The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,16
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?”
“Fixing your garbage disposal.” He appeared out from