Hometown Cinderella

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.”