Dee swung her feet off the side of the bed, oblivious to her nudity. Danny wisely scooted beyond immediate range.

‘You are not going to tell me that you’re really billionaire, world-famous author Mark Delaney,’ she snarled.

He tried to smile his crime away. ‘He’s not such a bad guy.’

She climbed off the bed and stalked over to pick up her clothes. When Danny or Mark or whoever tried to rise and follow her, she planted her foot in his solar plexus to dissuade him. He went down with a faint ‘oof!’

‘I hope you know that this is one of my favorite fantasies.’

Dee glared him into submission. She was not going to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. ‘So, what was this?’ she demanded, struggling into her sweat suit. ‘A joke? A bet? Are things so boring in Chicago that you have to go all the way to Salem’s Fork for a little fraternity humor?’

‘Actually, not Chicago, either’

‘Shut up.’

With a nervous glance to make sure she wasn’t in striking position, Danny climbed to his feet. ‘I was perfectly serious. I just mostly do my own research. And I call myself Danny James so I can avoid the hoopla. When I still did research as Mark Delaney, the only thing I could accomplish was finding new places on teenage girls where they wanted me to sign my name. I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Oh, I imagine you could have. Any time during the four times last night you had my legs spread, for instance. Or sometime around that marriage proposal… or is that part of the joke, too? See how the poor chick responds to an honorable but poverty-stricken invitation to marriage. Did I score high? Will you at least spell my name right in the book?’

He yanked his jeans on. ‘All right, I admit it. I was afraid.’ Dee laughed out loud. ‘Of course you were. After all, I’m so fierce.’

‘Actually,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘you are.’

She sucked in a calming breath and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Snap your jeans. You look like a cheesy Chippendales poster’

He ducked into his shirt, too. It didn’t make Dee feel any better. ‘Dee, listen to me.’

She threw out a hand. ‘From across the room.’

She was backed against her wall, where she could see the only art she’d thought to put up, school paintings from her sisters. A pony with big brown eyes from Liz and Lydia from Beetle Juice from Mare, all sharp angles and lots of black. It was good to remind herself sometimes just who she could trust. And here she’d been worried about shape-shifting.

Danny speared his hands through his hair. Dee held her position instead of hurrying over to smooth it back down, like she wanted to.

‘This has just been a bit overwhelming, ya know.’ He wasn’t telling her anything. ‘I came here on a mission. I wanted to blow the whistle on self-serving hucksters who took advantage of people in pain. I wanted you to give up your parents. The only thing I knew about you was from your aunt. And I have to admit-’ He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t know you as well as she thinks. To be honest, Dee, I didn’t think past getting my proof. I told you. What happened to my mother shouldn’t happen to anybody.’

‘I agree. Get to the part where you think it’s a good idea to help me dispense with my virginity under false pretenses.’

‘What false pretenses? I love you. I meant it. Thursday I didn’t know you. Now I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. The false identity thing was an oversight.’

‘Not telling me you knew Aunt Xan could be termed an oversight. Having sex under an assumed name is fraud.’ She stalked up to him and poked him right in the chest. And I know fraud. My parents were convicted for it.’

Danny grabbed her hands and held them to his heart, which Dee could feel was beating far too fast. It hurt her, because she knew that he was serious. He really was afraid.

‘I know,’ he said quietly, holding too tightly for her to pull away. ‘And I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that the world is different when you’re famous. Everybody thinks they know you. I wanted you to fall in love with the real Danny Delaney. Not the hype on a dust jacket. I thought you’d understand.’

She was weakening, and he didn’t deserve it. Not yet.

‘What did I tell you about how I feel about liars? I don’t even know where you really live.’

‘The person you know is the real me,’ he said, sincerity radiating from every pore. ‘No pretense.’

‘Where do you live? Is it really Seattle, like the book jackets say?’

He had a great line in chagrined. ‘Actually, Detroit.’ She flinched. ‘I hate Detroit. We spent three very bad years there.’

‘We’ll move.’

She shook her head. ‘You really think it’s that easy?’

‘We really can travel. You can paint whatever or wherever you want. I’ll hold your paint box. And think about it. I’m the perfect person to show you how to share your art without paying for it.’ He leaned so close she could almost taste the perspiration that beaded on his upper lip. ‘Dee, I can take care of your sisters. You never have to worry about them again.’

She just shook her head, beyond words. ‘You said you loved me,’ he said.

Oh, why did he have to sound so uncertain? He didn’t deserve to be forgiven yet. But she couldn’t bear to hear that vulnerability.

‘I love you so much that for the first time in my life I made love to a man as me,’ she said. ‘Then it shouldn’t matter.’

That brought Dee’s eyes open again. ‘It does.’ It was all she could do to stay strong. ‘I can’t be in a relationship without honesty. I can’t give everything and then get my lover in considered bits and pieces.’

‘Your husband’s.’

‘You’re not paying attention. I think you should leave now, and think about what you want from us. I know what I want. I want it all. I want all of you. I won’t settle for less.’

‘You’ll have it!’

‘Don’t make promises you haven’t figured out how to keep.’ This time when she pulled, he let her go. ‘I’d rather you weren’t here when I try and explain this to my sisters.’

She could just hear Mare’s reaction. You threw him out because you found out he’s richer than God? Oh, yeah. That’s thinking.

Danny cupped her face in his hands. ‘Promise you’ll be here when I get back.’

She couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing eyes. For the first time, she saw no humor in them. It was enough. ‘I’ll be here.’

It wasn’t until she’d let him out the front door that she took in her first real breath. Then, where nobody could see her, she allowed herself a slow smile. Life was very, very good.


Waking up with Crash in the sunlight inspired Betty Crocker fantasies in Mare.

‘I could be a wife,’ she told him, lying on her stomach with her chin in her hand, staring at her new beautiful footboard as the Sunday sunshine poured through the window, warming her naked body and making the butterflies on the drapes glitter. ‘I could be a barefoot wife and learn to cook.’

‘A barefoot wife with a blue butterfly on her ass,’ Crash said, tracing the round wings of the new tat on her tailbone with his fingertip. ‘This works for me.’

‘It’s black, not blue,’ Mare said transferring her attention to other renovations. ‘You know, the flowers I painted never went back to the drapes. They’re all over the floor and the sheets now, they never went back. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t fly like the gold butterflies.’

‘This butterfly is blue,’ Crash said, letting his finger drift lower.

‘Hey, it’s Sunday,’ Mare said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Show some respect.’ She sat up and craned her neck, trying to see her new tattoo. ‘I saw it when Mother was done with it. It was black.’

‘It’s blue now, like your magic,’ Crash said, looking at her breasts.

‘You are entirely too predictable,’ Mare said, and got off the bed to try to see the tattoo in the newly cleared cheval mirror.

It was blue. The black outline was still there, but now it was filled with blue. The color of her magic. ‘Huh. Maybe the magic changed it. Maybe something happened last night-’

‘Come here,’ Crash said.

‘I think I should make breakfast,’ Mare said, her hands on her hips. A good wife makes breakfast for her man. I could start with toast and work up.’

‘I think we should make something else,’ Crash said. ‘I could start with your toes and work up.’

‘Okay,’ Mare said.

An hour and a half later, Mare was down in the kitchen wearing an apron over the long striped skirt she’d made for the movie that night – Victoria from Corpse Bride, since Sophie had no good clothes in Howl’s Moving Castle - and doing her damnedest to fix toast. Setting the toaster on ‘5’ turned out to be a bad idea, since it meant darker not faster – ‘You’re not going to eat that,’ she told Crash when he looked manfully ready to consume charcoal for her – so she sent him out into the dining room with orange juice while she dialed the toaster back to ‘2’ and tried again. But when she went out to the dining room with a plate of reasonably golden buttered squares of hot bread, she found Jude alone in the dining room with Py hissing at his feet.

‘Ciao, Mare,’ he said, smiling, but she scowled at him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, putting the plate on the table. ‘Where’s Crash?’

‘He had to go,’ Jude said. ‘I came because I have to talk to you.’

‘No you don’t. You’re a minion. Where did he have to go?’

‘It’s about Xan,’ Jude said and Mare paid attention. ‘We belong together, Mare.’

Mare frowned. ‘You and Xan?’

‘No. You and me.’ He took a step closer and Py snarled so he took a step back. ‘Xan cast a True Love Spell, Mare.’

Mare nodded. ‘I know. Where’s Crash?’

‘She cast a spell to bring the three of you, the Fortune sisters, your True Loves. That’s how Danny found Dee and Elric found Lizzie. And that’s how I found you, Mare. You can’t argue with a True Love Spell.’

‘I can argue with anything,’ Mare said. ‘As for my True Love, you are not it. Now where the hell is Crash?’

Py hissed again, and this time Mare heard a faint but angry croaking.

‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she said to the cat, and then looked under the table.

A frog sat there, panting hard, or maybe it was pulsating, Mare was not up on her Frog Basics. Py was in front of her, but just as Mare moved to scoop him up and save the frog, she realized that Py was standing between Jude and the frog, growling at Jude.

‘Nice kitty,’ Jude said.

‘Not even close.’ Mare got down on her knees and picked up the frog. ‘We don’t usually get frogs-’

The frog’s eyes were bright blue, like the Italian sky.

Mare surged to her feet, the frog cupped in her hands. ‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed at Jude.

Jude blinked in fake innocence. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mare wheeled and ran for Lizzie’s room, her fingers curled protectively around Crash who croaked his fury.


Lizzie was lying sideways across the tattered bed. She opened one eye very slowly. She could hear the wind outside, and it was so dark she had no idea what time of day it was. Not that she cared.

She started to stretch, then realized one wrist was still tied to the iron bedpost with a purple silk scarf. She sat up, looking for Elric, and she grinned.

He was still on the floor, sound asleep, looking as if he’d been hit by a truck. Not mashed by a truck, fortunately. Very little could tarnish his physical beauty. But something had managed to drain every last vestige of energy from him, and the delightful thing was, it had been her. Them.

And the libido spell had worn off hours before they’d gotten to silk bondage. She looked down at him fondly. They were going to have a really good time in Toledo.

They’d lost his heavy silver earring somewhere in the bed – she needed to find it when she recovered her energy. An overenthusiastic bite on his ear and she’d almost swallowed it. He’d laughed, tried to put it in her ear, and then they’d gotten distracted once more and forgotten all about it.

She could hear her sisters moving around in the living room. Dee would probably think twice about marching in here unannounced – in his current state of happy exhaustion she doubted Elric would have the energy to shield his presence, and she really didn’t like the idea of her sisters seeing Elric at his finest. He was hers, and for the first time in her life she wasn’t going to share.

She untied her wrist and slid off the bed, kneeling down on the floor beside him. He opened his eyes.