Free Beckett's Cinderella by Dixie Browning

get their names and faces in the social columns. According to one of the reports I read, she’s not even on the books as a witness in New York, where a lot of this stuff went down.”
    â€œYeah, well…that’s their take. Big-city cops probably figured you bubbas down here wouldn’t know what to do with the information if they handed it over, so why bother.”
    â€œCould be, Bucket…could be. Anyhow, this bubbastill has some work to do. I’ve got this physical therapist jerking me around three days a week. She looks like one of Charlie’s Angels, but I’m pretty sure she was a drill sergeant in a former life.”
    Beckett chuckled. “You’re the only guy I ever knew who flunked phys ed in high school.”
    â€œHey, it was boring, what can I say? I’m more the cerebral type. Look, how about asking your lady if she’ll contact her cousin so I won’t have to go through what you’ve been going through. This old body can’t take too much more punishment.”
    His lady. A vision of Eliza Chandler formed in Beckett’s mind, complete with long, lean, calico-clad body, snapping light brown eyes and masses of auburn hair that refused to be confined. For a mouth that was clearly made for passion, hers could clamp shut quicker than any snapping turtle he’d ever taunted with a broom handle as a kid. “You got it, but look—don’t count on too much. First I’ve got to get her to sit still long enough to hear what it’s all about. Evidently she’s got her mind all made up that I’m some kind of creep trying to con her into playing games.”
    â€œNow, why would she think that?” Carson asked, all innocence.
    â€œDammit, not that kind of game!”
    â€œFamous last words,” Carson said with a smirk.
    Â 
    Liza threw her book across the room and asked herself why she’d ever wasted her money buying itin the first place. She knew the answer, of course. Because there was a baseball game almost every night, which meant that she could either watch with her uncle or go to her room and read. And because she didn’t have a social life.
    She’d declined several invitations—graciously, she hoped—from the women who supplied the stand, to join them at Wednesday night prayer meeting. By the end of the day, she was usually too tired to go out, anyway. Besides, she’d always been a reader. She had favorite authors she could rely on, knowing that no matter how frustrating her days were, she had a good, safe place to disappear for a few hours.
    What she hadn’t counted on was having the aggravating image of a man who might or might not be a crook come between her and the printed page. “Well, shoot,” she muttered. Obviously, she’d been reading too many romances.
    From the living room came the drone of the post-game analysis. Uncle Fred was snoring. She’d have to wake him up to go to bed, but that was all a part of the unspoken bargain they’d struck that day last spring when she’d shown up on his doorstep.
    One of these days, she reminded herself, he wouldn’t be here. She would miss him more than she would have thought possible only a year ago. The house would have to be sold, rotted eaves, sagging floors and all, and she’d have to move on. Again. She didn’t want to think of it now, so, mostly, she didn’t.
    He was family, after all. The only family she had left except for a cousin she hadn’t seen in years. Anddammit, since she’d lost her address book, she didn’t even have Kit’s last address. She could write to the publisher, of course. Kit wrote children’s books. She’d called over a year ago to say that her latest creation, Claire the Loon , was being optioned by a TV producer. Liza had been out, and Kit had left a message, but no clue as to how to get in touch with her. At the time, Liza had been putting the Dallas house