A Profiler's Case for Seduction - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,95

emphasizing the slenderness of her face and her straight, perfect nose. She had a generous mouth, which might have been incredibly sexy if the corners weren’t turned downward. Those lips would be inviting if she’d just smile a little bit.

For just a moment as he gazed at her, he saw a hint of vulnerability in the depths of her eyes, and a surge of unexpected protectiveness welled up inside him. How did she manage to live here by herself?

He mentally shook himself. She obviously didn’t need a rescuer and that wasn’t his role here. Besides, he had a feeling that if he expressed any desire to help her, she’d kick him to the curb before he’d managed to hang a shirt in one of the closets upstairs.

“Then I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” she said as they reached the front door. “In the meantime I’ll write up an agreement for you to sign when you come back tomorrow.”

“That sounds good,” he replied agreeably. He started to step out on the porch but paused and turned back to her as she said his name.

“This is all new territory for me, sharing my space. I’m sure we’re going to have some kinks to work out, and I forgot to tell you I don’t allow music. If you must listen to a radio or whatever, then either get earphones or make sure it’s low enough that I can’t hear it down here.”

He placed his hat back on his head and offered her a smile. “I guess we’ll figure it out as we go.”

It wasn’t until he was back in his truck that he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Although she’d agreed to him renting the space, it was obvious she wasn’t thrilled about it. And what was the deal about music? Odd. Very odd.

But the ranch house where he’d been alone for so long now once again held the sounds of a happy family. Nick, Courtney and little Garrett filled the spaces that had been empty for so long, their love lighting areas that had been full of darkness.

The truth of the matter was for the past two years Adam’s heart had been filled with the darkness of loss and betrayal and shame, and he wasn’t at all sure he was ready to leave that darkness behind.

His brother and his family would be better off if Adam wasn’t there. They needed time to build their family without him being a third wheel.

This was the right move to make, he told himself. He clicked the two chips together in his pocket and then started the truck and pulled away from the house and headed down the street toward the Cowboy Café.

All he knew was that he needed a space of his own to figure out who he was aside from a man still grieving for the sister who had been killed in a car accident two years before, a man still fighting the desire to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle of booze.

Finally he had to come to terms with the guilt and a faint simmer of apprehension that threatened to grab him by the throat when he thought of Sam, the older brother he loved, who was currently in jail, facing charges of attempted murder.

Now Adam was moving into a house with a woman who obviously had issues of her own. Once again he wondered what had happened to her that had placed her in a wheelchair and why nobody in town seemed to know much about Melanie Brooks despite the fact that her mother had been a resident of the small town all her life.

He frowned and reminded himself that no matter how pretty he thought she was, Melanie Brooks was a mystery he definitely didn’t need to explore.

* * *

It was almost nine that evening when Melanie wheeled herself into the room that had once been a formal dining area and had been turned into a downstairs bedroom after her mother had taken ill.

At the time of the renovation Melanie had had no idea that she was overseeing the construction of a room that would eventually become part of her own prison.

With the grace of a lame elephant she managed to pull herself up and out of the wheelchair and careen onto the bed. She straightened to a sitting position, undressed and then pulled her nightgown over her head and released a deep sigh of exhaustion.

She ignored the chronic tingling pain that radiated down her right