Hometown Cinderella

And she was kissing him back.

It didn’t matter that his face was stubbly after their long day’s work. It only mattered that his lips were parted and sweet, his breath was soft against her skin, his hand was firm but gentle on her face. And, oh, could the man kiss! It was no wonder he’d been so popular in high school….

Then it was over and she had to force herself not to strain for another one, to accept that that single kiss was going to be it.

For now…

Dear Reader,

Growing up the ugly-duckling brainiac of small-town Northbridge, Montana, Eden Perry was, unsurprisingly, the brunt of hurtful teasing. So when I started to think about her, I pictured a sort of victim. But that’s when things took a turn and I realized that she might have fought back. And that in fighting back, she might have struck out at someone who didn’t deserve it, and ended up feeling terribly guilty about it. Guilty enough that it might put a damper on returning to her hometown even though she looks a whole lot better than she did once upon a time. And if the person who didn’t deserve the harsh treatment she’d dished out just happened to be the drop-dead-gorgeous guy she now has to work with? Hmm, that just might have some possibilities….

That’s how Hometown Cinderella came to be. And while Eden doesn’t have the help of a fairy godmother, she could use one when it comes to facing our angry, wishes-he-never-had-to-lay-eyes-on-her-again hero. I think it makes for some fun for those of us looking in on them, though. I hope you agree.

Happy reading!

Hometown Cinderella

Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion—besides writing—is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies—the more lighthearted, the better—but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

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 One

“She’s here…”

Cam Pratt was in the break room of the police station. His shift had just ended and he’d brought his coffee mug in to wash when Luke Walker poked his head through a crack in the door to make his announcement.

Cam pumped some soap into the mug and glanced over his shoulder at his friend and fellow officer. “Who’s here?”

Luke Walker grinned. “Eden Perry.”

Cam screwed up his face and groaned. “Now?”

“Right now. She just walked in the door. She wants to take a look at the computer setup she’ll be using.”

“It’s four-thirty and you’re on duty, I’m not. You show it to her,” Cam said, hoping for an out.

“Uh-uh. You know it’s already been decided that this is your baby. Even if it means working with someone you have some leftover high school hang-up about for reasons you don’t want to say. And since I caught you before you left…”

Cam curled his upper lip like a fractious hound dog. Then he said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You won’t recognize her,” Luke threw in just before he disappeared from the doorway and closed the door.

Cam couldn’t have cared less if he recognized Eden Perry or not. The little pain-in-the-ass—

He cut his own thought short, knowing that recalling the past would only piss him off. As it did every time he thought about it. Or about Eden Perry. Every time he’d thought about her since learning before the holidays that he’d be overseeing the work of the former hometown girl and forensic artist when she arrived.

But he’d already tried convincing his superior officer to let him steer clear of this portion of an investigation that had been ongoing for months now and it hadn’t done him any good. Luke was right—this was his baby.

Whether he liked it or not.

Whether he liked Eden Perry or not.

And he didn’t like Eden Perry. Or having to be anywhere around her, let alone work with her. In fact, when he’d returned to the small town of Northbridge, Montana, two years ago, he’d been happy to learn that Eden Perry had left for college shortly after he had and had rarely even visited since then.

But apparently things had changed for her and now here she was—back to live and hired to do an age-progression of the woman who had become the focal point of an old case that also happened to be the biggest scandal ever to rock Northbridge. And, to make matters worse, Eden Perry was also his neighbor.

“Which is why you decided to try to tolerate her, remember?” he told himself as he pumped more soap into his mug because he’d forgotten he’d already done it.

Not that he regretted repeating a step. He sure as hell wasn’t in any hurry to go out to the person he would have just as soon never set eyes on again.

But he didn’t have that option and he knew it.

On the other hand, he thought, the sooner he got this going, the sooner he could be finished with it. Finished with working with Eden Perry, even if he couldn’t be finished with living right next door to her.

But finishing with at least one thing to do with her was better than nothing, he reasoned.

And maybe after this they could just ignore each other.

“But so help me, if she shoots off her mouth I don’t care who she is or how lucky we are to have her do this, I’ll blow her right out of the water,” he muttered as he finally turned on the faucet and began to scrub his coffee cup with a punishing fervor.

“You’ll be working with Cam Pratt,” Luke Walker told Eden as she stood waiting in the outer office of the police station. “I don’t know if you remember him—”

“I remember him,” Eden said, not thrilled with that news. At all.

“From high school,” Luke Walker seemed inclined to say anyway. “You two graduated the same year, didn’t you? I know you started out in my class but then you were skipped ahead, right?”

“Right,” she confirmed a bit stiltedly. She hadn’t been—or felt—stiff before. It had just happened at the mention of Cam Pratt. And at the idea that she’d be working with him.

“I didn’t know he was on the force,” she said then. “Or even in Northbridge. Last I heard he didn’t live here.”

“He moved back a couple of years ago.”

“Ah,” Eden said as if it were an irrelevant revelation when, in fact, she had to fight the urge to recoil. “Is there a particular reason I’ll be working with Cam and not with you or someone else?”

“Yeah, Cam was a cop in the heart of Detroit for a long time. He’s had experience with the kind of stuff you do but this will be a first for the rest of us, so he was the logical choice.”

Eden nodded, hating that she was so on edge suddenly and at a loss for anything else to say to Luke Walker now that her mind was spinning in a different direction.

“I just came on duty,” Luke said then, into the awkward silence she’d left. “I should get out, do my first patrol….”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to stay on my account. Go ahead.”

“Cam will be right out. He just finished for the day so he’s wrapping up a few things. I’m sure he’ll only be another minute. Why don’t you have a seat at his desk? It’s the one facing mine.”

Eden nodded again but didn’t sit. She was too lost in thinking that of course Cam Pratt didn’t hesitate to leave her cooling her heels. After all, she was an inconsequential little nobody and he was probably still hot stuff just the way he’d been then. The Man. The guy every senior girl—except Eden—had wanted to end up with. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise that he would appear when he deigned to appear and not before. As if he were doing her a favor, which he probably thought he was—

Eden put the brakes on her runaway thoughts, shocked to have so instantly reverted to what would have gone through her head in this instance fourteen years ago.

But this wasn’t fourteen years ago….

“Are you okay? You’re kind of flushed all of a sudden,” Luke Walker said then.

He must have been waiting for her to take the seat he’d offered because he hadn’t moved, either. But she’d been oblivious to him and his voice drew her out of her reverie.

She pressed the fingertips of one hand to her cheek, feeling the increased heat of her skin. “It’s a little warm in here. Maybe the coat’s too much inside.”

“And maybe you should sit down,” he suggested again.

As she slipped off her camel hair jacket and went to hang it over the back of the chair he’d indicated she said, “I’m fine. Go ahead out on patrol. There’s no reason for you to stick around. Really. It’s not as if I’m a stranger to cop shops.”

Luke Walker acknowledged that with a raise of his chin but even as he went to the coatrack for his own jacket he kept an eye on her.

Was she making a fool of herself?

She hoped not.

It was just so amazing how one mention of Cam Pratt could send her right back to high school. Right back to being the geeky, braces-on-her-teeth, glasses-wearing, frizzy-haired, flat-chested brainiac in a grade she might have belonged in academically, but certainly hadn’t belonged in socially. Right back to where she’d been made fun of on a daily basis and then suddenly thrust into dealing with the big-man-on-campus himself. One-on-one.

And she hadn’t dealt with it well. Or in a way that she was proud of.

In fact, it embarrassed her to recall that time in her life. The time she’d spent with Cam Pratt. And how she’d behaved.

“I think maybe I’ll use your restroom,” she said suddenly, wanting to escape Luke Walker’s continuing scrutiny from across the room as he seemed to be stalling his departure. Besides, she needed a moment to get a grip on herself.

“The ladies’ room is down the hall,” he informed her, pointing with his thumb.

“Great. Thanks. Nice to see you again,” she said, subtly encouraging him to leave as she headed in the direction he’d indicated.

“Yeah, you, too,” Luke Walker called after her, giving no indication whether or not he would be on his way once she was out of sight.

Although maybe it would be better if he didn’t leave, she thought as she found the restroom and went in. Maybe it would be better if she had a buffer when she had to face Cam Pratt.

Cam Pratt.

She was going to have to work with Cam Pratt. She let that thought sink in as she closed the restroom door behind her.

Cam Pratt, of all people.

No crime goes unpunished….

Not that she’d committed an actual crime against him. But she had been wretched toward him. Wretched enough to be ashamed of herself.

Maybe he doesn’t remember, she thought hopefully. Maybe to him it was nothing. No big deal. Not worthy of recall any more than I was worthy of notice….

That seemed possible—that this was a bigger thing in her own memory than it had been to him. After all, he’d been a supreme being in high school and she’d been a complete and total nobody. A nonentity. He probably didn’t even remember her, let alone anything that she might have said to him so long ago. She was probably making a mountain out of a molehill.

This was a new day. A new page. A new chapter. And she should just take things as they came and not go in expecting the worst.

Even if that wasn’t altogether easy for her when old insecurities reared their ugly head. When offense just instinctively felt like the best form of defense the way it had fourteen years ago.

But things had changed. She’d changed, she reminded herself. And to reinforce that reminder she moved to the sole sink in the single-stall restroom to have a glimpse of the present-day Eden Perry.

Because lo and behold, the geek was gone.

No more braces—her teeth were completely straight now.

No more glasses—contacts had replaced them a decade ago and eye surgery had removed even the need for those more recently, so her ice-blue eyes were only adorned with mascara.

Her skin had cleared; in fact, there wasn’t a single blemish or red mark marring it. Instead it was smooth and creamy and even-toned with just a little blush to brighten it.

She’d grown into her arms and legs. And her head——thank goodness! Nothing was out of proportion the way it had been when she’d been all elbows and knees and skinny, scrawny body.

Her bustline had developed—there was no question that she was female now, she could fill out a bra with the best of them. Well, with the best of the B-cups, anyway.

Her hair had darkened to a burnt-sienna red—no one had called her pumpkinhead in fourteen years. And the relaxer she used eased the kinky curls into mere waves that she could keep manageable at shoulder length.

So all in all, no, she wasn’t odd-looking anymore. There was no reason she would be called names or taunted or teased or tormented. And she didn’t have to go into any situation armed for those kinds of battles.

A new day. A new page. A new chapter.

That was what she needed to keep in mind. And that Cam Pratt had likely been unaffected by the bad attitude of the mousy nerd-girl he hadn’t had any reason to think twice about when he was on top of the world. Or probably since.

Eden tugged at the collar of the white shirt she was wearing underneath a beige cardigan sweater. Then she made sure the shirt was neatly-tucked into the tan slacks she had on. Finally, she stood a little straighter, surveying the whole picture and deciding that then and now were totally different on every front.

This would be okay, she told herself. Fourteen years was a long time. Anything that had happened that far in the past was ancient history….

Except that when she left the bathroom a few minutes later and returned to the main office, every bit of that reassurance went right out the window.

What had she thought? That Cam Pratt might not remember her or how she’d treated him? That he probably hadn’t been affected?

Think again…

Because there he was, waiting for her.

And if ever Eden had seen anyone whose expression said he bore a grudge against her, it was Cam Pratt.

She stood frozen at the mouth of the hallway that had led her from the restroom to the main portion of the office, brought up short by the hard stare of the six-foot-two-inch man she had been cruel to once upon a time.

But what was she going to do? She asked herself. She couldn’t run the other way. So she took a deep breath to steady herself and managed to cross to where he was leaning one broad shoulder against the wall near the fingerprinting station, his arms clasped over a noteworthy chest encased in his dark blue uniform.

“Cam?” she said, making a firm but quiet question of his name despite the fact that there was no doubt who he was. Even if he had somehow matured into a more colossally handsome specimen than he’d been the last time she’d seen him—something she didn’t want to be aware of.

The not-bushy but slightly unruly eyebrows that matched his dark, dark brown hair pulled together only enough to let her know he was surprised by the updated version of her as he gave her a quick once-over. But unlike the approval Luke Walker had voiced when she’d first let him know who she was, Cam Pratt seemed unimpressed by the improvements. He only answered with a flat and contempt-filled “Eden.”

“Yes,” she confirmed, although it was just to have something to say.

And then it struck her that she didn’t know where to go from there. Since he obviously remembered her and how things had been fourteen years ago, she wondered if she should offer a long-overdue apology. Should she tell him she knew she’d been horrible? That in hindsight she regretted it?

But somehow when she imagined doing that it seemed to have the potential for making things even more awkward than they already were. And things were already so awkward there was a palpable tension in the air. So maybe it was better to just go from here….

She squared her shoulders and adopted the purely professional demeanor she’d used on many occasions going in to work with people she didn’t know and merely said, “I’m sorry to keep you when you were ready to leave for the day. I just wanted to see the computer I’ll be using to make sure it has the capabilities I’ll need. And if you wouldn’t mind, I’d be interested to hear where this case stands and what exactly you’re hoping I can do.”

“I’ve been ordered to be at your disposal—whenever and wherever—so I guess it’s your prerogative to keep me late.”

“Prerogative or not, I won’t do it again,” she said, formally but politely, refusing to let his antagonistic tone echo in hers. “In the future I’ll be sure I come in during your work hours.”

“Uh-huh, well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” he said with disbelief before he pushed off the wall and nodded toward a door. “The computer you need is in here,” he said, throwing open the door and indicating that she should lead the way.

He was just determined not to be nice. Determined for the shoe to be on the other foot, Eden thought.

But as she went through that door and entered the small room beyond it she told herself his disgust was no less than she deserved and she decided to ignore what he seemed bent on dishing out.

He followed her into the cubicle-sized space. There were computers on the office desks but the setup in this room was larger.

“I checked,” he said once they were both standing in front of the machines. “This should meet all of your requirements, memory and otherwise.”

“Good,” Eden said, glad for the opportunity to look at something other than him as she scanned for the options she liked to have available for visual imagining. In spite of his assurance.

“Right, check for yourself. I’m sure I can’t be trusted to know what I’m doing.”

“I just wanted to make certain there was a scanner and that I can connect a camera if I need to.”

He sighed audibly, as if he were keeping a tight hold on his temper. But he made no other comment. Instead, obviously in a hurry to get this over with, he obliged the second request she’d made of him by relaying the facts of the case she’d be working on. “As you know, we’re looking for Celeste Perry—”

“My grandmother,” Eden supplied, satisfied with the computer and glancing at Cam once more.

“What we know,” he continued, “is that Mickey Rider and Frank Dorian robbed the Northbridge bank in 1960. A duffel bag containing the belongings of Mickey Rider was found in the rafters of the old north bridge a few months ago. Stains on the bag were confirmed to be a match for Rider’s blood and after a search for his body, human remains were discovered in the woods not far from the bridge.”

Cam’s words couldn’t have been more clipped but Eden preferred that to sarcasm. For some reason she didn’t understand, however, she was having difficulty concentrating on much more than the color of eyes that were so deep a blue they were almost black.

“Those remains have been examined,” he was saying, “and conclusively identified as those of Rider, with a blow to the head the apparent cause of death. Frank Dorian—the man Celeste left town with—was arrested by the FBI several months after the robbery and was killed in an escape attempt before he ever got to trial. Because both robbers are now known to be deceased—and Rider possibly murdered—and since the robbery money has never been recovered, there’s renewed interest in Celeste.”

“Is there suspicion that she murdered Rider?” Eden managed to ask when she forced herself to focus on what he was telling her rather than on the scruffy five-o’clock shadow that dusted the lower half of a face that somehow managed to be rugged and refined at the same time.

“I won’t say Celeste isn’t a murder suspect,” he answered. “When the FBI had Dorian in custody and questioned him, he contended that your grandmother had had no part in the robbery, but since he was claiming at the time that his partner had taken half the money and gone off on his own, there was no indication that Rider was dead or whether or not Celeste was involved. Now everything is in question again.”

“And at the very least Celeste could have been an accessory before or after the fact,” Eden contributed even as she cataloged the length and shape of his nose—a little long with a bit of a bump in the bridge that was somehow sexy….

“Like I said, there’s renewed interest in Celeste,” he repeated.

“And my part in this?” Eden prompted, fighting to keep her thoughts where they belonged and not on him.

“When Dorian was questioned he claimed that Celeste had gained considerable weight, plus there’s a woman in Bozeman who believes she might have worked with Celeste in 1968. We have a description from her for you to work into the whole picture and she also described Celeste as heavyset—”

“Celeste…my grandmother…was as near as Bozeman? I hadn’t heard that,” Eden said, shocked and yanked by that shock from studying his sideburns—not too long, not too short.

“Yes, it seems likely your grandmother was in Bozeman and calling herself Charlotte Pierce. Does that ring a bell?”

Eden shook her head. “No, the name Charlotte Pierce doesn’t sound familiar,” she said. “And I’m sure my family told you when they were dispatched to ask, but I don’t ever remember having any contact with anyone who might have been Celeste, either. Or with anyone who caused any kind of question in my mind.”

“That information was relayed and entered into the reports,” he confirmed. “But between the weight gain and the fact that a lot of years have passed to also alter Celeste’s appearance, we thought a computer image progression might help to approximate the changes as she aged, along with what she might look like now. If we can, we want to determine if she ever did come back to or through Northbridge again—the way she told several people she planned in order to see her sons again—”

“My dad and my uncle,” Eden said even as her gaze drifted to Cam’s wavy hair worn just long enough to be combed back on top and short everywhere else.

But they were talking about her grandmother’s appearance, she reminded herself, not Cam’s.

“So I’ll have the description from the woman in Bozeman,” she said then, “and what else? There can’t be many photographs of Celeste—I’ve never seen one.”

“Because your grandfather destroyed them all when she took off. The only picture we have of her is from the newspaper article written when she and the reverend moved to town. She was in her twenties in the snapshot and showing it around hasn’t done any good. We’re hoping that whatever you come up with will be more what she might have looked like later on and may spur someone’s memory. If Celeste did come through here she might have left behind some clue as to where she was headed after that, where she might be now if she’s still alive.”

“Or if she came into Northbridge and stayed—my sisters and cousins told me there’s speculation about that.”

“Some,” Cam conceded. “And that’s it. That’s where the case stands. Except that we’re getting pressure from the FBI and from the state investigators to get things moving on this. The skeletal remains were found at the start of November. Between waiting for the results from forensics and the holiday holdups, and then waiting for you to get here, the last two months and counting have just gone down the drain.”