Free Fairytale Come Alive by Kristen Ashley Page A

her little girl heart by acting like a cool, remote, American bitch.
    Isabella no sooner got out of her room when she heard a discordant plucking of guitar strings.
    By the time she made it to the great room, she noticed three things. The first, Prentice was at a drafting board in his study with the double doors that led to that room off the great room open. The second, Sally was sitting on the floor by the huge, square coffee table in front of the big, fluffy royal blue couch, drawing. The third, Jason was lying on the couch plucking, and not very well, on Fiona’s guitar.
    Isabella looked at the guitar and she felt tears crawl up her throat.
    She’d forgotten about Fiona’s guitar.
    Fiona didn’t take the guitar everywhere but she wasn’t often separated from it. She loved it. She’d strum it when they were sitting in a pub and she’d often play it while they were lounging on blankets around a bonfire on the beach.
    Isabella was so impressed by (and envious of) Fiona’s talent that she’d taken secret lessons when she got home. Her father preferred her playing the piano and violin, both of which he forced lessons on her from the time she was six until she was eighteen.
    She’d practiced a lot, sliding the guitar out from under her bed when her father wasn’t around but she’d never been as good as Fiona.
    Eventually, she’d quit playing and, when she’d divorced Laurent and moved back to Chicago, she’d found her guitar and gave it to a charity to auction.
    “Mrs. Evangahlala!” Sally yelled, Isabella looked at her, swallowed her tears and, with effort, smiled.
    “I think I’ve figured out something you can do to help me with dinner. But we’ll need a stepping stool or –” Before Isabella could finish, Sally was up and racing down the hall, rounding the corner on one foot to disappear in the mudroom.
    Isabella stared after her not knowing if she should follow when Sally reappeared dragging, with some difficulty, a stepping stool.
    “She’s mental,” Jason muttered from behind Isabella and Isabella turned her smile on him.
    He blushed.
    She turned away from Jason, strode forward and helped Sally set up the stool by a counter in the kitchen.
    “Get up on the stool, honey, you’re going to flour the chicken,” Isabella told her.
    “I am?” Sally breathed, like flouring chicken was akin to walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
    “You are,” Isabella confirmed and got out the marinading sliced chicken breasts and the Ziploc bag of seasoned flour she’d prepared earlier. Then she started to open and close drawers, looking for tea towels. “We just need a few tea towels in case it gets messy.”
    “Third drawer down, by the sink,” Jason mumbled and Isabella’s head jerked to the side.
    He’d joined them and was slouched in a stool across the counter from Sally. He was feigning disinterest but Isabella wasn’t deceived. His eyes (and, incidentally, his eyes were exactly like his father’s) were on the Tupperware of chicken. There was a spark of interest in them, not much, just a spark, but it was something.
    Isabella figured boys liked food and not just takeaway.
    She was pleased he’d joined them. She didn’t show this, however.
    She wrapped a tea towel around Sally’s waist and one, bib style, around her neck and showed her what to do.
    “Now, if you’ve got the buttermilk marinade on your fingers, don’t get it near your eyes. It’s got salt and Tabasco in it and it’ll burn,” Isabella warned.
    “Okay,” Sally said, carefully pulling out a chicken slice and making a face at the squishy feel of it.
    “If you don’t want to do it –” Isabella started.
    Sally interrupted her by shouting, “I wanna do it!”
    “All right, sweetheart,” Isabella murmured on a grin. “Have at it.”
    Sally stuck her little tongue out the side of her mouth while she concentrated on wiping off the marinade before she tossed the chicken slices in the flour mixture and Jason