Hometown Cinderella

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“Or maybe I was just saying I thought I was going to be living next door to people named Poppazitto and I’m not,” Eden said, taking her own cup to the trash.

But again Eve didn’t seem to be fooled because when Eden turned back to her, Eve was grinning. “Cam will be there tonight, you know? Luke Walker is marrying Cam’s half sister.”

“Cam has a half sister?” Eden asked, interested in this bit of news but also hoping it would distract Eve.

“That’s right, you don’t know the dirt, do you?” Eve said. “Well, Cam’s father had two daughters with the woman he left Cam’s mother for. One of them was a nightmare and she ended up dead when the meth lab she was living in exploded. But Karis—the other Pratt half sister—is nice and she came here with her sister’s baby, thinking Luke might be the baby’s father because he’d been married to her sister for a while. It turned out that he isn’t the baby’s father, but that’s how Luke and Karis got together and now Luke and Karis are adopting the baby and getting married tonight.”

If that story wasn’t a distraction, Eden didn’t know what was.

But it wasn’t distraction enough because Eve managed to go full circle and ended with, “So Cam will be there tonight and you’ll get to see him again.”

“I don’t care about seeing him,” Eden insisted, lying through her teeth when the truth was, she’d been looking out every window she passed since she got up this morning, hoping to catch sight of him. And failing. And being inexplicably disappointed each time.

“I don’t kno-oh,” Eve said, making two syllables and a song out of know. “I think there’s more going on here than you want to tell and I’ll bet it’s an old crush.”

Eden rolled her eyes again, shook her head and said, “If only you knew how wrong you are.”

At least about there being an old crush.

But a new crush?

Well, maybe not exactly a crush.

But as much as Eden hated to admit it even to herself, deep down there might be brewing the tiniest hint of something a little like that.

The wedding of Luke Walker and Karis Pratt was held at the Pratt family home. The large house had been built by the Pratt’s maternal great-grandfather, and was where the first seven Pratt siblings had all grown up.

The ceremony was short, sweet and traditional, with the bride beautiful in a white suit composed of a fitted jacket and skirt, and the groom handsome in a navy-blue suit of his own.

But not as handsome as Cam—that was what Eden thought as her gaze drifted to him from the moment he stepped up as one of the groomsmen. He and Luke’s brothers—who were also groomsmen—wore blue suits, as well. And despite the fact that the Walker men were indisputably a good-looking lot, to Eden, Cam had them all beat by a mile.

Which was not something she wanted to think.

But she just couldn’t help it. Any more than she could take her eyes off him from the wedding’s very beginning to the pronouncement of man and wife, and the kiss.

The kiss that made her recall her own thoughts about what it might have been like to kiss Cam the night before.

A recollection she shunned the minute she realized she was having it.

When the ceremony was over, congratulations were given during an informal receiving line. Then champagne began to flow, and an elaborate buffet of food and a three-tiered cake were unveiled.

After a full day of making headway putting her new house in order, Eden had showered and shampooed her hair, and slipped into a dress she’d worn to the last wedding she’d attended. It was a fairly simple, knee-length silk halter dress in an exotic print of black, brown and beige. The dress wasn’t tight but it did follow her curves nicely and bare her shoulders.

On her feet she wore her sassy and very pointy black satin mules with the jeweled flowers, golden rope cutouts and thin three-inch heels.

She’d scrunched her damp hair just enough to give it a little added fullness without frizz, added a taupe-colored eye shadow to her blush and mascara regimen, and as a finishing touch she’d slipped several hoop bracelets over one wrist.

All together she’d been pleased with how she’d looked and had left home feeling comfortable and confident.

That had been reinforced at the Pratt house where old friends and acquaintances marveled at the changes in her. But although she didn’t understand it, she discovered as the evening wore on that the approval—and maybe admiration—of only one person was what she craved. And that person didn’t come anywhere near her.

Maybe things with Cam weren’t as improved as they’d seemed the night before, she fretted as the post-receiving-line mingling got underway and Cam kept his distance. Or maybe she had read more into the night before than had actually existed. Maybe having granted her amnesty still didn’t mean that they were going to be friendly. Maybe the best that amnesty afforded her was a cease-fire and she should just be glad for that because that was really what was important in order for them to coexist in the small town.

But still, each time their glances met and he only nodded or raised a chin at her, she wished for more.

Why that should be the case, she didn’t know. And what more she wanted from him, she also didn’t know. She just wanted more.

She wanted it so much that it was alarming and it took the fun out of the occasion for her.

In fact, she was feeling so disheartened as she turned from the buffet table with a slice of wedding cake, that rather than joining any of the other guests who were chatting while they ate theirs, she went to the entryway and sat alone, one step up from the bottom.

And that was when Cam chose to seek her out. One bite into the cake and there he was, sitting next to her.

“Tired of talking?” he asked in greeting.

“No, not at all,” she answered with a tinge more eagerness than she would have liked. But she was worried that now that he’d finally approached her, he might leave her to solitude if she didn’t convince him otherwise. Then, as an excuse for exiling herself, she added, “Pointy shoes. I needed to sit for a minute.”

“Ah,” he said, in acknowledgment.

That left a lull Eden didn’t know how to fill because her mind suddenly went blank.

“So are the lights still on at your place?” he asked.

Okay, not a great conversation starter but it was more than she’d been able to come up with.

“They are, thanks,” she said. “And you’ll be happy to know that I found my flashlight today, too. Just in case.”

Ugh. She knew she wasn’t helping matters. But she just couldn’t get her brain to function.

Which was why all she could think to say next was, “Nice wedding.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Eve told me Karis is your half sister.”

“Mmm-hmm. There were two of them but the other one died.”

“That’s what Eve said. It looks as if Karis fits in, though. She seems like one of the family.”

“Yeah, we all think of her that way now. Even me,” he added in a bit of an aside that drew Eden’s glance from the bride in the distance to Cam.

“Even you?”

“I wasn’t too sure about Karis when she first showed up. Her sister had come around before that and Lea was trouble. Plus I guess I learned not to be too trusting working in Detroit. But Karis won me over.”

“Detroit?” Eden said, pleased to have something to build on. “Don’t tell me you put a branch of your family’s dry cleaning business there.”