by Maisey Yates
Her eyes fell. “I don’t,” she said.
He felt like an ass. And that was a strange thing too. That she had the ability to make him feel bad when she was the one who’d gone issuing challenges. It wasn’t his fault if she went badgering him and he set about to put an end to it.
He should be glad she wanted something he’d denied her.
He found he just wanted to give to her.
“Good night then.”
Then he turned and walked out of the cabin, leaving Pansy behind. And for some reason he had the terrible feeling that he had left part of himself behind as well.
* * *
PANSY COULDN’T HELP but feel that even though the other night had been meant to be about her good girl emancipation, she had somehow come out behind West.
If it were a contest. Or a race. She didn’t think it was really either but she didn’t know what it was, and it all left her feeling unsettled.
She didn’t know quite how that had happened, and she was still stewing about it while she sat at her desk at the police station the next day.
“Phone call for you,” Officer Martinez said from the back.
She nodded, then picked up her line.
“Good morning,” came the gravelly, husky voice on the other end.
“I’m at work,” she said.
“I’m here too,” he said, and just as he did, he walked into the doors of the police station.
She hung the phone up clumsily. “What are you doing here?” she mouthed more than asked as he made his way past reception and toward her desk.
“I just got done at the ranch. The Dalton ranch. I dropped Emmett off for the day and spent a little bit of time with my brothers. And I wanted to come talk to you before I went back home.”
“I’m at work,” she said again. Realizing that she sounded lame.
“Yes,” he said. “That is how I found you.”
“Okay,” she said. “That’s a good point. But obviously you couldn’t have found me if I wasn’t where you knew I would be.” She frowned. “Do you know my work schedule?”
“I’m learning it.”
There was an intensity to those blue eyes she thought she shouldn’t like. But she did. It made her whole body feel tight, on edge. And she should dislike that feeling too. But she didn’t.
“I have another interview today. Last one before the final.”
“And you’re telling me subtly that you don’t want me here?”
“Was that subtle?”
“No,” he said. “Not really. But then, you’re not a subtle kind of girl, and I like that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means. Also. You’re at work. You probably shouldn’t flirt with me.”
“I am not flirting with you. Do you need me to write you a ticket to prove that point?”
“Honey,” he said, leaning a little bit closer, keeping his voice low. “You were flirting with me every time you wrote me a ticket. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
She felt breathless. It was difficult to think. When he was standing there above her, looking so tall and large, and like the most rock-solid bad decision a girl could possibly make.
And she had decided that he was her bad decision. Last night he had talked about riding crops, and then he had kissed her so gently. Today, she wanted to drag him back to the locker room—the women’s locker room that only she used—and have her way with him. More than just about anything. Right on the job. She wanted him to strip off her uniform and...
Well, maybe she didn’t really want him to strip off her uniform, because all things considered it wasn’t that sexy.
The harsh and terrible truth was that her belt buckle was Velcro. And the idea of him undoing her Velcro belt seemed a bit anticlimactic. Then there was all the work of dealing with her flak jacket. Yeah, no, she didn’t actually want him to strip her naked at work.
Of course, if he did...
It would be wrong. So very wrong...
She squeezed her eyes shut angrily for a moment, an extended blink where she wasn’t looking at West Caldwell, and righted herself.
“I’m actually just about to go out and do my rounds.”
“Can I do a ride along?”
She opened her mouth and closed it. She really didn’t have a good reason that he couldn’t.
“There’s normally protocol for that.”
“Yeah, but is it a problem if I do?”
She knew the general rules about it at the Gold Valley Police Department, and no. There wasn’t an issue.
“Before your interview,” he said. “Just for a little while. Come on, Pansy. I only ever get to see what you do when you’re writing me a ticket.”
“Fine,” she said. She breezed past him, past Martinez and past the receptionist without looking at any of them. Because if she did then she knew that she was going to see that they were gaping at West. And she didn’t need to be dealing with that. With speculation. Because she wasn’t going to be able to hold up to speculation. Not when that speculation was true, and likely even more salacious than the speculation was.
They headed toward the police car, and he opened the passenger door, then stopped. “I haven’t actually been in one of these when I wasn’t sitting in the back.”
She would have said something disdainful, but it just made her heart clench tight. And all of her frustration with him seemed to dissolve. He was making a joke, but she felt... She was angry.
Angry that he’d had years of his life taken from him. Angry that he had been painted as something he absolutely wasn’t. A man who would steal money. A man who would show such disregard for what other people had built with their own hands. If there was one thing that West seemed to hold sacred it was hard work. And he was...he was incredibly respectful of it. Of hers. He seemed to actually care quite a bit about her job.
And he had been concerned about it when he thought that Emmett and his situation might impact on her. About what Barbara might do. He would never have taken money someone else had worked for. She knew that.
She swallowed hard, then sank into the driver’s seat. He followed suit, settling into the passenger’s seat and buckling up. She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, turning right and heading toward Main. She stopped at the cross street, with her right blinker on, waiting for her opportunity to turn. It didn’t take long.
Rush hour through Gold Valley was usually the result of ten cars getting backed up behind a tractor.
“So, what do your rounds include?” he asked.
“I do a circuit of the whole town. Go to the outskirts. Some days I park for a while, I’m not above being a speed trap. Especially not on the road that heads up to the lake and the beaches. On the weekends especially people get silly, and they drink. The very worst part of my job is having to tell someone that their son or daughter isn’t coming home because they went out with friends, drank too many beers on the beach and hit a tree. So I’m pretty vigilant about monitoring all of that, especially in the summer.”
He looked at her, hard. She kept her eyes on the road, on the yellow center line, but she could still feel him. The intensity as he looked at her profile. “I never thought about that part of the job.”
She pulled her lips tight. “It’s not a fun part.”
“Who told you that your father was dead?”
Tension crept up her spine. “I was asleep,” she said, “when Chief Doering came to the door.”
West nodded slowly. “He’s your boss now, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. “He is. My dad was his boss, his mentor. He loved him. He really did. I remember... I heard that someone was there, and I got out of bed. I saw that it was Chief Doering, and I knew him, so I started coming down the stairs so that I could say hi, even though I thought
it was strange.” The whole scene was tilted and fuzzy in her memory, but some pieces of it were so sharp and clear it felt like she was living them now. She thought she might have seen it that way even then. That the reality of the moment had faded in and out. But she couldn’t be sure.
“He said they were all gone. We were all there at the house, because we were all staying together while our parents went on that trip. I just remember... Ryder made a sound that I’ve never heard another person make before. Short and guttural. Like he’d been shot. And then he looked over his shoulder and saw me. And everything in him went straight and rigid. And he never shed a tear, not in front of me. He never made another sound like that. He told me to come down the stairs. I don’t remember anything else.”
“Nothing?” he asked, his voice rough.
“No. It’s like I woke up two days later. But I don’t think I did. I think I was awake that couple of days. I just don’t remember them. It’s all right. I don’t really want to.”
“Does it bring it back? When you have to go and tell someone?”
“Yes,” she said. “And for a while I thought that it wasn’t really fair that I had to live that out over and over again. But gradually, I’ve realized that there was no one better to deliver news like that. Because I’ve had that visit. I’ve experienced loss like that. That unexpected, jarring kind. The kind you think happens to other people and never to you. And you know, I never get used to it, but I realize that whether or not I’m the one to deliver the news, tragedy will happen. And I can at least be for someone what Roger Doering was for me. What he was for us. He was stalwart, even though it hurt him. And I admire that. You know the streets of Gold Valley aren’t mean at all, but the roads are a bitch. Every year we lose way too many people. And that’s...just part of my job.”
“It’s a crime,” he said. “The way the world steals innocence from people who deserve to hang on to it for a little while longer.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who stole my innocence.”
He chuckled, and he didn’t challenge her, but they both knew it wasn’t true. The world had taken it from her a whole lot sooner than he had. He had just taken her virginity.
“You don’t have time to see to a little bit of personal police business, do you?”
She frowned. “Personal police business? What does that mean?”
“In that it’s somewhat personal to me, as it’s kind of a favor,” he said. “But I do think that it would mean a lot if you would come and talk to those boys. I know that you believe in a sense of community. I think we have a similar opinion on it. The way that Carl Jacobson dealt with Emmett mattered. Because he treated him like a person who still meant something. Treated him with respect. And I know that kids like Emmett, kids like me, kids like the ones at the school...they don’t get that. Not often. If not ever. To have a police officer come and speak to them. You know, who isn’t trying to scare them straight, but just maybe talk a little bit about responsibility, the community, those kinds of things, well I think it would be really important.”
Pansy nodded slowly. “I can come by. Before the interview.”
“Excellent,” he said.
“Just give me directions.”
Which was how she found herself driving toward the Dalton ranch. She’d had a vague idea of where it was, so she didn’t need detailed instructions on how to get there. But she had never been there before.
It was a beautiful property with manicured green lawns and pristine, freshly painted barns. Everywhere you looked there were pieces of evidence of Hank’s good fortune. From the brand-new ranching equipment to the big shiny trucks on down to the details like sheet metal roofing and specially treated decks and fences that were guaranteed to withstand the weather and had cost thousands of dollars to have installed.
“He’s something else,” West said. He gave her instructions to pull around to a barn which was apparently near the classrooms, and when they did, they saw his brother Gabe.
When Gabe saw them, his eyes widened. And Pansy realized that it must look weird. Whatever you thought was happening, the situation looked weird. West in the passenger seat of her police car, her pulling up in her police car... So much for keeping things low profile.
She turned the engine off and stepped out of the car, adjusting her belt out of force of habit. West got out, rising high above the car as he straightened.
“Before you ask, if I were in trouble I would have been in the back seat,” West said.
Gabe lifted his hands. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Sure you weren’t,” West said.
“You got me,” Gabe said. “I was totally going to say something.”
“Hi,” Pansy said, extending her hand. “I’m Officer Pansy Daniels. It’s obvious your brother didn’t talk to you about me coming by.”
“No,” Gabe said. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“He thought that it might be a good idea if I came by at some point and had a talk with the kids. About...well, about being good citizens, kind of.” She winced. “Of course I won’t say it like that, because then they’ll throw rotten fruit at me and immediately decide that everything I have to say is lame.”
Gabe and West smirked. She was struck by how alike they looked.
It was so clear that they were brothers. And yet, given the way that they stood when they were near each other, she could see clearly that they weren’t all that comfortable around each other yet. They definitely didn’t have the ease of family.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Gabe said. “Honestly, most of the contact these kids have had with adults has been pretty bad.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” West said. “I was thinking that it would be good for them to deal with an authority figure that didn’t treat them like they were a problem.”
“I’m a big believer in the idea that we need to provide a support system for each other in this community,” Pansy said. “And I... I’m going out for police chief. If I get it, I guarantee you that’s going to be a big part of my job. Community outreach. Making sure kids like these, whether they’re from Gold Valley or from somewhere else, know that they can always make a different choice. That they’re not going to be labeled as trouble based on where they came from, what they look like or even what they might have done in the past. Everybody deserves a fresh start.”
She felt like it was something her dad might have said.
Something he might have done if he were here and were able to talk to these kids.
Because of what he’d taught her. About rules and responsibility. Even if he didn’t know she’d ever learned it.
And it made her feel warm. Made her feel like she’d found a way to take some pieces of him, of what he’d left behind, and bring them into the present.
“I agree,” Gabe said. “It’s what I’m trying to do here.”
He set about to showing her around the facility, and uncharacteristically, West was quiet during the proceedings. The whole place was wonderful, and by the time Pansy had to leave to get back to her interview, she was feeling enthused. She dropped West off at his truck, and then made her way down to the police station. When she walked in, it was that same, now-familiar panel of people.
Barbara was there, looking particularly pinched.
As nemeses went, Pansy felt that she was a bit of an anticlimax. She didn’t particularly love the idea that her greatest enemy was in possession of a collection of bright colored blazers and a single string of pearls.
But as confident as she had felt in every other interaction, this time, she was only more confident.
“And what do you plan to do about the concerns that the Dalton school might bring in more crime?” Barbara asked.
“Outreach,” Pansy said. “That’s what I plan to do everywhere in the community.
We are here to serve the community, and that means doing so in creative ways. I want to make sure that we’re visiting schools. That we’re making sure the kids here are familiar to us. It will establish a feeling of accountability. And among the kids who don’t have positive role models in their lives, we can offer that. And other members of the community can get involved as well, and I’m more than happy to help make that happen. Everyone deserves second chances. Another opportunity to get their foot on the right path.”
She had no idea how it all went when it was done. But she felt good.
For the first time, she felt like she knew why she wanted to do this job for herself. Which made it a great time for her to go in for her psych eval, and she was glad she’d scheduled it for today. That part didn’t intimidate her. She’d had to do it to get hired on in the first place, and she knew what to expect.
Afterward, she was still reflecting on the shift that had taken place inside her during that interview.
It was strange, because she loved her job and she always had. But the reason she gave people when they asked why she had become a police officer was her father. Always. Without fail.
Now though, if someone asked, she might answer the same. But she’d have more to say about it as well. It wasn’t only that. She could make a difference this way. A difference she truly believed in, not just because she was trying to honor a memory, or make a man proud who wasn’t even here. But because it made her proud. It made her feel hopeful.
And it felt like a step. An evolution.
It made her wonder if it had something to do with West. Except, it was probably less West and more to do with whatever was happening in her at the moment. And he was an extension of that, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. Because in the end, when all was said and done, West wasn’t going to stay in her life in this way. So any changes she made had to be about her, for her. And she had to be able and willing to be her own master. The one making all the changes.
