The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,14
he had a hell of a lot more wiggle room on this side of the bars.
He snorted as he walked down the sidewalk, crossing the street and heading down in the direction of Big R. He paused for a moment inside the building after acquiring his things to speak to the woman who worked there. She had two small dogs behind the counter with her.
West liked dogs. He’d never owned one.
When he was a kid his mother had told him that he couldn’t have one because she didn’t trust him to take care of it.
He’d found a dog once. He’d fed it scraps from his lunch every day after school. Not that he’d been able to afford to spare that food, but he’d been captivated by the dog, and had wanted to make friends with it.
He’d tried to bring it home. His mother had refused. The dog kept following him. Day after day. It hadn’t understood why West had brought it home one day, and then not the next. And then the dog had disappeared. He had felt guilty about that for a long time after.
Like he’d failed the dog in some way.
His mother had only assumed he couldn’t take care of the dog because she couldn’t take care of her own kid. But that, West felt, was hardly his sin. Still, he’d had his share, he supposed.
That he’d never gotten a dog after that suddenly stuck out as odd to him.
His ex-wife hadn’t wanted a dog in the house, and West didn’t really see the point of a dog if he couldn’t have it come indoors with him. Not a judgment on anyone who did it differently. But he just felt like if he were getting a companion, it would be his companion wherever he was.
But he didn’t have a dog.
Never had.
So he supposed it didn’t matter.
West walked out of the store, bidding the woman a good day before heading back toward his truck. He deliberately didn’t use the crosswalk when he crossed back over to the other side of the street. If Pansy didn’t get his truck where it was parked now then she could always give him a ticket for jaywalking.
He didn’t know why he was looking forward to sparring with her again. Just that he was. And when his truck came into view, he wasn’t disappointed. Because there she was, standing next to it, her arms crossed, her expression blank.
“Pansy,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Why are you doing this?” She asked the question as if none of this gave her any joy. And he didn’t think that was true. He thought that she got a certain amount of joy out of it, actually.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, echoing a question he’d asked her at least twice now.
“You are parked in the loading zone.” She stared at him blandly, and he didn’t respond. “Again.”
“Look,” he said, moving to the truck and jerking the door open. “I’m loading. And when I got out of the truck I was unloading.”
“That’s not what that means,” she sputtered.
“Well, the sign does not clearly define loading and unloading. There is no time frame indicated there in which the loading and unloading needs to occur.”
“There is an accepted definition.” She was fighting to keep cool but her pitch had risen a half step.
“Is there? I don’t feel like I ever accepted it.”
“You don’t have to,” she said fiercely. “Because that’s not the point. It’s a rule. And people understand what it means.”
He kept his expression neutral. “Clearly I didn’t.”
“That’s it. I’m giving you a ticket. I’m giving you the ticket I didn’t give you the other day. And I think you expected it.”
He couldn’t tell if she was angry about writing him a ticket or if she was angry about having to give him what he had clearly been after.
He didn’t really know why getting a ticket from her had been his goal. But she was mad, and he liked that.
You are being an immature dick.
Maybe. But he had the freedom to do so, and he kind of enjoyed that. She huffed, shifting position and reaching into her pocket. And as she did so, he caught himself giving her body a leisurely tour. Her curves weren’t visible in the uniform she was wearing, unlike when he had seen her last night, and he’d been able to get a good look at the shape of her toned, athletic body in the T-shirt and jeans.
No, he couldn’t see anything particularly feminine or curvy in