane left this world exactly as she would have wanted—after a day of parasailing in the Caribbean and a romantic evening with a forty-nine-year-old divorced tax attorney, she’d died of a blood clot in her sleep. Jane had dated a wide range of men in the past two decades, never lacking companionship. She’d aged beautifully, like Helen Mirren or Diane Keaton. Still, Chloe thought that what really attracted admirers was her aunt’s confidence and verve—two qualities Chloe lacked, except when it came to computers.