here?”
“I’ll tell you what,” West said. “I promise that once I have a timetable I’ll give it to you.”
He wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. He hadn’t really decided yet.
“Okay,” Caleb said, nodding once. “I better head home. Gotta wash up before I eat.”
West, for his part, was going to wash up and reheat a burger he bought at Mustard Seed earlier in the day, in preparation for dinner.
But after Caleb bid him farewell and he made his way up to the house, West saw a lone figure standing on his front porch that he recognized from the stance alone. Hip cocked out to the side, arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t need a uniform for him to know with absolute certainty that Officer Pansy Daniels had come to harass him again.
* * *
THIS HAD SEEMED like a better idea prior to actually seeing the man himself.
She was still feeling high-strung from her interaction with him earlier in the day, and she didn’t like it. Pansy was great with people. It was a huge component of her job. She often worked with people who didn’t like her very much. People who hated her, as a matter of fact, because she was either fining them for something or arresting them. Breathalyzing them. You name it.
And she was usually able to do it without feeling affected. But there was something about West that made her feel like there was an itchy, prickling fire beneath her skin, and she didn’t like it at all. So when she had gone home she had gone to the refrigerator and pulled off a list that she had been working on for the past few weeks. She had started prior to Dave Hodgkins putting the ranch up for sale, and when she had presented it to him he had said that she was going to have to wait until the new owner took over.
Home improvements.
The little cabin that she lived in was great, but there were a lot of things that had fallen into disrepair, and they needed handling. From the nonfunctional garbage disposal to the slow drain in the bathroom sink, drafts in the walls that let in both cold air and spiders, a leaky roof, and several other complaints, she had quite the list of demands.
And it had seemed right that she go to West and make sure that he did what she needed him to.
But then he got out of his truck, unfolding that long, lean body and mirroring her posture back at her. But when he folded his arms over his chest they looked vaguely like the size of old-growth tree trunks.
His forearms were massive. And she told herself that that only bothered her because while she had weapons, her instinct when confronted with large men was to be slightly nervous. Her goal was never to use her weapon on someone, but she was a woman, and that meant she was at a physical disadvantage. Not that she thought West was going to hurt her. But... It was something to bear in mind in her line of work when it came to dealing with large men.
And that was why her stomach felt strange and twisted. Fluttery.
She would not show him that she felt intimidated, though. Or whatever this feeling was.
She wouldn’t show him, because she wasn’t in the wrong here. She was absolutely in her rights. Because she was a tenant, and he the landlord. And per her agreement these sorts of repairs fell under his purview. When he had bought the property, he had gotten the lease right along with it.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the list of repairs that need to be made on my house.”
“Why don’t you come inside,” he said, walking up the stairs past her and pushing the front door of his house open. She had never been in the big house on the property before.
“Why?”
“Because I’m hungry as hell and I’m not going to stand out here and talk to you feeling irritated. Because I’ve already done that today and I have to tell you while your patience for repetition seems to be at an all-time high, mine is pretty low.”
She followed after him into the massive entry. She had no idea that the place was so fancy inside. A big, open living room with a mezzanine floor that overlooked it. Large floor-to-ceiling windows that made the most of the view. What she did notice, though, was that there