had filled her when she had been a girl. For life. For everything. Until the death of her father had killed it.
Not her father. Not his words. Not a fear of disappointing him.
But that sudden, awful blow delivered by death. Something that she had learned could happen far too soon.
Fear.
All of this was because of fear.
It was nothing to her to be a police officer, to put on a badge and promise to protect other people.
But it was everything to her to risk loving someone that she might lose again. Trusting that things could be okay, when she never knew for sure if that was the case.
But the love that West made her feel was stronger than that.
And it returned something to her that she thought she’d lost forever.
And they were two people who lived on land named Redemption and Hope.
Fear had no place in either.
She grabbed hold of the rubber band that held her hair up in its ponytail, and she released it, shaking her hair out. She put the rubber band in her pocket, then reached down and untied her shoes, toeing them off along with her socks. Until she was barefoot. Until her hair was free.
And then Pansy Daniels ran, like she hadn’t done since she was a child.
Not jogging in formation around the town, but like a wild spirit that couldn’t be contained.
Right toward the man who held her heart.
“West! West,” she repeated.
When he looked at her, he smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WEST THOUGHT HE had never seen a more beautiful thing. Pansy, her hair tangled, her cheeks red, her breath coming in short, hard bursts.
Her feet were bare in the squishy grass, and her eyes were bright.
He loved her. More than anything.
And she had come back to him.
“I’m ready,” she said.
He let out a whoop and grabbed hold of her, lifting her up off the ground and spinning in a circle.
She threw her head back, and she laughed.
And it was the best thing he’d ever heard.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” she answered, brushing her fingertips along his jaw. “I’m sorry that I was afraid.”
“There’s a whole lot of things to be afraid of in this world. And they’re not foolish. Because God knows life can hurt. There is no shame in being scared of something like this.”
“But it could’ve ruined everything,” she said. “I had an excuse in my head for why...for why being police chief was the most important thing. Why honoring my father’s memory was the most important thing. I held on to the idea that I needed to make him proud because I didn’t just want to feel... Losing him hurt so much. It hurt so damn much.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, his voice rough. “I know.”
She was so beautiful now. Wild and vulnerable. It killed him to let her keep talking because he could see that it cost her.
But he needed to let her.
She needed to say it. And he needed to hear.
“Losing my mother hurt.” Her shoulder shook. “And I realize I didn’t even ever let myself think of her because that just hurt. She always accepted me the way that I was. And you know, my dad did too. But I wanted something to do with the feelings inside of me and just missing them didn’t feel like anything. Anything but pain. And I held on to all that like a kid hiding from the truth for the last seventeen years.”
She wiped her tears on her arm, and kept on going. “West, you make me feel like that person that I used to be. Who never lost anyone. Who could still be filled with joy and excitement about the world. And who sees mischief and fun in it all. You make me want more. You make me want everything. And there’s just no room inside of me to be afraid anymore. I haven’t felt this free in so long.”
Her voice broke, something inside him breaking along with it. But it felt fixed too, and he didn’t know how that was possible.
Being broken but whole.
But with her he was.
“My love for you has filled me up all the way,” she said. “And I just don’t have the space for anything else. I tried to fight it. Losing you was like grief, West. Telling you to leave made me hurt like I did the day my parents died. So it isn’t that I don’t know what it would cost me if something ever happened. But I just... I want you anyway.