Cowboy with a Cause (6 page)

“Can you stand on it at all?” he asked.

“I can stand on my left foot and balance a bit with the right but not for long,” she replied. “The right foot and leg really have no function at all.”

“Does it hurt often?” He hated the idea of her being in pain.

“From the knee down it’s a chronic ache with electric tingles and what I call zingers. It’s hard to explain the pain. It’s usually manageable, but sometimes, like tonight, it becomes a bit unbearable.”

“Do you have medicine to take?” he asked, half mesmerized by her skin beneath his hands. It was like stroking fine silk.

“I have pain pills, but I never take them during the day and only occasionally at night. I don’t like feeling drugged up and the pills don’t really take away all the pain.”

“But if it hurts, you should at least get a little relief and take a pill.” He wasn’t looking at her, but rather his gaze was captured by the sight of his big, bronzed hands against her pale, slender leg. She had dancer’s legs, slim, but with calf muscles that gave them shape.

Her scent filled the room, clean and floral and utterly captivating. He closed his eyes for a long moment, just breathing in her essence.

When he did look at her again, her eyes were dark pools of midnight blue and her lower lip looked full and inviting. Once again his need to kiss her hit him full force in the pit of his stomach, nearly stealing the breath from his body.

She appeared to be holding her breath and her nipples were erect against the silk material of her nightgown. Adam’s blood heated in his body and he realized he was fully aroused.

There was a part of him that was half confused by the effect she had on him, by the physical attraction that was a visceral force inside him. All he’d meant to do was alleviate some of her pain, but somehow touching her had completely turned him on. There was also a part of him that recognized that she appeared to be affected in the same way.

It’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
The same words he’d thought as he’d built her ramp now screamed inside his head.

He stopped manipulating her calf and in a swift, fluid movement slid closer to her, close enough that he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.

She stiffened. He mentally winced, believing he’d misread the signals, misread her and that he definitely would need to beg for forgiveness, but before he could pull away, her lips softened and opened to him.

He fell into the soft, sweet taste of her mouth, swirling his tongue with hers as all other thoughts were driven from his head.

She responded by leaning forward slightly as the kiss grew deeper. She tasted just as he’d imagined she would, like sweet fire that ignited a flame in the pit of his stomach.

It wasn’t until he began to wrap his arms around her that she once again stiffened and drew back from him. He instantly slid backward and got off the bed. Her lips were red; her eyes glazed with a hazy light.

Adam raked a hand through his hair and offered her a tight smile. “I’d apologize for that, but to be perfectly honest I’m not a bit sorry.”

The haze in her eyes slowly faded and she sat up straighter against the pillows behind her back. “And I’d demand an apology if I hadn’t wanted you to do that. But now that it’s been done, we both need to forget it occurred and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

She picked up a prescription bottle from the table next to her bed. “I think I will take that tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

It was an obvious dismissal. Adam hesitated a moment, wanting to say something, but in the end he nodded and left her room. What he wanted to do was ask her why on earth it couldn’t happen again.

Chapter 6

T
he memory of that unexpected kiss filled Melanie’s head for the next three days. Adam’s mouth had been hot...hungry against hers and she’d wanted to lose herself in his heat, but she’d stopped the kiss before things had spiraled out of control.

And it would have been so easy for her to allow the escalation of the kiss, but she didn’t trust it. Although she’d appreciated his gentleness in massaging her leg, she didn’t trust him. What man in his right mind would want to start something with a woman like her?

She was no fool. Adam Benson was just passing time here in her house and with her. He was a cowboy boarder and nothing else. She’d gladly take his rent money, but she couldn’t allow him to get into her heart in any meaningful way, because she knew with a certainty that she would never be in his heart.

Sure, he might want to kiss her, he might even want to take things further, but he was in transition, unsure of where he belonged in life, within himself. The one thing she knew to be true was that he didn’t belong here with her.

Since the kiss, he had gotten up early in the morning and had stayed away from the house, arriving back only at night to go upstairs. When they did happen to be in the same room at the same time, there was a painful politeness between them that made her want to scream.

She now glanced at the clock in the kitchen. Two o’clock. A glance out the window made her bones chill. It was a blustery day, the wind blowing with a briskness that portended the winter still to come.

A nice hot cup of tea. Maybe that would banish the chill that threatened to overtake her when she thought of winter, when she thought of Adam.

He stirred something in her, something that had never been stirred before. He made her think of all the things she hadn’t thought of before...like loving and marriage and children.

There hadn’t been time for those kinds of thoughts, those kinds of yearnings when she was a working dancer. She’d always assumed eventually she’d have all that, once her career was winding down. It was only since she’d met Adam that a strange, alien wistfulness had welled up inside her, a vague desire for something more in her life, something more than what she had now, something more than being a dancer.

She wheeled over to the cabinet where she kept the teakettle and opened the door, surprised to see an empty shelf where the teakettle should be.

Had she mindlessly placed it in another one of the lower cabinets? She went down the line, checking in each one, but there was no teakettle to be found.

With a frown she eyed the upper cabinets. Had Adam used it and put it in one of them? An irrational irritation filled her. Didn’t he realize it was difficult for her to get to those upper cabinets? Had that kiss somehow made him forget that she was a cripple?

For one fleeting moment she wondered if he’d done it on purpose, to somehow punish her for halting what he’d begun in her bedroom two nights before.

She instantly dismissed the unkind thought. She knew instinctively that Adam wasn’t the kind of man to play wicked games. Still, when she finally balanced carefully on her good foot and rose up enough to check the upper cabinet, she found the teakettle there. She told herself that she needed to remind him that if he used something from the lower cabinets, he better put it back where it belonged.

The tea didn’t help. It didn’t warm her nor did it take away any of the edgy tension that had been her constant companion for the last couple of days.

She nearly jumped out of her chair at the unusual sound of the phone ringing. She quickly wheeled over to the phone on the counter and checked the caller ID. She didn’t recognize the number but answered, anyway. “Hello?”

She waited for a response but none was forthcoming. “Hello?” she said again. She knew somebody was on the line. She could hear the sound of deep, uneven breathing.

“Who is this? Craig, is this you?” A wave of anger swept over her as she thought of the real estate man. But as the sound of breathing continued and no words were spoken, an inexplicable fear raced through her and she slammed down the receiver.

She nibbled on her bottom lip, staring at the phone. Surely if it had been Craig, he would have said something. So who had been on the phone?

Maybe it had been some weird cell phone disconnect or a telemarketer who had gotten interrupted. Still, it bothered her enough that she grabbed a pen and paper and punched the caller ID button to display the number the call had originated from. She scribbled it down and then tried to call it back, unsurprised when she got an automated response that the cell phone caller was unavailable at the moment and to try again later.

The whole incident simply fed the edginess that had been with her for the past couple of days. She suddenly found the silence around her oppressive.

She had apparently gotten too used to having Adam around and was feeling the isolation of the last three days of him being gone most of the time.

It was the first time since she’d gone into the wheelchair that she wanted out of the house, to be among other people. But she moved back to the kitchen table and stared into the backyard, remembering the night that she and Adam had gone to the café and she’d thought she’d seen somebody hiding behind the tree in her front yard.

She leaned back in her chair and rubbed a hand across her forehead. She’d slept unusually hard the night before, after taking one of her pain pills.

When she’d awakened, she’d been groggy, and only after a shower and dressing had she felt more like herself. She hadn’t left the kitchen all day, but now, staring out the back window, she realized the view was starting to bore her.

Could she wheel herself to the café for dinner? Leave the house under her own steam and eat dinner among other people? A week ago she never would have considered it. Adam had opened up a little piece of the world for her in the week he’d been living here. She just wasn’t sure she was in a place to explore it all alone.

Instead of leaving the house, she went into her bedroom and grabbed the sketch pad that had traveled with her for the past ten years. Inside were sketches of dance costumes, along with written choreography of the dances she’d seen in her mind as she’d drawn the costumes.

This was the one hobby she’d had aside from the actual dancing. She’d always known in the back of her mind that a day would come when she’d no longer be fresh and exciting, when she’d be deemed too old for the stage. She’d just assumed when that time came, she’d come back home and open a dance studio of her own, a place to feed the dreams of little girls.

Of course, she’d always assumed when that time came, she’d be in her thirties, still young enough to open a dance studio, maybe find love and build a family. She hadn’t expected an injury in the best years of her dancing career, an injury that would keep her from teaching, from loving.

She was still sketching at the kitchen table when Adam entered the house close to five o’clock. Just the sight of him in his worn, tight jeans and long-sleeved navy polo shirt set off that crazy yearning inside her, a yearning she battled with a stir of anger.

“Did you use my teakettle this morning?” she asked as she closed the sketchbook in front of her.

He looked at her in surprise. “No. I don’t drink hot tea. Why?”

“I found my teakettle in the upper cabinet and I thought maybe you’d used it and had forgotten to put it back where it belonged.”

He held up both hands. “I swear, I’m innocent. Did you ask Tilly?”

“She hasn’t been in today,” Melanie replied.

He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a cold soda, and when he turned to face her, a touch of humor lit his eyes. “Ah, so what we have here is the case of the misplaced teakettle. What are your thoughts, Watson?”

Her mood lightened. “My thoughts are why do you get to be Sherlock and I just get to be your sidekick?”

He pretended to stroke a beard thoughtfully. “Because I’m the one thinking about a career in law enforcement. Besides, if I get a motorcycle, you can ride in my sidecar, thus making you my sidekick.”

She gave a mock groan at his ridiculous rationale and realized that she’d missed his company over the last couple of days. “Have you eaten?” she asked.

“No. What about you?” He remained leaning against the refrigerator door, looking so handsome he half stole her breath away.

“Not since lunch.”

“How about I throw a couple of steaks under the broiler and you can make a salad?” he suggested.

“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed.

For the next half an hour they bustled around the kitchen with an easy camaraderie, which chased away any earlier loneliness Melanie might have felt.

Adam was such fun. He made a big production of seasoning the steaks, as if he were a master chef. She found herself laughing over and over again at his antics.

Once the meal was ready, they sat across from each other at the table and talked about family and growing up in Grady Gulch.

“Growing up in Grady Gulch was like being in Mayberry,” he said.

She nodded, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “There was an innocence, as if we were all invincible against the kind of crime and evil we heard about on the news. I remember leaving the house after dinner and not coming back until the lightning bugs started flickering, and I was never afraid.”

“Everyone knew everyone else and I wouldn’t have understood the concept of stranger danger.” He cut into his thick, juicy steak.

“It’s sad that the murders have destroyed an innocence that might have still been here,” she replied.

“It’s tragic,” he agreed.

“And the sad part is that once that innocence has been shattered, you never really get it back.” She sighed. “It would just be nice if Cameron could get the bad guy off the streets for good.”

“Maybe he needs Sherlock on his team,” Adam said teasingly.

“With his sidekick, Watson,” she added.

Their lighthearted conversation continued as they cleaned up the kitchen and then moved to the living room.

It was just after nine when she called it a night. Not so much because she was tired, but rather because she realized she was enjoying his company far too much.

She hadn’t forgotten how his mouth had felt over hers, and the longer she spent with him, the more she wanted him to kiss her again. Definitely time to call an end to the night when those kinds of thoughts refused to get out of her head.

“Thanks for the great steak,” she said as they made their way to the foot of the stairs.

“Thanks for the great company,” he replied, his gaze far too warm as it lingered on her.

“Good night, Adam,” she said firmly and wheeled backward in an effort to circumvent anything else that might happen.

“Sweet dreams, Melanie,” he replied.

She watched as he climbed the stairs, and then turned and went into her bedroom to prepare for bed. There was something about shared laughter that created a special kind of intimacy between two people.

They shared the same sense of humor and she found that sexy as heck. He got her and she got him. But it could never be anything more than what it was.

She had to stop thinking about his kiss, quit fantasizing about how his big, strong hands might feel touching not just her leg, but her entire body.

She wheeled herself into the bathroom.
Foolish thoughts from a foolish mind,
she told herself. It took her only minutes to scrub her face and brush her teeth. Then she whirled her wheelchair around to reach for the nightgown and robe that she always kept on a hook on the back of her bathroom door. Neither were there.

She frowned at the empty hook. What was going on? Part of the way she functioned independently was by being a creature of habit, by having a place for everything and everything in its place.

So where were her robe and nightgown? She gazed around the bathroom in stunned disbelief. Tilly hadn’t been in to take them off the hook for laundering. Just like she hadn’t been there that day to move the teakettle, Melanie reminded herself.

She wheeled herself out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom, feeling as if she was losing her mind. She
always
hung her night things on that hook. So why weren’t they there?

She spied her nightgown, a blue puddle on the floor, next to the chair that sat by the window. She wheeled over and picked it up. A few minutes later she found her robe hanging on a hanger in her clothes closet.

Returning the robe to the hook in the bathroom, she wondered if she was going crazy. Had she tossed her nightgown toward the chair that morning, when she’d dressed? She certainly didn’t remember doing it, just like she didn’t remember hanging her robe up in the closet.

But nobody else had been in her bedroom all day. She must have done it. As she climbed into bed, her heart beat an unsteady rhythm.

Was it possible that the malfunction in her leg had more far-reaching consequences than she’d initially thought? Was it possible that the neuropathy wasn’t just in her leg but was somehow worming its way into her brain? It was a frightening thought that kept her awake deep into the night.

* * *

Adam awakened the next morning with the decision to go ahead and put the railings up on the ramp he’d built. The railings would make the ramp safer for Melanie if she decided to use it alone and he was encouraged by the fact that she’d already used it once to go to the Cowboy Café with him.

The night before had been magical. Melanie had appeared more relaxed than he’d ever seen her and he’d loved the sound of her laughter as the evening progressed.

As he showered, he tried to focus on the task ahead rather than think about her. He didn’t want to overanalyze things. Last night she’d been open and fun, but he also knew that she could just as easily go back to isolating herself.

One day at a time,
he told himself as he got dressed for the day. Although he recognized that his feelings for her deepened each minute they spent together, he also recognized that ultimately he was her tenant, not her boyfriend.

He was vaguely disappointed when he went down to the kitchen and found that the coffee had been made but there was no sign of Melanie and her bedroom door was closed.