hear your story.” He paused for a moment. “But for what it’s worth... I didn’t know your dad. And I don’t know much of anything about your childhood but the way that you all took care of each other when you needed it, the way you rallied around each other, I think you were raised with a pretty strong sense of family. I don’t think your dad thought you were bad. Not really. He might have worried about you, your behavior, but I don’t think he thought that.”
“How would you know? Your parents weren’t anything like mine.”
“I know,” he said. “But there was a time when I thought I might want to have children. I did get married thinking that. That I might be a father. And when I had that thought, well, I thought about what it actually meant to be a father. I didn’t have an example of one, so I really had to ask myself what I thought it should mean. So. For what it’s worth, the hypothetical opinion of a man who thought once that he might’ve had children, but now has no plans to, I think this is the kind of role model stuff kids need.”
“Well. Sorry but that’s not the most encouraging thing.”
“I never am to you. Until I am. And then I’m a whole big problem aren’t I, Officer Daniels?”
“You better see to Emmett.”
He had to. Because if he was here for another moment then he was going to take her into his arms and kiss her. Then he was going to end up staying the night. He was going to end up giving her exactly what she said she wanted. Hard and rough in a thousand different ways. And he would do that. He would. But whether it was because he was a contrary bastard or for some other reason, he was now obsessed with the idea of having Pansy Daniels in a bed. Wrapped in a blanket, wrapped in his arms.
Slow and sweet.
“Good night,” he said. She tilted her face up toward him, like she was expecting a kiss. He looked at her for a long moment. “I didn’t think you wanted anything gentle from me.”
Her eyes fell. “I don’t,” she said.
He felt like an ass. And that was a strange thing too. That she had the ability to make him feel bad when she was the one who’d gone issuing challenges. It wasn’t his fault if she went badgering him and he set about to put an end to it.
He should be glad she wanted something he’d denied her.
He found he just wanted to give to her.
“Good night then.”
Then he turned and walked out of the cabin, leaving Pansy behind. And for some reason he had the terrible feeling that he had left part of himself behind as well.
* * *
PANSY COULDN’T HELP but feel that even though the other night had been meant to be about her good girl emancipation, she had somehow come out behind West.
If it were a contest. Or a race. She didn’t think it was really either but she didn’t know what it was, and it all left her feeling unsettled.
She didn’t know quite how that had happened, and she was still stewing about it while she sat at her desk at the police station the next day.
“Phone call for you,” Officer Martinez said from the back.
She nodded, then picked up her line.
“Good morning,” came the gravelly, husky voice on the other end.
“I’m at work,” she said.
“I’m here too,” he said, and just as he did, he walked into the doors of the police station.
She hung the phone up clumsily. “What are you doing here?” she mouthed more than asked as he made his way past reception and toward her desk.
“I just got done at the ranch. The Dalton ranch. I dropped Emmett off for the day and spent a little bit of time with my brothers. And I wanted to come talk to you before I went back home.”
“I’m at work,” she said again. Realizing that she sounded lame.
“Yes,” he said. “That is how I found you.”
“Okay,” she said. “That’s a good point. But obviously you couldn’t have found me if I wasn’t where you knew I would be.” She frowned. “Do you know my work schedule?”
“I’m learning it.”
There was an intensity to those blue eyes she thought she shouldn’t like. But she did. It made her whole body feel tight, on edge. And she should dislike that feeling too. But she didn’t.
“I have