Praise for Mansfield Ranch by Jenni James:
“Another endearing Austen adaptation! Every volume in the series has been a joy to read, and Mansfield Ranch is no exception.” – Pinhead1, Amazon Reviewer
“Can’t get enough! I absolutely love Jenni James!!! And all her Jane Austen remakes. But especially Mansfield Ranch. It had me snagged from the beginning to the end and I re-read it often. I highly recommend it to all ages.” – Ferrin Brandon, Amazon Reviewer
Not Cinderella’s Type
by Jenni James
Trifecta Books
Book design and layout copyright © 2016 by Trifecta Publishing
Cover design copyright © 2016 by Jenni James
This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2016 by Jenni James
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Author Biography
Sample Chapter: Take My Advice
Sample Chapter: Cinderella
This book is dedicated to Parnel and Sylvie Bennetts. May you continue to shine and soar in all you do.
CHAPTER ONE:
“Indy! Come on—let’s go.”
I groaned as I rolled over on the grass. This so wasn’t my life. Why did PE have to be so hard, anyway? Was the coach’s goal of the coach to kill everyone who was seriously PE challenged? I needed an excuse card or something. Like one of those “get out of jail free” cards. In fourth grade, my friend Gabby Mineyard had one from her doctor because of some fictitious disease. Okay, so it probably wasn’t fictitious, but I swear she was completely normal and could do anything at all during the summer—anything. Like ride a bike, go swimming, climb trees—anything. Until school started. Then there was that glorious “exempt from PE” card again.
“Indy!”
Maxton was still yelling at me. Couldn’t he see I was in pain? As in, suffering here? Whatever—it didn’t matter. Ms. Bullington was going to come back around the Flagstaff High School track with the other runners any minute and chew me out anyway. Time to suck it up.
I groaned again for good measure and rolled over onto my knees. I took the hand offered me and got up. I was about to thank Maxton for being there, but to my knowledge, Maxton’s chest wasn’t quite so large, and he wasn’t so tall, either. I jerked my head up and came face-to-face with the hottest junior in school, Bryant Bailey.
“What?” I asked, not willing to give him an inch this time. “Why are you here?”
A playful grin spread across his face. “Why are you so mean to me?”
I glared over his shoulder at Maxton for not telling me Bryant was there. He just shrugged back.
Then I turned my glare to Bryant. “You need to come with a warning label or something so people can be prepared when you show up.” I pushed past him and grabbed my water bottle. It didn’t matter if Ms. Bullington was angry at me or not, there was no way I was sticking around PE another minute. Lamely—literally—I began to limp off the grass, across the track field, and toward the building behind the bleachers. Dang my stupid foot, anyway. I was always twisting my ankle when I tried to run. Always.
Some people were born with grace, and others were meant to watch graceful people from far away. Like miles away. It wasn’t hard to guess which category of people I fit into.
Bryant followed me. Of course. “Are you really going to blow me off?”
I tried to whirl around, but I forgot about my foot. However, my foot didn’t forget it was twisted, and it reminded me—sharply. “Yeesh!” I headed straight. Apparently, walking forward was better than turning around. “Do you expect anything else, Bryant? Seriously? I could so kill you right now, and you know it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that in seventeen states, it’d be legal to kill you. Most people would call it self-defense.”
He rolled his eyes, but matched his super-long stride to my shorter one. “You can run away all you want. I’m still going to make it up to you one day.”
“No, you’re not. I don’t want you to. The best way to make anything up is just to leave me alone. Please.”
“Do you really despise me that much?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
Urgh. What was I going to have to do to get this guy off my back? I stopped. “If you want to make it up to me, go away. I’m fine. I need some time alone to process it, not to be reminded every five seconds.”
“But I’ve apologized a hundred times. I had no idea it was there. I didn’t see it. It was an accident. And every time I see you, I feel awful. I don’t even know what to do. I’m not some weird, awful guy—you’ve gotta give me a chance and let me make it up to you!”
All at once, my heart was heavy and my foot hurt and my chest felt like the Hulk was squeezing it and I wanted out of this dang school. Away from Bryant Bailey and everyone else who had ruined everything special in my life. I just wanted not to remember terrible things. Was that so hard? Except, every time I turned around, there was Bryant again—caught up in his own psycho-codependency or something where he wanted everyone to like him and everything to be fine. But you know what? I wasn’t going to like him. Not now, not ever. And it was never going to get better.
So he needed to deal with it somewhere else. What’s done was done, and that’s that. Showing up all the time, trying to make me feel happy or something was certainly not going to fix anything.
I opened the outside door to the gym and limped inside.
“Cindy, please…”
This time, I did whirl around just as he came into the building. Ouch. “Cindy?” How did he know my real name? My mom’s name. No one knew that name. Not even Maxton, and he knew me back when my mom was still alive.
Bryant must’ve taken my facing him as a good sign because in the next second, he was holding my arm and looking at me seriously. “Will you forgive me?”
Didn’t he hear a word I just said? I lost it. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have, but I was done. Yeah, I was a little mean, but this guy was getting borderline stalkerish, and enough was enough. As in, I was completely and totally through with being reminded of everything that’d gone wrong in my life. And calling me Cindy was the last straw.
I tugged my arm away. “No, Bryant. I won’t forgive you for killing my cat! That cat was from my mom. The last gift I’d gotten from her before she died in a car accident. It just so happens that I was named after my mom, and until now, she was the only person who ever called me Cindy.”
His eyes widened in shock, and his mouth opened slightly. Thankfully, he didn’t speak, or I might’ve punched him.
“Now, if you will kindly leav
e me alone to mourn the loss of the last gift I was ever given, who was one of my best friends—and no! I don’t expect you to know anything about how awesome cats are, okay?—but she was, and now she’s gone. Because you had to speed around by my street and—”
He pulled me in for a big hug. “I’m sorry, Indy. I’m so, so sorry.”
“And then to top it all off, you come out with Cindy? Why? How?” I tried to push away, but his arms were wrapped around me too tightly. “You know what—I don’t want to know. All I care about is when this pain will stop. When will I be able to think about happy things again and just be normal?”
He said it before I could. “Never. You’ll never be the same again.”
“No.” I sniffed. And that’s when I realized why he was hugging me so tight. “Dang it. I’m crying?” I pulled away this time, and he let me go. Yep, the whole front of his shirt was wet.
Bryant Bailey made me cry. My sophomore year of high school. I hadn’t cried since my mom died. Not when I had to move into my aunt and uncle’s house and live in their creepy basement room, not when my cousins made fun of me and told me how ugly I was. And I didn’t cry when I became their stupid servant, when my aunt left me with all the chores since my cousins were too involved in after-school activities to have time to clean. And I didn’t even cry when Mrs. Wiggins, my cat died—I was too angry to cry. Yet, now here I was, standing in the school gym and crying in front of the one guy I detested most.
And then I said it—the most immature words that have ever left my mouth. “I hate you.” I cringed as soon as I said them, but they were out and they were the truth, so I looked up at him . . . and saw Bryant for possibly the first time in my life. Really saw him.
His dark eyes searched mine, long and hard, as if they were prying out every single one of my secrets. This tall, extremely good-looking dark-haired prince-type guy just stared at me. He should’ve been chasing the pretty girls at school, or working out in the weight room, or writing some amazing symphony that would make him incredibly famous, but instead, he was standing there with me. Then those worried brows of his came together and his mouth turned down a little and he spoke the words that honestly broke me. I have no idea why—but later in my creepy basement room all alone, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. For the first time in years, I let everything out.
“I hate me too,” he whispered.
And then he kissed me on the cheek, whispered “Sorry” in my ear, and then left.
CHAPTER TWO:
“Indy, get up!”
I rolled over in bed and attempted not to groan out loud. I felt like I’d been hit by a semi-truck. And my pounding head wasn’t helping.
“Indy! What’s taking you so long? Get up here now!” Aunt Clarise was in a mood today.
Sitting up, I moved my matted hair off my face and then rubbed my eyes until I could see the alarm clock. Nine twenty. No! I never slept in that late on Saturdays! I jumped up and then winced when the pain in my head bounced around my skull. Good grief. Slowly, I lay back down and brought the covers over my head.
I hated crying hangovers. I’d totally forgotten what they felt like until that moment, but they were bad. It was like you’d literally cried out every single tear in your body until you’d dehydrated yourself or something—I didn’t know. I just knew my headache was the stuff nightmares were made of.
“Indy! If you don’t get your butt up here this second, you’ll be grounded again!”
Wasn’t I already grounded? I took a few deep breaths and attempted to think straight. My pillow was soft, the covers were warm, my cat was dead, and I couldn’t care less about chores right now. I just couldn’t.
When I heard Clarise’s feet pounding down the stairs, I admit, I kind of freaked. My heart clenched, and I burrowed deeper into the covers. Perhaps if I pretended to be asleep…
“Indy Ella Zimmerman, you will get up this instant and go upstairs. Have you seen the state of this house? Did you do anything last night? Anything at all? Because I can tell you right now—nothing was done! Our dinner dishes are still on the table. There’s food all over the place, and pots and pans. That floor hasn’t been swept or mopped, and we’re not even going to talk about the living room right now. It’s a disaster! Clothes, shoes, papers—everywhere!”
She whipped the covers off me, and a whoosh of cold air invaded my happy place. I attempted to blink awake for real now, but her shouting only increased the pounding in my head. Everything hurt so much.
“What’s wrong with you?” I could tell she was close to losing it. “You’d better not be sick! I don’t have time for you to be sick today! I’ve got people coming over at noon, remember? For my presentation. This house better look marvelous. Do you understand? I will take away every privilege you have if you just lie there and pretend to be sick.”
“Fine,” I mumbled as I tried to sit up again. I actually made it upright and even opened my eyes, but the heaviness inside—that intense need to lie back down—took over, and I slumped back into bed. “I’ll do it before twelve.” I could hear the slurring in my words. “I promise. I’m not feeling good right now.”
Clarise stood there and tapped on the dresser, her long fingernails tick-ticking on the green wooden surface. I wasn’t sure what she was debating, but she finally said, “You look awful too. You didn’t come up for dinner last night. Maybe I don’t want you touching our dishes until you feel better—I don’t want whatever disease you’re spreading. Especially since I’m doing a presentation on healthy essential oils.”
I held my breath. I’d never known her to actually give me a break. She was usually positive I was lying about something and never believed a word I said. In an odd, almost motherly moment, I felt the bedspread flip back over me before Clarise went upstairs. It was strangely soothing and nice. As if . . . as if . . . urgh. Everything hurt too much to try to find a suitable analogy. There wasn’t one.
I was her younger sister’s daughter. The younger sister she never got along with. The one who was—as Clarise would put it—“too lazy to ever be human, or likeable.” Apparently, I looked just like my mom, and Clarise was stuck with me and—until recently—the dreaded cat, too. My dad left when my mom was still pregnant with me, and I never met him. Mom got divorced before she was even showing. To this day, all I have is a name, Ryan Alysop, the guy she was married to for less than a year.
Mom never really dated anyone after that—I think he sort of broke her. Instead, she went to work full time, doing everything she could to support us both. Even though Mom was successful, she had a lot of past debts my dad had left behind, including a car that had been in her name that he took too. The cops never found that car, and Mom still had to make the payments.
It wasn’t exactly easy for her, though I learned most of this from my aunt and grandma after Mom died—she’d always kept the worst parts hidden from me. Sometimes late at night when I try to imagine what she must’ve gone through—single, alone, heartbroken, scared, with several bills and a tiny baby to look after—I can’t breathe. I never saw that side. Maybe my mom wasn’t human—maybe Clarise was right—but I grew up knowing I was a princess. That I was loved and cared for. Mom taught me about helping others and sharing what I have with friends and always, always to smile through trials. She tried so hard to instill all of that, and for a while, I was her Cindy Ella, or her happy Cinderella princess, as she used to call me. My life was poofy pink dresses and sunshine and balloons and blissful walks and feeding ducks at the park—all of it. I was loved, secure, and cheerful. My life was a fairy tale, and I was the star.
Everything was so good.
And then she was gone.
One stupid, ugly car accident when I was ten, and my beautiful, courageous mother was gone. And in that split second, my bright world turned black, and everything I thought I knew changed in an instant. Aunt Clarise was so grief-stricken and angry, all she did was berate my mom. I’d hear her chewing out her dead sister for hours. It was like everything she ever want
ed to say came out. In full force. I’d like to believe Clarise didn’t know I could hear her, that when she drank too much and spoke too loudly, she thought I was fast asleep downstairs. But I wasn’t. I heard everything she said.
I couldn’t sleep for weeks after Mom had gone. I cried and cried and cried. It messed me up more than I was willing to admit, and honestly, I didn’t know if I’d ever fully recover.
When I woke up again, it was after one, and I was starving. I could hear the muffled sounds of my aunt’s voice and women laughing. Her presentation was still going on, and she’d be ticked if I showed my haggard face anywhere near her friends.
I rolled onto my back, brought the covers up under my chin, and looked around the sparse room. When I first moved there, in an attempt to be generous, Clarise had said I could decorate it any way I wanted to so it would feel like home.
But I was ten, it didn’t feel like home, and I was too sad to attempt to decorate anything. I didn’t even know what I’d want to do with it. It had been so long since the offer, I was too afraid to ask if I could still change it up.
It’d been used as a storage room, so it was the afterthought of the large home. The walls were white—though with the small basement window above my bed, they looked more gray than anything. There never was adequate sunlight, which was fine with me—it sort of suited my mood. I had brought very little from my house. Everything we had—dolls and all—was sold to pay for the funeral and other expenses.
The creepiest part were the pipes that ran along the side of the ceiling. They tended to make strange sounds at unexpected times during the day and night, though I didn’t realize what was making the sounds at first. It took a couple of years before I pinpointed the pipes. Now the odd banging or rushing of water only startled me when I was thinking too much.
My throat was dry, and my stomach grumbled. Dang. I was hungry. I figured it’d been at least twenty-four hours since I last ate. Cautiously, I climbed out of bed, and was surprised that my pounding headache seemed to have faded a bit after my nap. It was more of a solid, workable headache than the horrid thing it had been. I scrounged around in my backpack, found a half-full water bottle, and guzzled it down. Then I rummaged through my dresser and came up with a sleeve of Ritz crackers I’d stashed there a few weeks ago.