by Maisey Yates
Pansy rolled her eyes. What Sammy was saying was so ridiculous she didn’t even find it embarrassing.
“Okay. But seriously, you really think that I should keep doing this?”
Because as ridiculous as Sammy seemed, she wasn’t wrong. Maybe the reason this was all so difficult was because she had never done it before. Maybe she was just so very overdue, and the combination of that and the stress at work had made her...well, sex crazed.
“Sure,” Sammy said. “It’s safe.”
“How is it safe to have sex with a man in the museum?” Iris asked.
“Well, technically it was the museum basement.”
“A basement,” Iris said. “How is that safe?”
“Well, in the sense that no one is going to go into it because it’s closed, and only certain people have keys... I guess it’s safe?” Pansy asked.
“This is ridiculous,” Iris said.
“Also we used a condom,” Pansy said, flat affect. “So. Safe in that way too.”
Iris made a small gasping noise and Sammy smirked.
“It’s kind of badass,” Rose said. “And why not? You know, all those guys who carved their names in the bathrooms at the Gold Valley Saloon... You should carve your name in the museum basement.”
“Am I the only one who didn’t know people do that?” Pansy asked.
“Yes,” Iris, Sammy and Rose said in unison.
“Well. I didn’t. And I’m not carving my name anywhere. But maybe...maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time for me to cut loose. Just with him. And then I can still get my job, and everything will be okay. But I can... I can be a little crazy. In a controlled environment.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s like a controlled burn. A controlled burn so that there doesn’t end up being a whole giant wildfire. Forestry management. Lust management.”
Sammy nodded sagely. “Yes. Yes.”
“Controlled burns require experts,” Iris said. “Otherwise things get out of control.”
“Well,” Pansy said. “West is an expert. So I’m just going to have to trust him.”
“Trusting the ex-con cowboy?”
“He didn’t do it,” she said.
Rose shook her head. “You’ve become a cowboy apologist.”
“Well, are you going to be mad at me if I do this?” she asked, directing that question to Iris. Iris looked at her for a long moment, and something in her face reminded Pansy of their mother. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe she didn’t really know. Maybe she was being silly. Maybe she was misremembering. Maybe it was just what she thought maternal might look like. Maybe it wasn’t their own mother she saw at all. But it still made her think of her. And it made her feel morose.
“I’m not mad,” Iris said. “I just worry about you.”
She got up from her chair and went and embraced her sister. “I know you do,” she said. “You don’t have to.”
“I know you’re a police officer and all, Pansy. And I know that you’ve been through your share of trauma, and you don’t need me to hold your hand. But... I want to.”
“And I want to push you out of the nest,” Sammy said. “But if you’re not ready yet... I’m not going to be mad.”
“I don’t care what you do,” Rose said. “I’m just going to put it out there right now.”
“Thanks, Rose,” Pansy said.
Her sister was being funny but Pansy’s throat was tight. She might not get to have this moment with her mom, but she had them. These wonderful women who wanted different things, lived life in different ways and loved her.
She loved them too.
They didn’t need to be alike, they just needed love. Acceptance. And they had that. Pansy had never really done anything that might test those bonds. She had grown into someone decidedly uncontroversial.
Until this week.
And still she’d known she could talk to them.
She’d been right.
“You’re welcome.”
“Why not do it?” Sammy asked. “You’re already in. Might as well jump in all the way.”
She still felt so raw. So fragile. But somehow this all made her feel better. Giving it a reason. Giving it a name. That she’d been looking for a place to be wild while all else stayed orderly. It made her feel less like she was losing her mind.
She looked at the three women that she called sisters. “Thank you,” she said.
Her family might not look like very many other people’s families. But she had a wonderful family.
And whatever she decided to do about West, she had never appreciated her family more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CONSIDERING THE WAY that Pansy had run away from him, West’s primary concern when he got back to the homestead was that he check on her.
Everything had gone well for Emmett at the bakery. West was impressed with the way Carl dealt with his half brother. He gave him just the right amount of responsibility while offering a certain amount of guidance. It was just what a young boy in Emmett’s situation needed. He didn’t need to be treated like a kid, no, that ship had sailed.
He still was a kid, though. A kid who’d had to grow up too fast with no guide on how to do it.
But he had grown up in a household with a mother who had never treated him like he needed to be nurtured. Offering it suddenly now would seem strange. Backward. Because he had never, ever been given anything like that in the past. Not when he had needed it more. And he had grown hard and tough in the intervening years, and he needed to be given the respect that he had earned by still being here.
West understood that, because it had been his experience.
Emmett was exhausted by the time they got back to the house. They had gotten a take and bake pizza from the store, and he had put Emmett in charge of baking it and had made no pretense about the fact that he was going to find Pansy. Because Emmett had assumed they were sleeping together anyway. And he was sure his brother hadn’t believed their denial. So given that it was true now, West didn’t see the point of pretending it wasn’t.
He grabbed a beer out of his fridge, then another, and went out the front door, and down the porch, down the well-worn path that led to Pansy’s cabin. When he got there, he knocked on the door.
It took a moment, but then it cracked open and he saw one suspicious dark eye looking up at him.
“I came to check on you,” he said.
“I’m here,” she said. “And I’m whole.”
“Proof required.”
She opened the door a bit farther, and revealed that she was in fact intact. “A relief,” he said.
“Did you think that I had been eaten by wolverines?”
“Not eaten. Maybe just gnawed on a little bit.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to be gnawed on by wolverines.”
“Who does?”
“Someone probably does. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my line of work it’s that people are weird. So trust me, someone, somewhere out there, really wants to be chewed on by a wolverine. And will probably film it. And upload it to the internet for other people to watch.”
“The world is weird,” he said.
“No argument from me.”
“You ran away,” he said.
She drew up to her full height. Which wasn’t that impressive. “No I didn’t. I went to visit my sisters.”
“You ran away from me,” he repeated.
She kept her posture, all stiff and huffy. “Well. OK. Fine. Maybe I did.”
Her eyes met his and his stomach went tight. What had happened between them earlier today was burned into him. Every touch from Pansy Daniels was burned into him. Sunk down beneath his skin. He couldn’t begin to understand it. Couldn’t begin to understand the madness that took over him when her lips touched his. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to understand i
t. Wasn’t sure what was required. It was a good thing, just to be lost in it. Just to be held captive by the excitement.
It was a kind of dirty magic he hadn’t known he’d wanted.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He reached out and brushed his knuckles over her cheek, the intensity of the impact of that soft skin against the back of his fingers shocking him. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
He wanted her and no mistake. But he needed her to know exactly who he was. Exactly what he was. Because he couldn’t stand the idea of fooling her, even unintentionally.
If she was hurt as a result of what happened between them it wouldn’t be because of his lack of honesty.
“I’m... I went and I played the part of slick sophisticate for a while, but it’s not me. I’m a lot closer to the man I was in prison than I am to the man who works in an office five days a week. I’m burned-out. I want to start over, but I don’t want that life. Not again.”
“That’s your way of telling me you don’t want to get married.”
He nodded his head. “Yeah, basically.”
“Right. West, I don’t want to get married. But I also... I don’t understand what’s happening between us. And I don’t mean that in the sense of wanting to know where it’s going. It has nothing to do with you, actually. It has everything to do with me.”
He didn’t know how he felt about that statement. He would like for this to have something to do with him a little bit. Because whatever was happening to him... It had something to do with her. She was the one that had been a virgin. Not him.
He had plenty of experience. He knew how to separate sexual desire from actual feelings.
What he was feeling right now was a disruptive level of sexual desire, it was true. But it wasn’t feelings.
“I’ve always followed the rules,” she said. Then she closed her eyes. “I haven’t always followed the rules. I... I was so bad when I was a kid. I just felt like there was something wild inside of me trying to get out all the time. And I had so much energy and I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Looking at her, it made sense. She had a lot of hard packed muscle that suggested she spent a frequent amount of time being active. Even now.
She looked down and continued, “When I wanted something... I couldn’t help myself. I just took it. I took it because I wanted it. I would steal cookies when they were being saved for a bake sale. And stick my finger in a birthday cake. My parents would get so frustrated with me. Especially my dad. He would say that there are rules set out for us for a reason. And I just...” She met his gaze. “I didn’t care, West. I didn’t care. All I cared about was feeling good. The day that my parents left for their Alaska trip I ended up eating half the brownies my mom made to bring with them. She wasn’t that angry, but my dad... I ran away. I ran away and I hid. I didn’t say goodbye to them. And I can still hear him in my head yelling for me. And telling me...that I was bad.”
He could sense the enormity of the emotion, vibrating beneath her skin. But her eyes were dry. Her expression stoic. “And then they died. They died on their way to Alaska. The plane went down... My mom and dad, Logan’s mother, Colt and Jake’s mother and father, they were gone. We were all left alone. And the last thing that my father thought about me was that I was bad. I just wanted to fix it. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Was to find a way to be good. So that the biggest thing I was...wasn’t a disappointment. Wasn’t bad. And I’ve done that. I never drank underage. Even now, I keep it to one beer, one beer just like he did. I have this job. I want to be police chief. And this...this thing between you and me is not like me. It’s not like me at all. And I don’t know what to do about that. Maybe it’s okay. Maybe...”
She looked at him full-on, her eyes meeting his. “Maybe I can just misbehave with you.”
The words hit him funny. Because he didn’t know how he felt about being a little something bad for this good girl. But then, he was who he was. It wasn’t set in stone, he supposed, but it was just the truth of it. The truth of him, the truth of her.
“What if what we’re doing isn’t so bad?” he asked.
He leaned down and he kissed her. Pressing his mouth gently to hers. He was used to things erupting between them. He was used to fire and passion and heat. But this was different. It was just a slow, sweet taste of her lips. And damn was she sweet.
She whimpered, and shifted against him, pressing her mouth harder to his, but he resisted. He kept it gentle, kept it soft.
“No,” she protested. “That’s not how I want it.”
“Too damned bad,” he said. “You’ll take it how I give it.”
“This is supposed to be my rebellion.”
“But it’s my redemption, baby,” he said. “My first woman since prison. Don’t I get what I want too?” He abandoned her mouth, peppering kisses over her jaw, down her neck. “I can’t stay,” he whispered.
“Then why did you do that?” she asked, shivering restlessly beneath his touch.
“Because I wanted you to know how beautiful I think you are. How hard it is for me to keep my hands off you. You should know that.”
“I don’t need to hear things like that,” she said, looking up at him with ferocity. “I’m tough. I’ve had to be. Don’t go getting all...sappy on me. Or gentle. Do you think it’s an accident that I wanted to have you in...those places?”
“Okay,” he said. “So what you’re saying is you don’t want a bed. You don’t want gentle. You want to be on couches and against walls. You want to be out in the barn. Surrounded by all the trappings of ranch life. Those riding crops. You know, I had a thought about one of those riding crops. And how I might use it on that ass of yours.”
The color in her cheeks went crimson, but to his surprise, she didn’t look disgusted so much as angrily intrigued.
“Whatever you dish out,” she said, “I can take it.”
Except he had a feeling that wasn’t true. He had a feeling that she was trying to make this affair into something very specific because she absolutely couldn’t handle everything. She had decided that he was a rebellion and she was comfortable with that in her way. But anything else? No, it was anything else that seemed to scare his stalwart officer.
“You don’t have to be tough all the time,” he said. “You don’t have to be brave.”
“Yes I do,” she said. “I absolutely do. Because the world is going to do what it does, and no one can go through it for me. It just...is. You know. That’s how it is.”
“You could let me,” he said. “You could let me share some of it.”
“We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Not in a romantic sense,” he said, “but we do have a relationship. You’ve helped me with Emmett. And I’m damned appreciative. If there’s something going on with you, if you feel stressed or anything like that about the police chief position...well, you can talk to me.”
She looked up at him like she would rather bite his face than take his comfort.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“Maybe I’ll be busy tomorrow,” she said.
She looked so resolute and stubborn, and he might have laughed if looking at her didn’t make his gut so tight. Didn’t make him hard.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m your rebellion. Because you’ve decided. And I don’t think you ever back down on what you’ve decided, Pansy Daniels.”
She gave him a look that seemed to grudgingly say that he was right.
“I’ve gotta go see to Emmett. You know, I had a thought,” he said. “What you were saying about deciding to be good even though it was hard for you. I think there’s some kids at the school that would maybe benefit from hearing your story.”
She huffed a lau
gh. “Except didn’t I also just make it clear I’m maybe not balanced in that regard?”
“Maybe. But neither are they. It might be inspiring to hear your story.” He paused for a moment. “But for what it’s worth... I didn’t know your dad. And I don’t know much of anything about your childhood but the way that you all took care of each other when you needed it, the way you rallied around each other, I think you were raised with a pretty strong sense of family. I don’t think your dad thought you were bad. Not really. He might have worried about you, your behavior, but I don’t think he thought that.”
“How would you know? Your parents weren’t anything like mine.”
“I know,” he said. “But there was a time when I thought I might want to have children. I did get married thinking that. That I might be a father. And when I had that thought, well, I thought about what it actually meant to be a father. I didn’t have an example of one, so I really had to ask myself what I thought it should mean. So. For what it’s worth, the hypothetical opinion of a man who thought once that he might’ve had children, but now has no plans to, I think this is the kind of role model stuff kids need.”
“Well. Sorry but that’s not the most encouraging thing.”
“I never am to you. Until I am. And then I’m a whole big problem aren’t I, Officer Daniels?”
“You better see to Emmett.”
He had to. Because if he was here for another moment then he was going to take her into his arms and kiss her. Then he was going to end up staying the night. He was going to end up giving her exactly what she said she wanted. Hard and rough in a thousand different ways. And he would do that. He would. But whether it was because he was a contrary bastard or for some other reason, he was now obsessed with the idea of having Pansy Daniels in a bed. Wrapped in a blanket, wrapped in his arms.
Slow and sweet.
“Good night,” he said. She tilted her face up toward him, like she was expecting a kiss. He looked at her for a long moment. “I didn’t think you wanted anything gentle from me.”
