Jesse had meant the kiss to show Sarah that he was too wild for a woman like her. Maybe even scare her a little, so she’d stop looking at him with those damn stars in her eyes.

So much for that idea.

The kiss had stunned him.

That was the only word for the torrent of emotions it had sent tumbling through him—tenderness and protectiveness and a raw, hot need. He wanted to pull her close, safeguard her from whatever had put that lost look in her eyes, keep her safe and warm and…loved.

Now he was the one who was scared. What was he thinking, kissing a soft, fragile, forever kind of woman like her? She deserved far better than a rough lawman with wild blood running through his veins.

Trouble was, he didn’t want to stay away from her. Damn his hide, he wanted her more than ever….

Taming Jesse James
RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAEANNE THAYNE

lives in a graceful old Victorian nestled in the rugged mountains of northern Utah, along with her husband and two young children. Her books have won numerous honors, including several Readers’ Choice awards and a RITA Award nomination by the Romance Writers of America. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers. She can be reached through her Web site at www.raeannethayne.com or at P.O. Box 6682, North Logan, UT 84341.

To Maureen Green, Chris Christensen, Jennifer Black and Carrie Robinson, my sisters and my best friends. For all the clothes, parenting tips, yard sales and side-aching, milk-out-of-your-nose laughfests we’ve shared over the years. I love you!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

Jesse James Harte was in deep, deep trouble.

“You playin’ or are you just gonna sit there lookin’ pretty?” the scrappier of his two opponents asked with a fearless smirk.

Jesse glared at his cards, trying to figure out his options. They didn’t look any cheerier than they had a few moments ago.

“Come on. We’re waitin’.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your water.” He looked at his hand one last time, then back at the two troublemakers across the table from him. His throat was parched and he needed a drink in the worst way, but he didn’t dare turn his back on these two desperadoes. Not for a second. The two of them were as terrifying as any hardened criminal he’d ever come up against.

Finally he knew he would have to do something, and quick. He set down the only possible card he could—jack of hearts. As soon as it left his hand, he knew it was a mistake. A triumphant shout rang through the room and a queen of hearts slapped onto his jack.

His niece Lucy gave a shriek of excitement. “Ha! That was her last card. You lose, Uncle Jess! Told ya you’d never be able to beat Dylan at crazy eights. She’s the best. The absolute best.”

“The winner and still undefeated champ-i-on!” Dylan Webster, Lucy’s stepsister of less than a month, jumped from the chair across from his desk and did a little hip-jiggling victory dance around his office.

Jesse leaned back in his chair and watched their celebratory gyrations out of narrowed eyes. “You cheated. I can’t figure out how, but you must have cheated. Worse than a couple of Wild West card sharks, that’s what you are. Come in here after school acting all sweet and innocent, saying you just stopped in to say hello, and then you bilk me out of two Snickers bars. You think I don’t know what’s going on?”

Dylan batted her eyes at him. “Who, us? Would we do something like that?” That one was going to be a heartbreaker just like her mom, when she put on a few more years.

“I ought to lock you both up right now and throw away the key,” Jesse growled. “Teach you to mess with the Salt River chief of police.”

The girls just giggled at him.

“Come on. Best two out of three.” He scooped up the cards and started shuffling them. “Better yet, I’ll teach you how to play a real game. How about blackjack?”

“We already know how to play,” Dylan assured him.

“How about acey-deucy? No? Sit back down, then.” He did a fancy little flourish with the cards that sent them cascading between his hands in a rainbow. His little card trick was rewarded with two pairs of wide eyes.

“Cool!” Lucy exclaimed. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Years of practice, beating the pants off your dad. He stinks at cards. Always has. And you can tell him I said so, too.” He grinned and she giggled back.

“Will you teach me how to do it?”

“Sure, if you give me the first bite of that Snickers bar.”

Before she could answer, a knock sounded at the door.

“Yeah?”

His dispatcher, receptionist and all-around pain in the neck shoved open the door and stood in the doorway, all four feet ten inches of her.

“Chief, you got company,” Lou Montgomery barked.

“Yeah?”

“Says it’s important.”

“Send him in, then.”

“Her,” a new voice interjected. Compared to Lou’s rotgut-rough voice, this one was as soft and smooth as water rippling over rocks. He knew that voice. He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the girls beat him to it.

“Ms. McKenzie!” they shrieked in unison, and rushed to greet his visitor, their fourth-grade teacher. She gave them a strained smile but accepted their hugs graciously.

“What are you doing here?” Dylan asked.

The pretty teacher looked uncomfortable. “I…I just had some business to discuss with Chief Harte.”

Something she obviously didn’t want to share with two nosy little girls. Before the terrible twosome could interrogate her about it, Jesse stepped in. “Ladies, I’ll have to take a raincheck on the poker lessons. Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning out the stalls at the clinic, anyway?”

They both groaned, but picked up their backpacks. “Bye, Ms. McKenzie,” they chimed in unison.

“Thanks for the Snickers bars.” Dylan smirked at Jesse on her way out the door.

As soon as they left, Ms. McKenzie raised a delicate eyebrow at him. “Poker lessons?”

Despite that sexy voice of hers, the schoolmarm tone still made him feel as if he’d just been caught throwing spitballs. He cleared his throat. “Uh, guilty. What can I say? I’m a bad influence. Sit down. How can I help you?”

After a brief hesitation, she walked across the office with that slight, barely perceptible limp that had been driving him crazy with curiosity since she’d moved to town at the beginning of the school year.

She slipped into the chair across the desk from him and folded her hands carefully on her lap, her green eyes focused on some point just to the left of his face.

He fought the urge to look over his shoulder to see what she found so fascinating back there. Judging by their few brief encounters since her arrival in Salt River eight months ago, he had the uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t looking at anything in particular, just away from him.

For some reason, he seemed to make Sarah McKenzie nervous, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he’d done to her.

The last time he’d seen her had been nearly a month ago at his brother Matt’s wedding to Dylan’s mother, Ellie. At the reception the schoolteacher hadn’t moved from the corner for most of the evening. In a pale peach dress and with all that sun-streaked blond hair piled on top of her head, she’d looked cool and remote and scrumptious enough to gobble up in one bite.

When he’d finally decided to ignore her blatant back-off signals and asked her to dance, she’d stared at him as if he had just dumped a glass of champagne all over her, then topped it off by stomping on her fingers.

She hadn’t said anything for several painfully long moments, then she had jumped to her feet and stammered some excuse about how she needed to check on something. Next thing he’d known, he’d seen her driving out of the church parking lot as if she was trying to outgun a tornado.

He pushed the memory away. So the pretty, enigmatic Ms. McKenzie didn’t want to dance with him. So what? He was a big boy now and could handle a little rejection once in a while. His little sister, Cassidy, probably would have said it was good for him.

Not that any of that had a thing to do with the reason she was sitting in front of him trying not to wring her hands together nervously.

“Is there something I can help you with, Ms. McKenzie?” he asked again, in his best casual, friendly-policeman voice.

She drew in a breath, then let it out in a rush. “I want you to arrest someone.”

It was the last thing he expected her to say. “You do?”

Her soft, pretty mouth tightened. “Well, I’d prefer if you could drag him behind a horse for a few hundred miles. But since I don’t think that’s very likely to happen, given civil rights and all, I suppose I’ll have to settle for seeing the miserable excuse for a man locked away for the rest of his natural life.”

“Does this miserable excuse for a man have a name?”

She hesitated for just a few beats, just long enough to nudge his curiosity up to fever pitch. “Yes,” she finally said coolly. “Yes, he does have a name. Seth Garrett.”

His jaw dropped. “The mayor? You want me to arrest the mayor?”

“I don’t care if he’s the president of the United States. He belongs in jail.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Care to tell me why, before I rush over there with my handcuffs? I’m not saying I won’t do it—I’d just like to be able to give the man a reason.”

She stood up, her hands clenched tightly into fists and a glare on those delicate, fine-boned features. “This is not a laughing matter, Chief Harte. If you refuse to take me seriously, I’ll…I’ll find someone who will. The FBI, maybe, or the Wyoming State Police.”

She was serious! She wanted him to march into the mayor’s office and haul him off to jail. What could she possibly have against Seth Garrett, one of the most well liked and respected men in town? He doubted the man even jaywalked.

Still, he knew she wouldn’t have come here without a reason, and it was his job to listen to it. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I didn’t mean to make light of this. Sit down. What do you think he’s done?”

Sarah slid into the chair again and knotted her hands together tightly. She wasn’t sure what was more to blame for their trembling—this seething fury writhing around inside her or the sick lump in her stomach at having to face the man in front of her.

She did know she shouldn’t have come here. Jesse Harte made her so blasted nervous she couldn’t think straight, and she had known before she even walked into his office that she would make a mess of this.

In the past eighteen months she had worked hard to overcome the lingering fragments of nightmare that haunted her. She wanted to think she had become almost functional again, hiding the worst of her panic attacks behind a veneer of control.

But for some reason Jesse Harte always seemed to punch a hole in the paper-thin wall of that facade, leaving her nervous and upset.

It wasn’t him, exactly. Or, at least, she didn’t think so. He seemed gentle enough with the girls. It was kind of sweet, actually, to see such a hard-edged cop teasing giggles out of two ten-year-old girls.

For a month she hadn’t been able to shake the image of him in his dark Western-cut suit at his brother’s wedding, dancing with each of the girls in turn and looking big and solid and completely masculine.

That was most of what made her nervous. He was just so big. So completely, wholly male—intimidating just by his very size and by the aura of danger that surrounded him.

With the combination of that dark-as-sin hair, those startling blue eyes and that wicked smile, Jesse Harte drew the lustful eye of every woman in town. If it weren’t for the badge on his tan denim shirt, it would be difficult to remember he was on the right side of the law. All he needed was a bushy mustache and a low-slung gun belt hanging on his hips to look like the outlaw she heard he was named for.

He sent her nerves skittering just by looking at her out of those blue eyes and she hated it, but she had no one else to turn to. She had a child to protect, and if that meant facing her own personal bogeyman, she would force herself to do it, no matter the cost.

Besides her unease around the police chief, it didn’t help her nerves to know she could be risking her job. When she had taken her concerns to the principal, Chuck Hendricks had ordered her to leave well enough alone. She was imagining things, he said, making problems for herself where she didn’t need to.

It was a grim reminder of what had happened in Chicago. She had been warned then about stepping in where she had no business. But then, just as now, she hadn’t had a choice.

“Can I get you a glass of water or something?”

She blinked and realized the police chief was waiting for some kind of an explanation for her presence here. “No. No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“You ready to talk now?”

She took a deep breath, then met his gaze directly for the first time since she’d entered his office. “Mr. Garrett’s stepson is in my class.”

“Corey Sylvester?”

“I take it you know him.”

Despite her worries over Corey, that blasted smile of his sent her stomach fluttering. “This is a small town, Ms. McKenzie. Not much slips by the eagle eye of the Salt River P.D. What’s Corey done now?”

“Oh, no. He hasn’t done anything.”

He chuckled wryly. “That’s a first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that the boy’s had his share of run-ins with local authorities.”

Another person might have asked what possible crimes a child of ten could have committed to bring him to the attention of the local police chief. Not Sarah. She had seen much, much worse than Corey Sylvester could even contemplate. In Chicago, children as young as eight dealt drugs and sold their bodies on street corners and murdered each other for sport.

She thought of a pretty girl with glossy braids and old, tired eyes, then pushed the memory aside.

This was rural Wyoming, where children still played kick-the-can on a warm spring night and the most excitement to be found was at the high school baseball diamond.

That’s why she had come here, to find peace. To immerse herself in the slow, serene pace of small-town life.

To heal.

“Corey has done nothing,” she assured the police chief. “He’s a troubled young boy and I…I believe I know why.”

“I’m assuming this has something to do with his stepfather, otherwise you wouldn’t be here looking for the mayor’s head on a platter, right?”

Her jaw clenched as she remembered what she’d seen at school that day. “Corey has all the characteristics of an abused child. I believe his stepfather is the one abusing him.”

Chief Harte leaned forward, suddenly alert as an alpha wolf scenting danger. She started to shrink back in her chair, but quickly checked the movement. She wouldn’t cower. Not if she could help it.

“That’s a very serious allegation, Ms. McKenzie. You have any evidence to back that up?”

She felt sick all over again just thinking about it. “Corey’s been in my class for two weeks now and—”

He interrupted her with a frown. “Only two weeks? School’s out in another month. Why would he transfer into your class so late in the year when the session’s almost over?”

Because he’d gone through all three of the other fourth-grade teachers and each one refused to allow him back into her class. She was his last stop on the road before expulsion.

“He had some difficulties with the other teachers. But that doesn’t matter. What concerns me is that in those two weeks he has come to school twice with black eyes and once with stitches in the corner of his mouth. That’s just not normal wear and tear for a boy his age.”

“Corey’s not like most boys.”

“He’s certainly a little high-strung, but he’s still a child.”

After a moment of studying her out of those vivid blue eyes, the police chief pulled a notebook from his pocket and began writing in it. “Two black eyes and stitches in his mouth. That’s what you said, right?”

She nodded. “When I asked him about his first injury, he became extremely evasive. He refused to look me in the eye and mumbled some obviously fictitious story about falling off his bike. His second black eye came from falling out of a tree, he said.”

“And the stitches?”

“Yet another fall off his bike. He said he did a face plant on the concrete.”

“It’s possible he’s telling the truth. Maybe he’s just accident-prone. When I was a kid, I once spent a whole summer at the clinic in town getting patched up from one accident or another.”

She had a disturbing mental image of a dark-haired little boy with those blue eyes and the devil in his grin, but she quickly pushed it away.

“Corey is a rough-and-tumble kind of kid, Ms. McKenzie,” the chief continued. “It’s only natural that he’ll suffer a few scrapes and bruises along the way.”

“But four serious accidents in two weeks? Doesn’t that stretch the bounds of credibility a little even for you, Chief Harte?”

He checked his notebook. “Four? You only mentioned three.”

“I was getting to that. Today, during our last recess of the day, he ripped his shirt on the playground fence. He refused to let me help him, but through the tear in his shirt I saw what looked like bruises on his shoulder.”

“Bruises?”

“Like from a man’s hand squeezing viciously hard.” She didn’t add that she’d once had similar bruises. And that even though they had faded more than a year ago, she could sometimes still feel them.

He blew out a breath, and for the first time she began to think maybe she wasn’t fighting a losing battle. He scribbled a few more notes in his book, then glanced at her again. “What makes you suspect the mayor is behind all of this?”

“When Corey transferred into my class, I examined his school records so I could be familiar with his situation. Until midway through the second grade, Corey’s teachers all loved him and he had wonderful grades. The comments in his report cards were things like ‘always willing to help others.’ ‘A joy to have in class.’ ‘Creative and imaginative.”’

“He’s imaginative, all right. Last winter during a cold spell he poured water in the keyhole of every store on Main Street so the locks would freeze. Took us half a day to thaw everything out.”

“His behavior in class began to change dramatically, coinciding quite noticeably around the time I understand his mother married Mayor Garrett. Almost overnight, a bright, artistic child turned angry and destructive. I believe there’s a connection.”

“A lot of kids have trouble adjusting to divorces and remarriages. Doesn’t mean they’re being abused.”

She glared at him, feeling as if she’d lost all the headway she thought she’d gained. Why wasn’t he taking this seriously? She had been through this for more than an hour with Principal Hendricks and she had had just about enough of Salt River’s good-old-boy network. She had no doubt that’s why she seemed to be hitting a brick wall here. Nobody wanted to rock the boat, especially when powerful people were on board.

“Do you care about this child’s welfare at all? Or is he just one more juvenile delinquent to you?”

He blinked at her sudden attack. “Sure I care about him. But I just can’t jump into a major investigation based on speculation and conjecture.”

Speculation and conjecture? She’d given him ample cause to investigate. Wasn’t he listening to her at all?

Furious, she glared at him, completely forgetting that the man was supposed to intimidate her. “You mean you don’t want to alienate the mayor by pursuing an investigation against him. Isn’t that right?”

She narrowed her gaze thoughtfully. “That’s it, isn’t it? I think I’m beginning to understand. Seth Garrett is an important man around here. Tell me, Chief Harte, are you more concerned about keeping your job or in protecting a little boy?”

As soon as the words escaped her tongue, she knew they were a mistake. A monumental mistake. The police chief’s blue eyes hardened. His easy charm disappeared, leaving only raw anger.

“Be careful, ma’am,” he murmured.

She clasped her hands together tightly in her lap to hide their renewed trembling. Where had that outburst of hers come from?

The old Sarah might have said something exactly like that, would have faced down a hundred Jesse Hartes if she had to. But she had been gone for a long time. The timid mouse she had left behind never would have risked baiting a man like him.

Some vestige of her former self must have been lurking inside her all this time. What’s more, she was amazed to suddenly discover she wasn’t willing to run away just because of his threat, implied or otherwise. Corey deserved to have someone on his side.

Even if that someone was only a timid mouse.

She stood up again. “If you’re not willing to investigate, I told you, I’ll find someone who is.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he stood, as well. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to investigate. I’ll look into the matter. I’ll talk to the boy, talk to Seth and Ginny. But I have to warn you, I’m not sure how far I’ll get. These cases can be difficult to prove, especially if the child won’t cooperate. And knowing Corey, I can pretty much guess how it will go.”

“Please let me know what happens.” She walked toward the door.

“Oh, I’ll be in touch, Ms. McKenzie,” the police chief said. “You can be sure of that.”

That’s exactly what she was afraid of, Sarah thought as she walked out of his office.

Chapter 2

It was nearly six when Jesse pulled into the Garretts’ driveway. He climbed out of the department Bronco and gazed up at the house, all three stories of it.

Somebody had been busy with spring cleaning, judging by the way the windows gleamed gold in the dying sun, without a streak. The place radiated warmth and elegance, from its perfectly manicured gardens to its cobblestone sidewalk.

The house was only a few years old, but a lifetime away from the miserable one-bedroom trailer halfway up Elk Mountain where Ginny and Corey had lived during her marriage to Hob Sylvester.

Jesse had worked for the county then as a deputy sheriff and he’d always hated going out on domestic disturbance calls there. He could still remember the tangible feeling of despair that permeated the thin, painfully bare walls, and his constant, frustrating attempts to convince Ginny to get out of the situation.

Oh, she would try. He knew that. She would move out for a few days or a week or two. But Hob still had enough high school football star in him to sweet-talk her back.

Hob hadn’t always been a son of a bitch, and maybe that was one of the things that kept Ginny hanging on. Once he’d been all charisma and slow, cowboy charm, the high school football standout everybody pegged to go pro. It hadn’t worked out that way. Something went wrong—Jesse wasn’t sure what—and a few years later Ginny got pregnant.

Jesse figured Hob must have seen it as just one more dirty trick played on him by fate. He’d done the right thing by marrying her, or what was considered the right thing by society, anyway. It sure as hell hadn’t been the right thing for Ginny. Hob had spent the next six years drinking hard and taking his bitterness out on her.

For more than a few of those years, Jesse had been just like him. It was a chapter in his life he hated to even remember, how after his parents’ deaths he’d spent many a night at the Renegade, trying to drown his guilt any way he could.

Jesse pushed the memory away. Anyway, Hob was gone. He’d taken up with a cocktail waitress from Idaho Falls about four years ago and the two of them had headed for Vegas, last Jesse heard.

Ginny had landed on her feet, that’s for sure. Ended up marrying her divorce attorney and now she and her kid lived in one of the fanciest houses in town and she drove a Range Rover and shopped at all the ritzy designer stores in Jackson Hole.

He thought of Sarah McKenzie’s accusations. He really hoped she was wrong. Ginny deserved a happy ending, after what she’d been through.

As he walked up the front steps, the intoxicating smells of spring drifted around him—sweet lilac bushes, damp, musty earth and meat sizzling on somebody’s grill nearby.

Salt River was his town and he was fiercely protective of it. When he was a kid, he couldn’t wait to get out. He’d been stupid enough to think the slow pace of a small town was strangling the life out of him. Once in a while he still hungered for something more than ticketing jaywalkers and breaking up the occasional bar fight, but he owed a debt to the people of this town.

One he’d be a long time repaying.

Besides, he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else on a beautiful, warm spring night like this. It was just about perfect, with kids jumping on a trampoline down the street, people working in their yards or reading the paper on their front porches, and sprinklers thumping happily all across town.

Not quite perfect, he amended. He still had the matter of Sarah McKenzie’s suspicions about Corey Sylvester to contend with.

He rang the doorbell and had to wait only a few seconds before Ginny Garrett answered.

Her face still retained most of the beauty that had won her the prom queen tiara in school. It brightened when she saw him, but her expression just as quickly grew wary. “What has Corey done now?” she asked, her voice resigned.

“Nothing. Least, nothing that I know about yet. That’s not why I’m here, anyway.”

“Oh. Well then, Seth’s not home, I’m afraid. He had a late meeting with a client.”

“Actually, I wanted to speak with you.”

Again, wariness vied with curiosity in her expression. “Come in, then,” she finally said. “We can talk in the living room.”

She led the way through the big house. Jesse had been there plenty of times on business with the mayor, but he always felt out of place amid the creamy whites and fancy furniture—afraid to move wrong in case he broke something expensive.

“Where’s Maddie?” he asked, of Corey’s six-month-old half sister.

“Napping. Finally.” Ginny rolled her eyes. “I know it’s almost bedtime anyway, but it’s been one of those days. She’s teething and has been running me ragged today. Would you care for something to drink? A pop or something?”

“No. I’m fine. I’d just as soon get this over with.”

She glanced at him. “That sounds pretty ominous. What’s this about, Jess?”

He sighed heavily. Damn, he didn’t want to do this. Ginny had been his friend for a long time—the first girl he’d ever kissed, way back in the second grade.

After the car accident that had killed his parents and left him in the hospital for nearly a month, she’d been one of the few people who didn’t offer him empty platitudes. Or, worse, who acted as if nothing had happened, when his whole life had just been ripped apart.

She had offered simple, calming comfort and he had never forgotten it.

Since then, she’d been to hell and back and had worked hard to make something out of her life. How could he tell her about Ms. McKenzie’s suspicions?

“Come on, Jess. Out with it. You’re scaring me.”

He blew out a breath, then met her worried gaze squarely. “How do Corey and Seth get on?”

Her brow furrowed. “What kind of question is that? They get along fine.”

“All the time?”

She continued to look puzzled. “Certainly they have their differences, I suppose. Corey can be difficult sometimes and he has a hard time with authority—you should know that as well as anybody. But Seth tries hard to be a good father. Why do you ask?”

Damn, this was tough. “There’s been an allegation that Corey is being abused.”

She stared at him, the color draining from her face until her skin just about matched the white of the sofa she was sitting on. “Abused? By Seth?”

He nodded grimly.

“This is some kind of sick joke, right? Who would say such a terrible thing? It’s not true. Absolutely not true.”

“It’s not completely unfounded, Gin. I understand he’s had several injuries in the last few weeks.”

“He’s a boy. A boy who gets into more than his fair share of mischief, but still just a boy. He has accidents.”

“You have to admit, it looks pretty suspicious, that many injuries in such a short period of time.”

“No. You’re wrong.” She jumped up and began to pace around the room. “Who is saying such terrible things? Who would want to hurt us like this?”

For a moment he debated telling her it was Sarah McKenzie, then he discarded the idea. Sarah still had to teach Corey in her class for the rest of the school year and he didn’t want to stir up trouble for her where he didn’t need to. “At this point, let’s just say it’s a concerned citizen. I swear, it’s no one with a hidden agenda, just somebody who cares about your son’s welfare.”

“Well, they’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

Sometimes he really hated this job. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you, Ginny. Have you ever seen Seth hurting your son or do you have any reason to believe he might do so when you’re not around?”

Her mouth compressed into a thin line. She was quiet for several long moments. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and hurt. “How can you even think such a thing, Jess? You, of all people, should know better. You know what it was like for us before. Do you honestly think, after what my son has been through, that I would stand by and do nothing while it happens all over again?”

He believed her. How could he do anything else, faced with such complete, passionate sincerity?

“Seth is a good man,” she went on. “He’s decent and caring and in the last two years he’s been a wonderful father to Corey. He loves him, just as much as he loves Maddie. He even wants to adopt him!”

He sat back. “I’m sorry, Ginny. I had a hard time believing it, too, but I had to follow through and investigate.”

“I understand.”

“Did Corey have an explanation for being so accident-prone lately?”

Before she could answer, the front door opened and they heard the chink of keys being placed on a table in the hall.

Ginny paled a shade lighter. “That will be Seth. This is going to kill him, to have someone accuse him of such a thing.”

“Ginny?” the mayor called from the entry. “Why is a police Bronco parked in the driveway?” A moment later, he poked his head into the living room. He frowned when he saw Jess. “Chief! Is something wrong?”

“Seth, you’d better sit down,” Ginny began.

With a puzzled frown the mayor took a seat next to her. After Jesse reluctantly explained the purpose for his visit, Seth appeared just as shocked as his wife.

“It’s absolutely not true,” he said vehemently. “You must know that. I would never lay a hand on the boy.”

“I had to investigate, Seth.”

“Of course you did.” He frowned. “It must have taken great courage for someone to step forward with those kinds of suspicions. Too many people just look the other way, not wanting to get involved. I’d like to know who instigated this.”

Again Jesse thought of Sarah McKenzie and her nervousness in his office. He found himself strangely reluctant to mention her involvement, again using the excuse that she still had to teach Corey for the rest of the school year and it might make things awkward for her.

Rather than answer Seth, he opted to change the subject instead. “Something is still going on with Corey and I think we need to find out what. That many accidents in such a short time is pretty suspicious. Do you think someone else might be hurting him?”

Ginny looked as if she might be sick. Seth must have seen it, too. He grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly. “Who?” he asked. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone at school. Has Corey given you any reason to think he’s being bullied? Or that he’s been fighting with any of the other boys?”

“If anyone is beating on him, it’s probably that Connor boy.” Seth’s voice dripped disgust.

“Luke’s kid?”

Ginny nodded. “He’s always hanging around with Corey. But he’s in junior high school! What does he want with a ten-year-old?”

Dusty Connor had been in just as many scrapes with the law as Corey. Where Corey’s shenanigans leaned toward the clever and mischievous, Dusty’s were usually plain mean.

“I don’t know, but I think we need to find out,” Jesse said.

“How?”

Before he could answer her, they heard the sound of a door slamming, then a voice from the kitchen of the house. “Mom, I’m home,” Corey called.

“We’re in the living room,” Ginny answered. “Come in here, please.”

They heard a loud, exasperated sigh and then Corey wandered into the room. With a basketball under his arm and dressed in baggy shorts, a T-shirt and high-top sneakers, he looked like most of the other ten-year-olds in town except for a black eye and all that attitude radiating from him like heat waves off a sidewalk.

“What’s for din—” he started to ask, then his gaze landed on Jess. For one brief instant, pure panic flickered across his expression, but he quickly hid it behind belligerence. “I didn’t do nothin’.”

Interesting. Now, why would the kid suddenly break a sweat just at the sight of a cop when he’d always been a cocky little wise guy, even when Jesse or one of the five officers in his department caught him red-handed up to something?

What was he messed up in now that had him so jumpy? Whatever it was, Jesse had a bad feeling about it. He obviously needed to keep a better eye on the kid.

He raised an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure you’re in trouble?”

“I’m not?” Corey’s voice cracked on the second word.

“Should you be?”

“No. I told you, I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Haven’t done anything,” Ginny corrected quietly.

“Whatever.”

“Good,” Jesse said, thinking fast. “Because I need your help.”

All three of them stared at him. To Ginny and Seth, he sent a reassuring smile. He’d been a cop a long time and the one thing he’d learned was to trust his instincts. He could start interrogating the boy about his injuries—the black eyes, the cut, whatever bruises the schoolteacher had seen that afternoon.

But judging by his experiences with Corey, he was sure the kid wouldn’t tell them a thing. He would turn closemouthed and uncooperative and give Jesse the same bull he’d been giving everybody else about his injuries.

On the other hand, if he could spend a little time with Corey—convince the kid to trust him—maybe Jesse could get to the bottom of this.

“I’m in need of a partner for a couple days. You interested?”

The boy looked baffled. “A partner?”

“Yeah. I’m coming to school next month to talk about crime prevention.” That much was true, at least. The annual visit had been scheduled for weeks. The rest he was making up as he went along.

“I was thinking I could use somebody who knows his way around to help me out,” Jesse went on. “Give the other kids some pointers about how to stay safe and out of trouble.”

“Me? You want me to help you?”

“Why not?”

The boy looked as if he could think of a million reasons why not, but there was also an unmistakable curious light in his eyes.

Jesse decided to play on that. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but I could really use your help. If you agree to help me, you’ll need to come to the station a few times so we can figure out what we’re going to do. What do you think?”

“Sounds lame.”

“Maybe. That’s why I need your help. You can make me sound cool enough that the kids will listen to me.”

“You want me to help you be cool?”

He had to fight a triumphant grin at the unwilling fascination in the boy’s eyes at the idea. “Yeah. Think you can handle it?”

“I don’t know, Chief.” The kid sent him a sidelong look. “Could be a pretty tough job.”

Jesse laughed. “I think you’re man enough to handle it.”

Corey chewed his lip, and Jesse could just about see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out all the angles. He held his breath, waiting for the boy’s answer. After a few beats, Corey shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sure. Why not?”

“Great. Meet me at my office tomorrow after school.”

“Whatever. Can I go now?” he asked his mother.

Ginny nodded. As soon as they heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, both of the Garretts turned to him.

“What was that all about?” Seth asked.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I figured maybe if I have a chance to talk one-on-one with him, he might open up a little and tell me what’s going on.”

“Are you sure Corey would be willing to do this?” Ginny asked with a frown. “And even if he does, how do you know he’ll talk to you?”

“Well, even if he doesn’t open up and talk to me about whatever’s going on with him, maybe he’ll learn something himself about staying out of trouble.”

A strident cry echoed through the house suddenly. “There’s Maddie.” Ginny rose from the couch.

Jesse stood, as well. “I’ll get out of your hair, then.”

“Would you like to stay for supper? We’re having fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”

The offer of some decent home cooking for a change had his mouth watering.

He used to drop by the family ranch two or three nights a week when Cassie lived there with Matt and Lucy. She was divine in the kitchen. But after Matt’s wedding, Cassie had surprised them all by taking a job at a dude ranch north of town and moving out. Since Jesse didn’t want to bug the newlyweds while they were busy setting up house, for the past month he’d had to make do with his own pitiful attempts at cooking.

As much as he wouldn’t mind staying for supper, he suddenly decided he’d much rather stop in to see Sarah McKenzie again. She was probably wondering what had happened with Corey.

And he had a powerful hankering to see if he could figure out what had put those shadows in her pretty green eyes.

Every muscle in her body ached.

That would teach her to spend two solid hours yanking weeds and hauling compost. Sarah winced at the burn in her arms as she tried to comb the snarls out of her hair. Even after a long, pounding shower with water as hot as she could stand, her muscles still cried out in protest.

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 over-flowing 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 her 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 chief 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 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.

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 schoolwide project, the students were collecting money for the regional children’s medical 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.”

“Honestly, there’s nothing to explain. I just always seem to act like an idiot around him,” she confessed.

“Don’t we all, sweetheart? What is it about big, gorgeous men that zaps our brain cells?”

The warmth had returned to Janie’s expression, Sarah saw with relief. She wanted to bask in it like a cat sprawled out in a sunbeam.

But she knew she would have to work harder to make a new friend than just a quick conversation in the hallway. Gathering her nerve, she smiled at the other teacher. “Are you on lunch duty this week?”

“No. I had my turn last week.”

“Would you like to escape the school grounds for a half hour and grab a quick bite sometime?”

If she was shocked by the invitation, Janie quickly recovered. “Sure. Just name the day.”

“How about Friday?”

“Sounds perfect.”

It was a start, Sarah thought as she walked to her classroom. And somehow, for just a moment, the water surrounding her didn’t seem quite as cold.

Jesse tuned out Up-Chuck Hendricks and watched Sarah make her slow way down the hall toward her classroom. She was still favoring her leg, he saw with concern. Her walk was just a little uneven, like a wagon rolling along with a wobbly wheel.

He shouldn’t have taken her word that everything was okay the night before. He should have insisted on hauling her to the clinic, just to check things out.

What else was he supposed to have done? He couldn’t force her to go to the doctor if she didn’t want to. He’d done what he could, sat with her as long as she would let him.

It amazed him how protective he felt toward her. Amazed him and made him a little uneasy. He tried to tell himself it was just a natural—if chauvinistic—reaction of a man in the presence of a soft, quiet, fragile woman. But deep down he knew it was more than that. For some strange reason he was fascinated by Sarah McKenzie, and had been since the day she moved to Star Valley.

He’d dreamed about her the night before.

He imagined she would be horror-struck if she knew the hot, steamy activities his subconscious had conjured up for them to do together. Hell, even he was horror-struck when he woke up and found himself hard and ready for action. She wasn’t at all his type. So why couldn’t he seem to stop thinking about her?

“Are you listening to me?”

“Sure.” He snapped his attention back to Chuck Hendricks, chagrined that he’d let himself get so distracted from the investigation by the soft, pretty Sarah McKenzie.

He also didn’t like the fact that the principal could make him feel as if he had somehow traveled twenty years back in time and was once more the troublemaker du jour in Up-Chuck’s sixth-grade class.

“What are you going to do to get to the bottom of this?” Hendricks snapped. “These criminals must be caught and punished severely. I can tell you right where to start. Corey Sylvester.”

The principal said the name with such seething animosity that a wave of sympathy for the kid washed through Jesse. He knew all too well what it was like to be at the top of Chuck’s scapegoat list.

“Why Corey?” he asked.

“It’s exactly the sort of thing he would do. After thirty-five years of teaching hooligans, I know a bad apple and I can tell you that boy is just plain rotten.”

The principal didn’t seem to notice the sudden frown and narrowed gaze of one of those former hooligans. “Besides that,” he went on, “I saw him hanging around by the jar yesterday before lunch recess. It’s the second or third time I’ve seen him there. I know he was up to no good.”

“Maybe he was putting some quarters in.”

Hendricks harrumphed as if the idea was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “I doubt it.”

Jesse felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. He would have liked to tell Up-Chuck exactly what he thought of him, but he knew that wouldn’t help him solve the case of the missing quarters. “I’ll talk to him. But I’ve got to tell you, my instincts are telling me you’re on the wrong track. I don’t think he did it. Or if he did, he couldn’t have acted alone.”

“Why not?”

“Do the math, Chuck.” His smile would have curdled milk, but his former teacher didn’t seem to notice. “Corey weighs no more than sixty-five pounds. A jar with six thousand quarters would weigh a whole lot more than that. He wouldn’t even be able to wrestle it onto a dolly by himself, let alone push the thing out of the building.”

He paused to give the information time to sink through Hendricks’s thick skull. “Then you have the matter of getting it out of here. You think he could haul a dolly weighing that much all the way to his house?”

“Well, he probably had help. Most likely that troublemaking Connor kid. You’ll probably find both of them spending the loot all over town on any manner of illegal—not to mention immoral—activity.”

Yeah. Paying for booze and hookers with quarters always went over real well. “Thanks for all the leads. I’ll do my best to get the money back for the kids.”

The principal sniffed. “I sincerely hope you do.”

Jesse sighed. Having Chuck on his case over this was going to be a major pain in the keister until he found the culprits.

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