Wishing on a Rodeo Moon (Women of Character) by Grace Brannigan Page A

Inconsequentially, she noticed the growing puddle his wet
pants made on the stone. The jeans clung to him. She tried not to look at the
zipper area of the fabric, but her eyes were drawn there nonetheless. She
snapped her gaze back up.
    "Do
you want to take up where we left off in the pool?" Jake asked huskily. Tye
blinked hard, expecting to see him grinning. He looked dead serious.
    "No,"
she said shortly. "I’ve got to get this leg dry."
    Squatting
in front of her, Jake pulled her left boot off, tipped it upside down and let
the water run out.
    Tye
stared at the boot. "My new boots," she wailed, abruptly overcome by
impending tears. Why should a pair of wet boots cause such upset?
    "They'll
dry," Jake said reassuringly.
    Tye
tried to stand, but Jake pushed her gently back on the chair and proceeded to
roll up her wet right pant leg. "What do you think you're doing?" she
demanded.
    While
she watched in horror, Jake eased the boot off the artificial leg and tipped it
upside down. Tye stared at the metal components of the prosthesis, then at the
top of Jake’s head as he knelt before her.
    "I’m
helping," Jake said shortly. "Don't be so defensive. I'm only going
to unhook the leg and see if we can dry it out."
    "What?
Unhook it?" Tye did stand up then. "You darned well are not, Jake
Miller! I can do that myself." Panic struck. Tye knew he must not see her
stump. No one had seen it except the nurses and doctors in the hospital and
rehabilitation. Even her family hadn’t seen it.
    Jake,
still kneeling, caught her by the arm. Dread escalated as Tye looked down into
light blue eyes framed by water-spiked black lashes. Fear rioted through her,
then desire tried to curl around her insides. Fear won. Frantically, she licked
her lips, but words didn't come. Inconsequentially, she noticed the black hair
on his chest still dripped with water.
    "If
it bothers you, I won't look," he said calmly. "You can cover it with
a towel. I used to help my mother with my dad."
    Slowly,
Tye sat, her fingers gripping the armrests as Jake finished rolling up her pant
leg. Why did his fingers feel so hot against her water-cooled flesh? She looked
at the metal limb exposed so starkly between them. She felt like she was living
through a scene out of a science fiction movie, and she was the monster.
    True to
his promise, Jake kept his eyes on her face, no doubt seeing the apprehension
that raged, the coward inside that couldn't bear for him to see her leg. If he
saw her residual limb, Tye knew he would be repelled. How could he not be? She
remembered her first reaction to seeing the stump. She didn't think she could bear
to see disgust in his eyes. She didn't care that he had helped with his father.
This was her body, her scars. Her body no longer felt whole. And besides, Jake
used to know her as a whole woman. Quickly, she dropped the towel over her
thigh.
    Tye held
her breath as a deep hurt echoed through her. She didn't know why it would
bother her to see a reaction of disgust from Jake, she just knew she couldn't
chance it.
    In the
next moment he stood and walked across the pool area, her prosthesis in his
hand. He picked up the towel he had earlier discarded and carefully dried the
artificial limb.
    Wide-eyed,
Tye watched him. Jake acted as if he were drying off a plate, or a pan, she
thought hysterically. He had her leg in his hands, for God’s sake!
    "I
can do that," she managed to protest, surreptitiously tugging down the
rolled-up jean to cover the atrophied stump.
    Jake
moved closer, but not close enough for her to reach the leg. "Believe it
or not, there's no ulterior motive in my helping you. It's help, plain and simple,
so stop looking for something that isn't there. We're supposed to be friends,
right? My dad had both his legs amputated."
    "I-I
know that, of course I know that. It’s just that I could have done it
myself," Tye said quickly. Needing something to do with her hands, she
pushed her wet hair behind her ears, then pulled it