Cinderella's Midnight Kiss

She’d already broken the handle off one of the cups and had spent far too much valuable time on the phone to Greensboro to see if the china replacement center could match the pattern. Lucky for her it could.

Unlucky for her, it would cost her an arm and a leg, plus a drive to Greensboro at her own expense.

“Cindy, did you call the florist?”

“They’re coming tomorrow to go over final plans.”

“Cindy, is my dress back from the cleaner?”

“Be here in about an hour.”

“Cindy, for goodness sake, I told you to air out my luggage! It smells like mildew!”

“It was cloudy when I got up, so I thought I’d better wait. If it doesn’t clear up, I’ll open all your cases and put them up in my room—that’s always dry.” And hot as Hades, as the attic wasn’t air-conditioned.

The wedding was still days away, and already the guest rooms were filled with family here for the occasion, plus Steff’s two attendants, both former college classmates. Cindy had run her legs right down to the nub trying to get all the rooms aired and made up, and all the china and crystal, which had to be hand washed and dried, ready for the rehearsal party, which had gone from a simple buffet to a combination ball and banquet.

Mac’s folks were supposed to host the party but this was Aunt S.’s first wedding, and she was pulling out all the stops. What had started out to be a small, elegant home wedding was rapidly turning into a three-ring circus, in Cindy’s estimation. A small thing like wedding protocol never stopped Aunt S.

All that in addition to trying to keep up with the ordinary demands of a demanding family, and Cindy was pooped. Just plain frazzled. And it was barely midafternoon, with three days to go until the wedding, after which there would be all the undoing and cleaning-up-after.

It was a good thing she was used to it, else she might have blown her redheaded stack.

“One of these days,” she muttered, catching a glimpse of a cupcake wrapper under the hall table. One of these days she would have enough saved up to move out, and this would all seem like a crazy dream.

Meanwhile, it was a good thing she had the hide of an elephant and the backbone of a—well, whatever had the strongest backbone, which was what it took to survive when you had only yourself to depend on.

“Cynthia, have you been messing with my roses again?” Lorna Stephenson called out from the back parlor, where she was currently nursing a headache with a lavender-water-soaked cloth and a glass of medicinal brandy.

“No, ma’am, I haven’t. I think Charlie was playing ball out there earlier, though. You might mention it to his mother.”

If Cindy had had her way, she would have cut every flower in the yard and begged more from the neighbors, and done the wedding flowers herself. At least that way Aunt S.’s precious roses would be appreciated instead of trampled underfoot by a six-year-old hellion who didn’t know the meaning of the word no.

But Aunt S. preferred the stiff, formal arrangements of the local florist over Cindy’s big, cheerful armfuls of whatever happened to be blooming, all intertwined with wild honeysuckle and flowering blackberry vines.

Three days and counting. The house was gleaming. Cindy unexpectedly felt a surge of nostalgia—either that or the half sandwich she’d grabbed on the run for lunch hadn’t settled properly.

Well, no, it was nostalgia, because while indigestion made her stomach burn, it didn’t make her throat ache and her nose turn red. And after all, it was some sort of milestone, she supposed. The courtesy cousin she had practically grown up with was about to marry and leave home. Even though they’d never gotten along particularly well, she would miss her.

The wedding gown. Oh, yes, she reminded herself as she dashed up the back stairs—she really did need to offer a bit of advice, the thing was so blessed plain!

“Steff, about your gown,” she said, rushing breathlessly into the big corner bedroom that had once been Aunt S. and Uncle Henry’s. “It needs something, don’t you think?”

“Don’t you dare touch my wedding gown! It’s a designer original!”

Steff described it as elegant. Cindy called it drab. “It won’t take much,” she said earnestly. “Just a little dab of lace at the neckline, maybe your something old? Or I have some white velvet roses, the really good kind, not the junk from the craft store. I could sort of arrange them—”

“No.”

“You’ll need something borrowed, and they’d look super at the waist. You probably wouldn’t even need to bother with a bouquet.”

Steff rolled her eyes, and Cindy flushed. She knew what they all thought of her hats, even though she’d explained they were only working designs and that the real models, when she could afford to make them, would be far more beautiful “I just thought I’d offer to…you know. Help perk it up a bit.”

It was probably fortunate that Aunt S. called upstairs at that moment. “Cin-dee!”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m coming.”

It was Charlie again. He hadn’t been invited, but his mother, lacking a baby-sitter, had brought him along anyway. Cindy was right on his heels as he went whooping and hollering down the front stairs. Charlie was quick as a weasel, out the front door before she could grab onto his shirttail.

“Go on outside and don’t come in again until he’s thoroughly worn out,” ordered Aunt S., who was of the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard school of child-rearing.

Cindy’s sympathies were with Charlie. She’d been only slightly older than he was now when she’d first met her courtesy aunt. Old enough to recognize a dragon in a black silk dress, but not old enough to deal with one. Little had changed since then.

They played ball until Charlie smacked one into the rose garden, then they switched to guess what color car passes by next. It was a slow game. At this time of day, there wasn’t much traffic.

“Hey, a squirrel! I’m gonna catch him and put him in a box and take him home!”

“Charlie, leave that animal alone, he’s got teeth that can—Charlie!”

The car came around the curve so fast there was no time to think. Cindy practically flew forward, tackling the heedless child and rolling them both into the azalea hedge across the street.

“Idiot! You blooming idiot!” she screeched at the driver of the luxury car, which had swerved to the curb and come to a tire-squealing stop. Breathless, she was still sprawled across Charlie’s body when the car door swung open and one long, khaki-clad leg emerged.

“Hey, you’re squashing me,” Charlie protested. At least he was still in one piece. Just to be sure, she quickly felt his arms and legs before allowing him to squirm away from her. “You wait right there. Don’t you dare move an inch from this spot,” she warned, and such was her tone of voice that the child gulped and nodded.

“But you scared that old squirrel away,” he accused. Pale, on the verge of tears, he was determined not to let on how frightened he was.

Cindy, still on her hands and knees, was torn between hugging him and shaking some sense into him. “Good thing I did,” she growled. “He’d have bitten your finger off and likely died of food poisoning.”

Struggling stiffly to her feet, she caught her breath as pain sliced through her from an assortment of minor ailments. Gravelly asphalt and hard, rocky earth weren’t exactly kind to tender flesh, even when wearing jeans. She’d raked the skin off both knees and the heels of both hands.

“You little fool, don’t you know any better than to run out into the street without looking?” a man’s voice said. “Wait—don’t move, you might be hurt.”

Fear caught up with Charlie and he began to sob just as Cindy opened her mouth to let fly with a few choice phrases. She closed it again in deference to tender young ears. Charlie didn’t need his already impressive vocabulary expanded. Fortunately she’d had years of practice in the art of swallowing her temper.

The reckless fool from the car had his hands on her thigh. “Stop that! Don’t you know any better than to drive like a bat out of he—heck in a residential neighborhood?” Eyes blazing, she went to shove him away.

“Stand still. Oh, God, your hands are bleeding.” Manacling her wrists, he lifted them for a closer look.

Cindy peered at her stinging palms, then lifted accusing eyes to his face. “You were—”

Oh, no. Oh, please no, not him!

“You’re right. I was driving too fast. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me, tell that poor child you nearly ran down!”

“Can you bend your knee?”

She’d already flexed both knees. They stung like the very devil, but at least they both worked.

“You didn’t hit your head, did you?” He had the kind of voice that ought to be labeled hazardous to a woman’s health. Or her whatever. It set off nerves she didn’t even know she had, and that was saying a lot, because at the moment most of her nerves were busy registering acute pain.

Charlie was sniffling, clinging to her thigh and wiping his nose on the leg of her jeans. She gave the star of a thousand daydreams one long, glowering look and jerked her hands free of his grasp.

This was not the way she’d planned it. She’d planned to be wearing her yellow cotton, with her hair in a French braid, with eye shadow and lipstick and enough powder to disguise her freckles.

Instead she was standing here in thin, worn out jeans, every trembling cell in her body awash with pain and embarrassment, not to mention fright and the dregs of an ancient crush. “Oh…blast!” she cried. Sweeping Charlie up in her arms, she marched across the street, leaving John Hale Hitchcock staring after her.

Actually, march didn’t exactly describe it. Charlie was a lot heavier than he looked, and her hip hurt. She’d already given it a good workout what with the wedding and all the extra work and chasing after Charlie. A five-yard dash followed by a flying tackle hadn’t helped matters.

Hitch stared after the woman he’d nearly run down. Something about that wild red hair and that stubborn little chin snagged at his memory, but he couldn’t quite place her. Not too surprising, since it had been years since he’d last visited Mocksville. She’d royally chewed him out, and with just cause. He had been speeding. The signs said 35. He’d been doing at least 45. The stop-off at his parents’ place still had his gut tied in knots. After all these years, you’d think he’d have learned how to deal with the doubts, the frustrated feeling of being a kid who’d done something unforgivable. The feeling that he was somehow responsible for the fact that his parents would rather retreat to their separate studies than spend five minutes with their only son.

One of these days he’d wise up and stop trying. They had his phone number, in case they should ever want to reach him.

Hitch sat in the car for several minutes, still shaken, before starting the engine and creeping the remaining few yards to the MacCollums’ driveway. He owed the little firebrand an apology. If she hadn’t been right on the kid’s heels when he burst out of the hedge, Hitch would have struck him, sure as the world. It was a wonder he hadn’t hit them both, driving with his mind on other matters. At that speed, he’d have passed right by Mac’s place without even slowing down.

He’d have to check on her later, to be sure she wasn’t seriously hurt. She’d been limping when she’d disappeared into the Stephensons’ house next door. Mac might know who she was—a pint-size redhead with blazing blue eyes and a tongue like a whipsaw. A wedding guest, maybe. Possibly a baby-sitter. Whoever she was, she deserved a proper apology, and before he left town he would see that she got one.

A day later, Hitch was actually beginning to unwind. In the process of putting in a couple of killer years trying to get his business up and running, he’d nearly forgotten how to relax.

The MacCollums taught him all over again. No way could anyone stand on ceremony in a house that was casual to the point of sloppiness, in which meals were taken in the big family kitchen with everyone wanting to know all about his business, and what it was, exactly, that an industrial engineer did, and how his folks, who lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, were getting along. And incidentally, when he was going to settle down and raise a family. Knowing that the MacCollums’ interest was prompted by genuine caring, Hitch couldn’t resent it.

The friendly inquisition eased off whenever a friend or neighbor would drop in. Someone would bring over a watermelon or a bucket of tomatoes or a basket of figs, and talk would shift to the wedding and Mac’s ski resorts, and where the happy couple planned to live.

Mac spent as much time as possible at the Stephensons’ house with his fiancée. The poor guy was besotted. Steff spent considerably less time at the MacCollums’ place. Hitch wished them both well, but didn’t hold out much hope for a long and happy union.

“Who’s the redhead next door?” he asked Mac after the last straggler had left. “If I remember correctly, Mary—or Marnie?—had dark hair.”

“You mean Maura. Yeah, she does, only she’s got it all streaked up with blond now. Ask me, it was better the way it was, but you know women.”

Actually, Hitch didn’t. At least, not beyond a certain point. “Redhead. About yea high.” He gestured appropriately. “Blue eyes a size too big for her face, freckles, pointed chin, tongue like a machete.”

Mac chuckled. “You must’ve tangled with Cindy. She’s been in high gear ever since Mrs. S. talked Steff into having a simple home wedding instead of using the church and the club.”

From the level of activity next door, all the vans coming and going, simple was the last word Hitch would have used to describe it. “Cindy who? Cindy what?”

“Danbury. Lorna Stephenson was a Danbury before she was married, so I guess Cindy’s some sort of cousin or something. Came to live with them when she was only a kid.”

“That’s why she looked so familiar,” Hitch mused. “I don’t think I ever actually met her until yesterday, when I nearly ran her down in the street.” He went on to describe the brief encounter.

“You wouldn’t have met her, she was only a kid back then, not old enough to hang around our gang. Besides, Mrs. S. kept her pretty busy. Still does. I like Cindy, she makes me laugh, and you know me—I can always use a good yuk.”

Cindy. If Hitch had ever heard her name, he couldn’t remember it. He wondered how old she was. Doing a bit of swift mental arithmetic, he figured she was at least twenty, maybe more. At first glance he’d taken her for a kid, but when she’d raised that heart-shaped little face, so pale her freckles stood out like rust spots, and sizzled him with a blast from a pair of laser blue eyes, he’d realized she was older than she looked.

“Yeah, well…I owe her an apology. Maybe I’ll get a chance to speak to her Saturday during the festivities.”

Chapter Two

At the groom’s house, the prewedding festivities went on from morning until night, from casual drop-in breakfast guests to late-night beery reminiscences. The friendly, easygoing MacCollums knew everyone in town. Pop MacCollum had been the high school football coach and Mama Mac, as she was called, a retired school teacher, was the woman people came to when they needed help, or sympathy, or simply a nonjudgmental ear.

At first Hitch, still uptight after the visit with his own parents, followed by the near miss with the redhead and the kid, had found ways of avoiding the convivial mob scene. By the second day he had unwound to the point where he was actually beginning to enjoy himself. Or at least to enjoy Mac’s enjoyment. The groom-to-be was having the time of his life, being the envy of all his male friends for having landed the most gorgeous woman in three counties.

At least they claimed to envy him, Hitch thought cynically, and it would never occur to Mac to doubt their sincerity.

At the moment, a leisurely game of croquet was under way. Maura, Hitch observed from his lawn chair in the shade of a giant magnolia, wasn’t above nudging the ball with her foot. Steff, resplendent in white silk slacks, a white silk shirt and white, high-heeled sandals, was better at striking a pose than at actually playing the game.

Mac’s besotted gaze followed her as she moved into the sunlight, which made her pale blond hair glimmer like a halo. “She’s sure something, isn’t she? I still can’t believe she’s gonna be mine.”

“Yeah, she’s something.” Without being specific, Hitch would allow that much. “Where’s Cindy?”

“Who? Oh, is that still buggin’ you? Hey, don’t sweat it, man, Cindy never held a grudge in her life.”

“All the same, I owe her an apology and I always pay my debts.”

“Know what I think?” Mac was on his third beer at half past two on a sweltering August afternoon. “I think you’ve developed a thing for freckle-faced redheads in your old age,” he teased. Mac had always been one to tease, but thanks to his unfailing good nature, no one ever took offense.

“What I’ve developed,” Hitch growled, a reluctant grin taking the edge off, “is a guilty conscience. I came down pretty hard on her, and she was completely blameless. If she hadn’t dived after that kid I could’ve hit him. I really would like to apologize and get it off my chest.”

“Man, don’t take it so serious. Cindy’s used to people yelling at her. Not that Miz S. ever actually yells, but that woman can pack a wallop without even raising her voice.”

Hitch replaced his empty bottle in the wire holder beside his chair. “Like mother, like daughter, they say. It’s not too late to back out.”

Mac sighed. “Yeah, it is. It was too late the day Steff was born. She was made for me, man, only I’ve had the devil of a time convincing her.”

Suddenly, Hitch straightened. “There she is now,” he muttered, easing his six-foot-two frame up from the low lounge chair.

Cindy spotted her target and hurried across the lawn. “Steff, you’re wanted on the phone. It’s Wade, about your hair appointment.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Where is—oh, the portable. I guess someone left it out in the back yard and the batteries ran down. Either that or Charlie got hold of it.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” the elegant blonde exclaimed.

“Problem?” inquired a quiet baritone voice.

Cindy whirled, her hip locked and she stumbled. Hitch reached out to steady her and she yanked her arm free. It was bad enough just seeing him again, so close she could see the squint lines at the corners of his slate-gray eyes, the few silver strands scattered through his thick, dark hair.

Feeling the warmth of his hard palm on her arm, it was as if someone had suddenly flushed a covey of quail where her heart was supposed to be.

She managed to say “No problem,” as she stepped back from the path through the hedge between the two houses and waited for Steff to precede her.

And waited. Phone call evidently forgotten, Steff was gazing up at Hitch through her long eyelashes and touching her hair in that way she had that Cindy, no matter how she practiced before a mirror, had never been able to accomplish.

At least, not with the same results.

“Go back and tell Wade the appointment stands,” she directed.

“I’ll tell him,” Cindy said doubtfully, “but he said if you can possibly put it off until Saturday morning—”

“Tell him I can’t, that I’m getting married Saturday, and my rehearsal ball is Friday night, and if he doesn’t do my hair Friday afternoon he’ll be sorry.”

Hitch heard it all, tried to withhold judgment for Mac’s sake and watched the little redhead’s slender shoulders rise and fall in defeat. He pitied Wade. Whoever the guy was, whatever he’d done, he was going to pay through the nose for it.

Hitch told himself if he was any sort of friend at all, he would kidnap this blond witch and hold her hostage until Mac came to his senses.

“Wait a minute, will you, Cindy?” he said when his red-haired quarry headed back through the hedge.

“Don’t have time, I left the iron on.” She had her own style of haughty, and it made Steff look like a rank amateur.

“I won’t take but a minute of your valuable time,” he said before he could check the sarcasm.

But she was gone, and he refused to chase after any woman.

Maura was strolling over to join them. Steff waved her away, sighed and touched her hair again. “Croquet is such a childish game, isn’t it? I don’t know why I bother.” Her Southern accent took on a finishing-school polish, which was absurd considering the school she’d attended, Salem College, was just over in the next county.

Hitch heard the Stephensons’ side door close quietly. Another opportunity missed. Dammit, he didn’t know why he even bothered. As soon as Mac told him who she was, he should have gone over there, spoken his piece, and by now it would be over and forgotten.

Well…maybe not forgotten. Snatches of the past were beginning to return. A redheaded waif watching wistfully from the sidelines like a kid outside a candy store window. He’d given her no more than a passing thought at the time, but now he wondered why she’d never been included.

Because she’d been just a kid? She wasn’t that much younger than Steff and Maura. Probably just naturally shy.

But it hadn’t been shyness he’d glimpsed in those blazing eyes. There’d been fear, followed swiftly by anger that first time. And pain? Yeah, that, too. He’d mentioned her limp to Mac, afraid her mad dive to escape his wheels had caused it, but Mac told him she’d always had a slight limp, especially when she’d been overdoing.

Evidently, she’d been overdoing.

Forget her, man. You told her you were sorry just after it happened. Let it go.

We’re on the final countdown, Cindy thought gleefully as she dashed up the back stairs carrying an armload of clean towels and a heavy tea tray. She was sorely tempted to tell Charlie’s mother, a second cousin whose husband owned a bank or something, that towels could be used more than once without laundering, and that there was a perfectly good kettle and a supply of tea bags in the kitchen.

Tonight was the rehearsal party. Tomorrow was the wedding, and then, glory hallelujah, it would all be over. The guests would go home, Aunt S. would leave for the mountains to recuperate, Steff and Mac would be off on their honeymoon, Maura would be getting ready to head north and conquer New York.

And as soon as she got her car running again, little Cindy would be free to go back to her regular Monday job. The job that actually paid cash instead of just room and board. Another six months and she should have reached her savings goal, if a new alternator didn’t cost too much, and then it would be goodbye Mocksville, hello world!

A few minutes later, after freeing a snagged zipper, collecting a bundle of lingerie to hand wash, a trayful of dirty dishes and an empty pizza box from the room Steff’s friends shared, she headed down the front stairway—the back one was so steep she avoided it whenever she could, even though Aunt S. always frowned to see her coming down into the front hall with a load of laundry or dirty dishes.

“Hi,” someone called softly when she was halfway down. Her carefully balanced load tilted precariously.

“Steff’s not here, but I think Maura might be around somewhere.” Maura was always around somewhere if there was a chance of seeing Hitch. Cindy had heard them talking about him last night—Steff, Maura and Steff’s girlfriends. The consensus was that he was a real catch, a certified hunk and sexier than what’s-his-name who had starred in that hit movie that Cindy had never got around to seeing.

She could have added her own opinion, but she didn’t think it would be appreciated.

“Watch it—here, let me take that tray.”

“I’ve got it,” she said, and grudgingly added her thanks.

“You need a dumbwaiter.”

It stumped her for a second, but then she blinked and said, “Oh, you mean one of those elevator gadgets. If they come in mahogany with stained glass windows, I might get Aunt S. to have one installed. She doesn’t care for modern conveniences.”