If The Shoe Fits

by

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Laurie LeClair

All rights reserved. This work is not
transferable. No part of this work can be sold, shared, copied,
scanned, or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright.
Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are the creation of the author or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Dedication

To the late Clifford W. Smith. Thanks, Dad,
for teaching me how to dream.

To my husband, Jim LeClair, thank you for
holding my hand and my heart for the last thirty-three years.
Dreams do come true.

“Hey, lady, what’s your rush? You gonna turn
into a pumpkin or somethin’?” the taxicab driver asked as he tucked
the fare and tip in his top pocket.

Charlotte King chuckled as she slammed the
car door shut. She dashed through the drenching rain.

With one finger curled tightly around the
metal garment bag hook, Charlie jumped into several puddles. She
rushed up the walkway and stairs to the massive oak door guarding
the stony fortress she once called home.

Under the shelter of the overhang, she caught
her breath in the chilly night air. With her free hand, she brushed
back the wet tendrils of dark hair from her cheeks. Cool droplets
of rain slithered down the back of her neck, making her shiver.

In spite of her soggy condition, a smile
tugged at the corner of her mouth at the evening ahead. The
mandatory attendance tonight seemed a small price to pay if it
could somehow assist in getting one of her stepsisters married.
“One down and one to go,” she whispered hopefully.

Her stepmother’s offer this morning was too
good to refuse. Charlie would use her many marketing talents and
people skills to promote her stepsisters to their prospective
grooms. In exchange, her stepmother promised invigorating new
interest in the family store.

The implication lay there, thick and heavy,
between them. King’s Department Store, her late father’s beloved
store, would benefit immensely in the end.

And the store needed it more than ever.
Charlie’s heart had sunk after seeing the latest slumping quarterly
sales reports in the managers’ meeting earlier in the day. The grim
news hit especially hard; the store couldn’t keep this downward
pace without someone suffering. Her stepmother had made it quite
clear that layoffs were a foregone conclusion. How could they even
think of getting rid of the faithful employees who had stuck with
them for decades? They were like family to Charlie.

And, next on the chopping block would be the
store itself. The holidays were just a few short months away. This
season would make or break King’s. She swallowed hard. It was do or
die.

Charlie shook her head, clearing her mind of
the dark outcome. She had to fix this. So many people were counting
on her. She couldn’t let them down. She had to perform to her
stepmother’s liking tonight and get the woman, who was in charge of
King’s and who controlled the purse strings, to release her
stronghold on the store’s remodeling and marketing budgets. In her
heart of hearts, Charlie knew it would take drastic revamping to
lure customers back in the declining store. But she could do it.
She would save her father’s store.

Visions of customers clamoring for their
newest and finest goods and sales skyrocketing made Charlie giddy
with anticipation.

In her bag she’d neatly tucked her
sketchbook, pages filled with new layouts and future innovations to
present to her stepmother in a private meeting after dinner this
evening. Now, Charlie clutched it a little bit tighter; this could
be the new beginning for King’s.

All her father’s dreams could come true. It
was up to Charlie to make sure that happened. She’d promised him.
It was a nine-year-old girl’s promise to her dying father.

A promise was a promise.

And she’d lived that desperate need to honor
him for nearly twenty years now, lived and breathed the store and
his dream.

“Now this,” she said softly. A part of it
nagged at her. A marriage of convenience? Her stepsisters? Her
parents had one, though. It had worked. They’d fallen deeply in
love and were devoted to each other until the day her mother had
died.

Love in a marriage of convenience could still
happen, couldn’t it?

“If only I could get the stepmother married
off, too.” A shudder went through her, at the cool breeze rushing
over her damp body or the image of a man actually brave enough to
marry her stepmother; Charlie couldn’t be sure which thought had
caused that particular sensation.

She gave one last lingering look at her
father’s house.

Yellow beams of light beckoned from the
windows. The fortress, awash in warmth and cheer, appeared
welcoming to all who needed refuge from this dark, rainy night. It
hadn’t felt like her home since her father died. A pang of
nostalgia rushed through her.

Charlotte cast that sad thought aside and
focused on what lie ahead. Desperate times called for desperate
measures. She’d live up to her part. Once the distraction of
getting her eldest stepsister engaged was over, then all Charlie
had to do was convince her stepmother that King’s Department Store,
the once grand family business started by her late father, was
worth saving even in these hard times.

“One good deed deserves another, right?”

Smiling, she knocked on the hard wood. Her
cold knuckles ached at the rough contact. In the next instant, the
huge door flew open.

“Dolly,” she cried, stepping into the foyer
and dropping the heavy black bag. She hugged the short, round older
woman who’d practically raised her. Curly, gray hair brushed her
cheek as she embraced her friend and confidante. The hint of rose
perfume and pressed face powder tickled her senses.

“Why, Miss Charlie, where have you been?”
Dolly asked, pulling slightly away and holding her at arm’s length.
“And dripping wet, too.” With a frown gathering between her usually
sparkling blue eyes and shaking her head, she said, “You’ll catch
your death like that.”

At the concern-laced chastisement, Charlie
smiled widely, feeling loved. She shrugged. “I was being held
hostage in a taxicab, of all places. When I got within a block, I
hopped out and escaped down the street.”

Dolly chuckled. Closing the door, she bent to
pick up the dropped bag. “Oh, you’re late. We’d better hurry up and
get you changed. Did you bring the one I told you to?”

“Your favorite, just like you asked.”

“And the shoes?”

“The shoes, too.”

“That’s my Charlie.”

She nodded her head to the closed door of the
formal living room. “Is the barracuda fuming?”

“Shush now, she’ll hear you.”

Charlie grinned. She’d been calling her
stepmother Barracuda since the day her father brought his new bride
home. The name couldn’t have been more perfect for the razor-sharp
tongued woman who zeroed in on her foe with lethal precision and
attacked. Charlie had seen it a thousand times, both in her
personal and professional dealings with the woman.

An impish delight took hold as Charlie asked,
“And has Prince Charming arrived?”

“He has. Been waiting on you for half an
hour, too.”

“It’s not me he’s come to inspect for a
bride.”

The older woman tucked her arm through the
crook of Charlie’s elbow and steered her to the wide, elegant oak
staircase. “If you ask me, them two stepsisters of yours in there
can’t measure up to the dimple on your backside.”

“Why, Dolly, you’ve been looking again.”

That had her friend giggling like a
schoolgirl. Charlie joined in as they raced up the stairs to the
guest bedroom. On the way, Dolly gossiped shamelessly, “My, he is a
fine looking one, though—”

***

Prince Charming, as the papers dubbed him,
leaned his hand on the oak mantel above the fireplace, his back to
the opulent gold parlor. Never in Alexander Royale’s life had he
wished to burst out laughing as much as he did now. He’d overheard
the feisty exchange between the maid and the last sister in the
outer foyer.

Barracuda? How perfect to describe the older,
stern-faced woman behind him. If it hadn’t been for her ongoing
insistence, he’d have easily brushed off his grandfather’s
suggestion of dinner with the all-female King family.

But marriage was the goal, wasn’t it? So here
he was, searching for a wife to please his ailing grandparents.
First the wedding and then the heir.

Under control, Alex straightened and slowly
turned to the three seated women. He had to bite his inner cheek
when he witnessed the same sour expression on all their faces.
They’d heard.

Mrs. King, dressed in black from head to toe,
smiled weakly at him. “More sherry, Mr. Royale? Francine will be
happy to pour.”

The girl in question, blonde with blue eyes,
perched on the edge of the sofa with one hand clasped lightly over
the other in her lap. One corner of her mouth shifted upward as she
pasted on a smile.

“No, thank you, Mrs. King, Francine.” The
girl actually breathed a sigh of relief, which made Alex’s lips
twitch.

He darted a glance in the other girl’s
direction.

Seated beside her sister, she could have been
her twin in dress alone. Matching knee-length, plain black dresses
with long sleeves adorned their waif-thin bodies. However, the
other one, Priscilla he recalled, had her auburn hair swept up and
her green eyes lowered.

By all accounts, Alex figured the mother was
trying to marry off the oldest sister. Neither one appealed to him
in the slightest. In fact, this whole business of plucking a bride
out of a lineup made him ill.

He longed for the evening to end. Glancing at
the gold-faced mahogany grandfather clock across the room, he
nearly groaned out loud. It would be hours before he could make
his
escape, he thought as he recalled the overheard
conversation in the foyer a short while ago.

It seemed like long, drawn-out hours of stony
silence peppered with polite acceptable society inquiries. In
reality, thankfully for Alex, it was only twenty minutes before he
heard the maid outside the parlor door.

“Now, honey, you go and be yourself.” Her
cautionary tone held an unmistakable caring beneath it.

“I intend to.”

“No need to kowtow to Her Highness or her
little entourage. They ain’t no better than you, you know? Never
have been, never will be.”

The light feminine chuckle that followed left
a warm trail in his chest. Alex stood, to prepare for the last
sister’s entrance or to shake off that sensation - he couldn’t be
too certain. Either way, he wanted the night to end.

The door clicked open. He found himself
holding his breath.

“Shoot,” the younger voice cried. “My
shoes—”

He caught a glimpse of the maid’s profile,
waving a hand at the woman still out of his sight. “Scoot back up
there and get them. I’ll hold the fort down by getting them to the
dining room.”

***

Entering the elegant emerald green dining
room, Alex calculated the number of hours remaining. He groaned
inwardly at the stilted, forced conversation to come. He reminded
himself he’d done this a hundred times before and he could do this
again. But his jaw ached with the effort to keep a pleasant smile
on his face.

“Ladies,” he began, ready to extol on the
gleaming silver, sparkling Waterford crystal, gold-edged plates,
and the overflowing flower centerpiece. He stopped short when he
heard what he assumed was the footsteps of the last sister racing
down the stairs.

Alex turned just in time to see a whirlwind
of red slide across the marble floor. The force hit him square in
the chest.

He let out a soft grunt.

Instinctively, he reached out to hold her,
protect her much smaller body. But she pulled away, taking away the
warmth he’d experienced. A tantalizing scent lingered. Brushing the
rich chestnut, shoulder-length hair out of her eyes, she met his
surprised gaze. “Oops!”

He smiled at her, holding back a bubble of
laughter.

If possible, her caramel-colored eyes
twinkled and her lips stretched even more.

Behind him, Mrs. King scolded her, “Really,
Charlotte! Must you always make a scene?”

It wasn’t really a question. Charlie winked
at him. “Of course, Stepmother, how else can I have any fun?”