One of my all-time favorite books is The Morning Side of Dawn by Justine Davis. This was a Silhouette Intimate Moments from 1995.
The heroine, Cassandra, is a super model who's taking time away to reassess her life. She's also being stalked, so it's a good time to get away. The hero, Dar, designs and builds wheelchairs for racing. He's a double amputee who competes in these races. He also has a huge attitude problem. But when the stalker follows Cassandra out west and she needs help, it's Dar that steps in to provide it Reluctantly.
This is a book that I've read and reread over and over. One of the themes I liked about the book is how people judge others based on appearance and often don't bother to look deeper. This book shows two different sides of the same coin. Cassandra is only seen for her beauty, but no one seems to see beneath the facade to the person she is below the surface. On the other hand, people look at Dar and see a man in a wheelchair. They don't see him as a person or notice how gorgeous he is. They're too caught up on his physical challenge. It's the fact that they are the flip side of the same coin that allows Dar to finally see that he's judging Cassandra the same way others have judged him.
Justine Davis is one of my favorite authors. I loved a lot of her books for Silhouette (especially the Intimate Moments line) and her futuristic romance, The Skypirate, is still my favorite in this subgenre. She has a way of really making me care about her characters and she excels at torturing them. You know how I feel about that. ;-)
The Morning Side of Dawn is no exception on the torture front. The h/h are immediately attracted to each other, but Dar doesn't want to get close. His attitude problem, BTW, came before the accident that took his legs. Most people don't look beyond that either and make assumptions, but Cassandra doesn't and that's part of what gets under Dar's skin, that the heroine really does care enough to get to know who he is at his heart.
I'm not doing justice to this book at all, but trust me, it's awesome and I highly recommend it.
