Free A Cinderella Christmas Carol (Suddenly Cinderella) by Hope Tarr Page B

them clean through.
    And that’s when he’d known Sam wasn’t just acting out. For her to run away, something had gone wrong, very wrong, back in New York.
    Just when he sensed she was on the brink of opening up to him, his BlackBerry belted out the first few bars to Madonna’s “Material Girl,” the ringtone he’d assigned to his ex-wife, Francesca.
    Sam had closed up like a clam. Sobbing, she made a beeline for his spare bedroom, the one earmarked for her when she came to stay.
    The opportunity lost, Ross picked up the call. “Frannie, listen up. Sam’s here. She’s safe.” He spent the next thirty minutes calming her down while trying to figure out what had gone so terribly wrong
    Only, Frannie was clueless, too, which scared the crap out of him. Until now, his ex had always been the cool parent, the confidante, the cross between a best friend and a big sister. If she was in the dark, then whatever had gone wrong with Sam wasn’t small. It was major. Learning that she’d apparently shoplifted a bullshit charm bracelet a few weeks before had stunned him to his core.
    “How the hell did that happen?” he’d demanded. “And why am I just hearing about it now?”
    “Don’t interrogate me, Ross,” Frannie snapped, her British sangfroid on the cusp of a major meltdown. “I know you think I’m a bloody poor parent but—”
    “That’s not true.”
    Frannie was no Mrs. Cleaver, that was for damned sure, but she loved Sam with all her heart. He might disapprove of her travel schedule and crazy work hours—he did disapprove—but she was a good mom. And a kid, a girl especially, needed her mother, which was why he hadn’t fought for shared custody, settling instead for seeing Sam during summers and every other holiday.
    He drew a deep breath and dropped his voice. “Look, whatever went wrong for Samantha went down in New York, and it’s obvious she sees DC and my apartment as her haven—for now, anyway. Let me get her calmed down, enroll her in school here, and see what happens. Just before you called, she was close to confiding in me. I could feel it.”
    That last statement had won Francesca over. In the end, they’d agreed he would keep Sam with him, but only until the winter break. In the meantime, he had his work cut out for him. He hadn’t been a full-time parent for years. Hell, he hadn’t been much of a part-time one, either. Still, he’d always thought his relationship with his daughter was pretty solid. Staring at her now, he admitted he’d been kidding himself. Just how well did he really know her? What was she into? Who were her friends? What were her plans for the future, her dreams? Did she even have any? More than the all-black clothing and the tongue stud, it was the dull, dead look in her eyes that had him worrying. Just last summer she’d seemed so bright-eyed, so…happy.
    “Why are you looking at me all weird like that?” Sam’s voice snapped him back to the present. “If you have some big-deal thing to say to me, then say it.”
    “Okay, I will.” He cleared his throat, steeling himself to deal with the proverbial elephant in the room: the confiscated magazine. Not yet able to go there, he started out with, “First off, I want you to know I’m working on getting someone to help us out around here. You know, keep house and cook and drive you back and forth to school and anywhere else you need to go so you won’t be stuck here when I’m held up at the studio.” Someone to watch over you when I can’t. Someone, a woman, to help me figure out what the hell’s going on with you before it’s too late.
    Her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that what Mrs. Alvarez does?”
    “Well, sort of. But Mrs. A doesn’t drive.” Nor was she young or cool enough for Sam to consider her as anything but an authority figure.
    She snapped out of her slouch. “So you fired her!”
    Ross stiffened. Why was she so hell-bent on seeing him as some kind of ogre?
    Reaching for what was left of his