Taming Jesse James Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 calmher 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 Chicagoshe’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.