Cowboy with a Cause (9 page)

As the others continued to talk, Adam found his thoughts drifting back to Melanie. He was worried about her. The thing with the pictures had unleashed a rivulet of both shock and sorrow through him.

Was she too damaged to move on and have a real life? Had the accident that had stolen her ability to dance taken out the very heart of her, leaving nothing left inside her?

He didn’t want to believe that, but in the days since the picture incident she’d been almost impossible to read. She’d been so closed off, no hint of welcome in her eyes, whenever he was around.

In the time he was home, she either sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window, as if lost in thought, or was in her room alone.

Suddenly he was ready to head home...to her. She’d probably gone to bed long ago, but he would smell her scent when he walked through the front door, would feel her presence as he made his way up the stairs to go to sleep. Just knowing she was beneath the same roof as him somehow made him feel good.

“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure as usual,” Adam said as he stood. “But I’ve got a thirty-minute drive back home and it’s way past my bedtime.”

The others ribbed him good-naturedly and then Adam paid his tab and left the café. As he got into his truck for the drive back to Grady Gulch, his mind was filled with thoughts of both Sam and Melanie.

How could he make Melanie understand that she needed to somehow find a way to forgive the fates that had put her in a wheelchair when he couldn’t even find forgiveness in his own heart for the brother he’d loved? For the man who, when their parents died, had stepped up and stepped in to make sure that all four siblings were able to remain together.

Sam had been barely an adult when he’d petitioned the court to gain custody of his three younger siblings. The idea of any of them going into foster care had been untenable to him.

He’d given up whatever hopes, whatever dreams he might have once entertained for himself to keep the ranch running and profitable, to manage his sister and brothers, who depended on him. He had sacrificed himself for them and finally had snapped.

A piece of brittle hardness against his brother cracked inside his chest and fell away. He would never condone what Sam had tried to do. He would never understand the rage and demons that had driven him to attempt to kill a woman, but he could forgive him for being sick.

Maybe it was time to let Sam know that Adam still loved him. He vowed that the next time Sam tried to contact him, he’d take the call.

A lightness filled his heart with the decision, confirming that it was, indeed, the right decision, and as that particular subject left his mind, Melanie filled it once again.

He was getting in too deep with her, wanting her with a desire that had become a distraction each time they were together.

He knew he wasn’t ready for a relationship, wasn’t sure he’d ever be good husband material. But there was no question that Melanie made him think about such things. Something about her made him want to be a better man, to be good husband and father material.

Her laughter filled his heart with the music that was missing from her life. The strength and will she displayed in accomplishing all the things that other people took for granted awed him.

He’d never known anyone like her before, a woman who was both incredibly vulnerable and yet possessed a steely strength and a need for independence.

Yes, he was definitely getting too close to her. He awakened each morning with the firm commitment to gain some distance, but when they shared a breakfast or had a brief morning conversation, he found himself reluctant to leave.

He felt like a teenager enjoying his first real crush. He wanted to know what she was thinking, how she was feeling, at any given time of the day or night.

He was captivated by her sharp mind, entranced by the sense of humor she’d only begun to display as they grew more comfortable together.

Even when she was sitting in her wheelchair, he found her incredibly sexy. Yeah, he was definitely developing a mad crush on his landlady. There was a part of him that wanted to follow through and see where things went between them and another part of him that believed doing so would be the biggest mistake of his life.

He clenched and then unclenched his hands around the steering wheel. Sometimes he thought his problem was that he ruminated on everything too much.

Sam had always made a decision and then stuck to it. Nick had led with his heart in every life choice he’d made, while Adam had always been the cautious one, carefully weighing the pros and cons until he felt frozen and too afraid to make any kind of meaningful decision.

He was finally beginning to trust his instincts, to go with his gut. Checking out the community college had felt right, and his desire to become a deputy felt just as right. He was finally on a course of action to become the man he wanted to be.

But, as much as he cared about Melanie, he was beginning to wonder if maybe she didn’t need some sort of help that he couldn’t give her. Maybe the illness that had made her leg useless had infected her soul to the point where nobody would ever be able to heal her.

Chapter 9

M
elanie’s brain worked to try to make sense of it, but there was no sense. Surely it was impossible that she’d left her chair by the window and then crawled into her bed. It simply wasn’t physically possible, was it?

She didn’t remember doing it, rather had the distinct memory of wheeling out of the bathroom and to the side of the bed. Was her memory faulty? Was she even crazier than she’d feared?

She was certain Adam hadn’t sneaked in to do it. He would never play such a cruel trick on her. It simply wasn’t in his character. So what was happening? What on earth was going on?

Terror tightened her throat as she heard a deep, heavy breathing that wasn’t her own, felt an alien presence nearby. She wasn’t alone. Somebody was definitely in the room with her.

“Adam?” she whispered softly, hopefully, as her heart banged painfully hard in her chest.

“Adam isn’t home. Guess again.” The deep, unfamiliar guttural voice came from the dark corner of the room opposite from where her wheelchair sat.

Alarm fired off in a dozen screams inside Melanie’s head. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m here. You want your wheelchair? Crawl to it,” he said and then laughed.

Sheer panic surged up inside her, choking her throat and for a long moment making her unable to draw a breath. Who was he? What was he doing here in her bedroom in the middle of the night? What did he want?

Was this the serial killer who had been stalking women in town? The man who had already murdered two women in their beds, slashing their throats while they slept? Was he here to make her his third victim?

A scream rose to her lips, but she knew she could scream her fool head off and it wouldn’t do any good. Her house was sandwiched between businesses, businesses that had closed hours ago. She could scream, but there would be nobody close enough to hear her.

Still, she released a scream that pierced the night, that shrieked of the utter terror that possessed her as she realized the depth of danger around her.

Escape.
The word thundered in her brain. She had to escape; she had to move. Somehow she had to get off the bed. She was a sitting duck here.

A sob escaped her lips. But how could she escape? She was crippled, unable to leap from the bed and run out of the room, unable to fight back when he decided to attack.

One thing was certain. She wasn’t going to just sit around in the bed and wait for death to come to her. Drawing a deep breath, she rolled over and fell off the side of the bed and to the floor.

The man in the corner laughed again. “Like a fish out of water, flopping around on the floor.”

She didn’t recognize his voice, which he was obviously trying to disguise. She didn’t even want to listen to him as he taunted her. Instead she focused on a plan formulating in her head.

The room was dark, and as long as he stood in the corner, teasing her, he couldn’t see her as she used her arms and one good leg to move as silently as possible across the carpeted floor.

Ignoring rug burns and the ache of muscles scarcely used, she had only one goal in mind...to get into the closet. If she could just get inside the small enclosure, perhaps she could hold him off until Adam arrived back home.

The door to the closet was open slightly, just enough for her to grab it, slide in and pull it closed behind her. All she had to do was get there before he decided to stop talking and get serious.

“I can hear you slithering around on the floor like a snake,” the voice said, this time sounding closer than it had seconds before.

With a new burst of terror, she increased her efforts, crawling backward like a crab as she dragged her bad leg across the floor. Three more feet. If she could just manage to go three more feet before he pounced, then she might be able to save herself.

All other thoughts left her head. She was aware of the man taunting her, getting closer and closer still, but her sole focus was on the closet.

Two more feet. Terror mingled with silent prayers as she pulled herself forward.
Help me! Somebody help me!
The words cried out inside her, but she knew nobody could help her but herself.

Another foot and her fingers touched the closet door. With Herculean effort she lurched backward and grabbed the door. With an outward gasp she pulled it open just enough for her to slink inside and then she closed the door and held the doorknob tight.

He laughed, and although there was something strangely familiar in the laughter, she couldn’t identify it, couldn’t identify him. “Looks like you’ve worked yourself into a dead end, Melanie.”

She squeezed the doorknob tighter, her heart threatening to explode it was beating so fast. He knew her name. Who was it? This wasn’t just a random stranger who had come into her house in the middle of the night, but rather somebody who knew her, knew her condition.

As she felt the knob attempt to turn beneath her grasp, she wondered where Adam was, if he would make it home in time to save her.

Somehow, someway, she realized, she had to save herself, but as the doorknob rattled again beneath her grip, she feared she wouldn’t have the strength to keep the monster out of the closet.

* * *

By the time Adam reached Melanie’s driveway, he was completely relaxed and ready for bed. He knew she’d already be asleep, for she rarely stayed up later than ten.

Time would tell what kind of help she needed, and if he might be the man to stand by her side when she got that help. He wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but he knew with certainty that he wasn’t ready to walk away from her yet. For the first time since he’d left his ranch, he felt needed. He just didn’t know if she realized she needed, and wanted him yet.

He stepped outside of the truck and stretched with his arms overhead. The day had begun fairly mildly, but now a deep chill had taken over. Clouds chased across the front of the near full moon, half obscuring what should have been magnificent moonlight.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and jiggled the three chips inside. He’d received his third month of sobriety chip that night. He felt like a fraud when he was around the other men.

Since the day he’d stopped drinking, he’d never thought about it again, but he knew of the daily—sometimes minute-by-minute—struggles some of the others in the group suffered as they fought the battle of booze.

As he approached the front door, he heard the sound of muffled screams coming from someplace in the house. Panic jumped inside his veins and he fumbled with the key in an attempt to get the door unlocked as quickly as possible.

“Melanie?” he cried through the closed door, cursing his clumsiness as he tried to get the door open.

He finally opened it and stumbled into the dark interior, and as he took another step into the foyer, the screams became louder.

Melanie.
His heart crashed against his ribs. “Melanie!” he shouted again. Had she fallen? Maybe taken a header in the shower? Was she seriously hurt?

He raced toward her bedroom and instantly flipped on the overhead light. In the blink of an eye he took in the scene before him, trying to make sense of it all.

The street-level window was open, the screen missing, and her wheelchair had been pushed into one corner of the room. Melanie wasn’t in it or in the bed.

The screams had stopped and in the silence Adam could hear the banging of his own heartbeat as a panic like he’d never known before roared through him. Where was she? What had happened while he’d been gone?

The screams began again, sobbing, terror-filled screams, and he realized they were coming from the closet. He raced to the door and attempted to turn the knob, but it refused to turn in his hand.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” Melanie’s voice sounded hoarse and yet was filled with such fear, it ripped through his heart. She screamed again.

“Melanie, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Adam. Let me open the door. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here.”

A deep, wrenching sob sounded, and when he tried to turn the doorknob again, it turned easily in his hand. He pulled the door open to find her crumpled on the floor like a broken doll.

“I woke up and he was in my room.” The words came haltingly out of her, punctuated by hiccuping sobs. “He moved my wheelchair. I slid off the bed and crawled in here. I held the doorknob tight so he couldn’t open it. He was going to kill me. I know that’s what was going to happen.” Her sobs made the words half gibberish, but Adam definitely got enough information to realize what had apparently happened.

She burst into a new fit of tears as Adam bent down and picked her up. She slung her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his neck, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.

She was nearly weightless in his arms and so achingly fragile, Adam’s blood ran cold as he gently laid her on her bed. It was now obvious what had happened. Somebody had come through the window while she slept, somebody who could only have had evil intent.

He chilled as he thought of what might have happened to her if he’d lingered another minute over his piece of pie, if he hadn’t driven a little over the speed limit coming home. How much longer could she have held on to the closet doorknob? And what would have happened if the intruder had managed to open that door? His heart iced at the very possibilities.

He sank next to her on the bed and stroked her hair as her tears began to ebb. “I was so afraid,” she said with a final gasping sob. “I thought I was going to be just like those other women, like the waitresses. I thought he was going to kill me in my bed.” Her body trembled with such a force he held tight, as if in doing so, he was holding her together.

“We need to call Cameron,” he finally said as her trembling began to subside. “We need to report this.”

Her eyes were huge as she slowly nodded her head. “Do you think it was the serial killer? Was I supposed to be his next victim?” Her voice was unusually deep and raspy, both from screaming and from the intense emotion that still coursed through her body.

“Anything is possible,” Adam said tersely as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in the number for the sheriff.

Melanie wrapped her arms around her shoulders as if in an attempt to fight off a shiver that began in her very soul.

As Adam waited for Cameron to answer the call, he felt the same kind of shiver attempt to take hold of him as he realized that danger had crept not only into the house but into Melanie’s bedroom while she slept.

It took him only minutes to reach the sheriff and give a quick assessment of the situation and request assistance. When he hung up the phone, he tucked it back into his pocket and moved away from Melanie.

“Sit tight,” he said to her. “I’m just going to get your robe.” There was no way in hell he wanted the sheriff or any of the deputies to see Melanie in her sexy blue nightgown.

“It’s hanging on the back on my bathroom door,” she said. Her voice sounded a little bit stronger, as if some of the shock was slowly wearing off.

He found the white terry-cloth robe just where she’d told him it would be, and carried it back into her bedroom. He helped her into it and then once again wrapped his arms around her.

He didn’t ask her any questions and she didn’t offer any more information. She simply clung to him as if he were a lifeline.

The idea that anyone would try to put their hands on her in an effort to harm her shot rage through him.

“I didn’t do this to myself,” she whispered.

He leaned back and looked at her in surprise. “It never crossed my mind that you did.”

“Maybe somebody will think I’m just some poor crippled woman looking for attention, that I tore the screen off the window, left my wheelchair in the corner and then crawled into the closet and waited for you to come home.” A new sob welled up and spilled from her lips.

“Melanie, stop,” he protested.

She looked up at him with eyes that simmered with emotion. “Isn’t that what you think? That I’m just a poor little cripple?”

“Never,” he replied truthfully. “And you need to get that thought out of your head. We need to get you into the living room. The sheriff should be here anytime.”

She swiped at the tears that had begun to fill her eyes once again. “Can you bring me my chair?”

He started for it and then halted in his tracks. “We need to leave it where it is. Maybe there are fingerprints on it that will let us know who was in here.”

He walked back to where she sat on the bed and scooped her up in his arms. Once again she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. For a moment he imagined that he could feel her heartbeat matching the rhythm of his own.

“It’s going to be all right, Melanie,” he promised. “I’m here and I’m going to make sure everything is all right.” He just hoped it was a promise he could keep.

* * *

By the time Sheriff Cameron Evans arrived on scene with two of his deputies, Melanie was tightly wrapped in her fuzzy winter robe and seated on the sofa. The chill that she’d felt since the moment she realized somebody was in her bedroom with her had ebbed somewhat, replaced by a half-numb feeling.

Somebody had intended to kill her. Why? Was it the serial killer who had been in the bedroom with her? Everything now had a surreal feel to it.

Adam paced the floor in front of her, sighing in relief as the lawmen finally arrived.

“What’s going on?” Cameron asked as he stepped into the living room, followed closely behind by Deputies Jim Collins and Ben Temple. “Your call was too frantic for me to know for sure what had happened.”

“Somebody tried to kill me.” The words fell from Melanie’s mouth and sent a new wave of icy chills up and down her back.

“Where?” Cameron stood at attention, his eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, as Adam sat down next to Melanie and took one of her cold hands in his.

“I was asleep and something woke me up.” She squeezed Adam’s hand as the horror of the events she’d experienced replayed in her mind. “At first I thought it was just a dream that had awakened me, but when I went to reach for my wheelchair, it wasn’t there, and then I saw it across the room, in the corner.”