Sally Hayes - Magic In A Jelly Jar

“Who?” Joe was still staring at her and thinking that he hadn’t been so blown away by the sight of a woman in years. She had dainty feet, encased in fancy sandals in a sparkling silver color. Smooth, trim calves. Cute knees. A long, bulky white jacket—he could have done without that. Delicate hands—no rings, he noted. Pale, peach-colored lips, eyes as blue as the sky. An absolutely dazzling smile, directed at his son.

“The tooth fairy!” Luke said.

“Luke, there’s no such thing as—”

“Uh-ummm.” The woman cleared her throat loudly. She gave him a conspiratorial wink.

Being this close to a woman, having her smile at him baffled Joe. How could he consider allowing another woman into his life? One had been more than enough.

But when he looked at this woman, he felt uneasy. Here, he thought, was a woman who just might be able to change his mind….

Dear Reader,

When Patricia Kay was a child, she could be found hiding somewhere…reading. “Ever since I was old enough to realize someone wrote books and they didn’t just magically appear, I dreamed of writing,” she says. And this month Special Edition is proud to publish Patricia’s twenty-second novel, The Millionaire and the Mom, the next of the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS series. She admits it isn’t always easy keeping her ideas and her writing fresh. What helps, she says, is “nonwriting” activities, such as singing in her church choir, swimming, taking long walks, going to the movies and traveling. “Staying well-rounded keeps me excited about writing,” she says.

We have plenty of other fresh stories to offer this month. After finding herself in the midst of an armed robbery with a gun to her back in Christie Ridgway’s From This Day Forward, Annie Smith vows to chase her dreams…. In the next of A RANCHING FAMILY series by Victoria Pade, Kate McDermot returns from Vegas unexpectedly married and with a Cowboy’s Baby in her belly! And Sally Tyler Hayes’s Magic in a Jelly Jar is what young Luke Morgan hopes for by saving his teeth in a jelly jar…because he thinks that his dentist is the tooth fairy and can grant him one wish: a mother! Also, don’t miss the surprising twists in Her Mysterious Houseguest by Jane Toombs, and an exciting forbidden love story with Barbara Benedict’s Solution: Marriage.

At Special Edition, fresh, innovative books are our passion. We hope you enjoy them all.

Best,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my son, John, a mathematically gifted and mercenary child who, when he started losing his baby teeth, began with great excitement to count and even do a bit of multiplication in order to figure out what his entire mouth was worth empty of teeth.

And to his first-grade class at St. Mary’s, where the loss of each tooth was dutifully charted and graphed as part of their lessons in math.

lives in South Carolina with her husband, son and daughter. A former journalist for a South Carolina newspaper, she fondly remembers that her decision to write and explore the frontiers of romance came at about the same time she discovered, in junior high, that she’d never be able to join the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

Happy and proud to be a stay-home mom, she is thrilled to be living her lifelong dream of writing romances.

Dear Tooth Fairy,

My name is Luke, and I saw you last week. You came to my school to talk about teeth, and you were so pretty. I gotta big problem, and I know you’re the one who can help me. I tried everythin’ else and nothin’ worked. Santa didn’t help, even though I was real good. I wished on my birthday candles, but that didn’t work. I wished on the first star at night, but that didn’t work. But you can make everything all right. I saw you, and I know you can do real magic. I gotta plan, too. I’m gonna collect a hundred baby teeth, no matter what it takes! I figure that’ll be enough. And I’ll give ’em to you and make my wish, and you can bring my mother back….

Love,

Luke

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

“Aw, c’mon, Jenny. It won’t hurt. Promise.”

The girl knew he was lying. After all, he was a boy, and at seven, Jenny knew all about boys. He’d say anything to get what he wanted. And once he did, he’d be off to charm some other girl. Jenny’s mother had told her older sister all about boys one night when she didn’t know Jenny was listening.

“Please. I neeeed it,” he whined pitifully.

She’d heard about that before, too. “I told you—no.”

“Give you a quarter.”

“I heard you offered Betsy fifty cents!”

“’Kay. Fifty cents.”

That made her stop and think. Fifty cents would buy her a soda after school. Or a candy bar. Curiosity made her ask, “But what d’you want with a dumb old tooth, anyway?”

“Shh,” Luke said. “It’s a secret.”

Jenny tried her perfect-princess smile on him. “You can tell me. I’m your best friend.”

“But you’re a girl,” he said, as if it was the ultimate insult.

“I’m still your friend.” Her bottom lip started to tremble.

“’Kay, you’re my friend. Now, do we have a deal?”

“Quarters first,” she insisted, because she’d done business with boys before.

Luke fished them out of his pocket and handed them over.

“Promise it won’t hurt?”

“’Course not. Mine didn’t hurt a bit.” He showed her a gap-toothed grin. “B’sides, it’s already loose, right?”

Jenny nodded, just starting to get scared. She’d never lost a tooth before, and she knew she was being a sucker to give this one to Luke for fifty cents. After all, the tooth fairy would probably give her at least two dollars. Some of the kids in the class who’d already lost a tooth had gotten three dollars.

But Luke was up to something, and he always had the best ideas. He must want this tooth for something really important, especially to give up fifty cents.

“Open up,” Luke said, coming toward her with one of the laces from his shoe dangling from his hand.

Next thing she knew, Luke had nearly his whole hand in her mouth trying to tie that lace around her tooth. Jenny tried to yell, but that didn’t work. She was gagging, instead. She tried to tell Luke she’d changed her mind, but he kept struggling with the shoelace and her loose tooth.

Finally she got so mad she bit him.

Luke screamed and jerked his hand out of her mouth.

Jenny looked down and saw her tooth stuck in the side of Luke’s thumb, and then she screamed, too.

“He what?”

Leaning against the open door of his pickup, his cell phone cradled against his ear and noise from the construction site making it nearly impossible to hear, Joe Morgan was sure there had to be some mistake. Even though Luke was only in first grade, Joe had already gotten some strange phone calls from school. This, however, was the strangest.

“What was he doing with his hand in a girl’s mouth?”

“Trying to pull the tooth, I believe,” said Miss Reynolds, Luke’s twenty-something, ever-so-proper, first-grade teacher. “Maybe Luke will explain that to you. He certainly wouldn’t say anything more to me.”