Hometown Cinderella. Victoria Pade
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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.