Hometown Cinderella

"She's here..." Cam Pratt was in the break room of the police station. His shift had just ended and he'd brought his coffee mug in to wash when Luke Walker poked his head through a crack in the door to make his announcement. Cam pumped some soap into the mug and glanced over his shoulder at his friend and fellow officer. "Who's here?" Luke Walker grinned. "Eden Perry." Cam screwed up his face and groaned. "Now?" "Right now. She just walked in the door. She wants to take a look at the computer setup she'll be using." "It's four-thirty and you're on duty, I'm not. You show it to her," Cam said, hoping for an out. "Uh-uh. You know it's already been decided that this is your baby. Even if it means working with someone you have some leftover high school hang-up about for reasons you don't want to say. And since I caught you before you left..." Cam curled his upper lip like a fractious hound dog. Then he said, "I'll be there in a minute." "You won't recognize her," Luke threw in just before he disappeared from the doorway and closed the door. Cam couldn't have cared less if he recognized Eden Perry or not. The little pain-in-the-ass-- He cut his own thought short, knowing that recalling the past would only piss him off. As it did every time he thought about it. Or about Eden Perry. Every time he'd thought about her since learning before the holidays that he'd be overseeing the work of the former hometown girl and forensic artist when she arrived. But he'd already tried convincing his superior officer to let him steer clear of this portion of an investigation that had been ongoing for months now and it hadn't done him any good. Luke was right--this was his baby. Whether he liked it or not. Whether he liked Eden Perry or not. And he didn't like Eden Perry. Or having to be anywhere around her, let alone work with her. In fact, when he'd returned to the small town of Northbridge, Montana, two years ago, he'd been happy to learn that Eden Perry had left for college shortly after he had and had rarely even visited since then. But apparently things had changed for her and now here she was--back to live and hired to do an age-progression of the woman who had become the focal point of an old case that also happened to be the biggest scandal ever to rock Northbridge. And, to make matters worse, Eden Perry was also his neighbor. "Which is why you decided to try to tolerate her, remember?" he told himself as he pumped more soap into his mug because he'd forgotten he'd already done it. Not that he regretted repeating a step. He sure as hell wasn't in any hurry to go out to the person he would have just as soon never set eyes on again. But he didn't have that option and he knew it. On the other hand, he thought, the sooner he got this going, the sooner he could be finished with it. Finished with working with Eden Perry, even if he couldn't be finished with living right next door to her. But finishing with at least one thing to do with her was better than nothing, he reasoned. And maybe after this they could just ignore each other. "But so help me, if she shoots off her mouth I don't care who she is or how lucky we are to have her do this, I'll blow her right out of the water," he muttered as he finally turned on the faucet and began to scrub his coffee cup with a punishing fervor. "You'll be working with Cam Pratt," Luke Walker told Eden as she stood waiting in the outer office of the police station. "I don't know if you remember him--" "I remember him," Eden said, not thrilled with that news. At all. "From high school," Luke Walker seemed inclined to say anyway. "You two graduated the same year, didn't you? I know you started out in my class but then you were skipped ahead, right?" "Right," she confirmed a bit stiltedly. She hadn't been--or felt--stiff before. It hPade, Victoria is the author of 'Hometown Cinderella ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373248049 and ISBN 0373248040.