Cowboy with a Cause

by Carla Cassidy

  “I see a new, beautiful woman in my sights and I must come over to meet her.” He smiled at Melanie and then looked at Adam expectedly.

  Adam made the proper introductions between the two and for a few minutes the big man in the power scooter visited with them. Adam always enjoyed conversations with Brandon, who seemed well-educated and never shy to voice his opinion about anything.

  They had just finished a rousing discussion about the merits of Halloween when Lynette appeared with their orders and Brandon returned to his own table.

  “He seems nice,” Melanie said.

  “He’s the man I told you about. He gets all over town in that motorized scooter. Maybe you need to check into getting one of those for yourself.”

  “Maybe I will,” she agreed. “Now that I have the ramp, a motorized scooter would definitely allow me to go farther away from the house without getting tired.”

  As they ate their meals, they small talked about the people in the café that Melanie didn’t recognize and Adam tried his best not to get distracted by how much he wanted to kiss her again, and fought the desire to fall into the depths of her beautiful blue eyes.

  “There’s Kevin Naperson,” he said when the young man entered the restaurant.

  “He seems too skinny to have been the man in my room,” Melanie said thoughtfully as she watched Kevin take a table in a corner by himself. “Of course, when I realized somebody was in my room, he became the size of a monster.”

  Adam looked over at Kevin. “If he’s innocent in everything, then I feel sorry for him. He’s basically become an outcast since Candy’s murder.”

  “But Cameron questioned a lot of people at that time, right?”

  Adam nodded. “I guess Kevin has just made a good target for everyone to distrust since then. I think at the moment everyone in town is on Cameron’s list...and speak of the devil,” he said as the lawman walked through the door.

  Cameron went to the counter, sat on a stool and then turned around to survey the crowd. As his gaze fell on Adam and Melanie, he got up off the stool and headed toward them.

  “Melanie, Adam, mind if I join you for a minute?” he asked when he reached their table. “I was going to head over to your place after I had my breakfast.”

  “You have news?” Melanie asked eagerly.

  “Unfortunately not enough,” Cameron replied, stealing away Melanie’s anticipation. “Craig Jenkins has finally surfaced. I drove to Evanston last night to talk to him. His alibi is that he drove to Tulsa on the afternoon of the night of your attack. Apparently he had a big deal working for a couple of strip malls and also has relatives there, so he decided to combine business with pleasure. This morning I intend to check out the places he says he was and the people he was with to make sure his alibi is solid.”

  “So no news is just no news,” Melanie said with obvious disappointment.

  “Basically,” Cameron admitted. He released a deep, weary sigh. “And that’s been the story of this entire investigation.” He stood. “I’ll keep you posted as to what else I might find out.”

  “Thanks, Cameron,” Adam said.

  “He looks so tired,” Melanie said as Cameron returned to the counter.

  “These murders have kicked the stuffing out of him.” Adam frowned. “I wish I could do something to help.”

  “Your time will come, Adam. Have you signed up for those classes you wanted to take?”

  He nodded. “And I don’t think I’ve mentioned to you that I finally talked to Sam. It took me a while to process my feelings.”

  “How was it?” she asked as she picked up a piece of her toast.

  “Difficult, but also freeing.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Freeing how?”

  He stabbed a piece of scrambled egg with his fork but didn’t pull it up to his mouth. “When Sam was first arrested, my initial feelings were of guilt, that somehow I hadn’t seen the signs that he was mentally in trouble, that I’d let him down somehow.”

  “Adam, you aren’t a trained mental health professional. It wasn’t your job to see the signs,” Melanie said softly.

  He flashed her a quick smile. “I know that now, but then I started worrying that whatever mental illness Sam had might be lying dormant inside me. I started to wonder if maybe I was capable of hurting somebody...of killing somebody.”

  “Oh, Adam, how could you even think such a thing?” Melanie reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. “You are one of the most solid and kind men I’ve ever known in my life. I’ve seen your soul, Adam, and it’s beautiful. There’s nothing dark inside you, trust me.”

  “I’m in love with you.” The words fell from his mouth on a wave of pure, spontaneous emotion.

  She dropped her piece of toast and stared at him and he wasn’t sure who was more shocked, Melanie or him. He hadn’t meant to tell her how he felt, and even if he had planned to say the words eventually, it certainly wouldn’t have been in the middle of a morning rush at the Cowboy Café.

  But now that he’d said it, he was in all the way, his heart beating so fast he felt slightly faint. “I love you, Melanie.”

  “Stop,” she hissed, her eyes darkening with an emotion he couldn’t read. Fear? Anger? Regret? Worst of all, horror?

  “Why should I stop?”

  “Because I don’t want to hear it.” She stared down at her plate and picked up her fork and then set it down again and looked at him. “Because it isn’t true. You just think it is. We’ve somehow got everything all tangled up, that’s all. We crossed over the line and now things are all muddied.”

  “I don’t feel muddied at all,” he protested. “I feel very clearheaded for the first time in a very long time.”

  She balled up her napkin and placed it next to her plate. “Please don’t say anything else. Maybe you think I need a hero and you want to be that man because you have nothing better to do at this moment in your life.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” Adam exclaimed, then realized his voice had been louder than he’d intended. He leaned forward in his chair, his heart simmering with the emotion he felt for her.

  “It’s not so ridiculous,” she countered. “You moved into my place because you were in transition. Now you’ve realized your ultimate goal is to become a deputy. It won’t be long before you realize that goal, either here in Grady Gulch or in some other town, and then you’ll realize that your feelings for me were temporary.”

  “How nice of you to have my life all figured out for me,” Adam said with a rise of irritation. “It must be wonderful to have the special gift of looking into somebody’s heart and knowing exactly what they’re feeling,” he added with a touch of sarcasm.

  He drew a deep breath, wanting, needing, to get himself back under control. Proclaiming your love for a woman wasn’t supposed to make you aggravated at her.

  “Melanie,” he said softly. “Would it be so terrible if I am in love with you?”

  “Yes, it would be terrible.” Tears shone in her eyes and she picked up her napkin, as if afraid that at any moment she might need to swipe them away. “I need you as a tenant, Adam.”

  He frowned in confusion. “That wouldn’t change by me loving you. There has to be something else. Why are you so upset? Granted, this wasn’t the best way or the best place for me to tell you how I feel, but I didn’t think it would make you cry.”

  The tears that had threatened at her eyes fulfilled their promise and began to trek down her cheeks. “Oh, Adam.” She looked down at her half-empty plate. “I don’t want you to love me, because I don’t love you back.”

  Of all the things she might have said, these were the words he hadn’t expected at all. In some part of the back of his brain he’d thought she was falling for him as deeply, as profoundly, as he had fallen for her.

  Her words sliced through him like a sword, and for a moment he felt headless, boneless with a killing grief. It was at that moment he realized how deep his fantasies
had played out in his mind where she was concerned.

  He’d been able to see them living together as husband and wife. He’d dreamed of being a deputy while he supported her business of selling costumes. He’d seen her as his wife, as the mother of his children, as his partner through life.

  For a long moment he was breathless, speechless with loss, but when he realized how upset she was and that they were drawing attention to their table, he forced a smile.

  “Don’t be sad, Melanie. It’s okay. We’re okay.” He picked up his fork to finish his meal and wondered how he was going to maintain his sanity living with her, loving her and yet knowing she apparently didn’t love him back.

  * * *

  It wasn’t long after Adam’s declaration of love that they finished picking at their meals and then left the restaurant. As they walked back to the house, Adam kept up a steady stream of conversation. He pointed out both scary and funny Halloween decorations that hung in store windows and talked about Halloweens of his past.

  He was rambling, and his rambles only made Melanie’s heart ache more. She knew he was trying to keep things normal between them, attempting to fill up any awkward silence that might begin.

  But nothing he said, nothing he did could take away the pain that shot through her heart, a pain a hundred times more devastating than the nerve pain in her leg.

  He loved her. The words rang in her heart, in her very soul. Whether he truly did or not, when he’d spoken those words to her with his blue eyes shining with emotion, in that moment she’d felt his love washing over her, through her.

  He loved her, and she loved him enough to lie and insist that she didn’t love him back. She loved him enough to save him from saddling himself with a woman who would always have special needs, who would always need more care than a fully functioning woman. She couldn’t do that to him. She refused to do that to him.

  For as long as she lived, she would never forget the look on his face when she told him she didn’t love him. She would never forget the shock, the disbelief and then the utter pain that had raced across his features. By the time they reached the house, an emotional weariness nearly overwhelmed her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as they stepped through the foyer and he took care of the alarm system.

  She had just broken his heart and he was worried about her. She swallowed against a wealth of pain. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You’ve just become very quiet.” His gaze studied her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I know.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, unable to look at his face. “I just don’t want things to change here. I like having you here. You’re a great tenant and I’m comfortable with you and I don’t want things to become awkward between us.”

  “They won’t,” he assured her. “I can’t take back what I said to you, and I can’t change the way I feel about you, but I can make sure that it doesn’t get awkward or crazy between us. I’m a big boy, Melanie. Rejection is a part of life. I’ll deal with it. It isn’t your problem.”

  She looked up at him again, a misery she’d never felt before striking deep in her soul. “I’m sorry, Adam.” Those words couldn’t begin to describe the depth of her sorrow.

  He shrugged and offered her a smile. “You can’t force matters of the heart.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “And now I’m supposed to meet Ben at the shooting range in about a half an hour. Will you be okay here?”

  “The sun is shining, and the security is on, so I’ll be fine,” she assured him. She was actually grateful that he was leaving the house. She needed some time alone to process the myriad emotions that roared through her.

  “Then I’ll see you later,” he said, and just that quickly he was back out the door, leaving only the lingering scent of his cologne behind.

  The tears that had begged to be released in the café began to burn in her eyes. Was it possible that he really was in love with her? That somehow he’d been able to see beyond her wheelchair to the woman she was in spite of it?

  How badly she wanted to not just accept that he loved her, but also profess her own love for him. How much she wanted to believe that somehow, someway they could build a life and be together forever.

  But she didn’t.

  She thought that if she gave in to her love, allowed Adam into her life on a permanent basis, she would only be destroying the life he was meant to live. He would eventually grow weary of having to lift her in and out of his vehicle. She could give him children, but she couldn’t parent them properly from a wheelchair. He needed, he deserved, a soul mate who could walk beside him through life, not one who had to be carried or pushed.

  No, it was best that she keep up the charade that she didn’t love him. She’d rather dream of what might have been if she were a whole woman than live a dream turned nightmare where Adam would not only fall out of love with her but would secretly come to resent her.

  She’d rather live a lonely life than have that happen. It was with a deep, aching loneliness that she went into the kitchen and stared out the back window, her thoughts still racing.

  If Adam would just stay as a tenant another two or three months, then she could make a lot of headway on the back taxes owed on the property and she would no longer have to worry so much about losing the house.

  But she feared, despite what he’d told her, that things would never go back to normal between them, that all too quickly he’d be ready to move on.

  Her cell phone rang, pulling her from her depressing thoughts, and she dug it out of her purse and answered when she saw Tilly’s number on the display.

  “Hi, Tilly.”

  “Hey, darling girl. I had planned on coming over today and doing a little cleaning but my knee has been giving me a fit, and so I think it best if I just sit on my butt and keep my leg elevated.”

  Tilly had arthritis in her knee, and often if there was a weather front moving in, it gave her a lot of pain.

  “That’s okay,” Melanie replied. Secretly she was grateful. She didn’t feel like company, not even Tilly could ease the heartache inside her, and she didn’t want to pretend and have to put on a happy face. “Besides, I think I’m going to wheel myself down to the grocery store and pick up some candy for the trick-or-treaters.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Where’s Adam?”

  “He’s out for a while. I’ll be fine, Tilly. I can handle an outing that’s only a couple of blocks down the sidewalk.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to just pick up some candy for you the next time I’m out?”

  “Positive,” Melanie replied firmly. “Your knee is acting up. You need to rest it. Besides, it will be good for me to take care of this myself.” She had to prove to herself that she could be alone, could take care of her own business without any help from anyone. “I’m going to head out in just a few minutes,” she continued. “It’s a nice day and I’ll enjoy the wheelchair stroll.”

  “Why don’t you call me when you get back in? You know I’ll worry about you if you don’t!” Tilly exclaimed.

  Melanie smiled. “Okay, I’ll call you when I get back here, but you know there’s nothing to worry about. In the meantime turn on the Food Network and keep your leg up and relax.”

  The two women said goodbye and with a sense of purpose Melanie stuffed her cell phone back into her purse and headed for the front door.

  She needed to get out of here, let some fresh air chase the scent of him out of her head. She needed to escape her own thoughts and feelings for just a little while and this first trek on her own to the store was a perfect opportunity to do both.

  Her heart thundered an unsteady beat as she opened the front door and she wasn’t sure if it was because Adam loved her or because she was about to take her first step all alone out in the real world.

  Making sure the alarm system was set, she left the house and wheeled down the ramp to the sidewalk. The thunder of her heart slowed as she gazed toward the grocery store, but the bracing ai
r didn’t blow away a single thought of Adam.

  As she began to wheel herself down the sidewalk, he filled her head. Each and every smile, the very sound of his laughter swelled in her heart.

  If she’d been able to pick and choose the qualities to build a man of her dreams, she knew that in the end it would be Adam. A bump in the sidewalk jarred her and again hot and burdensome tears pressed at her eyes.

  She felt like a diabetic plunked down in a candy store with no way to get out. It felt as if fate had especially delivered Adam to her doorstep just to torment her in a game of what might have been.

  As she pumped her arms to turn the wheels of her chair, she was vaguely aware of a car passing by her, although she saw nobody else out walking the sidewalks.

  Halloween was two days away and goofy ghosts and fanged vampires stared at her from each store window she passed. There was a small seed inside her that knew it would be easier to keep her porch light off and her door firmly closed on Halloween night.

  It would break her heart to see each little ghost, every little goblin. Every costumed child would remind her of what she might have had...with Adam.

  But she wouldn’t keep her door locked and make her house uninviting. She couldn’t run from life and she was determined to enjoy the sight of each boy and girl who knocked on her door for candy.

  She stopped a moment to rest, realizing that wheeling herself around in her house and a couple of blocks down a sidewalk were two very different things, the latter requiring a lot more upper arm work on her part.

  As she came toward the alley that ran between the post office and a little dress boutique, she heard the sound of somebody approaching from behind her.

  She wheeled herself toward the alleyway to allow whoever was walking by enough room to pass her on the sidewalk. She forced a smile to her lips and was about to turn in her chair and greet whoever it was when she felt a sharp sting in the side of her neck.

  Wasn’t it too late in the year for bees or wasps? she thought as she raised her hand to her neck. Her brain instantly became fuzzy. And then there was nothing but darkness reaching out to claim her.