“It’s nothing, sweetheart.”
Dixie stared at her mother suspiciously. “Did you just glamour me?”
Narrowing her eyes, her mother asked, “Where did you learn that word?”
Dixie crossed her arms and glared at her mother. “Not from you, that’s for sure. And I don’t want you to do that to me, ever again.” Dixie scowled. “In fact, I want you to teach me how to take it off. Right now.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Fine. Then you take it off.”
Her mother sighed, but then she muttered something under her breath — and Dixie could feel the difference! “Thank you.”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right and now I have to talk to someone else. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“But what about answers to my questions? You promised.”
“I know. As soon as I get back, I’ll tell you everything.”
And then she was gone.
The mummy said, “Can you help me, sir?”
Michael looked at the desiccated, wrapped being and steepled his fingers. “If I’m hearing you correctly, you were dug up near Cairo.”
“Yes, sir.” A piece of ancient cloth fluttered near what remained of his eye as the mummy nodded.
Trying hard not to stare at the dangling piece of fabric, Michael continued to reiterate the story as he understood it. “And you were transported as part of the treasures of Pharoah Tutankhamun.”
The mummy nodded stiffly.
“And then you were stolen by a man you know as Hazem.”
“Yes. And now I wish to be free to live my own unlife.” He asked again, “Can you help me?”
“Yes, I believe I can. We’ll file a Writ of Personal Freedom.”
“Oh, thank you, sir.” The mummy smiled. “I will return to the Wildwood now.”
“Would you like a ride back to the hotel?”
“No, thank you. My driver is waiting for me. I have a specialty climate-controlled limo.”
Michael raised an eyebrow.
The mummy laughed, which ended in a dusty cough. “I was part of a very large collection of treasure, some of which was stolen along with me.”
Michael walked the mummy to the door. He was still sore from the boxing match with the sheriff yesterday; Winston had gotten in some good punches.
Peggy caught his eye. “Have you heard that the queen is in town?”
Surprised, he said, “The queen?”
“The queen of the fae, you ninny.”
“What?”
“Yes. She’s alive, after all. She’s been in hiding all these years.”
“So Princess Pixie’s long-lost mother is alive,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
He went back to his office, pondering the turn of events.
If her mother was in town, Pixie would probably go back home to the Fairy Court.
He might not see her again — no longer experience either her warmth or her chill.
Pulling the box from his desk drawer, he studied it for a moment. Then he nodded. He was going to find her, give her the gift, tell her he loved her, and at least see her one last time before telling her goodbye.
Not a Doppleganger
AN HOUR LATER, DIXIE WAS still reeling from her mother’s visit and being glamoured and then unglamoured. The feeling was familiar; she realized that her mother had glamoured her nearly every day of her life. Why?
When her mother returned, she was going to force her to talk, to tell her everything she needed to know. About pixies. About who her father really was. About the woman who looked like her. Everything.
There was a knock at the door, and relief flooded Dixie. Good. Her mother was back.
She crossed the room and threw open the door.
Only it wasn’t her mother.
It was Michael standing there, looking hesitant and handsome, the sight of him tugging at her heart. She forced herself to be cool. “Michael. I didn’t expect you.”
“May I come in? I have something I need to say.”
She hesitated, until he said, “Please.” Then she nodded and stepped back. “Come in.”
She’d probably regret it, but she couldn’t turn him away. He was her lifemate, whether they stayed together or not.
He handed her a gift-wrapped box. “I wanted to give you this before you go back to the Fairy Court.”
She looked at him, confusion written all over her face. “Why would I go there?”
He sighed. “Because your mother is back in town.”
“Okay. And...?”
He raised his brows, continuing his half of the convoluted conversation. “Because your mother, who is queen of the fairies, is back in town.”
“What?” Dixie whispered, as the information knocked the breath out of her. “What did you just say?”
“Everyone thought you were trying to have a vacation from your court responsibilities. They’ve humored you by calling you Dixie and pretending to believe you when you said your father was dead.”
“But I thought he really was dead. Is he not? I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
There was another knock on the door.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, who is it now?”
She threw open the door again — and the guy from the park stood there, the one she’d offered money to.
Of course he was. Who was next — the hot dog guy?
“You are coming home with me right now, young lady.” The man sounded exasperated and out of sorts. “I’ve tried to be patient with you, but your rebellion is not to be borne any longer. Do you know how long it’s taken me to track you down?”
She looked from the crazy man to Michael.
The crazy man suddenly noticed Michael and pointed a finger at him. “You! I thought I told you not to come near my daughter again.”
“Daughter?” Dixie asked, feeling faint.
The man swung back to her. “Yes, daughter. And you will return home with me.”
Dixie looked at him, completely baffled. “But I’m not your daughter.”
The man looked stricken. “You would deny my paternity?”
Dixie looked at Michael again. “What is going on?”
“This is your father, King Ferdinand of the Fairy Court.”
Dixie was completely lost. “But I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
The man stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm. “We are going now.”
“Hey!” She pulled back, struggling to get free, as Michael stepped forward as well. “Let me go!”
Suddenly, a familiar and much-welcomed voice said from the doorway, “Yes, let her go, Ferdinand.”
The man stopped, thunderstruck. “Miranda?”
Dixie looked back and forth between the two of them. What on earth was going on?
Her knees buckled.
Michael grabbed Dixie before she could hit the floor and got her to a chair, kneeling before her. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head, black dots still speckling her vision. “No. I’m not.”
“Put your head between your knees.”
She did as he instructed. As if from a distance, she could hear the man say again, “Miranda.” His voice was choked with emotion. “I thought you dead, my darling.”
“What is going on here?” another person demanded.
Dixie raised her head, her vision clearing, to see the woman who looked like her. Beside her stood another woman with wings but no crown who didn’t look at all like Dixie — apparently all pixie women weren’t identical.
The pixie who looked like Dixie pointed dramatically at Dixie and bellowed, “I ordered you to unglamour yourself.” She put her hands on her hips and turned to the crazy man — Ferdinand — and angrily declared, “She has glamoured herself to look exactly like me, Papa.”
The man looked back and forth between the two girls, obviously perplexed at the vision of two identical women, then his face turned red. He roared and turne
d to face both Dixie and her daughter. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but we’re about to find out!” He muttered some words that Dixie didn’t understand and flicked a hand at both Dixie and the woman who looked like her. Dixie felt a flicker of something cross her senses. What had he done to her? It didn’t feel like the glamour her mother had put on her, but he’d definitely done something.
The other woman yelped in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“I am unglamouring you both. I have only one daughter, and I will have the truth!” he roared.
Then he stared from one to the other, his mouth open in amazement. “You are not glamoured,” he stammered to Dixie.
Smoothing her hand over her hair, she replied, “I certainly hope not.”
“I did glamour her earlier,” her mother said, “but she asked to be unglamoured.”
“Then you’re not a doppleganger.” He turned accusingly to Dixie’s mother and asked, “There were two of them?”
Her mother blinked back tears as she looked between the two of them. “Yes.”
Dixie turned to the woman who must be Princess Pixie, and they said in unison, “There are two of us? We’re sisters? Twin sisters?”
“Yes,” her mother said defensively, “and I didn’t let you steal both of them — just one.”
Michael stared in amazement as the scene unfolded, his heart realizing what this meant.
There were two of them, not just one. So the confusion he’d felt had been because when he was with Pixie, there was no lifemate buzz, but with Dixie there was. He’d obviously encountered Pixie at the hotel, when she was aloof and acting like she barely knew him. Because she didn’t; they’d only met a couple of times.
And then Dixie had come into the law office, with her beautiful smiling face, and he’d pulled away from her.
He struggled to wrap his head around the truth. Her mother was messing with glamouring her, so sometimes she must have been partially glamoured, sometimes all the way, and sometimes totally unglamoured. That would have added to the confusion. His confusion about why sometimes his lifemate buzz was nonexistent or muted.
He was in love with Princess Dixie, not Princess Pixie!
What an idiot he’d been. He had to make it up to her. But in this hot mess of family craziness, he wasn’t sure when the right moment was.
Dixie stared at the people around her. Her long-lost, not-dead-in-the-Gulf-War father stood there, glaring at her mother. Her sister — that felt weird to say — looked as confused as Dixie felt. The pixie who had accompanied the princess into the room just stared back and forth between all of them, and poor Michael was stuck in the middle of it all.
Her father — the king of the freaking Fairy Court! — hung his head and spoke to her mother. “I only had the baby taken because I was sure you would follow your child back to me. I just wanted you back. But you didn’t follow her.”
“Because I had her twin, and I didn’t want you stealing both of my children from me. We’d had a huge fight, remember? I didn’t know if you would accept me back or just take my children and cast me out.”
Ferdinand searched Miranda’s face. “I searched for you for years, yet you knew all along where to find me.”
As her mother and father sorted out the years-long misunderstanding, she looked at her sister. Her twin sister, the Princess Pixie that everyone in town had mistaken her for. No wonder she’d been bowed to, and given free things, and asked for fond words to her father. Everyone thought she was Pixie!
Dixie stood.
Pixie stared back at her, and crossed the room. Michael took a step back, allowing them this private moment.
Dixie told her sister, “I grew up without a father or a sister. I never knew.”
Pixie dropped her regal arrogance and replied, “And I grew up without a mother or a sister. I never knew, either.”
Dixie held out a hand, and Pixie took it, and their hands seemed to fit together.
Pixie smiled. “I saw your Michael on the street outside yesterday. He obviously thought I was you — and I was rude to him.”
Realization crossed Dixie’s face as the pieces fell together. “Ahh. That explains everything. That’s why he pulled back from me.”
Pixie laughed, and Dixie found herself laughing with her, though she felt sorry for poor Michael, who stood looking back and forth between his lifemate and her sister. She gave him a tentative smile, which he returned.
Before he could say anything to the girls, their parents turned to them.
Pixie looked at Dixie and said, “I say we form an alliance.”
Dixie nodded emphatically. “I agree.”
Pixie pointed regally toward their parents and then the door. “Out. Both of you.”
“What?” their father sputtered.
“You heard me. You two have ruined our family. It’s time to fix things. Get out of here, both of you, and work out your differences.”
Miranda crossed her arms across her chest and planted her feet. “Absolutely not.”
Dixie stepped forward, turned her mother about, and pushed her toward the door, which Michael opened. She pushed her mother into the hall, Pixie pushed their father out, and Michael shut the door.
Pixie opened it long enough to push the other pixie out, too. Then she pushed it shut again, leaning against it.
“Quick, lock it!” Dixie said.
There was silence on the other side of the door.
“Serves them right,” Pixie said.
Michael stepped forward and took Dixie by her shoulders, gazing into her eyes. “Dixie, I need to tell you that I love you. I want you to be happy, though, and if you’ll be happier without me, then I’ll walk away.”
Dixie exchanged a glance with Pixie, who shook her head.
Dixie looked up at Michael. “Can you leave us for now, too? Please? I want to talk about this, but I need to talk to my sister first.”
He nodded as Dixie pushed him out to wait alongside their parents, who were still standing there staring at the door. Neither of them was used to being told what to do and the look on their faces was priceless.
After the door was shut and locked, there was still silence on the other side.
Dixie pulled her sister into a hug, and they clung to each other.
Dixie cried. “I’m so happy to have a sister. Now that you’re not ordering me to unglamour myself and acting all crazy, that is.”
Pixie laughed. “I guess we got our first sisterly spat out of the way before we ever learned we were sisters.”
Dixie said, “Would you like to stay here with me for a few days while we get to know each other a little?”
“I’d love to.” Pixie picked up the phone and called the front desk. In her most royal tone, she spoke to the clerk. “Please make a note that the princesses Pixie and Dixie will be staying in this room. My father will pay for our stay, and our mother is to be assigned a separate room.”
Later that evening, as they ate a delicious dinner of steak and crab ordered through room service and billed to the king, Dixie exchanged stories with her sister.
“I was raised to be a princess,” Pixie said.
Dixie’s eyes were shining as she imagined how that must have been. “That must be great. I mean I only got a small taste of it, with the bowing and free stuff, and here I thought it was just because everyone was so nice.”
“It is great,” Pixie admitted, “but there’s also a downside. I have to be on display wherever I go and have a chaperone. That was the lady who came in with me.”
“So you could never be alone with a man? Like in Victorian England? Or Colonial America?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow.” Dixie smiled at her sister, her eyes wondering over the same features she saw in the mirror the other day. Unlike her, though, there was an air of supreme confidence radiating from her. “Is it okay if I tell you how pretty you are?”
Pixie smiled back. “Only if I can tell you how pretty you are, too.”
Pixie said, “Where were you raised?”
“In Wamego, Kansas. It’s a small town. I grew up there with my mother and ...” Dixie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh, you probably don’t know!”
“What?”
“You have a grandmother, too!”
Pixie closed her eyes. A tear slid down her cheek as her chin quivered. When she’d regained control, she opened her eyes and asked, “What’s she like?”
“She’s wonderful. You’ll love her. And she’ll love you.” Dixie laughed. “She already loves you. I didn’t know what she meant, but she hinted about you. She knew about you!”
“I can’t wait to meet her!” She smiled at Dixie. “And I can’t wait to introduce you to my boyfriend, Lord Dragomir. He’s tall and handsome, with long, silvery hair.”
“I think I met him in the park one day.”
“You did. He’s the one who told me you were here, only I thought you must have glamoured yourself to look like me because, well, you know why.”
“I take it Lord Dragomir is not the man your father — our father — wants you to marry.”
Pixie grinned impishly. “No, he’s not. But I will not be forced to marry other than for love.”
Dixie nodded in agreement. “I’d love to meet him again.”
“And I’ve already met your vampire boyfriend, though I may owe him an apology.”
They both laughed again.
Pixie said, “What are you going to do with the poor vampire? He looked totally crestfallen when you kicked him out.”
“I’ll think about him tomorrow. Today is just for you and me.”
Which of You is Dixie?
“PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, MAN!” Isaac looked in disgust at Michael. “Have you even shaved in the last four days? And what is this?”
He pointed at Michael’s desk, strewn with newspapers and supernatural tabloids. “You never read this crap. And you never gossip. Now, all of a sudden, you want to hear every bit of news?”
The Bridesmaid Earns Her Wings Page 12
