Taming Jesse James

“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.”