out-of-body experience, except her body felt so many things.
She’d had a small breakdown last night. Curled in on herself and felt utterly wrecked from the inside out. But, she had found herself this morning.
What she had done was kind of a big deal. But she could finally also understand what Sammy had said about it not being a big deal.
She was realistic. She knew that she and West did not have a future. She didn’t want a future with West. Her future was here at the police department, and on Hope Springs Ranch, and in general the life that she had planned out for herself didn’t have room for a man in a permanent sense at the moment.
Maybe someday.
And when that someday came she would be grateful always that she’d had West to give her that experience.
It wasn’t hearts and flowers.
It was a dusty old couch in a barn. And there was something fitting about that too.
She was glad that he hadn’t handled her with too much delicacy. Glad that he hadn’t treated her like she was fragile or breakable, because life had done a good job of breaking her as it was.
She’d pieced herself back together a long time ago and found a life that made her proud. A life that felt like it had purpose.
A life that had been affected suitably by the death of her parents and had given that loss purpose.
She had allowed it to make her better. To make her stronger.
Because if she didn’t... There was no point to anything.
Because of that she’d been made strong. And she hadn’t wanted romance and all that anyway.
She didn’t need it. She wasn’t that kind of girl, not really.
It was okay. She didn’t want to be or need to be. What he’d said to her before she’d gone into her house had stuck in her head.
Had anybody tucked her in at night?
No. But then she remembered that she’d survived it. And, there was no point being upset about what you didn’t have. It didn’t bring it back. It didn’t fix what was broken.
You just grew into the kind of person who didn’t need it. He should know that as well as anyone.
So yeah. A little bit rough, a little bit careless on a couch in a barn, completely unplanned, seemed about right for her first time.
She wasn’t going to regret it. Life was too short for that. And while she clearly wasn’t the kind of person who rushed out to have experiences just for the sake of them, now that she had one, and it was decent enough, she wasn’t going to waste any time feeling upset about it.
Anyway it was difficult to feel upset about it. Rough and careless, yes. Totally out of character, yes. And completely and utterly mind-blowing, possibly because of all that.
She stood up from her desk and finished the paperwork she was going over, then headed out the door to her police car. It was a beautiful day.
A beautiful day to not be a virgin.
She felt slightly giggly and decided that she deserved a drink from Sugar Cup. After all, a little bit of celebrating herself didn’t seem like a bad idea. Not after that.
She was really doing this. Owning it. She felt very un-Pansy about the whole thing, and she was really quite cheered about it.
She was normally so rigid, so concerned with everything going a certain way. To have found some sort of relief from that in the aftermath of such a reckless and huge decision was welcome. She diverted herself away from her car and headed toward the coffeehouse, pushing open the door and stopping when she got inside.
Because who was in there, but West and Emmett.
This was her deepest fear. That if she hooked up in a small town, she was going to have to continue to run into that person whether she chose it or not. And it was all well and good to be casual about the whole thing when West was a memory and seeing him again was theoretical. It was quite another to be casual when he was right there and it was in public, and she was having to see him for the first time since she had gotten naked with him with other people around. With his half brother around.
She was just about to back out the door when he looked up over his coffee cup and his eyes collided with hers.
“Pansy,” he said. “Why don’t you join us?”
“I’m on duty,” she said,