Hometown Cinderella

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 ask for help.

From the monster she’d created.

Chapter Three

Before she could force herself to go next door and ask for Cam Pratt’s help with her electrical outage, Eden decided that if she was going to have to be seen, she had to make sure she wasn’t too unsightly.

After returning home from the police station she’d put on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeved thermal-knit T-shirt so she’d be comfortable to work around the house. Since the clothes weren’t revealing, she decided not to change back into what she’d been wearing that afternoon.

But when it came to her face and hair? If she’d been about to meet up with anyone other than Cam Pratt she probably would have gone as she was—face scrubbed clean, hair stuck in an untidy ponytail.

Only she wasn’t meeting up with anyone else and she just couldn’t go without reapplying blush and mascara using her purse compact and the glow of the moon coming through her bedroom window.

Hating herself for her vanity, she also took her hair down from the ponytail, brushed it, and then pulled it to her crown once again, this time holding it with a clip rather than a plain rubber band.

Nothing fancy, she judged upon final inspection in the compact mirror, but passable.

Still dreading seeing Cam again today, she nevertheless resigned herself to it, slipped on a peacoat and felt her way to the front door to go out into the cold night, regretting that she’d put this off now that it occurred to her that it was after ten o’clock and he might have gone to bed.

If he had she was just going to freeze to death, she decided. Better that than waking him up.

He hadn’t gone to bed, though. Because once Eden had crossed their joined-at-the-property-line driveways and was walking in front of his house, she could see that not only were his lights still on, he was in his living room. In fact, he was in clear view through the undraped picture window as she climbed the four steps to his front porch.

He’d apparently showered in the time between her ogling him and now. He was dressed in a different pair of sweatpants—gray ones—and another white T-shirt that had long sleeves instead of short. Although the T-shirt didn’t cling to him with the dampness of perspiration, it did fit him tightly enough to prove the chin-ups had been worth it because the knit followed his shoulders, biceps and the expanse of his chest to great effect.

Really great effect…

Inside he was drying his hair with a towel in one hand while using the other to hold the TV listings he was scanning. He didn’t notice Eden’s approach and, once again, she couldn’t refrain from covertly watching him.

It would have been helpful if the good-looking teenage boy hadn’t grown up to be one of the hottest men she’d ever seen. And while it shouldn’t have had any effect on her, it did.

“I’m just tired,” she whispered to herself again.

He’d finished drying his hair and he draped the towel over one shoulder. But running his hands through that wavy hair, finger-combing it back on top, didn’t bolster her resistance because even that haphazard grooming gave him a sexiness that was so potent it came through the glass of the picture window and nearly knocked Eden’s socks off.

Before she could lapse into another transfixed state, she forced herself to march the rest of the distance to his door and ring the bell.

She also made sure to stare straight ahead so she didn’t give any indication that she even knew he was right there in his living room, and as a result she only saw him from the corner of her eye when he peered out the window to see who she was.

Her enthusiasm for being there was not boosted by the epithet she heard him say when he saw her. But she stood her ground, bracing for more of his unpleasantness when he opened the door.