Beckett's Cinderella (8 page)

“You can't drive all the way back to Charleston tonight.”

“I don't intend to.”

“But what about your family?”

“I'd say South Carolina's pretty much in the clear by now, if they're starting to evacuate this area.” He turned to her then, both his features and hers illuminated by the security lights surrounding the sprawling rest area. “Liza, things aren't turning out the way I'd planned. Under the circumstances, I guess dinner at a restaurant is out. They're probably busy right now boarding up windows. So why don't we find a grocery store and stock up on the basics, then go back to Uncle Fred's, light a few hurricane candles for a festive touch, and open a few cans? What do you say, corned beef hash or roast beef hash? Fried up with onions and tomato sauce, they taste pretty much the same to me.”

“You mean ketchup.” She laughed.

Beckett thought, another woman would have whined about having her evening spoiled and sulked all the way home, but not Liza. Sitting there in a deserted parking lot in her silk finery, with her hair all soft and sexy, smelling like three hundred bucks an ounce, she was laughing.

You had to love a woman like that, you really did.

Oh, no.
No way!

“Where's the nearest supermarket?” he asked gruffly, scowling as he started the engine and circled the dune to pause at the intersection. Better keep his hands occupied, else he might reach out to her. One touch and all bets would be off as to which way this evening would end up. He could tell by a certain uneven quality of her voice that he wasn't the only one affected by the unnatural tension.

“There's one a few miles ahead on the beach, and another one back in Grandy. We passed it on the way.”

“I vote for Grandy. Here's hoping it's still open.” After several minutes he got a green light and merged with the traffic flow. Thank God there were signal lights at the intersection or they'd have been stuck here for the duration. A couple of decades ago he might have welcomed the opportunity. But Liza wasn't the kind of woman you made it with in the back seat of a car.

The tension mounted even higher as they were forced to maintain the bumper-to-bumper pace. Liza found a classical music station. Sebelius helped. If he'd been alone, Beckett might've pulled over and
waited it out. With Liza beside him, that wasn't an option. Patience, as he'd been reminded more than once recently, was not his strong suit.

 

They bought the last two loaves of bread on the shelves and one of the few remaining gallons of milk. Liza added an assortment of canned soups and cookies, while Beckett raided the meat counter.

“What if we lose power?” she asked, on seeing all the perishables in his basket.

“We cook it all and pig out.”

“Who's this
we?
You're going back to Charleston, aren't you?”

“Depends,” he said, not bothering to elaborate.

“Beckett, they're already evacuating the beaches. That means it's headed this way real soon.”

“Not necessarily. A lot of people will clear out, even before an evacuation is called for.”

“Yes, well…” Liza leaned forward, trying to see the now-familiar landmarks. Everything looked different at night. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd been out after dark. The rain only made it worse. Neon signs, taillights, the occasional streetlight, all reflected on wet pavement.

Slowing, Beckett made a right turn. “Here we are,” he said.

Liza hadn't even realized they'd arrived. She felt a thread of resentment that her evening out had already ended, accepting the guilt that followed hard on its heels.

And then she noticed that all the lights in the house
were on. “Omigod,” she whispered, and without waiting for the umbrella, she opened the door, slid down to the ground and started running.

Beckett was two steps behind her. He yelled for her to watch her step just as the heel of one of her flimsy sandals skidded on a wet stone. Arms flailing, she was trying to save herself when she tripped.

He was beside her in an instant, kneeling, touching…running his hands down her legs. “Jeez, don't move, okay? Let me—”

“I'm all right! Dammit, just give me a minute.” His hands were getting tangled in her wet skirt as he felt to see if she'd broken any bones. She hadn't. She was fairly certain of that. All the same, when an adult fell, it wasn't quite the same as when a child took a tumble. “My hands and knees burn like the devil, but I'm all right,” she said through clenched teeth. “Go see what's happened to Uncle Fred.”

She was furious. What an utterly humiliating way to end her big evening, sprawled out in the pouring rain on her hands and knees. Or, rather, her knees and chest. Her hands had skidded out from under her when she'd tried to save herself. They hurt almost as much as her knees.

“I'm going to pick you up. If anything hurts, speak up.”

Everything hurts, dammit! She thought it, but didn't say it. Walls of wind-driven rain flew at them as, ever so carefully, he eased her over onto her bottom and lifted her off the ground. “Okay so far?”

“I can walk, just give me a minute,” she growled,
making no attempt to free herself. Aside from hurting, she was badly shaken. “What I need to know is why all the lights in the house are on.”

With her head tucked up under his chin, her long legs dangling, Beckett carried her carefully up the front steps and onto the wet porch. The door opened almost immediately. Fred Grant said calmly, “Saw the lights turn in. Thought it was you.” He was standing there in his best bib overalls, his blue-and-white striped Sunday shirt and his Braves baseball cap. On the floor beside him was Liza's Hartmann suitcase and the latest copy of
Choptalk
, the Braves monthly publication.

“She took a tumble out on the front walk.”

Liza lifted her head. “Uncle Fred, are you all right? Beckett, put me down.”

He lowered her to the floor, and she held on to his arm until she was certain she was steady on her feet. Poor Uncle Fred, he looked so worried. They were both drenched, rainwater trickling off their hair.

It was Beckett, eyeing the suitcase, who asked, “Mr. Grant, what gives?”

“L
ady on the TV said they had this hurricane shelter set up at Bay View. Thought I'd go visit for a spell.”

Beckett looked at Liza. She shrugged. She was holding her hands up in front of her chest, as if she'd just finished scrubbing for surgery.

“Liza?” It was her call to make. Actually, it was Uncle Fred's call, and evidently he'd already made it. Beckett preferred to trust Liza's judgment. Her uncle showed every sign of being fairly sharp, but then his aunt Kate had been sharp, too, right up until she'd gone shopping one day and forgotten to come home. Forgotten where she lived. Someone who knew the family had seen her sitting on a bench outside a hard ware store and noticed she was still there a couple of
hours later. He'd called Uncle Lance, who had been frantically searching for her at the shopping mall.

“I think that sounds like fun, Uncle Fred. Do you have everything you need? What about your glasses? Did you think to pack your medicine?”

“Yep. Got ever'thing I need. You want to drive me over there, son? She don't much like to drive at night.” He nodded at Liza, who was obviously trying hard to disguise the increasing pain she was feeling.

It had been a long time since Beckett had suffered a skinned knee, but he hadn't forgotten how it stung, aside from the bruised aspect. Once the burning stage ended, she was going to be hobbling around, trying not to break the scabs and start it to bleeding all over again.

“I'll drive, Mr. Grant. Liza, you go start cleaning up your wounds. Better yet, just sit down and close your eyes for a few minutes and let me do it when I get back.”

“Oh, don't fuss so, for heaven's sake. I told you I'm all right.”

But as soon as they'd left, Liza drew in a deep, shuddering breath, far more shaken than a simple tumble would ordinarily cause. It was more than the fall, she realized as she watched Beckett escort her uncle out to the car, holding his arm and skirting wide of the front walk. It was…everything. The expectations she hadn't dared admit when she'd set out earlier tonight. The way the man had managed to impress her so that she couldn't stop thinking about him, even when he was hundreds of miles away. Especially
then. It was almost as if he exerted some sort of gravitational pull on her.

My God, how could it have happened so quickly? It felt remarkably like her first teenage crush, only magnified a hundred times.

She hooked the screen, remembered to unhook it in case Beckett came back, and turned toward her bedroom. He had family in Charleston. Bay View was only a few miles up the road, but what if he decided to keep on going, since he was headed in that direction?

He said he was coming back, didn't he?

Lifting her sodden skirt—it was muddy, but not torn as far as she could tell—she winced at the sight of her filthy, bleeding knees. She didn't even want to think about how they were going to feel while she was scrubbing away the mud and grit. Good thing the medical frontier had advanced beyond those old antiseptics that burned like fire. She had a tube of something or other in the medicine cabinet that would soothe and disinfect.

No Band-Aids large enough, though. She'd just have to bind her knees up in gauze and learn how to walk stiff legged.

“You klutz, you stupid klutz,” she muttered as she hobbled into the bathroom. Using only her fingertips, she unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt and let it fall to the floor, not even attempting to tackle her top. If it weren't soaking wet she might even sleep in it rather than use her stinging hands to change into something else. The sooner she got them cleaned and
smeared with something to keep the air from touching them, the sooner they'd stop hurting.

Clumsy. Stupid. Embarrassing. She thought all that and more as she braced herself and turned on a stream of warm water. Turning an ankle might not have been so bad—even fainting.
Swooning,
as it had been called back in the days when it had been considered romantic.

There was nothing the least bit romantic about taking a damned pratfall. Even knowing she would never see him again once this debt thing was settled, she had really, really wanted to make a good last impression. Her romantic side, small and withered though it was, would have liked to think that somewhere in the world, an attractive man might occasionally remember her and wonder what would have happened if they'd met under different circumstances.

He'll remember you now, all right, she told herself, picturing the way she must have looked from his perspective. Biting her lips against the fiery pain, she thrust her hands under the water and winced as pain zinged all the way up to her armpits. Then she reached for her washcloth and soap.

Even though she tried to ignore the pain and do what had to be done, the process took longer than it should have—the cleansing, medicating and bandaging. The heels of her hands were the biggest problem. Even though they weren't quite as damaged as her knees, it made using her hands difficult. She applied the last of the gauze to her knees, then sat on the edge of the claw-footed bathtub wondering whether to put
on a pair of gloves—if she could even find a pair of gloves—or risk getting her hands infected. Not to mention smearing antiseptic ointment on everything she touched.

“Well, crud,” she said, fighting tears.

And then she heard the car pull up in front of the house. Had she left the door hooked or unhooked? She couldn't remember. Everything had been so confused at that point. Uncle Fred and her suitcase; the hurricane; Beckett carrying her in his arms as if she were Sleeping Beauty instead of the world's greatest klutz.

Being holed up during a storm might have been romantic under other circumstances, but not when she looked like an accident victim.

“Come in if you're coming,” she yelled over the wail of the wind. The rain was beginning to blow through the screen door. She was embarassed and hurting too much to be polite.

“I'm shoving the ladder under the house for now, okay?” came the voice from the dark. The yellow porch light didn't carry far enough to see more than a shadowy figure struggling to lower the ladder without being blown over.

“Whatever,” she muttered. The thought of climbing a ladder made her flinch.

A moment later he burst inside, flinging rain from his face and hair, and slammed the door behind him. “Whew! It's getting wild out there,” he said, grinning as if he relished the challenge. It occurred to her that he would probably be right at home on the deck
of a ship, pitching and rolling in mountainous seas. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Have you taken care of your…”

His voice trailed off as he looked down at her bandaged knees, reminding her of what she must look like in her ruined blouse, with wet hair hanging in ropes around her shoulders and her skinny, wounded legs hanging out.

Some women—the pretty, petite ones—could play the helpless heroine for all it was worth. Not Liza. She came off as a hapless clown. Okay, so she had gone overboard with the gauze. At least her knees were well padded. “Crud,” she said again. Couldn't even do profanity with any style.

“Jeez, sweetheart, are they that bad? I wouldn't have left if—”

“They're skinned, all right?” she snapped. Sympathy was the very last thing she needed. She was feeling sorry enough for herself without his piling it on. And, dammit, she hurt more thinking about his walking out of her life than she did thinking about her increasingly painful injuries. Skinned knees healed in a week's time. Bruised hearts took longer. Broken hearts, she refused even to consider. She hadn't known him long enough for him to break her blasted heart.

Bracing herself, Liza took command of the situation. She might make a lousy tragic heroine, but she could play the role of gracious hostess to the hilt. She'd had plenty of practice back in the bad old days. “Come in, don't worry about tracking up the floor.
Let me get you a towel and I'll see about heating us some soup. Do you think Uncle Fred will be all right there? What if he decides he wants to come home in the middle of the night? Was it very crowded? Do you think he's acting…well, rationally? Maybe I should have insisted he stay here where I could keep an eye on him. I mean—”

So much for gracious hostess. She was falling apart, pure and simple.

Beckett took her arm and steered her toward the living room. “Go sit down, let me heat us some soup.”

Liza let him take charge. Just for the moment, she told herself. Just until she could stop babbling and pull herself together. She was shivering, and it certainly wasn't cold. She was simply…

Well, hurting, for one thing. And hungry. And for no reason at all she suddenly felt like crying. “Did you bring in the groceries?”

Beckett smacked himself on the forehead. “I don't know about the meat and bread, but the milk and canned goods will probably be all right.” He'd had a bag in each arm when he'd seen her stumble. No telling what had happened to them—he hadn't noticed them when he'd walked the old man out to the car. But then, he'd been holding on to his arm, watching both their steps.

On the way back, he'd been too anxious about Liza, worried that she was more shaken up than she'd let on. For a man who was generally considered pretty cool under pressure, he was flat-out losing it.

Nor did he care to define the meaning of the word
it.

While Beckett found a basket and went out to retrieve the sodden groceries, Liza made her way from room to room, making certain all the windows were closed as tightly as possible. They were rattling in their frames, so she didn't hold out much hope, especially as the rain seemed to be coming from all directions.

Which meant the house would be stifling. If the power went off, she wouldn't even have her electric fan for comfort.

Probably wouldn't sleep, anyway.

Beckett insisted on cooking supper. He said something more substantial than soup was called for. While the ground-beef patties, seasoned with soy sauce, were cooking, he gathered up all her empty containers and filled them with water. “Just in case,” he said. “If you've got a barrel or an empty garbage container, I'll set it under the eaves to collect flushing water.”

“The gutter's down on the front.”

“Right. Okay, the back then. If it keeps on at this rate, we won't even need a downspout.”

While he was seeing to all that, Liza turned the burgers, then searched the drawers for spare batteries. She remembered reading somewhere that water and spare batteries were important.

“I don't suppose you have a weather radio,” he said, coming in through the back door. She stared at him. With his clothes clinging like a second skin to
a body that was muscular and whipcord lean, it took a minute for the words to register.

“A weather what?”

“Radio. You know, a dedicated NOAA receiver.” He pronounced it “Noah.”

She said, “You're not talking about Noah and the ark. No, even I know better than that.”

She was standing by the stove. He came and removed the spatula from her fingers, skillfully turned the meat and replaced the lid. “What do you mean, even you?”

Shrugging, she moved away to stare out the window. “Nothing. It was a figure of speech, that's all.”

He looked as if he didn't believe her, but then, that was his problem, not hers. She knew her shortcomings as well as she knew her longcomings. And while the former might have once outweighed the latter, she'd come a long way in the past two years. What was it they said in academic circles? Publish or perish?

In her case it had been survive or perish. She had chosen to survive.

The burgers were surprisingly tasty, even without buns. James would have been horrified—he'd fancied himself something of a gourmet. At least, he subscribed to the magazine and left it lying around along with her copies of
Art and Antiques
to create a certain impression on the people he invited to their home. If he'd ever done more than glance at either publication, she'd be very much surprised.

Beckett cut her meat for her, shushing her when she'd protested.

“I suggest you get ready for bed while I clean up the kitchen. If you don't mind, I'll commandeer your sofa again.”

“Have you called home yet?” He's not leaving tonight, she thought gleefully.

“Checked in before I left Bay View. Nice place, by the way. Have you ever seen it?”

“A few times, when I drove Uncle Fred to visit some of his friends. It's a beautiful location.” She'd heard it had been endowed by an elderly philanthropist. Certainly none of Uncle Fred's friends would have been able to afford it otherwise. “How are things in Charleston?”

“Wet. Mama's roses caught hell again, but other than that, everything came through just fine. My cousin Carson says hello, by the way. He was there when I called.”

“Well. I know you're relieved.” She was standing awkwardly beside the kitchen door, painfully aware of what she must look like. Neither of them had changed into dry clothes. It was extremely hot in the house, particularly in the kitchen.

“Uh…Liza? Do you need any help? I mean, with your hands and all…?”

But supper was over now. They could either sit in the living room watching TV as long as they had power, or go to bed and lie awake staring into the stifling darkness while the storm wore itself out and
passed on up the coast. As tired as she was, she knew she wouldn't sleep.

And it wasn't the thought of the storm that would keep her awake. It was the thought of the man just a few feet away.

Beckett of the chiseled bronze features, the pewter hair and the quicksilver eyes. Becket of the square-palmed, long-fingered hands, the comforting shoulders and the hard, flat abdomen.

She quickly lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “The attic. I need to set out buckets under the leaks,” she blurted.

“Stay here, I'll do it. Where do you keep your buckets?”