would have liked a little bit of extra support. That jacket squishing them flat.
“My family owns a cattle ranch,” she said.
“Are you afraid that I’m going to be competition for you?”
“No,” she said. “Hope Springs is as big as it’s going to get. It’s profitable, and it’s functional. There’s no way for us to buy more land, not with the way things are spread out. I mean, we could, but not on the original homestead. All that to say, we can only produce what we can produce. The land only supports so many head of cattle, as I’m sure you know if you’ve done your due diligence.”
His mouth worked up into that same smile she had seen earlier today. The one that made her feel like he was making fun of her a little bit. “I always do my due diligence, Officer Daniels.”
The way his tongue lingered over the syllables of her name made her antsy.
“If you need any help... I can give you my brother’s phone number,” she said.
“Are you setting me up on a blind date? Because I’m going to go ahead and hazard a guess your brother’s not my type.”
“Maybe a blind business date,” she said.
“Nice. We can talk about cows over a bottle of wine.”
“Ryder would rather die than talk to you over a bottle of wine, about cows or anything else, that I can guarantee you.”
“Give me your list,” he said.
She started to comply, and he leaned forward, taking it out of her hand.
His fingertips brushed hers. They were shockingly rough. Hot.
She shrank back quickly. “Thank you,” she said too quickly. “Again. I...”
“You could apologize for the whole ticket situation,” he said.
The heat from her fingertips spread like a bolt of lightning to her chest, and transformed into annoyance along the way. “I don’t need to apologize to you. There was a small misunderstanding, but it was clear that I was just doing my job.”
“You seem to do it very thoroughly around me.”
“You seem to make marginal choices around me. It’s not my fault. Protecting the community of Gold Valley is my responsibility.”
“Yeah. Protecting the community from people parking in loading zones. What a life, Officer Daniels. What a life indeed.” He lifted up the list. “But I’ll fix your garbage disposal nonetheless. Still...you’re lucky I’m not docking the cost of my ticket from the repairs.”
“You can’t do that,” she said. “I have a rental agreement.”
“I don’t know. I think we’ve proven I can do anything. From speeding on rural roads to...loading in a loading zone.”
She really was feeling antsy to get out of there. She’d had three conversations with the man, and things had escalated to where she felt like they’d had at least thirty more conversations than that, and she didn’t know how that worked. But suddenly, she couldn’t remember what it was like before she had seen his face for the first time, and that bothered her on a cellular level.
She didn’t have time for this. She had to prepare for her first panel interview for the police chief position, and that meant making sure that she was completely on top of the municipal code.
“And stay out of trouble,” she said.
She turned away from him, and somehow she could feel the smile that spread over his lips even though she wasn’t looking at him.
“You too.”
By the time she was back home, she felt like she wasn’t entirely sure which way was up. And for a woman who prided herself on control, that was the most disturbing realization she could’ve possibly had.
CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE TIME West got down into town the next day he had been possessed by some kind of devil. He wasn’t sure which one.
It didn’t particularly matter which.
But he pulled his big blue pickup truck right into the vacant spot on the curb beneath the sign that said Loading and Unloading. Even though he knew full well that it was going to be a pain in the ass to walk from there all the way to Big R and back with the different things he needed—nothing too heavy.
A pair of wire cutters, a new pair of work gloves, just some basic things. But, even so, he figured that carrying the bag of items back would be worth it.
He wasn’t sure why in hell he felt so driven to poke at Ms. Pansy Daniels.
Well. Officer, he supposed.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what stuck in his craw. He wasn’t in prison anymore. He was out, and he was free, and