I figured I should be totally honest—this was my journal, after all, like it or not.

But if I were looking for “a little romance” ... I do have some standards, one of which is that if a guy is focused in at chest level, I’m through with him from the get-go (and he’s probably through with me too). Just sayin’ ...

P.S. Who are you?


That last part just slipped off the tip of my permanent pen, so there was no getting rid of it now. No doubt it would disappear by morning.

Then again, maybe I’d get an answer.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still sensibly opposed to chalking this craziness up to a fairy godmother, but it didn’t escape me that viable, logical explanations weren’t exactly lining up. And Jane Austen? Gimme a break!

Beck expected me to buy into the idea that Jane Austen herself was dishing out kooky romantic advice in my living room, nearly two hundred years outside her realm of expertise? That this magical Austenesque journal had somehow slipped through the fingers of collectors, historians, literary buffs, and Mr. Darcy devotees to find its way into a little antiques shop in Austin, Texas?

That last bit gave me pause. Weirder things had very probably happened in this town, I just didn’t know about them. And honestly, that made a world of difference.

I shook my head, trying, I suppose, to make sure the crazy didn’t take hold. Tipping the journal closed, I let my fingers and eyes rove over the worn cover, the scuffed and barely stained pages, and the tarnished hardware. Suddenly remembering the inscription, I flipped open the cover and reread the careful script lettering.


“... I dedicate to You the following Miscellanious Morsels, convinced that if you seriously attend to them, You will derive from them very important Instructions, with regard to your Conduct in Life.”


Okay, maybe they had a little bit of a Jane Austen vibe. But even if I caved and allowed for the possibility that just maybe some sort of Jane Austen–inspired fairy godmother had taken my journal hostage, it didn’t change anything.

Okay, maybe that was delusional. Rephrase: I didn’t plan on taking any advice or falling under anyone’s spell. No matter how many times I’d lost myself in The Collected Works, or lusted after Darcy and Knightley on page and screen, that didn’t give Fairy Jane a right to interfere in my life. The fact that I owned a copy of Dating with Jane Austen as Your Wing Woman and had tried shoehorning more than one date into an Austen character type was immaterial. I hadn’t signed up for this. I wasn’t wired for this. And it was starting to show.

And yet, even imagining the possibility that the voice in the journal belonged to Jane Austen had gone a long way toward vanquishing my B-movie fears. I felt like I could treat the situation more like a weird mystery—or a funky BBC adaptation. The ominous feeling had dissipated slightly, to be replaced by a sense of doubtful wonder.

Quite honestly, I could have used a little magical interference in my relationship with Ethan. I would have fought it tooth and nail on principle, but if I’d somehow been railroaded into submission, it could have had its advantages. By the time I’d pegged Ethan for a Willoughby—thoroughly too good to be true—he’d pegged me as obsessive-compulsive and we were done. All those plans, wasted ...

I shook myself free of thoughts of Ethan once again and drummed my fingers on the cover of the journal, certain this was not the same sort of situation at all. Ethan hadn’t been hand-picked by a journal, and our relationship hadn’t been strong-armed into submission—I’d picked him and made a mistake. It wasn’t like I was all out of chances—it was still my choice, and I wasn’t giving in to magic or a legendary reputation.

Had I really let go of logic in favor of a fairy tale? Was I just willing to accept that I’d somehow stumbled over a fairy godmother, and this was the sum total of our relationship—cryptic, mildly offensive communications regarding my profoundly unromantic life? Seriously, where were the perks that typically came with fairy godmothers? A prearranged wave of the wand here or there, and I might be able to get on board—after a requisite freak-out period. But this? This was sucker-punching me when I was already down for the count. It was bad enough that my Plan was under fire, but by magic? Fairies? That was just cruel and unusual.

I carted the journal down the hall to my room, with a vague plan of keeping an eye on it while keeping it away from my bookshelf and any questionable influences.

Five minutes later, I’d crawled into bed in a T-shirt and boxers, my toes curled up in garishly purple chenille socks and the journal clutched in my right hand.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, tried to pretend it was any other normal Friday.

That little exercise proved an utter impossibility. My very limited imagination was already under a huge amount of strain, and I worried if I pushed it much more I might crack under the pressure.

So I gave in a little. Settled against the propped pillows, my bedside lamp glowing golden, I tried to imagine an enchanted world where fairy godmothers existed with magic wands and fairy dust up their sleeves. Brownies were the solid, chocolaty base of the food pyramid, my A-cups overfloweth, and roaches worked like Roombas. I felt my lips curling into a smile as I imagined the impossible, but that entire impossible world disappeared in an instant as my eyes flashed open, and I remembered that it wasn’t the imagining but the believing that got you into trouble.

I glanced down at the journal, still tucked innocently in my hand ... the ultimate troublemaker in my once well-ordered life. What was going on in there?

Ominous horror-movie music suddenly screeched in my head, and I panicked. Wrenching open the journal, fumbling with its pages, I hurried to find my latest entry: the one about to go under the knife (or rather, the magical, mystical eraser). My heart was still pumping full throttle as my eyes flew over the page.

I slumped back against the pillow in a cathartic funk. Nothing had changed—yet. And yet, it suddenly seemed as if everything had.

This situation would be mind-blowing to someone who believed in the typical, arm-waving magical chicanery. But to a nonbeliever, a card-carrying skeptic, this went far beyond the realm of incredible, past preposterous and even inconceivable, all the way out to unthinkable. But like it or not, it was happening. As a huge fan of All Things Jane, you’d think I’d be thrilled. I wasn’t—not at all. I was skittish and restless and just a little bit nervous about having this book in bed with me.


I woke up with my fingers brushing the journal’s key plate and an undeniable need to pee. Crossing my legs under the covers, I flipped open the journal and squinted against the daylight streaming in through the sheer curtains on my bedroom window.

Rather predictably, my paragraph—my permanent ink paragraph—had disappeared, all that was left a few scattered words:


have your cake but meet him too


I huffed out the breath I’d been holding, a little vague on whether I was disappointed or relieved—I couldn’t say I wasn’t expecting this. The cheeky matchmaker was obviously here to stay, and it seemed she had no qualms about horning in on Tooth Fairy territory. Thank God I hadn’t taken Leslie’s advice and slept naked. I felt a shiver run through me and watched as goose bumps flared up all over my skin. Try not to think about it—focus on the message.

But what the hell? Have your cake but meet him too? Color me clueless. Still, I had to admit, if I was going to follow any of this journal’s wacky advice, this was as good a Morsel as any, seeing as I didn’t exactly need a reason to have cake. The “meet him too” part could get sticky, but seeing as it was anonymous—just a pronoun with no specifics—it seemed perfectly doable. Surely I’d meet someone at some point ... somewhere.

I wasn’t planning on jumping through hoops to earn brownie points with whoever was hiding in there, trying to call the shots like the Great and Powerful Oz. My life, my Plan was good just the way it was—I didn’t need any help, romantic or otherwise.

The cake would be an experiment ... and an overture. And if I was lucky, it would get me one step closer to solving this problem. I was desperate to understand what was happening here, and the fact that I was getting thwarted and outsmarted at every turn was turning the whole mess into a vendetta of sorts. I couldn’t give up on this journal until I figured a few things out. After that, I’d have no qualms about severing our connection.

I gazed down at the journal, smirking slightly. Almost immediately I remembered I was nowhere ... with no clues or leads other than cake. And perhaps a mystery man.

So much for my theory on advice by association. The journal had been tucked in with me last night, far from the influence of The Collected Works and the rest of my bookshelf, and still I was feeling an Austen vibe with this latest little snippet of advice—in fact, the voice in my head had read it with a British accent. If Fairy Jane was, in fact, the wit behind this little prank, then it was worth noting that she’d ignored my attempt to get acquainted.

Slapping the book closed and leaving it on the bed, I hurried into the bathroom, wishing I could leave it stashed at home today. No such luck. Seeing as it was Exhibit A at the antiques shop, it was going to ride shotgun and join Beck and me for a lunch of strategizing. It was going to have to wait in the car while I was at work, though.