to do anything. To decide anything. I can’t live like that, not in my line of work. I have to make choices. I have to do things. So... I just figure, this is who I am. Fate or destiny, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Probably a good way to look at it.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
He shook his head. “No. I chose to make a different life for myself. Monica chose to blow that life up. Because I had money I was able to fight it, and keep on fighting it. Make sure I had good legal counsel. Make sure that we were able to continue questioning evidence and examining everything, making sure that my lawyer got into things that the police missed. But all that was because of choices. No hand of fate or anything like it. Nobody made Hank Dalton cheat on his wife. Nobody made my mom raise me the way she did. Life moves around you. And it’ll do good and bad with you, that I believe. But where I’m standing is because of me.”
She nodded slowly. “I guess it’s all whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Sex and alcohol mostly,” he said, his tone dry.
Her cheeks went pink. It surprised him that she was blushing over something that basic. But then, with the way she had been looking at his mouth the other day maybe she couldn’t hear the word sex without thinking about it with him.
Truth be told... He wasn’t neutral on the subject when it came to her.
But he didn’t believe in fate. There was no greater power that had tossed the two of them together. It just was. And what he did or didn’t do about it was up to him.
She was an impractical distraction, and not worth the hassle. And that was the beginning and end of it.
“I have to go,” she said when she dismounted the horse.
“I can put her away for you if you want.”
“Oh, that would be...helpful. I need to go down to the station. I want to handle all this myself.”
“Works for me.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking somewhat surprised that he was being a decent human being.
“Not a problem.”
She paused.
“Officer,” he said. “What helps you sleep at night?”
He shouldn’t have stopped her. Shouldn’t have poked at her.
She gave him her sternest expression. “Knowing that I had another successful day following all the rules.”
“Sometimes it’s fun to break the rules,” he said, those words bending themselves around and turning on him. Because hadn’t he just been thinking that he was in command of himself? And wasn’t she a new rule that he had just put out there?
Like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“I’m not a rule breaker,” she said.
And then she turned and left him standing there, holding two horses, and feeling like everything he knew about the world had just been twisted and turned around by a giant hand he didn’t even believe in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PANSY WAS NOT big on going out and drinking after work, in fact she never did it. But, she had spent the day going over plastic bread bags, of all things, making a return visit to the campsite and feeling fairly certain there was a connection between the occupant of the barn, the person staying on West’s property and the break-ins that had occurred.
So consequently she found herself doing the very uncharacteristic thing of walking into the Gold Valley Saloon in her plain clothes that afternoon.
It was already packed full of people, most of the tables full, and the barstools too. There was a collection of women around the jukebox giggling and talking to a tall, broad man with a cowboy hat. When he lifted his head, Pansy saw that it was Logan. She felt instantly irritated. Because it was almost the same as coming to the bar and running into her brother.
Really, she couldn’t escape.
She took a step into the room, and heard someone from the bar call out, “The cops are here, everyone behave!”
She turned her head sharply and couldn’t see who had actually said it. This was why she didn’t go out. It just wasn’t worth it. She thought about turning around and leaving when the door opened again, and in walked West.
Now she was officially beset.
“How did your investigation go?”
She was so taken off guard by the sincere question that she froze.
“That good, huh?” he asked.
“Just fine,” she returned.
“Hey,” he said. “There’s somebody parked in the loading zone outside.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is it you?”
“No. I