by Maisey Yates
* * *
THIS HAD SEEMED like a better idea prior to actually seeing the man himself.
She was still feeling high-strung from her interaction with him earlier in the day, and she didn’t like it. Pansy was great with people. It was a huge component of her job. She often worked with people who didn’t like her very much. People who hated her, as a matter of fact, because she was either fining them for something or arresting them. Breathalyzing them. You name it.
And she was usually able to do it without feeling affected. But there was something about West that made her feel like there was an itchy, prickling fire beneath her skin, and she didn’t like it at all. So when she had gone home she had gone to the refrigerator and pulled off a list that she had been working on for the past few weeks. She had started prior to Dave Hodgkins putting the ranch up for sale, and when she had presented it to him he had said that she was going to have to wait until the new owner took over.
Home improvements.
The little cabin that she lived in was great, but there were a lot of things that had fallen into disrepair, and they needed handling. From the nonfunctional garbage disposal to the slow drain in the bathroom sink, drafts in the walls that let in both cold air and spiders, a leaky roof, and several other complaints, she had quite the list of demands.
And it had seemed right that she go to West and make sure that he did what she needed him to.
But then he got out of his truck, unfolding that long, lean body and mirroring her posture back at her. But when he folded his arms over his chest they looked vaguely like the size of old-growth tree trunks.
His forearms were massive. And she told herself that that only bothered her because while she had weapons, her instinct when confronted with large men was to be slightly nervous. Her goal was never to use her weapon on someone, but she was a woman, and that meant she was at a physical disadvantage. Not that she thought West was going to hurt her. But... It was something to bear in mind in her line of work when it came to dealing with large men.
And that was why her stomach felt strange and twisted. Fluttery.
She would not show him that she felt intimidated, though. Or whatever this feeling was.
She wouldn’t show him, because she wasn’t in the wrong here. She was absolutely in her rights. Because she was a tenant, and he the landlord. And per her agreement these sorts of repairs fell under his purview. When he had bought the property, he had gotten the lease right along with it.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the list of repairs that need to be made on my house.”
“Why don’t you come inside,” he said, walking up the stairs past her and pushing the front door of his house open. She had never been in the big house on the property before.
“Why?”
“Because I’m hungry as hell and I’m not going to stand out here and talk to you feeling irritated. Because I’ve already done that today and I have to tell you while your patience for repetition seems to be at an all-time high, mine is pretty low.”
She followed after him into the massive entry. She had no idea that the place was so fancy inside. A big, open living room with a mezzanine floor that overlooked it. Large floor-to-ceiling windows that made the most of the view. What she did notice, though, was that there wasn’t very much furniture. And there was absolutely nothing personalizing the place. No pictures. No decor.
A couch. A couple of recliners. There was a TV tray sitting in front of the couch, and it had a plate sitting on it. The plate was dirty.
There was also a bottle of beer sitting on the floor by the couch that she assumed was empty.
She followed him into the kitchen, and he pulled a Styrofoam carton out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to microwave Styrofoam,” she pointed out.
“Says who?”
“The surgeon general, I think. It’s bad for you.”
“Everything fun is bad for you.”
“You think that microwaving Styrofoam is fun? I thought my bar for fun was low.”
“You know what I mean,” he said, casting her a baleful look before pulling the Styrofoam container back out of the microwave and opening it up. Steam came off of the hamburger and the french fries that were inside.
“French fries in the microwave.” She pulled a face.
“I didn’t invite you in for you to pass judgment on my dinner. Why don’t you just tell me about your home-improvement issues?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
He took a beer out of the fridge, and held it out toward her. “Want one?”
“No, thank you,” she said crisply.
“Sorry. I’m fresh out of apple juice.” He took the beer for himself and closed the fridge. Then he wandered into the living room as if she wasn’t there, put the Styrofoam container over the top of the dirty plate and sat down on the couch.
“You’re taking this bachelor thing very seriously,” she said.
“I am,” he said. “That’s the beauty of divorce.”
For some reason, her eyes went straight to his left hand. As if she was looking for a tan line or some evidence that his marriage had existed. She had a hard time imagining him married.
You don’t know him.
“I’ve been divorced for four years,” he said. “It’s just that I was in jail for most of that. I told you. I was exonerated.”
There was clearly a story there, but while she waffled over if she was supposed to ask about it, or if she was supposed to pretend there was nothing to the statement, he moved on.
“Tell me about your list.”
She was a little bit relieved that he had moved past the point where she could ask him about his wife. Because for a moment curiosity had almost overrode her typical caution when it came to asking people about their pasts. Because if she asked, then they did. And her story was nothing if not one giant bummer.
It wasn’t that she was resistant to talking about it necessarily.
It had been seventeen years since her parents had died. In many ways it was part of her past in the same way the broken arm she had gotten falling out of a tree when she was six years old was part of her past. Part of what had made her who she was today, some of which had left scars.
But, it did tend to make people uncomfortable.
“I need a new garbage disposal,” she said, launching into the list as he had asked, and by the time she was finished, he was staring at her.
“Okay,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“If you need those things, you need them. They call these kinds of things investment properties for a reason, I guess. I have to invest.”
“Well,” she said. “Thank you. Dave was pretty resistant to the whole thing, in part because he was selling.”
“Yeah, and he didn’t mention anything to me about those improvements that were needed. But, I did get a pretty good deal on the place, all up. The huge excess of money I used to have is gone. Honest truth. But I got a decent chunk selling my McMansion. So, I was able to buy this place, and get set up to invest in cattle. Plus live.” He gestured at the burger, as if that was an indication of the living that he was doing. “I mean so I’m doing fine. But you know I used to be... Well all that was extra anyway.”
“Oh,” she said, not really sure what to say to any of that. He was looking at her. Those eyes like lasers. Cold and blue and bright. But they made her insides feel anything but cold.
She suddenly wished that she still had her flak jacket on, because she felt very exposed standing in front of him wearing only a T-shirt, and for some reason her breasts felt heavy. She would have liked a little bit of extra support. That jacket squishing them flat.
“My family owns a cattle ranch,” she said.
“Are you afraid that I’m going to be competi
tion for you?”
“No,” she said. “Hope Springs is as big as it’s going to get. It’s profitable, and it’s functional. There’s no way for us to buy more land, not with the way things are spread out. I mean, we could, but not on the original homestead. All that to say, we can only produce what we can produce. The land only supports so many head of cattle, as I’m sure you know if you’ve done your due diligence.”
His mouth worked up into that same smile she had seen earlier today. The one that made her feel like he was making fun of her a little bit. “I always do my due diligence, Officer Daniels.”
The way his tongue lingered over the syllables of her name made her antsy.
“If you need any help... I can give you my brother’s phone number,” she said.
“Are you setting me up on a blind date? Because I’m going to go ahead and hazard a guess your brother’s not my type.”
“Maybe a blind business date,” she said.
“Nice. We can talk about cows over a bottle of wine.”
“Ryder would rather die than talk to you over a bottle of wine, about cows or anything else, that I can guarantee you.”
“Give me your list,” he said.
She started to comply, and he leaned forward, taking it out of her hand.
His fingertips brushed hers. They were shockingly rough. Hot.
She shrank back quickly. “Thank you,” she said too quickly. “Again. I...”
“You could apologize for the whole ticket situation,” he said.
The heat from her fingertips spread like a bolt of lightning to her chest, and transformed into annoyance along the way. “I don’t need to apologize to you. There was a small misunderstanding, but it was clear that I was just doing my job.”
“You seem to do it very thoroughly around me.”
“You seem to make marginal choices around me. It’s not my fault. Protecting the community of Gold Valley is my responsibility.”
“Yeah. Protecting the community from people parking in loading zones. What a life, Officer Daniels. What a life indeed.” He lifted up the list. “But I’ll fix your garbage disposal nonetheless. Still...you’re lucky I’m not docking the cost of my ticket from the repairs.”
“You can’t do that,” she said. “I have a rental agreement.”
“I don’t know. I think we’ve proven I can do anything. From speeding on rural roads to...loading in a loading zone.”
She really was feeling antsy to get out of there. She’d had three conversations with the man, and things had escalated to where she felt like they’d had at least thirty more conversations than that, and she didn’t know how that worked. But suddenly, she couldn’t remember what it was like before she had seen his face for the first time, and that bothered her on a cellular level.
She didn’t have time for this. She had to prepare for her first panel interview for the police chief position, and that meant making sure that she was completely on top of the municipal code.
“And stay out of trouble,” she said.
She turned away from him, and somehow she could feel the smile that spread over his lips even though she wasn’t looking at him.
“You too.”
By the time she was back home, she felt like she wasn’t entirely sure which way was up. And for a woman who prided herself on control, that was the most disturbing realization she could’ve possibly had.
CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE TIME West got down into town the next day he had been possessed by some kind of devil. He wasn’t sure which one.
It didn’t particularly matter which.
But he pulled his big blue pickup truck right into the vacant spot on the curb beneath the sign that said Loading and Unloading. Even though he knew full well that it was going to be a pain in the ass to walk from there all the way to Big R and back with the different things he needed—nothing too heavy.
A pair of wire cutters, a new pair of work gloves, just some basic things. But, even so, he figured that carrying the bag of items back would be worth it.
He wasn’t sure why in hell he felt so driven to poke at Ms. Pansy Daniels.
Well. Officer, he supposed.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what stuck in his craw. He wasn’t in prison anymore. He was out, and he was free, and he had a hell of a lot more wiggle room on this side of the bars.
He snorted as he walked down the sidewalk, crossing the street and heading down in the direction of Big R. He paused for a moment inside the building after acquiring his things to speak to the woman who worked there. She had two small dogs behind the counter with her.
West liked dogs. He’d never owned one.
When he was a kid his mother had told him that he couldn’t have one because she didn’t trust him to take care of it.
He’d found a dog once. He’d fed it scraps from his lunch every day after school. Not that he’d been able to afford to spare that food, but he’d been captivated by the dog, and had wanted to make friends with it.
He’d tried to bring it home. His mother had refused. The dog kept following him. Day after day. It hadn’t understood why West had brought it home one day, and then not the next. And then the dog had disappeared. He had felt guilty about that for a long time after.
Like he’d failed the dog in some way.
His mother had only assumed he couldn’t take care of the dog because she couldn’t take care of her own kid. But that, West felt, was hardly his sin. Still, he’d had his share, he supposed.
That he’d never gotten a dog after that suddenly stuck out as odd to him.
His ex-wife hadn’t wanted a dog in the house, and West didn’t really see the point of a dog if he couldn’t have it come indoors with him. Not a judgment on anyone who did it differently. But he just felt like if he were getting a companion, it would be his companion wherever he was.
But he didn’t have a dog.
Never had.
So he supposed it didn’t matter.
West walked out of the store, bidding the woman a good day before heading back toward his truck. He deliberately didn’t use the crosswalk when he crossed back over to the other side of the street. If Pansy didn’t get his truck where it was parked now then she could always give him a ticket for jaywalking.
He didn’t know why he was looking forward to sparring with her again. Just that he was. And when his truck came into view, he wasn’t disappointed. Because there she was, standing next to it, her arms crossed, her expression blank.
“Pansy,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Why are you doing this?” She asked the question as if none of this gave her any joy. And he didn’t think that was true. He thought that she got a certain amount of joy out of it, actually.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, echoing a question he’d asked her at least twice now.
“You are parked in the loading zone.” She stared at him blandly, and he didn’t respond. “Again.”
“Look,” he said, moving to the truck and jerking the door open. “I’m loading. And when I got out of the truck I was unloading.”
“That’s not what that means,” she sputtered.
“Well, the sign does not clearly define loading and unloading. There is no time frame indicated there in which the loading and unloading needs to occur.”
“There is an accepted definition.” She was fighting to keep cool but her pitch had risen a half step.
“Is there? I don’t feel like I ever accepted it.”
“You don’t have to,” she said fiercely. “Because that’s not the point. It’s a rule. And people understand what it means.”
He kept his expression neutral. “Clearly I didn’t.”
“That’s it. I’m giving you a ticket. I’m giving you the ticket I didn’t give you the other day. And I think you expected it.”
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He couldn’t tell if she was angry about writing him a ticket or if she was angry about having to give him what he had clearly been after.
He didn’t really know why getting a ticket from her had been his goal. But she was mad, and he liked that.
You are being an immature dick.
Maybe. But he had the freedom to do so, and he kind of enjoyed that. She huffed, shifting position and reaching into her pocket. And as she did so, he caught himself giving her body a leisurely tour. Her curves weren’t visible in the uniform she was wearing, unlike when he had seen her last night, and he’d been able to get a good look at the shape of her toned, athletic body in the T-shirt and jeans.
No, he couldn’t see anything particularly feminine or curvy in the getup she was wearing now, and he found himself drawn to her anyway.
Was that what was happening? Was this the adult equivalent of pulling a girl’s pigtails?
Yeah. Actually, as he stood there and looked at her, he thought she made a pretty neat little package. And he couldn’t deny that part of him thought it would be pretty hot to strip that uniform off her body and put her up against the side of his illegally parked truck.
That was something deeply psychological. The fact that he wanted to quite literally fuck the police.
Was he that basic?
Hell. That wasn’t a huge surprise. He’d tried to domesticate himself, he really had. He’d thought that was the key to life. The answer to everything. And his ass had landed in prison.
He didn’t much care anymore if there was only a thin line between him and a beast.
But the thing that set him apart from the animals was that he wasn’t going to act on his impulse. He could have sex with any number of women, and he didn’t need it to be this one surly pain in his rear. And gazing at her particularly angry face told him that she wouldn’t want to get involved with him either way.
She wrote her ticket and shoved it in his direction. He took it, then touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, the ticket held between his fingers. “Thank you kindly,” he said.
