TAMING JESSE JAMES Read online

  She was so out of shape, it was pathetic. After the attack, she had become almost manic about trying to rebuild the damage that had been done to her body. Maybe on some subconscious level she had thought if she were stronger or faster she could protect herself. She had followed her physical therapy routine religiously, working for hours each day to regain strength.

  Eventually, though, she had become so frustrated at the reality of her new, permanent limitations that she had eased off.

  After she came to Salt River, it had been so exhausting at first just keeping up with her students she hadn't had energy to exercise. Eventually, she fell into a busy routine that didn't leave much time for anything but school.

  Still, she should have made time. Working out in the yard shouldn't leave her knee on fire and the rest of her throbbing muscles jumbled into one big ache.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She thought working in the garden after school might calm her nerves, just as it always did. But she was just as edgy and upset as she had been at the police station.

  By now, Chief Harte had probably spoken with the Garretts. She should be relieved, and she was. She was. Whoever was hurting that child deserved to be punished. She knew that and believed it fiercely. At the same time, she couldn't help the nervousness that had settled in her stomach and refused to leave, or the tiny voice that called her crazy for getting involved at all. Hadn't she learned her lesson? Hadn't Tommy DeSilva taught her in savage, brutal detail what happened to nosy schoolteachers who didn't mind their own business?

  She pushed the thought away. Once more she had a child to protect—it wasn't simply a case of turning in a vicious criminal. She had made the right decision, eighteen months ago and today. She had done what she had to do. The only thing she could have done.

  She didn't want to think about it. Any of it. After quickly pulling her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face, she limped from the bedroom to the kitchen, her knee crying out with every step.

  Dinner was the usual, something packaged out of the freezer and intended to be eaten in solitude. What was more pitiful than shoving a frozen dinner in the microwave, then eating it in front of the television set alone? she wondered.

  She had to get out more, she thought as she finally settled on a low-fat chicken-and-rice meal. It was a vow she made to herself with grim regularity, but she never seemed to do anything about it. When was the last time she'd shared an evening meal with someone besides Tom Brokaw? She couldn't even remember.

  She never used to be such an introvert. In Chicago she'd had a wide, eclectic circle of friends. Artists, social activists, computer geeks. They went to plays and poetry readings and Cubs games together.

  At first her friends had tried to rally around her, with cards and gifts and visits in the hospital. Unable to face their awkwardness and pity, she had pushed them all away, even Andrew.

  Especially Andrew.

  She had given him back his ring when she was still in the hospital, and he had taken it with a guilty relief that shamed both of them.

  She didn't blame him. Not really. That day had changed her, had shattered something vital inside her. Eighteen months later she still hadn't made much progress repairing it.

  She knew her friends and family all thought she was running away when she decided to take a teaching job in small-town Wyoming. She couldn't deny there was truth to that. She had been running away, had searched the Internet for job listings in small towns as far away as she could find.

  But escaping Chicago and the grim memories of that fateful morning had been only part of the reason she had come here.

  She needed to be in a place where she could feel clean again.

  The microwave dinged. Grateful to escape her thoughts, she reached in with a pot holder to pull out her dinner just as the doorbell chimed through the little house.

  She'd heard the sound so seldom that it took her a moment to figure out what it was. Who could be here? Her heart fluttered with wild panic for just an instant, but she took a quick, calming breath. She had nothing to worry about, not here in Salt River.

  Setting her plate on the table, she made her way out of the kitchen and down the hall to the door, careful not to put too much stress on her knee. At first all she could see through the peephole was a hard, broad chest, but then she saw the badge over one tan denim pocket and realized it must be Chief Harte.

  Her heart fluttered again, but she wasn't completely sure it was only with panic this time. Why did the man have such an effect on her? She hated it. Absolutely hated it!

  The bell rang—impatiently, she thought—and with one more deep breath, she opened the door.

  His smile sent her pulse into double time. "I was just driving home and thought I'd check in with you and let you know how things went at the mayor's place."

  As much as she'd like to, she knew she couldn't very well talk to him through the screen door. "I … come in." She held the door open, wishing she were wearing something a little more professional than a pair of faded jeans and an old Northwestern sweatshirt.

  The small foyer shrank by half as soon as he walked inside. There was absolutely no way she could stand there and carry on a half-rational conversation with him looming over her, looking so big and imposing. The house she rented was tiny, with a living room only a few feet larger than the entry. Where else could they go?

  "It's a nice night," she said impulsively. "We can talk outside. Is that all right?"

  She took his shrug for assent and led him through the house to the covered porch, flipping on the recessed lights overhead as they went through the door.

  The back porch had become her favorite spot lately. She hadn't realized how closed in and trapped she'd been feeling during the harsh Wyoming winter until the relentless snow finally began to give way to spring.

  As the temperatures warmed, she discovered she liked to sit out here in the evenings and look up at the mountains. Their massive grandeur comforted her, in some strange way she couldn't define.

  A few weeks ago she'd found some wicker furniture in the shed and dragged it up the porch stairs. She'd purchased matching cushions and hung baskets overflowing with flowers around the porch to create a cozy little haven. She'd been very pleased with the results, but now, trying to see the place through Chief Harte's eyes, she felt awkward. Exposed, somehow.

  He sprawled into one of the wicker chairs, completely dwarfing it. "This is nice," he murmured. "Hell of a view from here."

  "I imagine you're used to it, since you grew up in Star Valley."

  His mouth quirked into a half smile that did more annoying things to her nerves. "I've seen those mountains just about every day of the last thirty-three years and they still sometimes take my breath away."

  She wouldn't have expected such an admission from him. It made him seem perhaps a little softer, a little less intimidating, to know they shared this, at least.

  Before she could come up with an answer, he settled back into his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him until his boots almost touched one of her sneakers. Closing his eyes, he looked for all the world as if he were settling in for the night.

  "This is really nice," he repeated.

  She cleared her throat, suddenly not at all sure she wanted Jesse Harte lounging so comfortably on her back porch. "So what happened at the Garretts? Did you make an arrest?"

  "No. Sorry to disappoint you, but the mayor is still a free man. And it looks like he's going to stay that way."

  She stared at him. "Why?"

  He opened one eye. "He and Ginny both said he'd never hurt the boy, and I believe them."

  "Just like that?"

  "Just like that."

  Renewed fury pounded through her. It had all been for nothing—risking her job and tangling with the man she had spent eight months doing her best to avoid. For nothing.

  Despite her own nightmares, she had done the right thing by going to the proper authority and he had basically laughed in he
r face.

  Calm down, Sarah.

  A corner of her brain sent out strident warning bells that she was going to say or do something she would regret, but she ignored it, lost to everything but her anger.

  "I can't believe this," she snapped. "If I ever wanted to commit a crime, Salt River, Wyoming, would obviously be the place for it. All I have to do is swear to the police chef that I didn't do anything and I'll be home free."

  He dropped his relaxed pose as easily as a snake shedding his skin and straightened in the chair. "Now, wait a minute…"

  "Of course, maybe I'd have to be a powerful person like the mayor so I can get away with it," she went on, as if he hadn't spoken. "Apparently, holding political office around here gives a person the right to do whatever he darn well pleases."

  "I can see where you'd think that, but you're wrong. Dead wrong. If I thought for one minute Seth had given that boy so much as a hangnail, you can be damn sure I wouldn't let him get away with it."

  "Lucky for him, then, that he managed to convince you he didn't do anything. I'd like you to leave now, Chief Harte."

  She whirled away from him with an angry, abrupt movement, completely forgetting that her knee was in no condition to withstand the stress of such a quick motion.

  She heard an ominous pop, then she had the sudden, sick sensation of falling as her knee gave out.

  One instant she was tumbling toward the hard wooden slats of the porch, the next she heard an alarmed "Hey!" and found herself wrapped in strong male arms, shoved back against a hard, muscled chest.

  For a moment she froze as she was surrounded by heat and strength, helpless to get away. And then panic took over. He had held her just like this, from behind, with her arms locked at her sides.

  Instantly she was once more in that dingy Chicago classroom, with its dirty windows and broken desks and stale, tired air.

  Not again. She wouldn't let this happen again.

  She couldn't breathe, suddenly, couldn't think. Her heart was racing, adrenaline pumping like crazy, and only one thought pierced her panic.

  Escape.

  Somehow, some way, this time she had to escape.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  What in the hell?

  Jesse held an armload of kicking, fighting female and tried to figure out what had set her off like this.

  All he had tried to do was keep her from hitting the ground when she started to topple. One minute she'd been standing there, her pretty mouth hard and angry as she ordered him out of her house, the next she had turned into this wild, out-of-control banshee, flailing her arms around and twisting every which way.

  He figured her bum leg must have given out and that's what had made her start to fall. The way she was fighting him, she was only going to hurt it even more—and maybe something else, too.

  She wanted out of his arms. He could respect that. Only problem was, if he let her go now, she would still hit the ground.

  "Take it easy, ma'am," he murmured softly, soothingly, the way he would to one of Matt's skittish colts. "It's okay. I'm only trying to help. I won't hurt you."

  Carefully, moving as slowly as he could manage with his arms full of trouble, he eased her down to the floor. The lower to the ground they moved, though, the more frenzied she fought him. Through the delicate skin at her wrists he could feel her pulse trembling and she was breathing in harsh, ragged gasps.

  He finally was close enough to the wooden slats of the porch that he could release her safely. As soon as she was on solid ground, he moved back, crouching to her level a few feet away. "See? No harm done."

  For a moment she just stared at him, her big green eyes dazed and lost. She blinked several times, her small chest heaving under that soft old sweatshirt as she tried to catch her breath.

  He knew exactly when she snapped back into the present—her eyes lost that frantic, fight-or-flight look and a deep flush spread from her neck to her cheekbones like bright red paint spilling across canvas.

  "I… Oh."

  In those expressive eyes he could see mortification and something deeper. Almost shame.

  She cleared her throat and shifted her gaze to the ground. "I'm so sorry." Her voice was small, tight. "Did I hurt you?"

  "Nope." He tried to smile reassuringly, for all the good it did him, since she wouldn't look at him. "I've run into much tougher customers than you."

  "I don't doubt that," she murmured, a deep, old bitterness in her voice.

  Her hands still shook and he had to fight the urge to reach out and cover those slender, trembling fingers with his.

  She wouldn't welcome the comfort right now. He knew she wouldn't. And she'd probably jump right through the porch roof if he obeyed his other sudden, completely irrational impulse—to reach forward and press his mouth to that wildly fluttering pulse he could see beating quickly through an artery at the base of her throat.

  "You want to tell me what that was all about?" he asked instead.

  She still refused to meet his gaze. "You just startled me, that's all. I don't like being startled."

  Yeah, like a wild mustang doesn't like rowels dug into his sides. Eyes narrowed, he watched her for several more seconds, then realized she wasn't going to tell him anything more about the reason for her panic.

  "How's the leg?"

  "The … the leg?"

  "That's what started this whole thing, remember? You turned to walk away from me and it must have given out. I tried to keep you from falling and you suddenly went off like a firecracker on the Fourth of July."

  The blush spread even farther. "I'm sorry," she whispered again. "Thank you for trying to help."

  She reached out and used a chair for leverage to stand, then tested her weight gingerly. "It's my knee, not my leg. It gives me trouble sometimes if I move too quickly."

  Was that the reason for that slight, mysterious limp of hers? What had caused it? he wondered. An accident of some kind? The same accident that made her spirit seem so wounded, that put that wild panic in her green eyes when somebody touched her unexpectedly?

  He had a thousand questions, but he knew she wouldn't answer any of them. "Sit down. Need me to call Doc Wallace and have him come take a look at it?"

  "No. I'm fine. It should be all right in a few moments."

  "Can I bring you something, then? A glass of water or juice or something? A pillow, maybe, to put that leg on?"

  She sat down and gave him an odd look, as if she didn't know quite what to make of the Salt River police chef trying to play nurse. "No, I told you, I'm fine. It's happened before. Usually, if I can just sit still for a few moments it will be all right."

  After a moment he shrugged and sprawled into the wicker chair across from her. "In that case, you're in no condition to kick me out, so I'll just sit here with you until you're back on your feet. Just to make sure you don't need a doctor or anything."

  "That's not necessary. I told you, I'll be perfectly fine."

  "Humor me. It's my civic duty. Can't leave a citizen of the good town of Salt River in her hour of need. Now, where were we?" Jesse scratched his cheek. "Oh, that's right. I was telling you what happened at the mayor's."

  "You mean you were telling me what didn't happen," she muttered. Her fiery color began to fade, he saw with satisfaction, until it just about matched those soft pink early climbing roses around her back porch that sent their heady aroma through the cool evening air.

  "We covered that. What I didn't have a chance to tell you is that I think you're right. Something's definitely going on with that kid."

  Her green eyes widened. "You agree with me?"

  "Someone is behind all those little 'accidents' of his, but I'm not convinced it's the mayor."

  "Who, then? Surely not his mother?"

  He snorted. "Ginny? Hell—" he paused "—er, heck no."

  "You don't need to guard your tongue around me, Chief Harte. I've heard a few epithets in my time. Probably some that would ma
ke even you blush."

  "I doubt that. Anyone who uses words like 'epithets' couldn't have heard too many raunchy ones."

  "You'd be surprised what you can hear in a school hallway."

  "You teach the fourth grade," he exclaimed, appalled. "How bad could the cuss words get?"

  Her lips curved slightly, but she straightened them quickly, before the unruly things could do something crazy like smile, he figured. "I didn't mean my students here, although I still certainly hear some choice language from them occasionally."

  "Where, then?"

  "Where what?" She shifted her gaze down again, her fingers troubling a loose thread in her jeans.

  Why did she have to be so damn evasive about everything? Getting information out of the woman was as tough as trying to get those blasted climbing roses to grow in January.

  "Where did you hear the kind of words that could make a rough-edged cop like me blush?"

  She was a silent for a moment, and then she took a deep breath and met his gaze. "Before I came to Wyoming, I taught for five years at a school on Chicago's south side."

  All he could do was stare at her. He wouldn't have been more shocked if she'd just told him she used to be an exotic dancer.

  The fragile, skittish schoolmarm who jumped if you looked at her the wrong way used to walk the rough-and-tumble hallways of an inner-city school? She had to be joking, didn't she? One look at her tightly pursed mouth told him she wasn't. Before he could press her on it, though, she quickly changed the subject.

  "If you don't believe Corey's being abused, what sort of trouble do you think he's involved with?"

  He barely heard, still focused on her startling disclosure. Why did she leave Chicago? Did it have anything to do with her panicky reaction to him earlier? Or with her knee that still gave her trouble if she moved the wrong way?

  With frustration, he realized his burning curiosity was going to have to wait. Judging by that withdrawn look on her face, she wasn't about to satisfy it anytime soon.