Cinderella in Overalls by Carol Grace Page A

Then kitchen sounds. Glass clinking against glass. What was he doing?
    “Josh?”
    He came to the back door. “I can’t sleep. It must be the coffee. I was looking for something to drink.” He lifted a glass.
    “There’s fresh water in the icebox.”
    He returned to the kitchen, then she saw the outline of his body as he stepped out into the yard, wearing his same clothes, but barefoot, too. He bent his head back and let out an appreciative whistle. “What a view of the southern sky. From my balcony in town it looks like soup.”
    “Too much peripheral light,” she agreed.
    “Hey, there’s the Southern Cross. I’ve been here for two weeks, and this is the first time I’ve seen it.”
    Catherine stood and wrapped her blanket tightly around her instinctively. “Where is it? I’ve been here for eighteen months and I still haven’t found it.”
    He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.  “That’s because it’s not really a cross. There’s no central star to mark the X. It looks more like a kite.”
    She felt the warmth of his hands through her blanket as she tilted her head back. She told herself she could see the stars just as well from the comfort of her hammock, but for some reason she stayed right where she was, leaning back against his chest, listening to him point out the brilliant Jewelbox cluster and the dark nebula called Coalsack. His deep voice caused vibrations to echo through her body.
    “I’ve always wanted to see Scorpio,” she said in a dreamy voice she scarcely recognized as hers. If he had let her go, she would have fallen over backward. But she knew he wouldn’t.
    “Actually,” he said softly, his lips against her ear, “the hammock is a better place to watch the constellations.”
    Scorpio flashed her a warning signal from four hundred light-years away.
    “For you or for me?” she asked.
    “It looks as if it’s big enough for two,” he suggested as they walked together toward the hammock.
    She hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.” She looked up for a sign from Scorpio, but he seemed to be urging her on, asking her, “What harm would it do to study the sky for a few minutes?” Telling her it was a wide hammock, large enough for two.
    But no matter how strong or how wide the hammock, when Josh settled down next to her, their bodies were pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. He crossed his arms under his head and continued his lecture, apparently unaware of the heat waves he was generating in her body. How could he know he had started a chain reaction a few weeks ago in the marketplace that grew stronger and harder to resist every time she saw him?
    The sound of his voice describing the location of the South Pole soothed her, and the constellations blurred before her eyes. She turned onto her side, her back to him. He stopped talking and shifted so that they were back to back. She sighed. She should tell him to leave now and go back upstairs, but it was so hot up there and the air was cool out here. So deliciously cool. And it felt so good to lie there, her back against his. She opened her mouth to tell him... what was it she was going to tell him?
    “Do you know what?” she whispered.
    “No.”
    “You paid too much for the mangoes.’’ There, she’d gotten it off her mind.
    Just before she drifted off to sleep, she felt his hand tousle her hair. “I know,” he said, “but it was worth it.”
    When the rooster crowed, Catherine sighed and buried her head in her blanket. It took a long moment before she realized she wasn’t alone. She lay perfectly still, afraid to turn and see if Josh was awake. Maybe if she rolled over the edge of the hammock and onto the ground, she could pretend she really hadn’t spent the night as close to Josh Bentley as a person could get. Well, almost as close.
    But just as she moved her leg over the side, she felt him shift his weight and drop one arm over her shoulders. She