Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,137

A tenant agreement had been in there with all the mortgage stuff. And just then, he remembered the name. It was a stupid name, and that was why it had stuck out.

“Pansy.” He snapped his fingers. “Officer Pansy Daniels.”

Denim-blue eyes widened. “What?”

“I believe I’m your new landlord. You going to write that ticket or not?”

* * *

BY THE TIME Pansy got to her brother’s house that night, she was still reeling over her interaction with West Caldwell.

When she had pulled the truck over earlier today, she had imagined it would be a routine stop. But then she had approached the vehicle, and he had been the kind of good-looking that had punched straight through her bulletproof vest and left her without air. Which was disturbing, because Pansy wasn’t really prone to fits of breathlessness over men or anything else.

Life had beaten the ability to be surprised right out of her from an early age. She was tough, because she had to be. Because every last one of the Daniels siblings had to be. Raising themselves on Hope Springs Ranch hadn’t been easy.

They’d had each other, but they’d had a whole lot of hard, too.

She didn’t often consider her name one of those hardships. Not anymore. She had gotten over her peers making fun of her at a pretty early age. And anyway, now she carried a gun, so people were much less inclined to mock her. But today...today she had hated it.

That man was not only good-looking, he also had a smart mouth, and he was in fact her new landlord. And the whole power structure of their entire interaction had suddenly been flipped on its head when he’d said that.

She’d written him the ticket anyway.

If he was going to evict her...well, so be it.

Yes, she was in the middle of a year lease, so legally it would be difficult for him, and yeah, it would maybe see her right back at her brother’s house, which she didn’t really want to do, but she had to stick to her guns. There was no way that she could not write him the ticket just because he was her landlord.

No. Gregory Daniels, police chief, would never have not written someone a ticket just because they might use that to hurt him.

Her father had been a man of integrity. A man worthy of his uniform and his badge. He was Pansy’s idol, and always had been.

She wasn’t going to balk over something like that.

She sighed heavily and got out of her car, her service weapon locked up in a special box inside. She’d changed out of her uniform and into a T-shirt and jeans. She always felt oddly light after a whole day at work in all of her gear.

When she’d first joined the Gold Valley Police Department, it had felt heavy.

Now, when she was out of all her gear, she felt strange. Plus, when she went home to Hope Springs, she wasn’t Officer Daniels.

She was just a little sister. At least as far as Ryder and Iris were concerned. Rose was the youngest, but that didn’t stop her older siblings from treating Pansy like a baby.

Even Sammy was a pretty terrible offender, and she hadn’t even grown up with them. Though close enough.

Her cousins would have been on hand to continue treating her like a child, too, if they hadn’t all gone off to make their way in the rodeo. Now they were on the road so much Pansy barely saw them.

They were an eclectic group of siblings, cousins and friends, bonded together by tragedy.

They’d lost their parents on the same day. A catastrophic small-plane crash during what had been intended to be a relaxing vacation in Alaska for their parents.

Ryder had been the oldest at eighteen, and had suddenly had not only unimaginable grief on his shoulders, but a heavy amount of responsibility. And the local Child Services had agreed to let them all stay together. Live together on Hope Springs Ranch. Agreeing that introducing instability after such a great tragedy would only be worse. Pansy had been ten. Rose had been six. They were the two youngest and had spent the longest stretch of their childhood without their parents.

At some point, Sammy had joined their ragtag crew, running from her own family issues—though her parents were very much alive.

It didn’t matter who was related to who biologically. Hope Springs was a refuge for those who were out of hope.

And as for Pansy, her siblings, her cousins and Logan, they were