Cowboy with a Cause

by Carla Cassidy

  “I’ve heard it said that there are only three motives for murder. Sex, greed and revenge,” Adam said. “Is there any way greed or revenge could be pointed to as a motive in the cases of Candy Bailey and Shirley Cook?” he asked.

  “Not that we’ve been able to find.” Cameron leaned back in the chair. “And there’s one other motive for murder besides the three you named.”

  “What’s that?” Adam asked.

  “Some murderers kill just because they like it and that’s what I’m afraid we’re dealing with here,” Cameron said. “A thrill killer. They are often the most difficult ones to catch.”

  Adam could almost feel the icy chill that swept through Melanie. He reached beneath the table and took her cold hand in his. “But you will catch him,” he said to Cameron.

  Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Eventually his need to kill will overcome his control and hopefully he’ll start making mistakes. He’ll begin to decompensate, get sloppy or take risks, and we can only hope that will happen soon.”

  “And in the meantime?” Melanie asked with a squeeze of Adam’s hand.

  “And in the meantime I see you’ve had a security system installed. That’s smart, because if this is the same guy who killed Candy and Shirley, then he likes the nighttime and he likes going in places where there’s little resistance.” Cameron leaned forward. “I’m holding a news conference tomorrow and reminding people to keep their doors and windows locked up. I’m going to tell the women of this town not to be out after dark alone. I’d hoped whoever was responsible for Candy’s and Shirley’s murders had left town or died or got arrested. I’d hoped his little reign of terror was over, but with this latest attack on you I have to assume that he’s still active.”

  “If he tries to get to Melanie again, he’ll not only have to somehow get through the security system, but he’ll also have to come through me,” Adam said fervently.

  Cameron nodded and wearily rose to his feet. “I’m guessing that he’ll go after somebody else, that he’ll recognize that Melanie is no longer a vulnerable victim, but there are certainly no guarantees. We still can’t be sure we’re dealing with the same perp.”

  Adam stood, as well, wishing that Cameron had brought some sort of closure with him. “You’ll stay in touch?” he asked as he walked the lawman to the front door. “I’ll be particularly interested in finding out where Craig Jenkins disappeared to.”

  “I’d like to know where he disappeared to, also,” Cameron replied. “I find it damned suspicious that Melanie is attacked and Craig suddenly disappears.”

  “And if he’s behind this, I definitely know his motivation,” Adam added. “Greed. We both know this house is prime real estate for commercial buildings. Melanie told me that her mother owes some back taxes, which she’d been paying off. If she’s killed, then the house would probably go up for auction for the back taxes. Jenkins would be able to pick it up for a song.”

  “All the more reason for me to talk to him,” Cameron said, with a deep frown cutting across his forehead. “I’ve got some deputies in Evanston watching his house for his return. He’ll be brought in for questioning the minute he makes an appearance.”

  “And if he doesn’t show up?” Adam asked.

  “Then we’ll go hunting until we find him.” The two men stopped at the front door. “How is she handling things?” Cameron gestured back toward the kitchen.

  “She’s amazingly strong.” The pride that swelled up in Adam’s chest felt like his own. He was proud of her, of how well she’d handled what might have broken most women. “We both had a few minutes of concern when we thought she had broken those pictures in the living room, but there’s no doubt in my mind that whoever attacked her also gained access to the house and broke the glass in an effort to torment her.”

  “She’s been tormented enough. Now we need some answers,” Cameron replied intently. With that the two men said their goodbyes.

  Once Cameron left, Adam reset the alarm system and then saw that Melanie had moved to the sofa in the living room. He sat down next to her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.” She worried a hand through her silky hair. “It would have been nice if Cameron had been able to tell me that he’d caught the bad guy and now had him in jail, but I didn’t really expect that to happen.”

  “The important thing is that he will catch the bad guy sooner or later.” Adam fought the impulse to pull her into his embrace, to bury his nose in the vanilla scent of her hair.

  “Two women dead and a near miss on me. I’d say at the moment the bad guy is winning.”

  “Hopefully sooner than later that all will change,” Adam said. As a silence fell between them, Adam remembered what it had been like to hold her in his arms while she danced to the music.

  It had been magical. It was as if he’d been the jewelry box that held the ballerina in place while she whirled and twirled in graceful motion. It had been the most sensual thing he’d ever been a part of, watching her lose herself to the music, trusting him to hold her steady.

  As he remembered her playing with Garrett, delighting the child as he had her, Adam couldn’t stand it any longer. He needed to touch her.

  He reached out for her hand, but she didn’t place hers in his. Instead she appeared to draw into herself as she gazed at him. “It’s been a long day.” Her gaze held his for a long moment and then slid just past his shoulder. “Since you’ve installed the security system, I don’t see any reason for you to sleep down here anymore.”

  Adam stared at her and waited for her gaze to finally meet his again. This was definitely a consequence of the security system that he hadn’t counted on.

  He had thought they were building something together, but obviously he’d been wrong. He was preciously close to being completely in love with her, but it was obvious she didn’t feel the same way.

  When her gaze finally met his, he saw a distance in her eyes that broke his heart, a distance that made him feel like something had finished before it had ever really had a chance to begin.

  * * *

  It had been four nights since he’d gotten into Melanie Brooks’s bedroom, since he’d smelled the scent of her, been so achingly close to taking her.

  He wrapped his arms around himself. At two in the morning in October the air definitely was chilly. He had a feeling they were in for an early, harsh winter. Just tonight the weatherman had spoken of a cold front moving in. Melanie Brooks wouldn’t live to endure the winter.

  It had been fun to play with her, to get into the house and move her things and erase the caller ID. He knew it had to have screwed with her mind, but he hadn’t gotten the enjoyment of seeing the fear in her eyes, of watching the horror of her believing she was going crazy. Yes, it had been fun, but now he was tired of the fun.

  Five more minutes. If he’d just had five more minutes, he would have managed to get into that closet. He would have been able to drug her, then take her to his place and enjoy some “quality” time with her.

  He wanted that. He wanted to see her crawl to him. He wanted to see the fear in her eyes before he stole the life from her.

  If only Adam Benson had been five minutes later getting home. Then the rage that burned inside him would have been satisfied. Melanie would be dead and he would finally be at peace.

  He stared at the darkened windows of the room where he knew she slept. “Soon,” he whispered as he backed out of her yard. Soon he would make a move on her again, and this time there would be no cowboy to ride to her rescue, no knight in shining armor to save the beautiful princess. She would be his and his alone to do with what he wanted.

  And he wanted her dead.

  * * *

  Melanie sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee. Dawn was just beginning to break over the horizon and Adam had yet to make an appearance for the day.

  It had been five long days since the security system had been installed, five long days since she’d made it clear to Adam that any furthe
r intimacy between the two of them wasn’t going to happen.

  They had returned to a strained politeness that felt like torture to her, but it was a necessary torture. The minute she’d realized she was falling hopelessly in love with him, she’d known it was necessary to retreat. She had to protect herself. She had to protect her heart.

  He’d brought so many things into her life. He’d proven to her that she could have a social life, that she could leave this house and enjoy music once again. He’d brought back her laughter and a vision for a future. And there were times in the past five days that she’d wondered if perhaps her love for him was really a case of deep gratitude.

  Still, no matter how she worked to make her feelings toward him be gratefulness alone, she couldn’t. It was simply love...love for him as a man, as an uncle, love for the person he was and the way he made her feel whenever he looked at her with those beautiful blue eyes of his.

  She’d needed to back off not just for her own sake but, more importantly, for his. She sensed that he had a depth of feelings for her, too. And she couldn’t allow that. She couldn’t allow him to fall in love with her. That particular scenario had heartbreak written all over it.

  Taking a sip of her coffee, she watched as the sun made its first bold peek over the last of the lingering night clouds. There hadn’t been a minute that had gone by in the last five days that she hadn’t wanted to be in his arms, that she hadn’t wanted him to be next to her in her bed.

  She felt like Juliet, but instead of it being family holding her back from reaching out for love, it was her own disability. No way would she saddle Adam with it, with her.

  He deserved much more than she would ever be able to give him. He deserved a whole woman who could be an active mother to his children. And he needed children. As she’d watched him interact with his nephew, she’d seen the kind of father he would make. He was meant to be a husband and a father, just not with her.

  As if he’d been summoned by her thoughts, she heard the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs and steeled herself for another tense day.

  He hadn’t left the house in the past five days, and she had spent too much of her time in her bedroom, on the computer, surfing mindlessly to pass the time and keep away from him.

  She wasn’t sure how he’d passed each day; she knew only that his presence had been constant. There had been no more news about the attack on her and she could only assume that Adam had stayed close to the house in an effort to keep her safe.

  But she felt perfectly comfortable with the security system now in place and decided that today she’d encourage him to get out, to go visit his brother and do something more constructive than hanging around here and babysitting her.

  Still, when he appeared in the kitchen, freshly showered and achingly handsome, she selfishly wanted to keep him in the house with her, where she could smell the familiar scent of him and see the shine of his blue eyes whenever she wanted.

  “Good morning,” he said as he walked over to the counter to get himself a cup of coffee.

  “Back at you,” she replied.

  “You’re up early this morning.” He slid into the chair across the table from her, his hands cupping his mug.

  “I woke up early and tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t happening, so I just decided to go ahead and get up.” She gestured out the window. “The sunrise this morning is absolutely spectacular.”

  She watched him as he stared out the window and nodded. Each and every one of his features was indelibly burned into her brain. The slight curl of his dark hair, the straight nose and strong jawline, even the curve of his lips were more than a simple memory to her. She knew that when he decided to move on, it would take a very long time for her to forget him.

  He would be her last lover. He would be the man she’d always hold in her heart to warm the cold loneliness that would accompany her through the rest of her days. Oh, there would be girlfriends to lunch with, to enjoy for conversation and friendship. Already in the last week two of her old friends from high school had called her just to chat.

  But she would never again venture into the world of intimacy with a man. The risk was too high. Emotions could flare out of control, and if she did weaken and get married, she feared the man who bound himself to her would eventually only come to resent her and her special needs.

  When he turned back to look at her, she quickly glanced down into her half-empty cup, afraid that he might see the love she felt for him shining in her eyes.

  “You know, it isn’t necessary for you to hang around here every hour of every day,” she said, not looking up at him. “I feel perfectly safe here now that the security system is in place.”

  “Actually, I was thinking maybe you’d like to go with me to the café for breakfast this morning,” he said.

  She finally gazed at him, ready to tell him no, that it wasn’t a good idea for them to socialize together anymore. “Adam,” she began.

  He held up a hand, as if to stop her from saying whatever she intended to say. “As friends, Melanie, just landlord and tenant enjoying a meal together. Nothing more, nothing less. We’ve been cooped up in this house for too long and I think we both could use an outing.”

  She hesitated a moment and then finally nodded. She could definitely use an outing and maybe throughout the course of the meal she could figure out a way to return to the landlord-tenant relationship she’d initially intended for them to have.

  “Good, and then after breakfast maybe I’ll drop you back here and then I’ll contact Ben Temple and see if he wants to meet me out at the shooting range.” There was a hesitation in his voice, as if he was just waiting for her to tell him not to leave.

  “I think that sounds like a terrific idea,” she replied, both relieved and somehow disappointed that he was going to be away from the house, away from her.

  You can’t have it both ways, a little voice whispered inside her head. She had to let him go. She needed to gain some appropriate distance from him, both physically and emotionally. And she’d do that...right after she had breakfast with him at the café.

  It was just after eight when they left her house, deciding to walk despite the brisk morning air. Adam had on his black jacket and Melanie had thrown on her navy winter coat to make the trek down the sidewalk.

  She wheeled herself and Adam walked beside her and she knew this was the last time she’d have a meal with him at the café. The boundaries between them had become impossibly blurred and she needed to get them more firmly drawn once again.

  It felt far too right for him to be walking beside her. It had felt far too right being held in his arms, laughing with him over silly things and making love with him.

  She’d already decided he would no longer be her lover. What she had to do now was make sure she didn’t lose him as a tenant. As painful as it was going to be to have him in the house, to smell his scent every day and see his smiles, his frowns and everything in between, she had to remember that this was ultimately a business deal. His rent money was all that was standing between her and Craig Jenkins owning her home.

  Chapter 14

  Adam drew in a lungful of the bracing morning air and tried to ignore how the sun sparkled in Melanie’s hair and how her fragrance seemed to ride the slight breeze.

  The past five days had been agony. Being in the same space with Melanie and yet feeling the chasm between them had been a particular kind of torture for him.

  There was no question that things had changed since the night they’d danced together. It was as if she’d tuned out, turned off, and he didn’t know why.

  He’d realized that his feelings for her were obviously not reciprocated, but that hadn’t stopped him from feeling. He’d tried to keep busy. He’d set up his computer and signed up for the classes he wanted to take, but they didn’t begin until January.

  He’d spoken to Cameron several times during the past five days, checking to see if there had been any progress made on the investigation int
o the attack on Melanie, but Cameron had nothing to report.

  He’d tried to respect the fact that Melanie obviously didn’t want him, that she was determined to keep herself isolated from him both emotionally and physically, but this morning he couldn’t stand it. He just wanted some time with her, some quality time together, and he knew the only way to get that was to get her out of the house.

  “It’s going to be another beautiful day,” Melanie said, pulling him from his depressing thoughts. “I thought it was supposed to turn colder.”

  “That’s what the forecast says, but let’s hope it stays nice. If this keeps up, there’s going to be a lot of happy trick-or-treaters this Friday night,” he replied. He smiled at her, wanting, needing, to connect. “If you were going to go trick-or-treating, what would your costume be?”

  “An ugly old witch,” she replied without hesitation.

  He looked at her in astonishment. “Really? I would have guessed you for a swan or a princess.”

  “No way. I’d let my evil twin come out to play and go as a witch. What about you?”

  “A sheriff, of course,” he replied without thought.

  “Of course,” she echoed.

  By that time they’d reached the café, which, as usual, was bustling with breakfast diners. Adam found them a table that was easily accessible for Melanie’s wheelchair and they settled in.

  “Is that Junior Lempke?” Melanie asked as she nodded in the direction of a big man clearing a table.

  “It is. Mary took him under her wing a couple of years ago and put him to work. He not only buses tables, but he’s also been doing some of the cooking.”

  “That’s nice,” Melanie replied and smiled as the mentally challenged young man caught sight of her and gave her a shy nod and a quick grin.

  At that moment a waitress with the name tag of Lynette stopped by to take their order, and as soon as she left, Brandon Williams scooted his way toward them.