Cowboy with a Cause (7 page)

Maybe she’d made the coffee and then returned to her room to get dressed for the day. He poured himself a cup and carried it to the table and sat, his mind working to make a mental list of the supplies he’d need to buy for the railings on the ramp.

By the time he’d finished his second cup of coffee, he realized Melanie didn’t appear to be inclined to make a morning appearance. He rinsed out his cup and placed it in the dishwasher, then grabbed his hat and headed out the front door.

The early morning sun was unusually warm on his shoulders as he headed to his truck. It was going to be a perfect day to do a little carpentry work outside.

He couldn’t help that his thoughts went back to Melanie as he drove to the lumber store. Last night it had felt so right, cooking with her, eating across from her and then later talking and laughing together.

He felt as if he were walking a tightrope where she was concerned. He didn’t want to screw up his living arrangement but he also wasn’t satisfied just being her tenant.

He had to allow her to take the lead, and for the first time in his life Adam wished he were the one in control, wished he held all the cards in what might come next between him and his lovely landlady.

He parked in the lumber store parking lot and got out of the truck, eager to get the required materials and get started on his task.

As he headed inside, he saw Thomas Manning just ahead of him. “Tom,” he shouted in greeting.

The tall, thin man turned around and offered Adam a pleasant smile. “Hi, Adam.”

“Got a project planned?” Adam asked as the two went through the front door of the store together. He looked at Thomas curiously. Although he was pleasant enough, he stayed to himself, even when dining at the café.

“Not a project. Just some handyman things that need to be taken care of around the house,” Thomas replied. “What about you?”

“Have a little outdoor project to complete and figured I’d better get it done before the weather turns,” Adam replied.

“Definitely nice weather for anything outside,” Thomas agreed.

The men parted ways as Thomas headed for the hardware section of the store and Adam went toward the lumber. As he picked up the items he’d need to build the railings, his thoughts lingered on Thomas.

Adam had never heard much about the man. Nobody seemed to know what he did for a living, and he was rarely seen outside his house unless he was dining at the Cowboy Café. He lived alone and seemed to like it that way.

He wondered if Cameron had thoroughly checked out his background. The murders of the two waitresses hadn’t occurred until after Thomas had moved to town.

He frowned and told himself he was certain that Cameron was on top of things and everyone in the entire town had come under close scrutiny after the murders.

It was almost ten by the time he got back to Melanie’s.
He’d just started unloading the lumber when Kevin
Naperson came walking toward him.

“Whatever you’re doing, I’d be glad to help for a little cash,” Kevin said.

Adam’s first instinct was to tell the kid no, that he didn’t need any help. But Kevin looked so eager and Adam knew he’d had a tough time since the death of his girlfriend, Candy, especially since he’d initially been Cameron’s number one suspect in the murder.

“Never mind,” Kevin said, as if he could feel Adam’s hesitation. “I guess if I’m going to find work, I’m going to have to leave town.” He started to walk past, but Adam stopped him.

He offered the kid a fair wage for helping with the railings and together they got to work.

“Life been tough?” Adam asked as they unloaded the lumber from the back of the truck.

“You have no idea,” Kevin replied. “I mean, at first I understood why I was a suspect in Candy’s murder. I was her boyfriend, we’d had a fight at the Corral that night and I was the last person to see her alive. But everyone forgot somehow that she was my girlfriend, that I was crazy about her, and I didn’t even get a chance to feel bad about her death before everyone came at me, believing I killed her.”

“And you didn’t.” Adam made it more of a statement than a question.

“Candy and I had our issues, but I loved her. I would have never hurt her, but half the people in this town still look at me like I’m some crazed madman.”

Adam remembered how he had felt in the weeks following Sam’s arrest, as if everyone was staring at him, as if he was responsible for Sam’s actions.

Cameron had never been able to tie Kevin to either Candy’s murder or Shirley’s and there was something in the young man’s eyes that made Adam believe he was innocent.

It took nearly two hours to get the railings up, and during that time the more Adam talked with Kevin, the more convinced he was that he was yet another victim of the killer. Kevin was virtually an outcast in his hometown just because he’d fallen in love with a young woman who’d been murdered.

Finished with the job, Adam went inside to get some lunch. He found Melanie seated at the table.

“I saw that you put up the railings on the ramp,” she said in greeting. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“No thanks necessary,” he replied. It took him only a minute to read her mood. Withdrawn, distracted. He sank down in a chair across the table from her. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she replied, although neither the tone of her voice nor the shadows in her eyes convinced him. “Wasn’t that Kevin Naperson out there helping you?”

“Yeah. I kind of feel sorry for the kid. He seems kind of lost and he told me he feels like everyone in town has turned their backs on him.”

“From what you told me, he was a major suspect in the murders. What’s your gut instinct about him, Sherlock?” Although she said the words teasingly, the shadows in her eyes didn’t lift.

“Actually, my gut instinct is that he didn’t have anything to do with the murders, but for all I know, he pulls the legs off puppy dogs in his spare time and is a sadistic killer.”

“That’s a cheerful thought,” she replied dryly.

“Speaking of cheerful, you don’t look so happy today.”

She leaned back in her chair and raked a hand through her hair. “I guess I’m battling a little absentmindedness. The teakettle wasn’t where it belonged again this morning, and it took me forever to find my favorite tea, which is usually right next to the kettle. I finally found the tea bags in the refrigerator.” She shrugged and gave him a rueful smile. “A mind is a terrible thing to lose.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing.” He fought the impulse to lean across the table, to cover her hand with his. There was something about her posture, about the set of her shoulders that warned him to do so would be a mistake.

It wasn’t until much later that night that Adam realized that talking to Kevin, letting the young man work on the railings with him might have been a mistake.

If Kevin was the person who had killed two helpless women in Grady Gulch, then by allowing him to help with the ramp, Adam had drawn his attention to the fact that inside the house was another woman who might be an easy target.

Chapter 7

M
elanie awakened slightly cranky and more than a little bit groggy the next morning. She’d had a bad night with her leg. The pain had been unrelenting and she’d finally broken down and taken not only one, but two of the pain pills to gain some relief.

What she had gotten was some easing of the pain in exchange for horrible nightmares. She’d dreamed of slashing knifes and being chased down a dark street in her wheelchair. But the most disturbing had been her dreams of dancing puppets with broken legs and ballerinas leaping off cliffs.

The morning sun had been a welcome sight and after a long, hot shower some of the grogginess had been sloughed away. She’d dressed and gone straight into the kitchen, where gratefully she found her teakettle and tea just where they were supposed to be.

As she sat at the table and enjoyed a hot cup of the plum-flavored tea, which was her favorite, she thought about the crazy events of the day before.

Maybe it was just a case of her being distracted. She hadn’t been paying attention to where she was putting things. And her distraction had a name—Adam.

The man invaded her thoughts no matter what she was doing, making it difficult for her to concentrate on anything. She found herself alternating between wanting to run to him and to run away, seek out his company and isolate herself from him.

He had her topsy-turvy with warring emotions and she didn’t seem to be able to gain control of them. She told herself she wanted nothing more than a friendly landlord-tenant relationship, but when his lips curved up in one of his sexy smiles, when his eyes took on that delightful twinkle, she wanted more.

Was it any wonder she was putting things in the wrong places and feeling like she was losing her mind? It was his fault for being so darned sexy.

She took a sip of her tea and stared out the window, grateful to have a few minutes alone before he made his morning appearance. He filled the room when he entered it, bringing with him that male vitality, that familiar scent that stirred her on a decidedly pleasant level.

Drat the man, anyway,
she thought crossly. It would have been easier had he been a drunk with bad manners who had to be tossed out on his ear.

She glanced at the clock and realized it was after nine. Adam was either sleeping really late or he had gotten up very early and had left the house. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d left. She knew he occasionally got up early and headed for the ranch to eat breakfast with his brother’s family.

Tilly called to tell her that she wouldn’t be over that day and Melanie assured her she’d be fine on her own. Grabbing her sketch pad from the bedroom, Melanie returned to the kitchen, deciding that a bit of drawing would keep her mind occupied.

She stopped at noon and made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then returned to her sketching, happy to lose herself in her own little world without thoughts of Adam or her absentmindedness to intrude.

The next time she looked up from her work was when she heard the door open and close and realized Adam must have returned home. She was stunned to realize it was almost five o’clock. She’d spent the entire day at the kitchen table.

“Hi,” she greeted him as he entered the kitchen. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah, I went out to the ranch and helped Nick with some fencing that needed to be repaired.” His eyes were dark, cautious. “How about you? How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Why?”

“I just wondered if maybe you were still in the midst of the temper tantrum you must have had last night, after I went to bed.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Temper tantrum? What are you talking about?”

“The pictures in the living room.” There was an edge of tension wafting off him.

“What about them?”

“The glass is broken in all of them. Didn’t you see them?” He frowned at her.

“No, I haven’t been in the living room today.” And the truth was she consciously didn’t look at the pictures of herself dancing whenever she was in that room. It hurt too much.

She now wheeled past him into the living room, and as she looked at the wall of photos, her breath caught painfully in her chest. The covering glass on each and every photo either had been broken, leaving the picture still intact, or had shattered and fallen to the floor. Some of the shards sparkled on the floor in the late afternoon sunshine drifting through the window.

She was aware of Adam standing at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. “They were like this when I got up this morning,” he said. “I just assumed you’d gotten angry or hit a depressive low or something and did it sometime in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t do this,” she said, although it was more of a question than a statement. She remembered her disturbing dreams of the night before.

“I certainly didn’t do it,” he replied with a hint of indignation in his tone.

“And you didn’t use my teakettle and put it away in one of the upper cabinets?” she asked, her mind whirling with horrible suppositions.

“No.”

She stared at the broken glass, her heart beating a frantic rhythm. Was it possible she’d gotten up in the middle of the night, slid into her wheelchair and come in here to destroy the pictures?

Was it possible she herself had placed the teakettle in the upper cabinet? That she’d hung her robe in the closet and thrown her nightgown on the chair? She certainly didn’t remember doing any of those things, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t done them.

The idea that anyone else had somehow come into the house to break the pictures or hide her teakettle was ludicrous and she knew by the perplexed expression on Adam’s face that he wasn’t responsible for the mess.

That left only her. Had the pain pills addled her mind so much that she had attempted to destroy the physical evidence of who, of what she’d once been? Of who she would never be again?

Or maybe it hadn’t been the pain pills at all. Maybe it really was true. Maybe the trauma that had taken away her ability to walk had also affected her brain. Maybe her self-hatred was more intense than she’d thought.

She wrapped her arms around her shoulders to stanch the chill that threatened to suffuse her. She’d written it all off to the fact that she’d been distracted, but now she had to face a new possibility.

Maybe she was going insane.

* * *

It was almost two hours later that Adam sat across from Melanie at the kitchen table. He’d cleaned up the glass mess in the living room while she’d fixed a pot of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.

They had spoken very little while they’d each gone about their separate tasks. He’d been concerned when he’d left that morning after seeing the glass all broken, but afraid of stepping over the line, especially since the kiss, he’d left without checking in on her. He’d reminded himself that what she did in her own home was really none of his business, but he’d definitely been unsettled by what he’d seen.

He had spent most of the morning helping out Nick and then had gone to the sheriff’s office and talked to Cameron about what he needed to do to become a deputy for the town. He was surprised to learn that all he needed was to be over the age of twenty-one, have no criminal past and a valid driver’s license.

He’d filled out an application, and Cameron had told him he’d put it on file as at the moment Cameron had a full force and no funds to hire any more deputies.

In the meantime he’d suggested that Adam take a few courses in criminal justice at the community college and spend as much time as possible at the firing range on the outskirts of town.

But as he now sat across from Melanie, the events of his own day were the last things on his mind. He wished he knew her well enough to read her mind, to know what words would take the darkness away from her eyes.

They ate in an awkward silence, the only sound the scrape of their spoons against their bowls as they ate the warm soup. He had so many questions about what had happened the night before. He finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He set his spoon down and gazed at her.

“Talk to me, Melanie. You don’t remember anything about breaking the pictures?”

She raised her eyes to look at him and in the simmering depths of them he saw fear. “The only thing I remember about last night was nightmares, horrible dreams about dying dancers.” Her spoon clattered to the table as if her fingers didn’t have the strength to hold it another moment.

She went on. “How could I have done that and not remembered? But it had to be me. I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense and yet it doesn’t make any sense. Did you hear anything? Breaking glass?”

He shook his head. “No, but I’m sleeping in the bedroom farthest from the living room. I hear street noises more than I hear anything from down here.”

She rubbed the center of her forehead, as if a headache threatened to blossom there. “First there was the teakettle, then my robe and nightgown and now this.”

“What about your robe and nightgown?”

She quickly explained to him about how those articles of clothing hadn’t been where they were supposed to be the night before. “Then there was that weird phone call where somebody was just breathing on the line. Maybe I just imagined that.”

“That’s easy enough to check.” Adam got up from the table and grabbed the cordless phone and handed it to her. “Check the caller ID. Show me what phone call you’re talking about. It should be easy, because you don’t get that many calls.”

She nodded and punched the button for the history of calls. There were several calls from Tilly, but no number that didn’t belong there. “It’s not here,” she said flatly as she handed the phone back to Adam. “I must be going crazy.” She rubbed her forehead once again.

“You aren’t crazy,” Adam scoffed. “You’re under stress. Your leg has been bothering you. You have somebody living under your roof. You might be doing some strange things, but you definitely aren’t crazy.”

She flashed him a grateful smile. The gesture lasted only a moment and then her lips turned downward. “One thing is for certain. I’m never taking one of those pain pills again!” she exclaimed.

“You took one last night?”

“Two,” she admitted. “My leg and foot were giving me fits, so I took one about ten and then around ten-thirty I took another one.”

She wheeled back from the table and into the living room, where she carefully transferred herself from the chair to the sofa. Adam followed and sat next to her, wanting to somehow comfort her as tears began to fill her eyes.

“I feel like I’ve lost everything that meant anything to me and now I’m slowly losing my mind.” As her tears began to trek down her cheeks, she lowered her head in obvious despair.

Aware that once again he was treading on dangerous ground, he pulled her into his arms. She remained stiff for a long moment and then collapsed against him as her tears became deep, wrenching sobs.

He held her without saying a word, knowing that anything he might say would only be salt on her wounds. To tell her she hadn’t lost something important was a lie. To tell her to buck up and face what had happened to her was insensitive. He knew instinctively what she needed at the moment was his silent support and his arms around her.

Despite the fact that she was crying, he couldn’t help but notice that he liked the feel of her slender body against him, that as he ran his hands down her arms, he could feel sinewy muscle that attested to the upper body strength she possessed.

She cried until she was all cried out and then she pulled herself to an upright position with a small embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Don’t apologize. You’re upset.”

“You’re a nice man, Adam, but I’m sure you didn’t move in here to be my crying towel. You can go on upstairs if you want. I’ll be fine.”

He frowned. “You aren’t dismissing me so easily this time,” he said and made no move away from her.

Her gaze left his and once again went to the wall of photos. “I’ve been so angry about everything. Maybe last night, with my pills and the crazy bad dreams, I finally vented that anger in an outward, physical way.”

“And hopefully the outburst has allowed you to get rid of the anger and move into the acceptance phase of all this.”

She chewed on her lower lip, a look of fear darkening her eyes. “I hope so.” Tension rolled off her in waves.

She leaned her head back against the sofa, looking as lovely as he’d ever seen her despite the redness of her eyes. “The anger has felt safe for so long. It was easy and had become comfortable. I don’t know how to feel about acceptance. I don’t even know if I’ll ever gain total acceptance.”

He fought the impulse to stroke the shiny hair that splayed out from her head against the back of the chocolate-brown sofa. “Trust me, I know how difficult acceptance of life’s curveballs can be.”

She looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?”

“My brother Sam has been in jail, awaiting trial, for over three months. He calls me about once a week but I never take his calls.” Tension twisted tight in his stomach. “I’m still so angry with him, with what he tried to do, that I’m just not ready to talk to him.” He frowned. “I think there’s a part of me that is afraid if I get too close to Sam, I might discover some of the same antisocial traits in myself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she replied. “You are the kindest man I know, Adam. You aren’t capable of doing what Sam tried to do.” She released a small laugh. “We’re quite a pair.”

“We’re a pair that left the dinner dishes on the table.” He knew if he sat here next to her another minute, he would want to hold her in his arms once again. He would want to kiss her.

“Why don’t you sit tight and relax and I’ll take care of the cleanup?” he said as he stood.

“I don’t need help,” she protested, although without the bite in her voice he’d come to expect when he tried to do things for her.

“I know, but it’s not every day I offer to take care of the dishes, so I suggest you take me up on the offer when it’s made.”

Once again she smiled at him and he wanted to capture that smile in his heart forever. “Okay. Knock yourself out.”