Beckett's Cinderella. Dixie Browning
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her stool and watched the traffic flow past. When a dark green SUV pulled onto the graveled parking area, she stood, saying quietly to her uncle, “What do you think, country ham?” When business was slow they sometimes played the game of trying to guess in advance who would buy what.
Together they watched the tall, tanned man approach. His easy way of moving belied the silver-gray of his thick hair. He couldn’t be much past forty, she decided. Dye his hair and he could pass for thirty. “Maybe just a glass of ice water,” she murmured. He didn’t strike her as a typical vacationer, much less one who was interested in produce.
“That ’un’s selling, not buying. Got that look in his eye.”
Beckett took his time approaching the tall, thin woman with the wraparound calico apron, the sun-struck auburn hair and the fashion model’s face. If this was the same woman who’d been involved in a high-stakes con game that covered three states and involved a few offshore banking institutions, what the hell was she doing in a place like this?
And if this wasn’t Eliza Chandler Edwards, then what the devil was a woman with her looks doing sitting behind a bin of onions, with Grandpaw Cranket or Crocket or whatever the guy’s name was, rocking and grinning behind her.
“How-de-do? Where ye from, son?”
“Beg pardon?” He paused between a display of green stuff and potatoes.
“We get a lot of reg’lars stopping by, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. You from up in Virginia?”
“It’s a rental car, Uncle Fred,” the woman said quietly.
Beckett tried to place her accent and found he couldn’t quite pin it down. Cultured Southern was about as close as he could come. She was tall, at least five-nine or-ten. Her bone structure alone would have made her a world-class model if she could manage to walk without tripping over her feet. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to women; he’d admired any number of them from a safe distance. If this was the woman he’d worked so damned hard to track down, the question still applied—what the devil was she doing here selling produce?
He nodded to the old man and concentrated on the woman. “Ms. Edwards?”
Liza felt a gaping hole open up in her chest. Did she know him? She managed to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop staring. There was something about him that riveted her attention. His eyes, his hands—even his voice. If she’d ever met him before, she would have remembered. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.”
“You’re not Eliza Chandler Edwards?”
Uncle Fred was frowning now, fumbling behind the cooler for his cane. Oh, Lord, Liza thought, if he tried to come to her rescue, they’d both end up in trouble. She had told him a little about her past when she’d first arrived, but nothing about the recent hang-up calls, much less the letter that had come last month.
“I believe you have the advantage,” she murmured, stalling for time. How could he possibly know who she was? She was legally Eliza Jackson Chandler again, wiping out the last traces of her disastrous marriage.
“Could I have a glass of that free ice water you’re advertising?”
On a morning when both the temperature and the humidity hovered in the low nineties, this man looked cool as the proverbial cucumber. Not a drop of sweat dampened that high, tanned brow. “Of course. Right over there.” Indicating the container of plastic cups, Liza fought to maintain her composure.
When he tipped back his head to swallow, her gaze followed the movement of his throat. His brand of fitness hadn’t come from any gym, she’d be willing to bet on it. Nor had that tan been acquired over a single weekend at the beach. The contrast of bronzed skin with pewter hair, ice-gray eyes and winged black eyebrows was startling, not to mention strikingly attractive.
The word sexy came to mind, and she immediately pushed it away. Sex was the very last thing that concerned her now. Getting rid of this man overshadowed everything.
But first she needed to know if he was the one who’d been stalking her—if not literally, then figuratively, by calling her in the middle of the night and hanging up. Just last month she’d received a letter addressed to her by name at Uncle Fred’s rural route box number. The return address was a post office box in South Dallas. Inside the plain white envelope had been a blank sheet of paper.
“I don’t believe you answered my question,” he said, his voice deep, slightly rough edged, but not actually threatening. At least, not yet.
“First, I’d like to know who’s asking.” She would see his demand and raise him one.
“Beckett. L. Jones Beckett.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here asking questions, Mr. Beckett.” If that really is your name.
“The name doesn’t ring any bells?”
Liza turned away to stare down at a display of summer squash. Had any of James’s victims been named Beckett? She honestly couldn’t recall, there had been so many. With the help of her lawyer, she’d done the best she could to make amends, but even after liquidating everything there still hadn’t been enough to go around. Of course the lawyers, including her divorce lawyer, whom she’d no longer needed at that point, had taken a large cut of all she’d been able to raise.
He was still waiting for an answer. “No, I’m sorry. Should it?”
“My grandfather was Lancelot Elias Beckett.”
“He has my sympathy.” Her arms were crossed over her breasts, but they failed to warm her inside, where it counted. Uncle Fred, bless his valorous heart, had stopped rocking and stopped smiling. His cane was at the ready, across his bony knees.
Two
This was the one. Beckett was certain of it. Otherwise, why was she so skittish? A simple farmer’s daughter selling her wares on a country road, no matter how stunning she might be, would hardly slam the door shut on a potential customer.
And she’d slammed it shut, all right. Battened down the hatches and all but thrown open the gun ports. Guarded didn’t begin to describe the look in those whiskey-brown eyes. Frightened came closer.
But frightened of what? Being brought in for questioning again?
So far as he knew, that particular case had been closed when her husband had taken the fall. She’d been a material witness, but they’d never been able to tie anything directly to her—even though she’d still been legally married to Edwards when he’d been shot in the throat by a man who’d been bled dry by one of his shell games. The victim, poor devil, had returned the favor.
“Not from Virginia, are ye?” the old man asked, causing them both to turn and stare. His smile was as bland as the summer sky. The brass-headed cane was nowhere in sight.
“Uh…South Carolina. Mostly,” Beckett admitted. He’d lived in the state of his birth for exactly eighteen years. He still kept his school yearbooks, his athletic trophies and fishing gear at his parents’ home, for lack of space in his own apartment.
The old man nodded. “I figgered South C’lina or Georgia. Got a good ear for placing where folks is from.”
“What do you want?” It was the woman this time. Her eyes couldn’t have looked more wary if he’d been a snake she’d found in one of her fancy canvas bags.
Under other circumstances, he might have been interested in following up on her question. Her looks were an intriguing blend of Come Hither and Back Off. “Nothing,” he told her. “I have something for you, though.” What he had was a worthless, mostly illegible bundle of paper. He’d left the money in his briefcase in the truck. If she wasn’t the right one, the papers wouldn’t mean anything to her, and if she was…
She was. He’d lay odds on it.
But she wasn’t ready to drop her guard.