Hometown Cinderella. Victoria Pade

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ