Taming Jesse James

“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 chief 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 make 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.

He gave a mental shrug. He’d get the information out of her sooner or later. He was a cop. It was his job to solve mysteries.

“I don’t know,” he said, in answer to her question about Corey. “But whatever it is, I doubt it’s legal. He sure looked scared when he came home and found me sitting with his parents.”

“What do you plan to do next?”

“Try to find out what he’s up to. I figured maybe if I can talk to him one-on-one, he might open up a little more.”

“I take it you have a plan.”

He nodded. “I’m coming to the grade school next month to talk about crime prevention, and he’s going to be my assistant. I expect it will take us several days to get ready, which ought to give me plenty of time to find out what’s been going on with him.”

“And he agreed to help you?”

“He wasn’t too crazy about it at first, but he finally came around. I think it will be good for him.” He paused. “If someone is hurting that kid, I’ll find out, Sarah. I promise you that.”

She gazed at him, green eyes wide and startled at his vehemence. Tilting her head, she studied him closely as if trying to gauge his sincerity. Whatever she saw in his expression must have satisfied her. After a few moments she offered him a smile. Not much of one, just a tentative little twitch of her lips, but it was definitely still a smile.

He felt as jubilant as if he’d just single-handedly brought every outlaw in the Wild West to justice.

“Thank you,” Sarah murmured, her voice as soft as that spring breeze that teased her blond hair like a lover’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” he answered gruffly, knowing damn well he shouldn’t be so entranced by a tiny smile and a woman with secrets in her eyes.

“And I’m sorry for the terrible things I said to you,” she went on. “I had no right to say such things. To judge you like that.”

He had to like a woman who could apologize so sweetly. “You’re a teacher concerned about one of her students. You were willing to do what you thought was the right thing, which is more than most people would in the same situation.”

She didn’t seem to take his words as the compliment he intended. Instead, her mouth tightened and she looked away from him toward the wooden slats of the porch.

What the hell had he said to make her look as if she wanted to cry? He gave an inward, frustrated sigh. Just when he thought he was making progress with her, she clammed up again.

He ought to just let it ride. Sarah McKenzie was obviously troubled by things she figured were none of his business. But something about that lost, wounded look that turned her green eyes murky brought all his protective instincts shoving their way out.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No,” she said curtly. “Nothing at all.”

“How’s the knee?”

She looked disoriented for a moment, then glanced down at her outstretched leg. “Oh. I think it’s feeling much better.” Gripping the arms of the wicker rocker, she rose to her feet and carefully tested it with her weight. “Yes. Much better.”

She was lying. He could tell by the lines of pain that bracketed her mouth like sagging fence posts.

“You sure?”

“Yes. Positive. I’m fine. I appreciate all your help, Chief Harte, but I’m sure you have better things to do than baby-sit me.”

He couldn’t think of a single one, especially if he stood half a chance of coaxing more than that sad little smile out of her. But she obviously wanted him gone, and his mama hadn’t raised her kids to be rude. Well, except for Matt, maybe.

Anyway, he’d have another chance to see those green eyes soften and her soft, pretty mouth lift at the corners. And if an excuse to see her again didn’t present itself, he’d damn well make one up.

“If you’re sure you’re okay, I’ll leave so you can get back to the supper I dragged you away from. It’s probably cold by now.”

She grimaced. “I’m afraid it’s not much of a meal, hot or cold. A frozen dinner.”

It broke his heart to think of her sitting alone here with her solitary dinner. If he thought for a second she’d agree to go with him, he’d pack her into his Bronco and take her down to the diner for some of Murphy’s turkey-fried steak.

But even though he had willingly left the ranch work to Matt, he had still gentled enough skittish mustangs in his time to know when to call it a day. He had a feeling he was going to have to move very slowly if he wanted to gain the schoolteacher’s trust.

Asking her to dinner would probably send her loping away faster than the Diamond Harte’s best cutter after a stray.

No hurry. He could be a patient man, when the situation called for it. He would bide his time, let her know she had nothing to fear from him.

Meanwhile, he now had two mysteries on his hands: Corey Sylvester and whatever mischief he was up to. And Sarah McKenzie.

The pretty schoolteacher had scars. Deep ones. And he wasn’t about to rest until he found out who or what had given them to her.

Chapter 4

The nightmare attacked just before dawn.

She should have expected it, given the stress of the day. Seeing Corey Sylvester’s bruises, the visit to the police station that had been so reminiscent of the extensive, humiliating interviews she had given in Chicago, and two encounters with the gorgeous but terrifying Jesse Harte.

It was all more than her still-battered psyche could handle.

If she had been thinking straight, she would have tried to stay up, to fight the dream off with the only tool she had—consciousness. But the sentence diagrams she was trying to grade worked together with the exhausting stress of the day to finish her off. After her fourth yawn in as many minutes, she had finally given up. She was half-asleep as she checked the locks and turned off the lights sometime around midnight.

Sleep came instantly, and the dream followed on its heels.

It was as familiar to her as her ABCs. Walking into her empty classroom. Humming softly to the Beethoven sonata that had been playing on her car CD. Wondering if she would be running on schedule after school to meet Andrew before the opening previews at the little art theater down the street from her apartment.

She unlocked her classroom door and found him waiting for her, his face hard and sharp and his eyes dark with fury.

She hadn’t been afraid. Not at first. At first she’d only been angry. He should have been in jail, behind bars where he belonged.

The detective she had made her report to the afternoon before—O’Derry, his name had been—had called her the previous evening to let her know officers had picked up DeSilva. But he had also warned her even then that the system would probably release the eighteen-year-old on bail just a few hours later.

She knew why he had come—because she had dared step up to report him for dealing drugs and endangering the welfare of a child. She imagined he would threaten her, maybe warn her to mind her own business. She never guessed he would hurt her.

How stupid and naive she had been in her safe, middle-class world. She had taught at an inner-city school long enough that she should have realized anyone willing to use a nine-year-old girl to deliver drugs to vicious criminals would be capable of anything.

“How did you get in?” she started to ask, then saw shattered glass from the broken window all over the floor and the battered desks closest to it. How was she supposed to teach her class now with cool October air rushing in? With the stink and noise of the city oozing in along with it?

Before she could say anything more, he loomed in front of her. “You messin’ with the wrong man, bitch.”

Still angry about the window, she spoke without thinking. “I don’t see a man here,” she said rashly. “All I can see is a stupid punk who hides behind little girls.”

He hissed a name then—a vicious, obscene name—and the wild rage in his features finally pierced her self-righteous indignation. For the first time, a flicker of unease crawled up her spine.

He was high on something. He might be only eighteen, but that didn’t mean anything on the street. Punk or not, a furious junkie was the most dangerous creature alive.

She started to edge back toward the door, praying one of the custodians would be within earshot, but DeSilva was faster. He beat her to the door and turned the lock, then advanced on her, a small chrome handgun suddenly in his hand.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he growled.

She forced herself to stay calm. To treat him coolly and reasonably, as she would one of her troubled students. “You won’t use that on me. The detectives who arrested you will know who did it. They’ll arrest you within the hour.”

“Maybe. But you’ll still be dead.”

“And the minute you fire a shot, everybody in the place is going to come running. Are you going to kill them all, too?”

He squinted, trying to follow her logic, and she saw his hand waver slightly. Pushing her advantage, she held out her own hand. “Come on. Give me the gun.”

For several long moments he stared at her, a dazed look on his face as if he couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing there. Finally, when she began to feel light-headed from fear, he shoved the gun back into his waistband and stood there shaking a little.

“Good. Okay,” she murmured. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a glass of water?” And maybe slip out and call the police while I’m at it, she thought.

“I don’t want a glass of water,” he snarled, and without warning he smacked her hard across the face.

The force and the shock of it sent her to her knees. The next thing she knew, he had gone crazy, striking out at her with anything he could reach—the legs of her wooden chair, the stapler off her desk, the stick she used to point out locations on the map during geography.

She curled into a protective ball, but still he hit her back, her head, her legs, muttering all the while. “You have to pay. Nobody narcs on Tommy D and gets away with it. You have to pay.”

A particularly hard hit at her temple from the large, pretty polished stone she used as a paperweight had her head spinning. She almost slipped into blessed unconsciousness. Oblivion hovered just out of reach, like a mirage in the desert. Before she could reach it, his mood changed and she felt the horrible weight of his hands on her breasts, moving up her thighs under her skirt, ripping at her nylons.

She fought fiercely, kicking out, crying, screaming, but as always, she was helpless to get away.

This time, before that final, dehumanizing act of brutality, the school bell pealed through the dingy classroom and she was able to claw her way out of sleep.

The ringing went on and on, echoing in her ears, until she realized it was her alarm clock.

She fumbled to turn it off, then had to press a hand to her rolling, pitching stomach. The jarring shift between nightmare and reality always left her nauseated. She lurched to her feet and stumbled to the bathroom, where she tossed what was left of her dinner from the night before.

After she rinsed her mouth, she gazed at herself in the mirror above the sink. She hardly recognized the pale woman who stared back at her with huge, haunted green eyes underlined by dark purplish smears. Who was this stranger? This fearful person who had invaded her skin, her bones, her soul?

Gazing in the mirror, she saw new lines around her mouth, a bleakness in her eyes. She looked more hungover than anything else, and Sarah despised the stranger inside her all over again.

She hated the woman she had become.

For the past eighteen months she had felt as if she were dog-paddling in some frigid, ice-choked sea, unable to go forward, unable to climb out, just stuck there in one place while arctic waters froze the life out of her inch by inch.

How long? How long would she let a vicious act of violence rule her life? She pictured herself a year from now, five years, ten. Still suffering nightmares, still hiding from the world, burying herself in her work and her garden and her students.

She had to be stronger. She could be stronger. Hadn’t she proved it to some degree by going to Chief Harte the day before with her concerns about Corey?

She couldn’t consider it monumental by any stretch of the imagination. Still, she had done something, even if it was only to kick just a little harder in her frozen prison.

Beginning today, things would be different. She would make them different.

If she didn’t, she knew it was only a matter of time before she would stop paddling completely and let herself slip quietly into the icy depths.

Her resolve lasted until she arrived at school and found Jesse Harte’s police Bronco out front.

She cringed, remembering how she had fought and kicked at him the day before in the middle of another of those nasty flashbacks. He must think she was completely insane, the kind of woman who boiled pet rabbits for kicks.

Maybe she wouldn’t even see him.

Maybe the vehicle belonged to a totally different officer.

Maybe an earthquake would hit just as she reached the doors to the school and she wouldn’t be able to go in.

No such luck. Inside, she found Jesse standing in the glass-walled office taking notes while Chuck Hendricks—the principal of the school and the bane of her and every other Salt River Elementary teacher’s existence—gestured wildly.

Whatever they were talking about wasn’t sitting well with Chuck, judging by his red face and the taut veins in his neck that stood out like support ropes on a circus tent.

Jesse didn’t see her, she saw with relief. She should have hurried on to her classroom, but the temptation to watch him was irresistible. The man was like some kind of dark angel. Lean and rugged and gorgeous, with rough-hewn features and those unbelievably blue eyes.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, to the funny little ache there, like a dozen tiny, fluttering birds.

“He’s yummy, isn’t he?”

Coloring fiercely, Sarah jerked her gaze away as if she’d been caught watching a porn movie. She had been so engrossed in watching Jesse that she hadn’t even heard Janie Parker walk up and join her.

“Who?” she asked with what she sincerely hoped was innocence in her tone.

The art teacher grinned, showing off her dimples. “Salt River’s favorite bad-boy cop. Jesse Harte. The man makes me want to run a few stop signs just so he’ll pull me over. He can write me all the tickets he wants as long as I can drool over him while he’s doing it.”

Janie was probably exactly his type. Petite and curvy and cute, with a personality to match. Sarah had a quick mental picture of the two of them together, of Jesse looking down at the vivacious teacher with laughter in those blue eyes, just before he lowered that hard mouth to hers.