TAMING JESSE JAMES

by Reanne Thayne

  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.

  The image shouldn't depress her so much. She quickly changed the subject. "What's got Chuck's toupee in such a twist?" she asked.

  It was exactly the kind of thing the Before Sarah would have said, something glib and light and casual. But it was obvious from Janie's raised eyebrows that she didn't expect anything remotely glib from the stiff, solemn woman Sarah had become.

  The rest of the faculty must think she had no sense of humor whatsoever. How could she blame them, when she had given them little indication of it?

  She also hadn't tried very hard to make friends. Not that she hadn't wanted friends—or, heaven knows, needed them—but for the first time in her life, she hadn't been able to work up the energy.

  This was one of the things she could change, if it wasn't too late. Starting today, she would go out of her way to be friendly to her fellow teachers. If anybody dared invite her anywhere after she had spent six months rebuffing all their efforts, she wouldn't refuse this time.

  "Somebody broke in to the school last night," Janie finally answered.

  Sarah immediately regretted her glibness. "Was it vandals?"

  "Nothing was damaged as far as anybody can tell, but they got away with the Mile High Quarter Jar."

  She suddenly realized that was the reason the foyer in front of the office looked different. Empty. "How? That thing must have weighed a ton!"

  As a school-wide project, the students were collecting money for the regional children's medi
cal center and were trying to raise enough quarters to cover a mile if they were laid in a straight line.

  They still had a way to go, but had raised nearly fifteen hundred dollars in quarters.

  Janie shrugged. "Either we've had a visit from a superhero-turned-bad or they must have used a dolly of some kind."

  "How did they get in?"

  "A broken window in Chuck's office. That's probably why he's so upset. Forget the kids' money, but if he knows what's good for him, Chief Harte darn well better catch the villains who dared scatter glass all over His Holiness's desk."

  Broken glass littering a desk like shards of ice.

  Sarah drew a quick breath and pushed the memory aside. She forced a laugh, which earned her another surprised look from the other teacher.

  Jesse couldn't have heard it inside the office, but he lifted his head anyway.

  His gaze locked onto hers and a slow, private smile spread over his features like the sun rising over the Salt River range.

  A simple smile shouldn't have the power to make her blush, but she could feel more color seeping into her cheeks. Still, she managed to give him a hesitant smile in return, then quickly turned away to find Janie watching the interaction with avid interest.

  "Whoa. What was that all about?"

  Sarah blushed harder. "What?"

  "Is there something I should know about going on between you and our hunky police chief?"

  "No. Of course not! I barely know the man."

  "So why is your face more red than Principal Chuck's right now? Come on. Tell all!"

  "There's nothing to tell." Without realizing it, she used the same curt tone she would with an unruly student. "Excuse me. I have to get to class."

  Janie's tentative friendliness disappeared and she donned a cool mask. "Sorry for prying."

  Sarah felt a pang as she watched it disappear. She remembered her vow to make new friends and realized she was blowing it, big time. "Janie, I'm sorry. But really, nothing's going on. Chief Harte is just … we're just…"

  "You don't have to explain. It's none of my business."