Cowboy with a Cause Read Free

truth of the matter was his words had stung her.
    She certainly hadn’t had much interaction with anyone since her mother’s death. Once a week her groceries were delivered by a teenager who worked at the Shop and Go, and a month ago she’d had to contact Abe Dell, the local plumber, to take care of a leak beneath the kitchen sink. Had she been cranky with those people? Probably, she thought with a touch of shame. She felt as if she’d been stuck in a place of anger for a while, but surely she had good reason.
    For all intents and purposes her life had ended seven months ago at the bottom of the stairs that led down to the basement. It had been exactly a week after she’d buried her mother.
    Still grieving, she had been in the process of packing up some of her mother’s things to donate to a local charity. She had started down the stairs to retrieve a couple of empty boxes when her foot missed a rung and plunged her into a free fall.
    Melanie’s right leg had been bothering her for weeks before the fall, but as a professional dancer she’d been accustomed to aches and pains for so long that she’d ignored the warning signs of unusual numbness and burning.
    The fall hadn’t been what had put her in the wheelchair. The stumble on the stairs had simply been a symptom of a more serious underlying condition.
    She now shifted positions in the bed and consciously willed away thoughts of that day and the moment when she’d realized any dreams, any hopes she’d once had for her future had been destroyed.
    She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed and sought the sweet oblivion of sleep. It didn’t take long. She dreamed she was dancing, executing perfect pirouettes and leaps that suspended her in midair as music swelled in her chest, filled her soul.
    Ballet, jazz and tap, she did it all and she did it well. She’d been born to dance and in her dreams she was all that she was meant to be.
    The stark light of morning sunshine streaming through the nearby window pulled her from her night of happy dreams and into the glare of her harsh reality. The right foot that she’d once concentrated so hard to point had betrayed her, now dangling in a permanent point, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t flex it to a flat, walking position.
    Peripheral neuropathy and drop foot were the official diagnoses that had put her in a wheelchair and taken away her career as a professional dancer.
    For three months she’d had every neurological test there was in an attempt to find the problem and fix it, but nobody had been able to pinpoint the source of the condition, and it had been written up as lumbosacral plexopathy—nerves that didn’t work right, for some unknown reason.
    With the sun getting brighter and the clock reading almost eight, Melanie made the clumsy move from the bed to the wheelchair and wheeled herself into the adjoining bathroom.
    Thankfully the bathroom shower was equipped with all the special equipment it required for her to be independent. And she had to be independent. Other than Tilly there was nobody in her life and she knew the odds of having anyone else in her life on a permanent basis were minimal. She was damaged goods and would only be a burden on anyone.
    It was twenty to nine when she finally left the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed in a pair of soft fleece navy blue jogging pants and a white and navy T-shirt.
    She headed for the kitchen, her heart beating just a little bit faster than usual, knowing that today was the day she would start to share her house with Adam Benson.
    While her emotions screamed that it was a big mistake, her logical side reminded her that renting the upstairs to him was a necessary evil. Her mother had loved this house and now it was all that Melanie had, her only security in the world. Although it had been paid off several years ago by her mother, the yearly real estate taxes would soon be due and she didn’t want to give the obnoxious Craig Jenkins any