Sleeping with Beauty Read Online Free Page A

hurt her.
    The earth definitely moved that night. Okay, so maybe there was someone else beneath the pile of coats she and Steve were making out on. The fact remained, she’d finally felt
something.
    After that—and despite the fact that Steve not only didn’t call her, but didn’t so much as notice she was still in bed next to him the following morning (she blamed it on all the coats)—the idea of settling for less than
something
was pretty much impossible.
    Now getting ready to begin her fifth year teaching perpetually rowdy third-graders at Meadow Lane Elementary (no, not exactly the tenured position her parents had hoped for, but the apple hadn’t fallen so far from the tree after all), she was still searching for
something.
    The thing that Lucy envied most about her parents wasn’t their professional accomplishments, but that they had each found someone who appreciated their unique attributes. From the very first time her mother and father had laid eyes on each other, like had recognized like, and
bam!
, that had been that. Thirty-two years later, they still made a solid team, with common interests. It was clear, despite the rather cerebral nature of their relationship, how much love, support, and respect there was between them.
    So why couldn’t she find herself madly in love, or even respectfully smitten, with some nice, average guy who’d appreciate her for her sharp mind and cutting wit? She had absolutely nothing against average guys. In fact, she’d hoped and prayed with each successive average-guy date that she’d get that like-recognizes-like thing and the
bamming
would happen. But there was never any
bamming
with them.
    Now, put her in the path of the Jasons and Steves of the world?
Bam! bam! bam!
Problem was, there was never a reciprocal
bam
ming. Back to that like-recognizing-like thing, she supposed. Except her “like” was still incognito. At twenty-eight, she was still a Pippi. On the outside. But on the inside, she felt like a Ginger. No one got that about her, though.
    Why was she cursed with swooning only for the unattainable? Why was she so attached to the need to swoon in the first place? With thirty looming on the horizon, maybe it was time for her to let go of the need to swoon.
    Jana, now a sports editor for the
Washington Post,
had found her
bam!
. She’d married him two years after graduating with a degree in journalism. Of course, Jana’s “like” had come out of hiding by then. She’d bloomed in their second year as college roommates. Although not exactly a swan, Jana had learned to make the most of her unique attributes. Attributes her husband, Dave, worshiped ad nauseam. Apparently the man had a thing for playing connect-a-dot with his wife’s freckles. Lucy, though privately fascinated, didn’t ask for intimate details for fear Jana would actually tell her.
    Quebec-born Dave Pelletier, second-string goalie for the Washington Capitals hockey team, had been Jana’s first interview after getting the job with the sports editor at the
Washington Post.
Dave had fallen head over hockey sticks for the cagey redhead. (Lucy wanted a flashy moniker like that—“cagey redhead.” Brunette elementary-school teacher just didn’t have the same flair.) Jana had flair now, and she also had freckle-worshiping Dave. They’d married eight months later.
    Not only did Dave think her splotchy freckles were endearing, he loved her frizzy, corkscrew red hair, calling it unbelievably sexy. Dave had a scar across his forehead from a hairline skull fracture he’d received his first year in the majors, and a nose that had been broken more times than a heavyweight boxer’s, which might explain his questionable judgment regarding beauty. But Jana adored his French-Canadian accent, his oddball sense of humor . . . and of course there was that quirky discovery that having a husband with removable front teeth made for some very interesting sexual side benefits. Lucy supposed there were other reasons,