by Maisey Yates
“You know how you could avoid this?” she asked.
“Move to another town?”
“Park literally anywhere else on the street and observe the time allowed for parking on the sign.”
“Aw, well, thank you for that, officer. I will bear that in mind.”
And somehow he knew he wouldn’t. There he was, a grown man going toe-to-toe with a woman who came midway up his chest, essentially acting like she was being an asshole while he’d made the choice to park in the wrong place.
Her radio went off and she jolted, turning her head and answering the call.
There were codes that came out over the speaker that he didn’t understand, and her dark eyebrows shot upward. “Really? Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Got a code nine from dispatch?” he asked. “What is that? A cat in a tree?”
“You call the fire department for that,” she said, dryly. “Someone broke in to a car. I’m as surprised as you are. But sadly, that means I have to cut this short. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
“Sure you will.” He waved her off with the ticket in his hand still.
Then he got in his truck and shoved it in the glove box along with the other ticket she had written him. And he headed off toward home. Then, he pulled over to the side of the road and did a U-turn, taking his way back into town. She wanted all the things in her house fixed. And he had been intent on calling someone to handle it. But he had time. More than enough time. So there was just no reason he couldn’t handle Officer Pansy Daniels’s list himself. All he had to do was go and buy some supplies.
* * *
“TECHNICALLY IT WASN’T a break-in,” Pansy said, making a note on her pad.
“It was,” Barbara Niedermayer said, her expression fierce. “Someone got into my car, unauthorized, and stole my wallet out of it.”
“Yes, but your car wasn’t locked.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes,” Pansy said. “I mean, it’s still theft. Make no mistake. They’ll be charged. It’s just...semantics.” The truth. Which mattered to Pansy.
“Semantics that will matter to the insurance company,” Barbara said.
“No doubt,” said Pansy.
Which was the real issue, she imagined.
The woman looked at her expectantly. Barbara Niedermayer was on the City Council, and the fact that it was her car that had been not broken in to was extremely inconvenient as far as Pansy was concerned. It could also be convenient, granted. Provided she could find the person who had stolen Barbara’s wallet. And if anybody tried to use a card around here with her name on it, it definitely would be. But...the pressure that would be put on her until then, and the problems that would result if she didn’t manage to find the culprit, wouldn’t even be worth mentioning.
“Did you have any credit cards in the wallet?”
“Yes,” Barbara said.
“And your ID.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Cash?” Pansy asked.
“About $500,” the other woman said, clipped. “I do that envelope method.”
Pansy gritted her teeth. “Great. Unfortunately, that is going to be more difficult to...recover.”
And if she were the thief, she would ditch the whole rest of the wallet and just take the cash. Though, she imagined it depended on the manner of thief. Some duplicated cards and sold them for use online. Much better than trying to spend it at the grocery store a couple miles away, which also happened sometimes too.
“I know that Officer Doering is retiring,” she said in a huffy tone. “And I saw that you’re being put forward as police chief.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Pansy said.
“I would like my case to be taken seriously.”
Pansy bit back the fact that she would not be responding to any threats, implied or otherwise.
Also that she wouldn’t be taking bribes. Also that the other woman was extremely unpleasant.
Small towns and their hierarchies. She was often tempted to tell people trying to climb the social ladder in Gold Valley that it was a stepladder at best, and not one worth the hassle of getting up on.
Aren’t you doing it now?
No. It wasn’t the same. This wasn’t about status. This was about dreams and tributes and the world getting something right.
It was different.
This wasn’t exactly the dream she’d had when she’d wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. She’d wanted to make a difference.
Unfortunately for her it had taken loss for her to understand things like responsibility, and why rules mattered. To understand why her father had always been so disappointed in her when she’d gone off to a church day camp and wandered away from the group, in spite of being told not to.
When she’d talked in class, and run down the halls.
As a kid she’d thought it hadn’t mattered. That what adults were telling her to do was white noise, and she could handle herself. They just didn’t understand.
Her father had tried to explain it once.
It’s how the world runs, Pansy. Rules hold hands with laws. And enforcing laws is what I do. We need people to follow rules, we need them to follow laws or everything falls apart. It’s why we have police.
But, Daddy, nothing bad happened.
We have to work together, especially in a town this size. Not just worry about what makes you happy, but what helps those around you.
She hadn’t understood. She hadn’t wanted to.
She’d been too selfish. Too full of energy.
Read all the instructions first.
Why, when you could just start right away?
Don’t eat cookies until after dinner.
Why, when she wanted them now?
Clean your room or you can’t have dessert.
But she didn’t want to clean, and she wanted cake.
It wasn’t all those little things that had made her dad angry. He’d been worried for her future, she understood that now. Worried that a little girl who thought rules were for everyone else would grow up believing laws were for other people too.
She gritted her teeth and turned her focus back to Barbara.
“Rest assured this case will be given priority,” Pansy said.
In part because it was the only case running at the moment. Other than the case of the mysterious broad shouldered pain in her butt that had baited her into giving him another ticket today. She had done her job, and somehow he had made her feel like she’d failed.
She didn’t like that. Not at all.
She finished taking Barbara’s statement, and then went back down to the station for a while. Unfortunately she had a feeling that there wasn’t going to be much that could be done.
There weren’t any cameras on the street, and while she had been able to get prints off the car, they weren’t in the system. She had managed to ignore Barbara’s request that she look for skin cells that might have DNA. Though, she did point out that if the person’s fingerprints were not on file, it was likely their skin cells weren’t either.
She stayed until her eyes were gritty, and then changed into her jeans and T-shirt before she got in her own car to head home.
She was bleary and desperate for dinner by the time she pulled into her driveway. But when she opened her door, she immediately heard the sound of metal against metal and a man cursing.
“Hello?”
She wasn’t scared. She didn’t know why. Perhaps because it just didn’t occur to her that it could be anything dangerous. Or at least not anything dangerous she couldn’t handle. She proceeded with an appropriate amount of caution, but when she saw the cowboy boots sticking out from under her kitchen sink, denim clad muscular thighs, a flat stomach... Very muscular forearms...
“What are you doing in my house?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Garbage disposals are a pain in the ass on a good day.”
“I didn’t know you knew about garbage disposals.”
“I’ve lived in a hell of a lot of crappy places and had to figure out how to fix my own stuff. I wasn’t going to be paying a repairman.”
He pushed himself into a sitting position, then stood, his large frame filling up the small space. Her house was more than adequate spacewise for her on a given day. But somehow right now the white walls were closing in on her and the wood ceilings seemed to be compressing, the oak floors rising up.
“Right,” she said.
“Growing up I fixed everything for my mom, too.” He grabbed a rag off the counter and wiped his hands. Large hands.
She wasn’t sure why she’d noticed that detail.
“Oh.” She blinked.
“You know I’m a Dalton, right?”
She hadn’t actually known that. And the revelation was enough to distract her from his height, breadth and hands.
“I... No.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Just another one of Hank’s illegitimate kids.”
“But I’m really surprised I didn’t know that. Because the town does love a rumor mill.”
“I don’t know if I’m disappointed or not. I would’ve thought that I would be the subject of some gossip.”
“Well, it could just be possible that Hank is so scandalous people don’t pay attention to it anymore.”
“Well, how about that,” he said, sounding rueful. “Not even a good scandal.”
“Actually, it’s kind of amazing that you haven’t been more of a focus. What with you being an ex-con and all.”
“I haven’t done much in town to be honest. As you know, I just closed on this house, and before that I was renting. Mostly I’ve been spending time helping out at the Dalton ranch. But, now I’m getting my own place set up.”
“And fixing my garbage disposal.”
“True.” He took a step closer to her and she felt eclipsed. It was weird that she noticed his height like she did.
She was the shortest one in the family. By far. Her sister Rose was about three inches taller while Iris was an inch or so taller than Rose. The boys were all over six foot. She was used to being...well, a pansy among redwoods. But there was something about him that felt impossibly large. Big and broad, the way that he filled the space with a flagrant lack of permission.
“I think technically you’re supposed to give me twenty-four hours’ notice before you enter my residence,” she said, the words like the wind chimes that hung on her porch. Rigid and clanking, and not in her control at all.
He lifted a brow. “Are you going to write me another ticket?”
“No,” she said. Mostly because she really did want her garbage disposal fixed.
“Then quit complaining and let me fix it.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I’m simply pointing out the law. Because I know you have difficulty with those.”
He huffed a laugh. “Right.”
“So... Hank Dalton is your dad?” She only vaguely knew the Daltons. But she knew them in the sense that everybody knew who the Daltons were. Hank was a local celebrity, an ex-rodeo star who had become nationally famous during his time at the top, a run of ad campaigns he’d gotten back in the eighties.
She really shouldn’t start asking personal questions. There was no reason to. And anyway, it invited conversation she didn’t want to have. Which she already knew. But she was curious about him. And that made her almost as angry as the fact that he had won earlier today. By losing. He’d gotten the ticket, and still she didn’t feel like it had been a score for her.
She was harried and wrung out and irritated by the direction of her day, and he was part of it.
To top it all off, she didn’t actually know as much about him as she should. And that irritated her even more.
“He is that,” West said.
“And that’s what brought you out here?”
“I stumbled out of jail with nothing. Wearing the same clothes I had on when I went in. Most of what I had was gone. If any of it is recovered, it’s going to take a long time for that to come together. Like I mentioned, the sale of my house has me solvent.”
“So you came here for...”
“I didn’t have another place to go. I know my mom. I grew up with her. I figured I would see what this part of my family is all about.”
It was such a strange and interesting fantasy. To find out that you had family you didn’t know about.
Pansy had a big family. But there was no secret dad waiting for her to discover. Her mom and dad were just gone. There was no one else. There wouldn’t be.
“Were you... How did you feel to find your dad?”
“Are you a police officer or a psychiatrist?”
She looked down. “I’m just curious.”
“I heard about your parents,” he said. She popped her head back up. “I’m sorry,” he said.
It was such a simple statement. Not a whole lot of awkwardness or attempts at eloquence. Just a simple I’m sorry.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“Yeah. So was my childhood. Doesn’t mean it didn’t suck.”
“Did it?”
“It wasn’t great. I guess I was curious,” he continued. “I have these half siblings. And they had a different experience than I did. I spent the last few months kind of observing it. Like I said. I don’t really have anything else. So... Why not. Before I went to jail... I wouldn’t have cared. But the thing is, when everything went down, and my wife accused me of all that stuff, then framed me for stealing money... I realized that half my problem was I didn’t have anyone on my side. That’s what family is. It’s what they do. They side with you, right? My mom didn’t care. Not really. So yeah, I’d found out about Hank right before prison. Then as soon as I was out I came here. Because I thought...it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to get myself a team. If I could. I got more than I bargained for. I figured I would find some way to meet up with Hank. I knew that he had other illegitimate kids. I didn’t expect to be accepted by his other kids. The ones that were raised in his house. Or his wife.”
“That’s pretty amazing.”
“I haven’t decided how I feel about it yet. It all makes me a little uncomfortable, to be honest. I don’t really know how to do holidays without TV trays and someone shouting at the football game.”
It was too easy to picture. And the echo in that image, even if it was so different to her own life, was something she knew well.
Lonely.
She had been surrounded by family growing up. She’d had so many people who loved her.
But she hadn’t had her parents.
Her siblings, her cousins, Logan, they’d known. And in their house there was a shorthand for their feelings because they all shared them. Their grief might take different shapes when it bubbled up and escaped their bodies like a breath. Their actions might look different, but it was a common wound.
But outside the house? At school, in town, at slumber parties?
No one else knew. They might know she hurt, but now how she hurt.
That the ache to be held by a certain set of arms could be a physical pain. Arms that were gone from the world and would never hold you again on this side of heaven.
She knew.
And somehow she had the sense that even though he hadn’t lost a parent to death, West might know it too.
“Our holidays were always big,” she said slowly. “Basically held together by duct tape. But I think my brother Ryder felt like he had to do something for us. Because he was...
he was the only one who could.” She didn’t know why she was sharing this with him, but there was something so vivid about the picture he painted. TV dinners in a lonely childhood. A mom who hadn’t even cared that he’d gone to prison for something he didn’t do. A bunch of strangers that were related to him genetically being his only hope of ever fitting into a family.
A wife who had framed him.
It made her ramshackle Christmas seem like it might be something more magical than she had imagined it to be. She shouldn’t have changed into her T-shirt. It made her feel soft. Human. She preferred the feeling of being...well, bulletproof. She was never going to feel ten feet tall, that was certain, but the other she was able to accomplish with the right equipment.
Right now, she didn’t feel anything of the kind. She felt sorry for the stunningly handsome, exceedingly fit man standing in front of her.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Do you want some food?”
“Sure,” he said, looking surprised.
“You’re fixing my garbage disposal so let’s have a truce. Just for now.”
“You’re not going to poison the food?”
“Pretty sure poisoning you would be a violation of the truce. And the law. And I did tell you how much I like the law.”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing fancy,” she said. “Grilled cheese.”
Her sister Iris was an accomplished cook, but Pansy had not followed in those particular footsteps.
“Why do you love law and order so much?”
He got back down on the ground, tools in hand, getting ready to attack the disposal again.
“My dad,” she said, finding it easier to tell the story while she busied herself getting cheese and bread out of the cabinet and fridge. She grabbed the block of butter off the counter—something Iris said made her a heathen, keeping her butter out of the fridge, but she found it convenient, since it meant that it was always soft.
And she was always running late in the morning and she wanted immediate butter on her toast, not to struggle and tear the bread. Same went for grilled cheese.
“I see,” he said.