Dangerous Defiance by Natasha Knight Read Free Book Online

Nope. She wasn’t going to do that. This might be his town and he might be thinking along the same lines as far as sabotage vs. dam failure, but he wanted to take things slowly. She didn’t have time for that.
    Jess booted up her laptop and sat down at the desk. She unwrapped her burger and ate a few fries as she logged into her e-mail, hoping at least for the information about Jackson’s background, but there wasn’t anything yet. She was about halfway through her sandwich when the knock came at her door. She looked at it, knowing exactly who stood on the other side. Really, it could only be him.
    He knocked again and she rose, one hand absently touching her bottom. She wondered if he knew what she had been up to. Actually, what would surprise her would be if he didn’t know.
    “Sheriff,” she said in greeting, pasting on a fake smile and standing in the doorway so he could not enter. “What a nice surprise,” she said, her tone flat. She wished he wasn’t so tall or that he wasn’t standing so close.
    He shook his head. “Woman, you are a pain in my neck.”
    She wanted to tell him he was a pain in her ass but it was too close to the truth.
    “We need to talk,” he said. “Inside. Now.”
    She moved to block him when he made to walk into her room and he paused.
    “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it out here.” She wasn’t even sure why she was so angry with him but a part of her simply resisted.
    He grumbled something, then physically picked her up, walked into the hotel room and kicked the door shut behind him before setting her on the edge of the bed.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, rising.
    One look from him and she sat back down before her mind even registered that she’d done it.
    “Have you got something to prove, Jess? Is that what this is about?”
    He was not about to lecture her. Uh-uh. She opened her mouth but he held up one finger, silencing her.
    “Did you really think no one would mention to me your visits today? Did you expect them to just open their doors and welcome you into their homes after what happened? Did you even consider for the tiniest second what these people have lost? What they’re mourning?”
    That last part stopped the dialog she had going in her mind: the preparation of her response to him before he had even finished.
    “Did you?” he asked.
    Ok, she was starting to feel like shit. “I…”
    “No, you didn’t. You are so caught up in your own stuff, in breaking this case, in making it up to Ben…”

    * * *

    That was it. Jackson watched as, the moment he said it, her whole posture changed. Her shoulders slumped and her expression went from cocky fool to plain old hurt. He wondered if she even knew it herself.
    He exhaled and sat down next to her, patting her knee gently.
    “Look, Jess, I don’t know what you’re thinking but what happened to Ben was not your fault. What happened that day was not your fault. It had nothing to do with you. I already told you I’d help you, you just have to let me.”
    He watched her as she struggled to get herself under control. Her face contorted, but what finally won out wasn’t the hurt he had just glimpsed. What he had felt for her in that moment vanished and was replaced with something else when she turned her face back to his, the cocky expression the same as what had been there when she had first opened her door.
    “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me and you didn’t know Ben. You think you know better than me. Why, because I’m young? Is that it?”
    She went to stand but he grabbed her wrist, pulling her back down. There was only one way this was going to go and his palm was already itching.
    “No, Jess, your age has nothing to do with this.”
    “What, did you tell those people not to talk to me? Is that it? You want to be the hero who solves the case?”
    That was enough. More than enough. He didn’t talk this time. Instead, he pulled her face down