Taming Jesse James

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.