The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,2

people were much less inclined to mock her. But today, today she had hated it.

That man was not only good-looking, he had a smart mouth, and he was in fact her new landlord. And the whole power structure of their entire interaction had suddenly been flipped on its head when he’d said that.

She’d written him the ticket anyway.

If he was going to evict her...well, so be it.

Yes, she was in the middle of a year lease, so legally it would be difficult for him, and yeah, it would maybe see her right back at her brother’s house, which she didn’t really want to do, but she had to stick to her guns. There was no way that she could not write him the ticket just because he was her landlord.

No. Gregory Daniels, police chief, would never have not written someone a ticket just because they might use that to hurt him.

Her father had been a man of integrity. A man worthy of his uniform and his badge. He was Pansy’s idol, and always had been.

She wasn’t going to balk over something like that.

She sighed heavily and got out of her car, her service weapon locked up in a special box inside. She’d changed out of her uniform and into a T-shirt and jeans. She always felt oddly light after a whole day at work in all of her gear.

When she’d first joined the Gold Valley Police Department, it had felt heavy.

Now, when she was out of all her gear, she felt strange. Plus, when she went home to Hope Springs, she wasn’t Officer Daniels.

She was just a little sister. At least as far as Ryder and Iris were concerned. Rose was the youngest, but that didn’t stop her older siblings from treating Pansy like a baby.

Even Sammy was a pretty terrible offender, and she hadn’t even grown up with them. Though, close enough.

Her cousins would have been on hand to continue treating her like a child, too, if they hadn’t all gone off to make their way in the rodeo. Now they were on the road so much Pansy barely saw them.

They were an eclectic group of siblings, cousins and friends, bonded together by tragedy.

They’d lost their parents on the same day. A catastrophic small plane crash during what had been intended to be a relaxing vacation in Alaska for their parents.

Ryder had been the oldest at eighteen, and had suddenly had not only unimaginable grief on his shoulders, but a heavy amount of responsibility. And the local Child Services had agreed to let them all stay together. Live together on Hope Springs Ranch. Agreeing that introducing instability after such a great tragedy would only be worse. Pansy had been ten. Rose had been six. They were the two youngest and had spent the longest stretch of their childhood without their parents.

At some point, Sammy had joined their ragtag crew, running from her own family issues—though her parents were very much alive.

It didn’t matter who was related to who biologically. Hope Springs was a refuge for those who were out of hope.

And as for Pansy, her siblings, her cousins and Logan, they were linked. Tied together by a deep and terrible tragedy that few people would ever be able to understand.

They could just look at each other and know. That it was a particularly hard birthday or that the anniversary of the accident was weighing heavily on one of them.

That was why, no matter where she went, no matter what she did, this place was home.

And the people in it were the most important ones to her. Even if they did still treat her like a kid.

It was Sammy who rushed out to greet her, all wild blond hair and flowing skirts. Ryder’s best friend was so feminine that sometimes she made Pansy downright uncomfortable.

Samantha had been one of most dominant female influences in Pansy’s life. She had started coming around about six months after the Daniels siblings had lost their parents, and Pansy still had no idea how Sammy had managed to wiggle her way in. The friendship between the free-spirited woman and her taciturn older brother always mystified her.

She was half convinced that Sammy had targeted him, decided that they would be friends and simply hadn’t gone away when Ryder had said no.

Nothing that she had witnessed had yet to disabuse her of that notion.

“I made lasagna,” Sammy said. She grabbed hold of a mass of blond hair, wound it around her wrist and then effortlessly looped a