was nervous to be around him. Because that would violate her down to her core.
When they arrived at the Gold Valley Saloon, it was fairly empty, given that it was pretty early on a Saturday. There were a few people in there having lunch, but it was not the best food place in town. People generally congregated there at night to get drunk.
Laz was there behind the counter, and he grinned when West walked in. “How’s that Texas whiskey cabinet working out for you?”
“Good. Does your whiskey taste like pine yet?”
Laz laughed. “Of course not. It tastes like kale.”
“A Pacific Northwest influence I could live without. I’ll have a beer. And whatever the lady wants.”
Pansy gave him a look that was comically prissy, considering he’d seen the woman come apart, naked and sweaty in a barn. “It’s the middle of the day, so the lady will have a Coke.”
“Suit yourself,” West said.
“So you two are speaking to each other now,” Laz said when he brought their drinks back.
“Sometimes,” West said, looking at Pansy’s defiant profile. “When the good officer is in the mood.”
Color mounted in her cheeks, and West was just childish enough to take joy in that.
“Don’t push your luck,” she said, popping the top of her Coke can and taking a drink.
“Hey,” Laz said. “I have another piece of furniture you might want. Down in the storage area of the museum.”
The old museum. It was West’s understanding that nothing had been in there for a few years.
He set a key on the counter. “If you want to go down and check it out, it’s an old bed frame that’s up against the wall in the back, behind a couple barstools, I think.”
West actually needed the bed frame. Considering Emmett was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and he hadn’t fixed that yet.
“Thanks,” West said. “I’ll check it out.”
Laz left the counter, heading to the back of the saloon.
“You’re just in a furniture exchange program with him?” Pansy asked.
“He’s my friend,” West said.
As soon as he said it he realized that it was a little weird.
All those years in Texas, and he had never made a real friend. All of that had become evident when his life had fallen apart and people had taken a kind of ghoulish interest in the proceedings, while very few people had rallied around him. And then when he was convicted, no one had rallied anywhere.
But here... He had his family. His family. Weird as hell.
And there was Laz, who he’d gotten really friendly with. A few other people he saw at the bar frequently enough. Jackson and Calder Reid, who he’d had drinks with a couple of times. Though they were family men, so they didn’t come out that often.
He thought back to what Pansy had asked him earlier. If he never fit in.
He wondered if this was fitting in.
Except it had required very few acrobatics, so it didn’t seem right to him.
In his experience finding a place had always required that.
“Want to come with me and check out the furniture?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know.”
“I might get in trouble if you don’t. I’m an ex-con,” he said. “God knows what I’ll get up to in the basement of an old building.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I just need to go to the bathroom first.”
“Hey, do you know the deal with the names on the bathroom wall?”
She frowned. “No.”
“People who have hooked up in there carve their names on it.”
She blinked. “No.”
She was scandalized, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t charmed.
“Yes,” he responded.
“Olivia Hollister’s name is in that bathroom.”
“Yeah. But look who she’s married to.”
He hadn’t had a whole lot of interaction with Luke Hollister, but enough to know exactly what manner of man he was.
Pansy beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom but when she returned, she didn’t look flustered at all.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go get your furniture. If you end up getting it you can even park in a loading zone.”
“Officer,” he said. “There’s nothing more I’d like to do than park in a loading zone with you.”
* * *
WHY WAS SHE still with him? It was a question she asked herself several times as she walked down the street with West toward the old museum building.
She could say that it was because she was curious to go poke around in the old, abandoned museum that had lost its funding several years ago and now sat as a sad storage unit for many of the town’s great