Rising from his chair, he caught sight of a glow outside the French doors to the garden. It looked like the sparks of a fire, except the lights were winking on and off like Christmas lights.

He couldn’t make them out, but he felt a prickle on his neck—a feeling that told him he had to find out what they were. He stepped into the cold and fought the urge to shiver. The path to the moonlit garden where he’d once held a crying Amelia Ann cushioned his steps.

When he drew close enough to make out the source of the lights, he froze.

Sitting on the cast-iron bench in the garden was Amelia Ann, and she was surrounded by what seemed to be hundreds of fireflies. His steps grew more certain as he strode toward her.

She looked up and held out her gloved hands. “I don’t understand how all these fireflies can be alive. It’s freezing outside.”

His throat grew thick, and he grasped her slim hands in his own as the fireflies gathered around him, bringing him into the circle of their light.

“I do,” he said in a rough voice, meeting her gaze.

His daddy had a hand in this, and he could deny the truth no longer.

“They were guiding me back to you.”

“Oh, Clayton.”

Fairy tales, like shoes, come in all shapes and sizes. Frogs turn into princes. Princes assist ladies into glass slippers.

And now I’m back to shoes again. Shoes are comforting, right? They haven’t let me down, run around on me, or destroyed my dreams of happily ever after.

My husband never transformed into a handsome prince. He stayed quite firmly in the reptile family, a chameleon, perhaps? And I’m pretty sure that if I had ever lost a shoe—even if it were priceless, like a limited edition Manolo Blahnik—he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to find it. Why didn’t I see that he was never going to be my prince?

Modern fairy tales only exist in romance novels crafted by writers like Nora Roberts. For years, her words carried me to an enchanted place where love conquered all. And I bought into it—hook, line, and sinker. Now I need to set aside love and all of its false promises. It’s a messy business anyway.

So, I’ll…buy more shoes. No, scratch that—I’ll buy…La Perla lingerie.

I want to be a superhero now…like Divorcée Woman.

She’d know what to do after signing these papers.

Maybe an alter ego will help me regain my confidence.

After all, I already have plenty of shoes, and they’ve never helped me much anyway.