Hometown Cinderella

He said that as if it were entirely Eden’s fault and made her feel the need to justify herself.

“I was working on another case before Christmas and then I had to get back to Hawaii to pack up my house—my whole life really—and arrange to get everything here. I just arrived this morning, driving my car behind the moving van. I had to wait for the truck to be unloaded and as soon as it was, I came here because I know this needs to get underway. If there was too much of a rush to wait for me, you could have had someone else do this for you. It isn’t even my official job anymore, I’ve quit to do other things and only agreed to do this one last case because I’d be in Northbridge anyway and it seemed dumb to make anyone else come in to do it.”

“You are the authority on dumb,” he said under his breath.

No, he hadn’t forgotten a thing….

“And I suppose,” he added facetiously before she could respond to his comment, “that you aren’t curious about any of this yourself.”

Not even disgust disguised the suppleness of lips that were perfectly shaped.

“Of course I’m curious,” Eden said. “I have a personal interest—this is my grandmother. The woman who ran out on my grandfather and abandoned my father and my uncle when they were little boys. And then to think that there’s any possibility that she’s actually been here, that I could have run into her at some point or even know her? Yes, I’m anxious to do this job and see who my grandmother might be. But what I’m saying is—”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying—that there’s something in it for you but that we should still be grateful to have you.”

He might not be hard on the eyes but he definitely wasn’t going to make this easy.

“No, what I’m saying is that I got here as soon as I could but if that wasn’t good enough, you didn’t need to wait for me.”

“Apparently we did,” he nearly sneered.

Again Eden reminded herself that he had cause to dislike her and bypassed his less-than-subtle display of it. “Well, I’m here now and I’ll get this done. Although probably not before Wednesday because I’ll need a day to get myself organized enough to find the box with my equipment and software—”

“I’m just glad to hear you don’t want to do it this minute. I’d like to get home.”

In other words, he didn’t care about her explanation, he only wanted this meeting finished.

Eden was more than willing to oblige him—a feast for the eyes or not, she was hardly enjoying this.

“I’ve seen what I came to see, I think we’re done here,” she informed him.

“Does that mean I’m dismissed?”

“It just means we’re done for now,” she said with a weary sigh.

“Good,” he decreed, walking out of the small room just like that. Without another word or a backward glance.

Maybe he had some of that stuff fourteen years ago coming, Eden thought, losing her patience as she trailed behind to return to the outer office.

He put on his coat in silence.

Eden put on her coat in silence.

And they both arrived at the door at the same time.

“After you,” he said none too nicely, sweeping a long arm toward the station entrance.

Eden took a breath and held it in order to stay her tongue, preceding him out the door and paying him no attention as she went to her compact car parked in the small lot behind the police station.

Of course, as luck would have it, she was nose to nose with his SUV.

Eden pretended not to notice.

He started his engine.

She started her engine.

And they both arrived at the lot exit at the same time.

Eden motioned for Cam to go ahead of her.

He did, turning right onto South Street.

Eden turned right onto South Street.

He went past Main Street and so did she.

He turned right three blocks after that.

And so did she.

“Oh, don’t tell me…” She moaned a split second before he pulled into one side of the double driveway she shared with her next-door neighbor to the north and she pulled into the other side.

Neck and neck they drove to the matching garages that were separated from each other by mere feet at the rear of the properties.

Eden came to a stop in front of hers.

Cam stopped in front of what was apparently his.

Eden got out of her car.

Cam got out of his SUV.

And they arrived at the rear of their vehicles at the same time.

“You live next door?” she asked, trying to keep her distaste out of her voice. And failing.

He arched an eyebrow. “Nobody told you?”

“No. In fact, I was told someone named Poppazitto owned that house.”

“Right. But I’m renting the place from the Poppazittos with an option to buy when the lease expires in two months.”

“So we’re neighbors,” Eden said, lamenting the fact more to herself than to him.

“Neighbors, but not friends,” he countered, turning on his heel and once again presenting his back to her as he walked away.

And even if it was a very, very fine back, Eden had to fight the inordinate urge to pick up a rock and aim for it.

Chapter Two

Cam had done his usual morning workout before he’d gone on duty. But he knew if he didn’t work off some of what Eden Perry had riled up in him he’d never be able to relax, let alone sleep that night. So about eight o’clock he went out the back door of his house and braved the cold January air to cross his yard to the garage.

Both his and Eden’s houses and garages had originally been built by identical twin brothers who had designed the ranch-style houses and the garages to be as much alike as the brothers themselves. Which meant that both garages were single-car sized with a second story containing very small studio apartments. Each apartment was comprised of an open space for a combined living room-bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a bare-basics kitchen made up of a few cupboards, a sink and a section that could accommodate a refrigerator and a stove.

Cam had had plans to buy the house, garage and apartment at the end of his lease, figuring to eventually add the now-missing stove and refrigerator, and rent the place to a college kid for some extra income. Until then, it was a decent spot for his weights and other gym equipment.

But after spending even a small amount of time that afternoon with Eden Perry he thought he should reconsider buying the place at all and being right next door to her indefinitely.

He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to even live out the next two months of the lease so near to Her Royal Highness The Mighty Forensic Artist.

He slung the towel he’d brought with him over the stand that held his weights, and stripped off his sweats so he was only in gym shorts and a T-shirt. Then he started to do his second warm-up of the day, hoping that exercise would get Eden Perry out of his head. Because that’s where she’d been since the first minute he’d set eyes on her at the station today.

If there were any justice in the world, he thought as he stretched his calf muscles, she would have stayed looking the way she had when she was a teenager—hair that had been such a bright orange and so stick-out-everywhere curly that it had looked as if it belonged on a clown wig, glasses as thick as the bottoms of mayonnaise jars, braces imprisoning crooked teeth, bad skin and a body that had been as flat as a pancake with only knobby knees and pointy elbows to give her any shape at all.

Her homeliness had helped him make it through that miserable time he’d had to spend with her fourteen years ago. He’d figured that it served her right, that it was a warning of what was below the surface—foul on the outside, foul on the inside. It had seemed fitting.

But now?

Hell, now she was so damn gorgeous his mouth had nearly dropped open when she’d stopped at the end of that hallway coming back into the office.

And that didn’t seem fair….

Sufficiently warmed up, he got down on the floor for sit-ups. But that still didn’t allow him an escape from thinking about Eden Perry.

Her hair wasn’t orange anymore, now it was the color of Colorado’s red rocks when they were drenched with spring rain—a deep, warm, fresh lobster hue. And the kinky curl? That had calmed down to thick, shiny waves that fell to her shoulders.

It didn’t frame a splotchy, zitty face any longer, either. Her teenage blemishes had cleared and what she had left was skin like the petals of a pale pink rose. Dewy, soft-looking skin over high cheekbones, a delicate nose and a facial structure that had somehow blossomed into a kind of subtle elegance.

Damn her, anyway.

The braces had apparently done their job, too, because her teeth were straight. And gleaming white behind lips that were no longer chapped and uninviting. Lips that had the barest blush to them and were anything but uninviting….

He picked up the speed on the sit-ups.

But no matter how fast and furious he did them, the mental image of Eden kept assaulting him.

He’d been shocked to see her eyes. He guessed he’d never noticed them when they’d been hidden behind the lenses of her glasses. But when she’d raised them to him that afternoon? It had been hard to believe he could have ever missed them. They were blue—like a clear summer sky—but they were like looking at that clear blue sky through frosted crystal. They almost seemed transparent. And coupled with that hair? Geez, she was a knockout.

He flipped over and started doing push-ups even faster than he’d done sit-ups, counting them aloud in hopes that that would distract him from thinking about Eden. From picturing her.

But did it?

No, it didn’t. At number thirty-one it occurred to him that that was Eden’s age. And that her thirty-one-year-old body was better than it had been, too. Not centerfold better, but definitely better enough that he hadn’t been aware of her elbows or knees. Instead he’d noticed that she was a tight, compact little package, with just enough up-front. Just enough to draw his interest. More than once.

Yeah, if Eden Perry wasn’t the transformation of the century, he didn’t know what was.

On the outside.

But what about the inside? That probably hadn’t changed, he thought with some satisfaction.

The satisfaction was short-lived, however, because when he tried to think of how her bad disposition had displayed itself he couldn’t come up with anything.

He’d been the one with the bad disposition today. She hadn’t acted the way she had when they were teenagers, and he reluctantly—very reluctantly—admitted that.

Of course she also hadn’t been warm and friendly.

But then neither had he.

He’d been rude and obnoxious, if the truth be told. And she hadn’t even shot back at him.

How come? he wondered suddenly.

That sure as hell wasn’t the old Eden Perry. The old Eden Perry would have shot first. And barring that, she would certainly have returned fire. Hell, the Eden Perry he’d known would have mounted a savage counterattack.

But the Eden Perry he’d known had also been sixteen years old, he thought—again for no reason he understood. Sixteen years old and as ugly as a mud fence. And this Eden Perry wasn’t either of those things anymore.

So, what if she also wasn’t the rude, mouthy, insulting, aggravating nightmare she’d been before, either?

That would be hard to believe!

But somehow the possibility slowed his push-ups and eventually brought them to a stop.

Was it possible Eden Perry was different outside and inside? he asked himself as he moved on to the weight bench for a few biceps curls.

Eden Perry different…

Huh.

Did he buy that? Did he buy the all-business version she’d been today? Kind of wooden but not nasty or mean-spirited or bitchy?

He didn’t know. He supposed that he could concede that she might—just might—have learned to curb her tongue in the course of growing up.

But so what? he asked himself. Did that mean that she thought of him any differently than she had when they were kids?

Probably not.

And given that, did he want anything more to do with her than he had when he’d been expecting that sharp tongue to fly out and cut him like a razor blade?

No, he didn’t.

Even if she was something pretty eye-popping to look at.

He’d still keep his distance, thanks just the same, he thought.

Because eye-popping or not, better behaved or not, there was one thing Eden Perry had made clear enough to him when she was sixteen—she thought he was an idiot.

And the last thing he needed—or wanted—was to be within a hundred yards of any woman who thought of him as someone dumber than a doorknob.

No matter how she looked.

But damn, Eden Perry did look good….

Eden had changed her clothes and gone right to work on her bedroom when she returned from the police station.

By about 8:30 that night she had located her mattress pad, sheets, blankets, pillows and quilt, and made her bed so she would have a place to sleep. She’d hung shades and curtains on both bedroom windows and put most of her clothes in the closet. She’d filled the underwear drawer of her dresser and unpacked all the toiletries she would need to start the next day.

And while it may have been only 8:30, she’d been up since before dawn, driven for two hours to reach Northbridge, overseen the three movers unloading her things, and then she’d had that unpleasant encounter with Cam Pratt before laboring all evening, too. She was tired and hungry and ready to drop.

So she went into the kitchen in search of food, grateful that her sister Eve had stocked it with a few things to tide her over until she could do some shopping.

Weaving through boxes stacked everywhere, including on her kitchen table, she opened the refrigerator. Eggs, butter and cream for her coffee were its sole occupants.

She hadn’t located her pots and pans yet but she knew where to find a bowl so she could scramble an egg in the microwave. But she decided to check the pantry first.

Bread, cheese puffs—her sister knew her well—and Chinese noodle soup already in its own microwavable cup.

She opted for the soup because it was the simplest of all to prepare.

With cup in hand, she went to the sink to fill it with water. When she reached the sink her gaze automatically drifted out the window above it and went instantly to the garages nestled so close together in back.

Only it wasn’t her own garage that caught her attention. It was Cam Pratt’s. Specifically, the light that was shining through the undraped window in the space over the garage.

She knew that that space in her own outbuilding was a makeshift apartment. She intended to use it as an art studio. But she didn’t know if it was also an apartment in the other garage and if that was rented out, too, to someone other than Cam Pratt.

So she stood rooted to the spot, staring at the large rectangular window that matched hers, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was up there.

She didn’t have long to wait.

Within moments she saw Cam Pratt cross in front of the window and go to some kind of bar that seemed to be jammed into the doorway that led to what would have been the bathroom in her unit.

Because she was looking from a ground floor level through a second floor window, she could only see the top portions of the above-the-garage room and of the man who was in it. But that was enough to give her a glimpse of him from behind, reaching long, well-muscled arms upward and grasping the bar—palms towards him—in his huge hands.

As she watched, he began to use the bar to do pull-ups and with each one his full back and waist came into view.

Now that she knew she didn’t have yet another neighbor, what went on in that room shouldn’t have been of any further interest to Eden. But she couldn’t seem to tear herself away. Or so much as look at anything else. Instead, she stayed right where she was, eyes trained on that second floor window in the distance.

Cam was wearing a plain white T-shirt that clung damply to his broad shoulders and the V of his back where it narrowed to his waist. And although the shirt concealed the details of what it encased, the powerful swell of his arms from the short sleeves gave her a clue as to what was going on within the shirt, too. And it was noteworthy.

She was aware that cops were encouraged to keep in shape and apparently Cam Pratt took that seriously. Because he was in very, very good shape as he raised and lowered himself from that bar at the same rate her heart was beating. As if they were somehow in sync.

Up and down. Up and down. Her eyes lingered on that back. On those biceps flexing, bulging within glistening skin that seemed barely able to contain them. Up and down and up again…

The man had stamina, she’d give him that.

Stamina and strength and a fabulous physique that she had some kind of irrational urge to get closer to. To touch. To test for herself if those muscles were as solid and unyielding as they looked.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself firmly.

Because regardless of how he looked, he had two strikes against him and she was determined not to forget either of them. Not only had he been a bear to her that afternoon in response to a history that she would rather forget—strike one—but he was a cop. Strike two. And she didn’t want anything to do with another cop. Or with anything that put her anywhere near cops or crime or criminals.

No, doing this age progression of her long-lost grandmother was going to be her last foray into that world and then Eden was finished with it.

Absolutely finished.

But still, there Cam was, and if chin-ups were a televised sport she thought he would have been the star of the show.

Soup. Make the soup….

But did she?

No, she didn’t. Instead she went on being engrossed in the sight of Cam Pratt exercising, feeling warmer and warmer herself….

He’s a cop, you know what that means. And he’s a jerk, too….

But a jerk with a body of steel….

She’d just watch three more….

Three. Four.

Five.

Six.

Eight.

Ten…

She was still watching when he stopped. And she went on looking even when his big hands dropped from the bar. Even when he moved out of sight. And for a few minutes after that her eyes continued to be glued to that window. Waiting. Holding her breath.

Until she realized what she was doing.

She was tired, she told herself then. She hadn’t been mesmerized by watching Cam Pratt do chin-ups, she’d just hit some kind of wall of fatigue that had put her in a zombielike trance for a few minutes.

That’s all it was.

A night’s rest and she’d be impervious to that same display. She was sure of it.

She finally turned on the hot water and filled her soup cup.

Okay, so yes, when she had, she did glance out the window again. Once. Long enough to see that Cam had left the garage apartment and was on his way back to his house, dressed in faded red sweatpants and a white hooded sweatshirt now.

But the instant she saw him look in her direction she jolted backward, hoping he hadn’t caught her gawking at him through her kitchen window.

“And if he did see you, that’s what you get,” she chastised herself as she headed for the microwave.

The microwave wasn’t where she wanted it—it was just on the counter where the movers had left it. But she wasn’t going to reposition it tonight, so she merely jabbed the button to open the door.

The door didn’t respond and she stared at it, wondering if the oven had been broken in transit.

It actually took her a moment to drag her thoughts far enough away from the mental image of Cam Pratt that was still haunting her to figure out that the microwave wasn’t plugged in.

“Oh, brother, you better snap out of this,” she advised herself as she plugged in the appliance.

Then she put her soup cup inside and started the oven.

And that was when everything went dark.

With a weary sigh she returned to the window over the sink to see if more than her lights had gone out. They hadn’t, the lights in the alley behind the garage were still on so the blackout wasn’t a power outage. She’d only overloaded her own circuits.

She should have known better. Just about every light in the house had been on, her stereo had been playing, the iron was plugged in, so was her electric drill, and trying to use the microwave on top of it all must have tripped the breaker. Or blown a fuse—whichever the old house was equipped with.

Which she didn’t know. Any more than she knew where the breaker box or fuse box was located.

The only illumination in the house was coming from the alley lights and it was next to nothing. She owned a flashlight but she didn’t have a clue where it was and without it there was no way she would ever see the box in the basement or the attic or wherever it was.

She needed help. At the very least she needed someone to tell her where the main panel was. But who could she call to ask?

Her sister Eve was her first thought but she knew Eve was in Billings until the next day chauffeuring their grandfather.

Her cousins weren’t likely to know anything about a house none of them had ever lived in, and the previous owners had left the state immediately after the closing by proxy.

Maybe the Realtor would know.

Stumbling over packing containers and things she’d pulled out and left on the floor, she finally found her cell phone. But when she used it to dial the number she had programmed for the Realtor she only got a voice mail message that Betty would not be available Monday or Tuesday.

Which seemed to leave Eden with only one alternative.

Her house and the house next door were exactly alike.

Surely the breaker box or the fuse box was located in the same place.

And not only would Cam Pratt know where that was, he would probably have a flashlight she could borrow to find it.

Cam Pratt.

Again.

“This is just not my day,” Eden grumbled.

Maybe she should forget eating and go to bed, she thought, desperate for any other alternative. She could search the place in the morning, in the daylight.

But it was the dead of winter. In Montana. And already she could feel the temperature in the house cooling without any heat coming from the furnace. An entire night without heat could freeze the pipes. The pipes could burst. The place could flood.

Not a good thing.

So it was going to have to be the lesser of two evils and that was Cam Pratt.

Eden sighed and grumbled some more.

But in the end she resigned herself to having to ask for help.

From the monster she’d created.

Chapter Three

Before she could force herself to go next door and ask for Cam Pratt’s help with her electrical outage, Eden decided that if she was going to have to be seen, she had to make sure she wasn’t too unsightly.

After returning home from the police station she’d put on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeved thermal-knit T-shirt so she’d be comfortable to work around the house. Since the clothes weren’t revealing, she decided not to change back into what she’d been wearing that afternoon.

But when it came to her face and hair? If she’d been about to meet up with anyone other than Cam Pratt she probably would have gone as she was—face scrubbed clean, hair stuck in an untidy ponytail.

Only she wasn’t meeting up with anyone else and she just couldn’t go without reapplying blush and mascara using her purse compact and the glow of the moon coming through her bedroom window.

Hating herself for her vanity, she also took her hair down from the ponytail, brushed it, and then pulled it to her crown once again, this time holding it with a clip rather than a plain rubber band.

Nothing fancy, she judged upon final inspection in the compact mirror, but passable.