Taming Jesse James by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online

given the stress of the day. Seeing Corey Sylvester’s bruises, the visit to the police station that had been so reminiscent of the extensive, humiliating interviews she had given in Chicago, and two encounters with the gorgeous but terrifying Jesse Harte.
    It was all more than her still-battered psyche could handle.
    If she had been thinking straight, she would have tried to stay up, to fight the dream off with the only tool she had—consciousness. But the sentence diagrams she was trying to grade worked together with the exhausting stress of the day to finish her off. After her fourth yawn in as many minutes, she had finally given up. She was half-asleep as she checked the locks and turned off the lights sometime around midnight.
    Sleep came instantly, and the dream followed on its heels.
    It was as familiar to her as her ABC s. Walking into her empty classroom. Humming softly to the Beethoven sonata that had been playing on her car CD. Wondering if she would be running on schedule after school to meet Andrew before the opening previews at the little art theater down the street from her apartment.
    She unlocked her classroom door and found him waiting for her, his face hard and sharp and his eyes dark with fury.
    She hadn’t been afraid. Not at first. At first she’d only been angry. He should have been in jail, behind bars where he belonged.
    The detective she had made her report to the afternoon before—O’Derry, his name had been—had called her the previous evening to let her know officers had picked up DeSilva. But he had also warned her even then that the system would probably release the eighteen-year-old on bail just a few hours later.
    She knew why he had come—because she had dared step up to report him for dealing drugs and endangering the welfare of a child. She imagined he would threaten her, maybe warn her to mind her own business. She never guessed he would hurt her.
    How stupid and naive she had been in her safe, middle-class world. She had taught at an inner-city school long enough that she should have realized anyone willing to use a nine-year-old girl to deliver drugs to vicious criminals would be capable of anything.
    â€œHow did you get in?” she started to ask, then saw shattered glass from the broken window all over the floor and the battered desks closest to it. How was she supposed to teach her class now with cool October airrushing in? With the stink and noise of the city oozing in along with it?
    Before she could say anything more, he loomed in front of her. “You messin’ with the wrong man, bitch.”
    Still angry about the window, she spoke without thinking. “I don’t see a man here,” she said rashly. “All I can see is a stupid punk who hides behind little girls.”
    He hissed a name then—a vicious, obscene name—and the wild rage in his features finally pierced her self-righteous indignation. For the first time, a flicker of unease crawled up her spine.
    He was high on something. He might be only eighteen, but that didn’t mean anything on the street. Punk or not, a furious junkie was the most dangerous creature alive.
    She started to edge back toward the door, praying one of the custodians would be within earshot, but DeSilva was faster. He beat her to the door and turned the lock, then advanced on her, a small chrome handgun suddenly in his hand.
    â€œYou’re not goin’ anywhere,” he growled.
    She forced herself to stay calm. To treat him coolly and reasonably, as she would one of her troubled students. “You won’t use that on me. The detectives who arrested you will know who did it. They’ll arrest you within the hour.”
    â€œMaybe. But you’ll still be dead.”
    â€œAnd the minute you fire a shot, everybody in the place is going to come running. Are you going to kill them all, too?”
    He squinted, trying to follow her logic, and she sawhis hand waver slightly.