Free Cowboy with a Cause by Carla Cassidy Page A

asked.
    “Last week. His trial has been set for next month. Have you talked to him?”
    Adam shook his head. “Not since the night he was arrested. I can’t. I’m still so angry at him.” He reached up and swiped a hand through his hair. Thoughts of Sam always made him feel slightly anxious.
    “He’s sick, Adam. Maybe it was the stress of him taking care of all of us for so long after Mom and Dad died, but Cherry’s death drove him to a dark place with a sickness that simmered inside him for a long time.”
    “Yeah, I know. But we were so close. I should have sensed that something was off with him,” Adam protested.
    “You have to stop blaming yourself for not seeing it, for not sensing it. Sam alone is responsible for his actions, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to know that you still care about him. He asks about you each time I talk to him.”
    Adam’s heart squeezed tight. He’d loved Sam, at least the man Sam had been before he tried to kill somebody. “I’m just not ready to talk to him yet,” he finally replied. “He calls occasionally but I don’t accept the charges.”
    By that time they had reached the ranch where the bull was for sale. The ranch looked forlorn, with a barn that threatened to bite the dust beneath a light breeze and stock that was small and underfed.
    Earl Waylan talked up his animals with an arrogance that bordered on obnoxious. The bull was small and timid and nothing that Nick was interested in buying.
    “That bull looked like he’d run in the opposite direction if he saw a heifer,” Nick said when they were back in the truck. He cast Adam a wry grin. “Kind of reminded me of you.”
    Adam laughed. “I’m not timid of heifers. It’s women who freak me out just a little bit.”
    Nick grinned. “What about Melanie Brooks? Does she freak you out just a little bit?”
    A vision of Melanie filled Adam’s head. Melanie, with her angel blond hair and haunting blue eyes, with her occasional sharp tongue and whisper of vulnerability. She definitely touched him.
    “A little bit,” Adam finally replied. “Although definitely in a good way.”
    “This isn’t some desire of yours to help a helpless woman?” Nick asked.
    “Melanie definitely isn’t some poor, helpless woman. She takes care of herself just fine. She’s intelligent and beautiful and I’ve got to admit there’s something about her that draws me in.”
    “I thought you were the confirmed bachelor of Grady Gulch.”
    “I am,” Adam replied firmly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the company of an attractive woman.”
    “Just don’t break her heart,” Nick warned. “I would imagine she’s pretty vulnerable and you wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.”
    “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’re both on the same page, just looking for a little companionship, that’s all.”
    The day turned into evening and Adam stayed and ate dinner with his brother and his family. By the time he left the ranch, the purple dusk was beginning to fade into night.
    Whenever he spent time with Nick and Courtney, he wondered what it would be like to be in love, to share those special glances with a woman, to know each other so well that you could read each other’s minds, finish each other’s sentences.
    He didn’t trust himself to have that kind of relationship and yet there were moments of silence in his life that he wished were filled by another’s voice, when he longed to have somebody who cared for him, somebody he could love more than anyone else on the face of the earth.
    But he’d loved his parents and they had died. He’d loved his sister, Cherry, and she was gone, as well. He’d looked up to Sam and he had betrayed him. Was it any wonder that Adam was a bit gun-shy when it came to putting his heart on the line?
    By the time he parked his truck in Melanie’s driveway, it was almost nine. Her usual habit was to retire to her room around eight-thirty or so.
    He opened the door and came in quietly. As