Cinders

by Cara Malone

  Cinders

  A Modern Cinderella Lesbian Romance

  Cara Malone

  Copyright © 2018 by Cara Malone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, thank you to Claire Jarrett, my editor, for challenging me and making me a better storyteller.

  Thank you to Mayhem Cover Designs for the phenomenal book cover.

  And thank you to my readers, many of whom have also become friends. My gratitude is eternal.

  Contents

  1. First Blood

  2. Cyn

  3. Marigold

  4. Cyn

  5. Practice Makes Perfect

  6. Cyn

  7. Attack Number Two

  8. Marigold

  9. Cyn

  10. Marigold

  11. Cyn

  12. Marigold

  13. Cyn

  14. Marigold

  15. Leveling Up

  16. Marigold

  17. Cyn

  18. Marigold

  19. Cyn

  20. Sibling Warfare

  21. Cyn

  22. Marigold

  23. Cyn

  24. Marigold

  25. Cyn

  26. Marigold

  27. The Big One

  28. Cyn

  Epilogue

  Cinderella

  A Note from Cara

  Before you go…

  One

  First Blood

  The painting was one of those abstract deals.

  He'd been standing in front of it for the last thirty minutes and he'd be damned if he could make anything out of it. There were colorful paint splatters and a few geometric shapes. For a minute or two, he thought he saw a duck in the bottom right corner, but it was just a bunch of nonsense shapes. Pieces of paper cut and pasted randomly onto the canvas, then splattered with more gobs of meaningless paint.

  The longer he stared at it, the more certain it seemed that the artist was mocking him and his fruitless search for the hidden message within the painting.

  Sure, let me waste half an hour of my day looking at this fucking thing, he thought, trying to figure out what you're saying to me. Really, it’s just a great big middle finger pointed directly at me.

  The tiny foam board plaque hanging on the wall at the bottom right corner of the canvas seemed to prove his suspicions. It had the artist’s name and the title of the piece printed on it.

  Anthony Rosen. "Two Lovers at Dusk," 2018. Enamel on canvas.

  Yeah, as if that clears things up, he smirked, looking again for anything even remotely resembling a pair of lovers… or anything humanoid at all. Lovers, my ass.

  There was nothing there. It was all inside the charmed mind of Anthony Rosen, and yet here he was, with his so-called artwork hanging in the Grimm Falls Museum of Art. Anyone could make something as unintentional as this. It was a Jackson Pollock with a few extra scraps of paper glued on for good measure.

  Hell, he thought, even I could do something this terrible.

  What made Anthony Rosen so special?

  He put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and his fingers found a small cylinder in his right pocket. He slid his thumb along the plastic casing until he found the metal wheel at the top of the lighter. The metal was slick and warm beneath his touch, and even though he’d only just picked it up this morning, he’d already gotten into the habit of rubbing it like a worry stone.

  Well, back into the habit.

  He hadn't bought a pack of smokes in three years because everyone knew they were killers.

  Not great for job hunting, either – a lot of companies won’t even look at you twice if you show up to your interview smelling like an ashtray. All they see is insurance money going up like so much smoke.

  But this morning was different. When he walked up to the counter at the gas station where he stopped for a cup of coffee every day, he pointed to the Winston Lights on the rack behind the clerk. “The gold pack,” he’d told her, and just like that, it was as if he’d never quit. Of course, he needed to buy a lighter to go with the cigarettes, so he snatched one from the Bic display and slid it across the counter to her.

  He was tearing the cellophane off the cigarette pack before he was even out of the gas station. He was so itchy for a smoke, he left his coffee cup on the counter and didn’t figure out his mistake for another twenty minutes. But that first, long inhale never tasted better, even if it did make him cough and hack a bit.

  And then he’d come to look at “Two Lovers at Dusk” – really look at it, because up until today, he hadn’t been able to see a thing. Now that he was here, the lighter wheel was begging to be flicked.

  He looked around, but there weren’t many people in the museum at this hour. It was the middle of a weekday and besides the group of third graders who had marched obediently and disinterestedly through the Grimm Falls Local Artists exhibit twenty minutes ago, he was alone.

  He had to admit it was satisfying to see how little those kids cared about Anthony Rosen and his featured artwork. When they showed up, he stepped aside and watched them. Did a nine-year-old give any more fucks about abstract expressionism than he did?

  Turns out, no.

  They walked past the paintings in the exhibit room in an orderly line that had been orchestrated by a teacher who seemed determined to get this over with. Some of them glanced at “Two Lovers at Dusk,” and some didn’t even bother.

  He had a crazy urge to hold out his hand for a high-five from those kids. They knew ego and favoritism when they saw it. Then the kids were gone, moved on to another exhibit hall, and it was just him and the painting again.

  And the lighter.

  He hadn’t seen so much as a docent in the last five minutes – it was all too perfect. Like the universe wanted him to show Anthony Rosen where he really stood.

  He took out the lighter and flicked the wheel once, not hard enough to ignite the flame but enough to let off a thrilling spark. It felt good, like scratching an itch. Same as that first cigarette this morning.

  The four he’d smoked since then didn’t taste quite as good as the first, but that was to be expected. How much could you really ask of a pack of smokes?

  The itch came back stronger this time. All he wanted was a little taste – a tiny bit of relief. It felt good to buy that pack of Winstons on impulse this morning, and where had he ever gotten by ignoring his impulses, playing by the rules?

  Nowhere fast.

  He flicked the lighter again, letting the flame catch this time. His heart was pounding and he could feel every nerve ending in his body spring to life, on high alert.

  He reached forward and touched the flame to the bottom corner of the canvas, right next to Anthony Rosen’s foam board plaque. He just wanted to singe it, to leave his mark. If a disaster like this got a little bit blackened, nobody would even notice, right?

  The flame licked across the bottom of the canvas and he blew on it, but it didn’t go out. The fire really loved the enamel paint and it kept spreading across the front of the painting.

  He could have blown harder, or used the sleeve of his jacket to smother the flame. Hell, there was a fire extinguisher mounted to the wall not more than twenty paces away. But as he watched the orange fire bubbling up the paint and eating Anthony Rosen’s smugness, he felt calm. The way the fire danced along the bottom of the canvas frame was almost elegant.

  He watched for a minute, entranced, and when smoke began to curl up toward the sprinkler system, he stuffed the lighter back into his pocket and walked a
way. He ducked into a nearby exhibit on pointillism and a few seconds later, a docent shuffled briskly up the hall.

  “Fire!” she yelled, her voice cracking with panic.

  Then the museum director ran up the hall, his fingers twisted into his thinning hair as he told the docent, “Call the fire department!”

  He heard the sound of the fire extinguisher being yanked off the wall, and the whoosh of chemicals as it obliterated the flames and what was left of the painting. Inside the pointillism exhibit, he slid his hand back into his pocket, stroking the lighter wheel once more. An unexpected smile formed on his lips. Today was a great day to pick up smoking again.

  Two

  Cyn

  Cynthia Robinson arrived at the museum in style – hanging off the side of a fire truck with sirens blaring. It was how she would choose to travel anywhere, if she had her way, because the sound of the sirens and the weight of her uniform always got her adrenaline pumping.

  As it turned out, it was a tad much for the situation at hand.

  There was a class of third graders lined up in the parking lot, most of them with their noses in their phones and paying no attention at all to the screaming red fire engine as it pulled up to the curb. There were also a handful of volunteer docents, a security guard – who happened to be Cyn’s stepbrother – and the museum director, a tightly wound man named Orson.

  There was no smoke or flames to be seen, and the museum itself was quiet. Normally when the fire department got called, it was because the alarms inside the building in question had gone off, and they were usually still blaring when Cyn and her crew arrived. The only thing that was blaring today was Orson.

  “I just don’t understand how anyone could do such an awful thing!” he exclaimed as Cyn hopped off the truck and went to meet him. “It’s simply unpatriotic!”

  “Why don’t you show us what happened?” Cyn asked, trying to sound calm and reassuring to balance out his frenetic energy. “Has the fire been contained?”

  “Yes, I put it out myself,” Orson said, puffing out his chest with pride. “I’m good in a crisis.”

  Who told you that lie? Cyn wondered. The way his whole body was practically twitching with distress gave her second-hand anxiety. She nodded to her stepbrother, who was standing with the docents, looking bored and scratching the scraggly hair on his chin. “Come with us, Drew. You might be able to help.”

  He gave her a look that made it clear he was unenthusiastically obeying her order. They were never the loving type of step-siblings, and she knew taking orders from her got under his skin. That’s why she was determined to be gentle and deferential when she asked him what he knew about the fire.

  Cyn, Orson and Drew went inside the building, along with a couple of guys from her crew. The others stayed outside with the truck, winning over the kids by letting them play on it while they waited to find out if they would be needed.

  It was strange to be alone inside the museum. It wasn’t too long ago when Cyn herself was one of those third graders here on a field trip, and now it was her job to keep it safe.

  Orson led the group down a few winding hallways until they got to the Local Artists exhibit, then he hung his head as he presented the charred remains of a canvas at the end of the hall. It was unrecognizable – a blackened and drippy mess of browns and grays where all the paint had either burned or melted into a homogenous goop.

  Orson was right about one thing – an attack on the artwork of a Grimm Falls native felt like a personal attack on Cyn’s own soul. Part of the reason she became a firefighter was to protect this town she’d come to love like it was a part of her.

  “I blame myself,” Orson said while Cyn pointed her guys to the canvas, instructing them to make sure the danger was past. “Although I don’t know how I could possibly have predicted this. Who would be motivated to do something like this? I nearly vomited when I heard one of my docents yelling ‘fire’.”

  “Did you see anything, Drew?” Cyn asked.

  “No,” he said. “I was keeping an eye on that group of elementary kids, making sure they kept their fingers off the art, you know?”

  Cyn nodded, committing his response to memory, as well as everything else she saw and heard. Paintings didn’t just spontaneously combust, so she’d have to write up a report for the fire investigator after they were done here. She’d been a firefighter for four years now, and she learned pretty early on that the smallest details sometimes make the biggest difference.

  Like the way Orson was practically choking back sobs while he watched Cyn’s crew inspect the canvas. Overacting? Maybe, but she’d seen a wide variety of stress reactions in the last few years and an abnormally large reaction to a relatively small event wasn’t out of the ordinary. Especially considering how much the museum meant to Orson.

  “Hey, Anthony Rosen,” one of Cyn’s guys – Gleeson – said as he read the name off a small, slightly blackened plaque on the wall. He turned and shot a mischievous grin at her as he asked, “Wasn’t that your old high school flame?”

  Cyn felt her cheeks coloring. She’d gotten used to the way the guys at the firehouse ribbed each other – and her – nearly constantly, but her history with Anthony wasn’t a subject she liked to dredge up.

  She was just trying to pick out the perfect snarky response when she heard someone behind her say, “Nice choice of words, asshole.”

  She turned to see her best friend, Gus, sauntering up the hall in his policeman’s blues. Thank you, she thought, telepathically sending the message to him. Not that she needed rescuing, but there was nothing like a little police-firefighter rivalry to deflect attention from herself.

  “I was just teasing old Cinders about her straight phase,” Gleeson said, holding up his hands defensively. Then he grinned and said, “Anyway, I was thinking about motive. How did that relationship end, again?”

  Cyn rolled her eyes heavily and said, “I caught him under the bleachers with another girl on prom night.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her and said, “Sounds like revenge to me.”

  “A dish best served five years later?” Cyn asked.

  Anthony certainly hadn’t been in the running for any World’s Best Boyfriend awards back then – that was for sure – but Cyn hadn’t exactly given him a chance. Ever since she moved here, she’d only had eyes for the blue-eyed, blonde-haired, hopelessly out-of-reach Marigold Grimm. Anthony was nothing more than an attempt to appease her stepmother, and Cyn had been hurt when she found him kissing someone else under the bleachers, but the hurt didn’t last long.

  Certainly not five years after high school ended.

  “He’s a jerk,” Drew said. “Probably had it coming from any number of people he’s pissed off.”

  “Dude, I saw him get into a bar fight last weekend,” Gleeson said. “Forgot about it until just now. I wasn’t close enough to hear what it was about, but anybody mad enough to take a swing at a guy at the bottom of the ninth with two strikes is worth talking to.”

  “Good,” Gus said, pulling out his notepad and flipping to a fresh page. “Do you know who it was?”

  “Braden Fox. He’s kind of a hot head, too. Definitely not the first bar fight he’s ever been in.”

  That was one of the best things about Grimm Falls, in Cyn’s eyes. It was a deceptively big city that felt a lot like a small town. Most everyone who stuck around long enough knew each other, and that was great if you wanted to feel safe leaving your door unlocked, or feel like a part of a genuine community.

  Not so great if you wanted to go around getting in bar fights and setting paintings on fire without getting noticed.

  “Thanks, I’ll check him out,” Gus said. Then he nodded at the charred canvas and said, “And we have to get the fire investigator in here. That was no accident.”

  Three

  Marigold

  Marigold Grimm was practically flying around the estate.

  “Slow down, girlie,” her assistant, Emily, teased as Mari came rushing down
the grand staircase with a clipboard in her hand. “You’re acting like this is the biggest event we’ve ever hosted.”

  “It is,” Mari said. “To me, anyway.”

  Her father’s retirement party was still seventy-two hours away and Emily was right to give her that calm down, crazy woman look. Mari had been up and down these stairs at least half a dozen times before breakfast and she knew she was driving Emily and the rest of the staff crazy with her demands to check and re-check everything.

  Are the caterers aware of our gluten-free guests?

  Will the tulips still be at peak bloom if they’re delivered the day before the event?

  Has the gravel in the parking lot been raked?

  Those were the questions that had been racing through her mind all week, each one accounted for on her clipboard. It all had to come together perfectly, and if that meant being a thorn in the sides of everyone working in Grimm House until the party on Saturday night, Mari was willing to make the sacrifice.

  She was also, apparently, willing to sacrifice breakfast, sleep, and good arch support. Her feet ached from days of running around the fifty-thousand-square-foot manor and the sprawling estate beyond. Even though the party would take place on a fraction of that space, she knew how guests liked to wander and she was determined that everything should be perfect.

  Most importantly, she needed her father to find everything just right.