The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,40
get my gun.”
She unlocked her service weapon from her car and holstered it before making her way toward the barn. She had a feeling that everything would be all right, but she needed to be sure before she discounted the need for a weapon.
She moved silently across the grass, and made her way up to the barn, looking through the cracks in the wood as best she could.
She could see a flashlight beam moving around in there.
Movement.
The flashlight was set on the ground, a pool of light stretching across the floor. She could hear two sets of feet moving around, but only one of them sounded heavy. The other sounded animal. A dog, probably.
Then she heard a low whisper.
“Sit boy,” the voice said.
A young man’s voice. Not a man. She went around to the door of the barn and pushed it open.
There was a loud curse, an explosion of movement and the figure tried to run past her. He bumped into her shoulder, and she reached out and grabbed on to him, and they both went down to the ground.
“What the hell?” Ryder appeared, and reached down, his strong arm grabbing the back of the trespasser’s clothes and hauling him to his feet.
“It was an accident,” Pansy said. “He was trying to run away.”
“Get the fuck off me!” the boy said, and she was even more certain now that he was practically a kid. “Don’t touch me.”
“You’re trespassing,” Ryder said.
“I’ll leave,” the kid said.
Iris had gone into the barn, and had just returned with a flashlight, which she shone on the kid.
He was young, but tall. Wiry, with sandy blond hair. He had a dog next to him that looked almost as worse for wear as he did, scruffy and thin, his back end going wild as he wagged his tail.
“Some guard dog,” he said.
“Who are you?” Pansy asked.
“None of your fucking business,” he said, looking at her with defiance, each word used as a weapon. As if an f-bomb was going to scare her off.
“I’m a police officer,” she said, calm and firm. “It is my business.”
“Where’s your badge?”
“I’m off duty,” she said. “We can wait for me to get my badge and you can tell me who you are then, if you like. I can haul you down to the police station. I suspect that you’ve been involved in some of the theft we’ve had around here. Am I right?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“We can do this the hard way if we have to. But if you’ve got parents that I can call...”
“I don’t have parents.” He spat out that last word like it was dirty.
“I don’t have parents either,” Pansy said.
The kid struggled, but Ryder was still holding on to him.
“I would rather we have a conversation,” she continued. “I don’t really want to chase you and tackle you. And I don’t want to have to take you down to the station tonight. So if you could just tell me who you are so I can figure out who I’m supposed to get in touch with...”
“There’s nobody that cares about me,” he said. “You’d be wasting your time.”
“Your name,” she said.
“Emmett,” the kid said, finally. “Emmett Caldwell.”
CHAPTER NINE
WEST WAS SETTLED in for the night with takeout he’d gotten earlier from Mustard Seed and a beer on his TV tray, when there was a knock at his front door.
Pansy.
He hoped it was Pansy. Come to finish what they’d started outside the saloon the other night. He’d done nothing but think about her ever since then. His body had been persistently hard, which was irritating because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so het up over a woman. The one woman who didn’t seem to be all that into him.
He went over to the door and jerked it open. The first person he saw was Pansy. And the second...
“Emmett?”
“Yes,” Pansy confirmed.
Emmett didn’t say anything. Pansy all but marched the kid into the house.
“Go sit down on the couch,” she ordered.
And in spite of the surly expression on his face, his half brother complied.
“What the hell are you doing here?” West asked.
“What are you doing here?” Emmett asked. “Came here to live with your fancy rich family?”
“I came to get to know them,” West said, his voice measured. At least, as measured as he could manage.
“Well, you might have remembered about your other family,” he said. “Instead of just...coming straight to them after you got out of jail.”