Taming Jesse James (7 page)

His job apparently was to hold the rat while Corey put new paper in the bottom of his cage and refilled the water and food dishes. Jesse held the animal gingerly.

In his year spent at the police academy, he had never expected to end up in a fourth-grade classroom holding a rat.

He held Raticus up closer. The rat watched him out of beady little eyes, his whiskers and pink tail twitching. “Does this charming little rodent bite?” Jesse asked.

Corey snorted. “Only if you bite him first.”

“I think it's safe to say that's not going to happen anytime soon.”

The boy's amusement was fleeting. He quickly returned to glowering. “Don't you have crime to fight or somethin'?”

“I'm on my lunch hour.”

“I thought you said you wouldn't rest until you found whoever stole the school money.”

The rat wiggled around in his hands and Jesse had to tighten his grip. “I'll find him. Don't worry about it.”

“Who said I was worried? I don't care about any stupid quarter jar for any stupid hospital.”

“You put any quarters in that stupid jar?”

Corey refused to meet his gaze as he poured food into a small dish. “So what if I did? It was my own money. My mom gave it to me so I could get a pop on my way home from school.”

Damn Chuck Hendricks and his suspicious little mind. The only reason Corey had been hanging around the quarter jar was to covertly drop some coins in.

Chuck couldn't even give the kid credit for good intentions when the evidence was right in front of his face. He had to attribute ulterior motives to everything.

The kid had sacrificed his own wants and needs to help sick children the only way he knew how.

Jesse's chest felt suddenly tight. He wanted to give the kid's shoulder a squeeze, to tell him he was proud of him for caring, but he checked the impulse—not just because his hands were full of rat, but because he'd been that cocky kid once upon a time, afraid to show any emotion.

Corey wouldn't welcome the gesture, wouldn't know how to deal with it, any more than Jesse would have at that age.

He cleared his throat. “As I said to the class before, it burns me that somebody took that money that you and the rest of the kids worked so hard for. You haven't heard anything about who might have taken it, have you?”

“Why would you think I know anything?”

Jesse weighed his words. “A street-smart kid like you keeps his ear to the ground. You probably know more about what goes on in this town than I do.”

Corey snorted. “That's not too tough.”

“If you hear anything, you'll let me know, right?”

“Whatever.” The boy reached for the rat to return him to his clean cage and Jesse handed it over willingly.

The two of them watched Raticus settle in for a moment, then walked together back to Sarah's desk.

“All done?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Corey said.

“Thank you. Lunch recess is almost over. Why don't you work in your handwriting notebook until the other children return?”

He made a face but returned to his desk, leaving Jesse and Sarah alone at her desk.

He gestured toward the hall, where they could talk without the boy overhearing. “Did you learn anything?” she asked when they were out of range.

“He wouldn't have taken the money. Not after he sacrificed his own after-school treat so he could put some change in the jar.”

“I knew it.” Satisfaction glinted in her green eyes. “Now what?”

“I get the pleasure of telling Chuck he's crazy.” He grinned.

She smiled back and his gaze froze on her mouth, the memory of their almost-kiss surging through his veins like the whiskey he didn't drink anymore.

He could do it. Right now. Could dip his head and taste her, right here in the middle of the elementary school hallway.

He almost did. He was just a hairbreadth away from dipping his head to hers and taking that sweet mouth. At the last minute, reality returned with stunning force.

“I've got to run,” he said abruptly, stepping back. “Thanks for lunch.”

“I…you're welcome.”

What was he doing? he asked himself as he walked out of the building. He had no business trying to steal a kiss from her—not once, but twice. No business imagining that incredible golden hair sliding through his fingers, no business wondering about that slender body underneath her demure clothes.

She had wanted him to kiss her, both times. He had seen it in the softening of her mouth, in the wary attraction sparkling in her eyes like Christmas lights.

But he wouldn't. She was too sweetly innocent for a man like him. Too fragile. If he kissed her, she wouldn't have the first idea how to handle it.

Sarah McKenzie wasn't his type. He would hurt her. He might not mean to, but he would. That's just the kind of woman she was.

If he were smart, he would put all his energy into keeping those kinds of inappropriate thoughts about her right out of his head.

 

She simply had to stop thinking about Jesse Harte.

Hours later, alone in her silent little house with the curtains drawn tightly against the dark, rainy night, Sarah couldn't keep her mind off the man, off those brief moments in her classroom and later in the hallway when she thought—feared? hoped?—he would kiss her.

It had taken hours to even make a dent in reading the weekly assignments for Writer's Workshop. She tried hard to concentrate. But every few pages she would find herself back in that classroom, inhaling the masculine, woodsy scent of his aftershave, watching the muscle in his jaw twitch, trying fiercely to remember to breathe when that mouth started to lower to hers.

What would she have done if he'd kissed her? Would she have panicked? Found herself back in the throes of a flashback she couldn't control? Or would she have welcomed it, reveled in it?

She had wanted desperately to find out. She still did, if she were honest with herself.

She sighed. Might as well wish for the moon while she was at it. A man like Jesse Harte wouldn't possibly be interested in a woman like her.

He was the most eligible bachelor in Salt River. Every woman in town probably swooned over him. He radiated strength and power. Vitality.

Was that why she was so attracted to him? Because he seemed to represent everything she was not? She was a timid, prissy schoolteacher afraid of even Raticus. It was no wonder Jesse hadn't followed through on the look in his eyes and kissed her.

She set her red pencil down, depressed all over again. She ought to just go to sleep—it was past midnight, after all, and she was far from being productive.

The idea of facing that solitary bed, with those cold, lonely sheets and an empty pillow and nightmares lurking in the corners was about as appealing as sleeping out in the rain. But she had to recharge her batteries somehow if she had any hope of coping with thirty unruly ten-year-olds the next day.

She began her nightly ritual, checking and double-checking the locks on the windows and doors. At the back door she paused, looking out the small window at the drizzly night and the little backyard she was slowly transforming into a garden.

A cat yowled somewhere, a dog barked sharply in answer, and the wet breeze fluttered the silvery wind chimes she'd bought the week before in Jackson. She
smiled a little at the small-town quiet she had come to love and was just ready to head to her room when a blur of movement outside the glow of the porch lights caught her attention.

She stiffened as her eyes adjusted to the dark, as the blur became a more solid shape.

Cold fear turned her blood to ice.

Someone was out there!

“W
ould you like another cookie, dear?”

Jesse ground his back teeth. At this rate he'd be here all night. “No, thank you, Mrs. Lehman. It's late. Why don't we just get to your report?”

“Are you sure? I know they're your favorites.”

One of the hazards of working his whole life in the same small town where he grew up was that everybody thought they knew every single thing about him. For one terrible summer when he was nine, Doris Lehman had attempted to give him piano lessons. They had both barely survived the ordeal.

At least she didn't appear to hold a grudge.

“Thanks, anyway, but I'm full.” Jesse fought back a yawn and tried to stay focused. Working three double watches in a row would kill him if Mrs. Lehman's butter-rich shortbread cookies didn't do the job first.

Ignoring him, she hoisted her tiny frame out of her chair using her carved, ivory-handled cane and creaked
toward the kitchen, her yippy little poodle dancing around her feet. It was past midnight, but the elderly woman was still fully dressed and looked as elegant as if she were on her way to the opera.

“I'll just put a few cookies in a bag, dear, and you can take them with you for later.”

With a resigned sigh, Jesse followed her and the poodle into her kitchen. Mrs. Lehman was in the mood to chat. She did this every few weeks or so, called him or his officers to her house on some trumped-up disturbance call. Most of the time he didn't mind. She'd been lonely since her husband, Ed, had died three years earlier and he had instructed his officers to visit with her for a while, no matter how outlandish the complaint, just to make sure she was okay.

He sighed again. It wasn't always easy to follow your own advice.

“That's very nice of you, Mrs. Lehman,” he said. “Now, about what you thought you saw tonight…?”

She shook her cane at him, damn near poking his eye out. “Don't use that tone of voice with me, young man, like you're just humoring a crazy old bat by even being here. I saw what I saw. No question about that.”

“Can we go over exactly what you saw, then?”

“Not if you're going to patronize me.”

He huffed out a breath. He was too blasted tired for this tonight. “What did you see, Mrs. Lehman?” he asked patiently.

She squinted at him for a moment, then finally spoke, apparently satisfied that his interest was genuine. “Lights, up on Elk Mountain. This is the third night in a row I've seen them. They don't belong there.”

“Maybe it's high schoolers out four-wheeling or somebody spotlighting for deer.”

“I don't think so. These lights didn't move at all. And they didn't look normal, either, I'll tell you that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said.” She shifted her gaze around the room as if she feared eavesdroppers, then she lowered her voice. “I think I might know what they're from.”

“What?” He leaned forward, pitching his own voice low.

“Aliens.”

He leaned back, blinking hard. Maybe Mrs. Lehman needed to have her medication levels checked. “Aliens?”

“Right.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“I know all about government conspiracies, young man. About Roswell and Area 54 and black helicopters. I watch
The X-Files,
you know.”

“And you think Salt River is in the middle of some kind of alien invasion?”

“I think you need to drive up there to Elk Mountain and check it out. But you'll have to be careful. Don't go alone, whatever you do. Who knows what would happen if they caught you?”

“I shudder to think,” he said, hiding his amusement. Mrs. Lehman might have some crazy ideas, but she was usually harmless. “Thanks for calling this to our attention. Technically, Elk Mountain would be the county's jurisdiction, though. Lucky for me, any alien problem would be Sheriff Mitchell's responsibility.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Why don't you give me a call the next time you see the lights so I can look up there too and pinpoint
exactly where they're coming from and I'll check it out. Okay?”

Before she could answer, the radio at his waist crackled. He pressed the button. “Yeah. Harte here.”

His evening dispatcher's voice crackled through the static. “Chief, I have a report of an attempted break-in. Four-oh-four Spruce Street.”

His pulse lurched. That was Sarah's address!

“Maybe it's the aliens!” Mrs. Lehman exclaimed, her brown eyes bright with horrified excitement. “Maybe they're looking for some poor soul to use for their experiments.”

He was already heading for the door. “I certainly hope not. Look, Mrs. Lehman, I'm the only officer on duty tonight. Can you give your report tomorrow at the station?”

“Why, certainly, dear. You'd better hurry. Here. Don't forget your cookies.”

He drove the three blocks to Spruce Street in record time. Every light in Sarah's little gingerbread house was blazing when he pulled up. He shut off the engine and raced to the door, then pounded hard.

“Sarah? It's Jess. Open up.”

It took a painfully long time for her to come to the door, while a hundred grim scenarios flashed through his brain. Finally, just before he would have knocked the damn thing down, the lace curtain in the small window fluttered, then her face peered out, her features wary.

Her eyes widened with recognition—and a vast, glimmering relief, he thought—then he heard the snick of a lock. A moment later, she opened the door to him.

“Chief Harte. Thank you for responding so quickly,” she murmured.

He might have expected her to be hysterical, judging by her panicked reaction to him the other day. Her face was pale, but otherwise she seemed calm. On closer inspection, he could see that her hands trembled slightly, like a child who has been too long out in the cold.

She wore a robe patterned in rich jewel tones, which only seemed to make her skin look more fragile, a ghostly, bloodless white.

The sudden, powerful urge to gather her up, tuck her against his chest and keep her safe and warm there forever erupted out of nowhere, scaring the hell out of him.

Knowing it was completely inappropriate—not to mention that it would probably terrify her senseless—he struggled into his concerned-but-dispassionate-cop routine. “I had a report of a possible break-in at this address.”

The emerald lapels of her silky robe rose and fell when she breathed deeply, as if fighting for control. “I…yes. That's right.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine.” She fidgeted with the sash on her robe. “I just feel so silly. I shouldn't have bothered you.”

“Of course you should bother us. That's why we're here.”

“I'm not even sure I saw anything now. It was so dark.”

“Why don't we sit down and you can tell me exactly what you thought you saw?”

After a moment's hesitation, she chose a rose-colored wingback chair near the cold fireplace and perched on the edge, hands clasped tightly together in
her lap. He took the couch and stretched his long legs out, then pulled his notebook from his breast pocket.

“How long ago did you see the intruder?”

Her hands fluttered. “I told you, I'm not even sure it was someone trying to break in.”

“That's what I'm here to figure out, sweetheart. How long ago?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“And what happened?”

She closed her eyes as if trying to re-create the events in her mind. “I was grading papers at the kitchen table and couldn't concentrate.”

Her gaze met his suddenly, then two bright spots of color appeared high on her cheekbones, making him wonder what, exactly, had destroyed her concentration.

She quickly jerked her gaze away. “I decided to go to bed. I was just turning off the lights and checking the locks. I thought I saw something move. I figured it was a cat or something, but then I…I saw a man standing there.”

“Standing where?”

“Off the back porch.” She frowned, wrinkles of concentration creasing her forehead. “Actually, just at the bottom of the steps.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“No. He was just outside the porch lights, and it was so dark. I just saw a shape, really.”

“Did he appear large or small? Was he as tall as me?”

Her gaze flashed to him again, then she gazed down at her hands. “He seemed huge,” she said, her voice small and tight. “But I don't really know. I was so frightened I couldn't think straight.”

“I'll just put a question mark here on size, then.”

“I'm probably imagining the whole thing. I'm so sorry I dragged you out here.”

He thought of old Mrs. Lehman and her alien visitors. Sarah McKenzie seeing a dark stranger lurking on her back step didn't even compare. “Let me take a look around,” he said. “If you think someone was trying to break in, I believe you.”

At his words, her face softened and her eyes went dewy and huge as if she was going to cry. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I'm still going to feel ridiculous when you don't find anything.”

“Don't worry about it. Just relax, have a cup of tea or something, and I'll be back in a few moments.”

She nodded. “Be careful, okay?”

Her concern for his safety climbed right in and settled in his heart. Just how was he supposed to keep a safe emotional distance between them when she said something like that, something that made this odd warmth steal through him?

He couldn't remember the last time somebody had worried about him. His family loved him, he knew that, but they had realized a long time ago that he could take care of himself.

Not at all sure whether he liked the feeling, he left Sarah sitting by her empty fireplace and walked out into the soggy night.

A cool drizzle settled in his hair and beaded on the oiled canvas of his coat. He barely noticed, narrowing his focus only on the job as he scoured the scene for any sign that someone had indeed been trying to break in to Sarah's house.

The gleam from his flashlight turned up little. All looked normal on her cozy little back porch—no overturned planters or dislodged cushions that he could tell.

Her backyard was fenced only on three sides. Anyone could sneak from the road around to the rear of the house. If someone wanted to break in, it made sense that he would go around to the back, where criminal activities wouldn't be as noticeable from the street.

He walked down the steps and down a small gravel pathway that curved around the house. There. There was something. He crouched, shining the beam of his flashlight into the flower garden between the walkway and the house. The light gleamed off the print of what looked like a man's work boot in the mud, as if someone had misstepped off the pathway.

It wasn't much to go on. It hadn't rained hard that day, so for all he knew, it could have been left earlier by a meter reader or Bob Jimenez, her landlord. But it was all he could see in the dark.

A careful look around the small house revealed little else, other than the interesting tidbit that Sarah McKenzie appeared to be an avid gardener, judging by all the upturned earth around the house.

She must spend every spare second she wasn't teaching outside with her hands in the dirt. The thought of the quiet, skittish schoolteacher pouring her heart and soul into creating beauty around her touched him in ways he couldn't explain.

He didn't know too many renters who would put such care and effort into beautifying a house they didn't own. Hell, he could barely manage to keep the grass mowed in the summertime around the place he'd bought after he made chief.

But Sarah was a nurturer. Plants, children, whatever.

Would she go for neat, ordered gardens, he wondered, where no flower would dare touch the next and
all were arranged in some precise pattern according to shade, color or height?

Or would she prefer wild jumbles of color? Frenzied splotches of yellows and reds and purples growing every which way?

It seemed logical to assume a quiet schoolteacher would prefer a prim and proper garden. But some instinct told him that in a month or so the yard around her house would burst with lush, unrestrained beauty.

He had a feeling that for all her subdued reticence, there were hidden depths to Sarah that fairly begged to be discovered.

But not by him. He'd leave any exploring of Sarah McKenzie's deeper passions to some other man.

Some better man.

A guy who could give her happily-ever-after, a white picket fence and all the flowers and children she could ask for.

Why should that thought depress him so much?

It was none of his business.
She
was none of his business, other than one of the citizens of Salt River he was sworn to protect.

Keeping that firmly in mind, he forced his attention back to the investigation and finished walking the perimeter of her house. When he finished, he rapped hard on her door. She opened immediately, almost as if she'd been standing just inside watching and waiting for him.

She could tell instantly by the regretful look in his eyes that he hadn't found anything substantial.

Had she imagined the whole thing? Had she been having another of those damn flashbacks again and somehow merged nightmare with reality?

She must have been. What other explanation could there be? She had been seeing things.

Anger at herself and an awful, painful embarrassment warred within her. After this and the way she'd freaked out the other day on her back porch, he probably thought she was the most ridiculous, paranoid schoolmarm who ever lived.

She had a fierce, painfully futile wish that Jesse Harte could have known her Before.

When she had been fun and adventurous and whole. When she drew people to her just like an ice-cream shop does on a warm summer day.

When she never saw strangers lurking in the shadows or panicked if a man touched her or had bouts where she stood in the shower for hours, scrubbing and scrubbing but somehow never coming clean.