Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) Read Online Free PDF

that the stuff I'd just 'bought', the strong hands that had removed the knots and the oils that had been rubbed into my skin, were transitory. I mean, after all, after a couple of days my skin didn't feel like silk anymore, and after a week or so the knots came back, especially if I'd been pounding the keyboard long into the night.

 
    Which of us was wasting money? At least when I bought stuff, it was still in my closet a couple of months later.

 
    I might not wear it, since it was probably out of season, or whatever, but it was still there...

 
    Anyway, I shopped. At first it didn't help much. After all, I hadn't been lying to David when I'd asked for an earlier advance then we'd agreed on. I needed the money. The house wasn't cheap, and the credit card bills were piling up.

 
    After I bought a couple of dresses that I convinced myself I'd wear to book signings in an effort to write them off as necessary, and perhaps even tax deductible, I was feeling a little better. Once I'd grabbed a new pair of the jeans that actually made my ass look like something a guy may want to grab I felt even better than I had after the dresses, and once I made the most of Mrs. Fields four cookies for the price of six deal by getting twelve double chocolate ones and only having to fork over the money for nine of them, I was pretty pleased with myself.

 
    Things could be worse, Beth , I scolded myself. Sometimes you forget how good you have it.

 
    Which was true. Here I was, the middle of the day, walking off the last off the effects of a working lunch, my head full of free ideas, any one of which I had the feeling I could run with once I got home. I had a roof over my head and eleven, no ten cookies now in a bag clutched in my hot little hand.

 
    Life was good.

 
    I was going to be okay.

 
    I'd write this book and fulfill my obligations to Wellspring and then see where the cards fell after that. Maybe I'd sell up and move. I'd been telling myself for years that I wanted to see the world, and if the next book did well I'd be able to get rid of the house, payoff all of the bills and live abroad for a couple of years.

 
    There was so much of the world to see, and I'd seen so little of it.

 
    Suddenly, right there in Long Beach Plaza I stopped in my tracks. I was still holding the bags containing the dresses and the pair of jeans. There was still a bite of Mrs. Field's cookie in my mouth. It wasn't crowded, since it was still early in the afternoon, but even so I felt the people that walked by me staring.

 
    Because I was crying. Not just a tear or two, either. Weeping. Sobbing. Tears were running down my face, and I could feel them hitting my shirt in the sort of big, wet drops that fell when the sky was just about ready to open up and drench you in an unexpected downpour.

 
    Which is exactly what this was. An unexpected downpour of emotion.

 
    I knew I should have been grateful, but the truth was I couldn't be.

 
    Because I was a fraud. A liar. The worst kind of saleswoman, because I didn't believe for one instant in my product. For years I'd held my readers in contempt, thought of them as silly or naive or stupid, told myself that it was easy to give them what they wanted, because they all wanted the same thing.

 
    Except what they wanted was what I wanted too.

 
    Love.

 
    And I didn't for an instant believe that there was such a thing. Oh, sure, I'd been told by guys they loved me, but that hadn't lasted. I hadn't been able to tell them I loved them too, partially because I didn't know if I did and partially because I didn't know what love was anyway.

 
    So there I stood, mascara running down my face, on the edge of what felt like a cliff at least as sheer and dangerous as the fantastically beautiful couple on the cover of Love Eternal .

 
    Only I didn't have anyone to hold on to me. I had no male lead, and without him I wondered if this was as all there was. Not everyone found their