So We’re Good
Hixon
THE NEXT NIGHT, Greta met him at the top of the steps to her porch, her feet in thick socks, a slouchy cardigan on, a big scarf wrapped around her neck, her head tipped back, the swelling nearly gone around her nose, the bruising still angry but receding.
“Beer?” she asked in a firm tone.
He smiled at her. “Yeah. But kiss first.”
She leaned into him, put a hand on his chest, and they exchanged a short, wet kiss before she broke away and whispered, “Be back.”
She went in and he went to his chair on her porch.
It was nippy. Dark. Mid-October weather in Nebraska was still nice during the day, but when the sun went down, the chill set in.
He turned his head and saw that she had her mug of tea sitting on the table by her chair. She also had a book and some catalogs.
He was eyes back to the street when Greta returned, handed him his beer and then adjusted her chair so it was set butted up to his. Then she settled in it so she was pressed to the side of the chair closest to him, her feet up on the pad in the seat, knees falling to his side, and her hand came out and ran down the inside of his forearm.
He transferred his beer from that hand to his left, thinking she wanted to hold hands, also thinking he was totally okay with that.
But she engaged her other hand, pressing his right hand flat between both of hers, her eyes watching.
It was an affectionate touch, but there was something poignant about it that concerned him.
“Everything okay, sweetheart?” he asked.
“You have really beautiful hands,” she murmured, still pressing his between hers before she laced her fingers through his, dropping her other hand away, bending their linked ones toward them with elbows resting on the arm of the chair as she rested her head on his shoulder.
He liked she thought that about his hands.
He was still concerned.
“Greta, something happen today?”
“Nope, just . . . nope,” she answered. But before he could prompt further she said, “I was . . .” She stopped and started again. “Having you for a spell, then things happened and I didn’t have you . . .” He felt her head move on his shoulder like she was shaking it. “I like my house. I don’t mind being alone. Or I didn’t. Then I had you to sit on the porch with me and I minded. And I, well . . .” Her tone became hesitant. “I like having you back.”
He twisted his neck so he could kiss her hair before he righted it and replied gruffly, “I’m glad you let me come back.”
“Mm,” she mumbled, digging her head into his shoulder for a beat then settling in.
He decided to move them beyond this or they wouldn’t be sitting on her porch, getting to know each other in a way he could leave and get back to his house to make certain his son came home on time after his study date with Wendy at her house.
No. They’d be doing something else. Something they couldn’t do for as long as he’d like, and after, he couldn’t stay with her, sleep beside her, because he had to go home to his boy.
And he knew from experience the swelling could go down, the bruises recede, but it took weeks for a broken nose to heal, and the longer he gave her to do that, the less pain he might inadvertently cause making love to her.
So he had to give her as much time as they both could endure.
Which was two more days.
Therefore, he told her, “Shaw’s at his girl’s house, studying. Told you earlier in that text, babe, we were having dinner together tonight. That’s because I needed time with him. There’s stuff going down with Wendy’s family. Shaw’s feelin’ the need to keep an eye on her. But apparently, her folks let them study in her room. So I needed to lay some things out about that. I also need to be home when he gets there so I can give him the eagle eye to make sure nothin’ came of that.”
“Risky business, letting a handsome, young man study in your daughter’s bedroom,” she observed.
“Yup.”
Greta laughed softly.
“The stuff going down isn’t good stuff, baby, so it’s doubtful Shaw will go for anything.”
And this, he hoped his son wouldn’t do, knowing that her dad was growing sicker, weaker and depressed from his treatments, that depression also hitting the family since they had to watch it.
Hix had been wrong the night before. The doctors felt the treatments were working, but it was coming clear that road wasn’t going to be easy.
“Shaw’s a good guy, so you’re probably right,” she replied.
“I also shared I’d be disappointed if he took that road, even if it seemed Wendy needed that kind of closeness for whatever reason she would have.”
“And you’re a good dad,” she murmured before she went on, “Not an easy chat, darlin’. I feel your pain. I remember having that conversation with Andy. He’d been young but he’d been popular with the girls. Keith had already had it but I found condoms in his room so I had to have it again.”
“At least he had condoms,” Hix muttered, doing it thinking something else.
Thinking he kind of hoped the kid got himself some before having the chance at any normal relationship swept away by his mother.
Also thinking it hadn’t occurred to him how much of a parent Greta had been until she gave him that info.
She was right. It was not an easy conversation to have with your son, your brother or any kid. He knew that from past experience and some that was very recent.
And you didn’t do it, in most cases, unless you were a parent.
“He didn’t use them,” she shared. “He didn’t tell me that. He got ticked I talked to him about it because he was embarrassed. He complained to Keith and he told Keith that.”
Hix had no response she’d likely want to hear.
“And now, I kinda wish that he’d . . . you know,” she said.
He knew.
And he was beginning not to be surprised Greta’s thoughts ran the same way his did.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
Her fingers started fiddling with his fingers in a manner that he liked and Hix decided it was now time to take them out of this because it felt heavy, and she had to live that heavy every day. She didn’t need it on her porch when she was unwinding at night.
So he asked, “You do your porch thing all year long?”
He felt her head move and he knew she was looking up at him. “My porch thing?”
He twisted his neck again to look down at her. “Sittin’ out here to unwind at night.”
She grinned and settled back in, aiming her eyes to the street, so he did too and took a sip of his beer while she spoke.
“I have to give it up around Thanksgiving. I can bundle up but then it gets too chilly. I thought about getting a space heater but I have a great house. I might as well use more of it than my bed, kitchen and porch for a few months a year.”
He chuckled, replied, “Yeah,” and started returning the fiddle of fingers as he asked, “Why do you do it?”
“Sit on the porch?” she asked back.
“Yup.”
She flipped out her other hand toward the street. “Because of that.”
He was confused. “Your street?”
“That and the fact that it’s how it is. Quiet. Nice. People keep up their homes. Tend their yards. Plant flowers. Put out decorations. It’s a good view and it’s always changing. Plus they walk their dogs in front of my house and say hey, sometimes stop and chat.” She tipped her head on his shoulder so he knew she was looking at him again so he twisted his neck to catch her eyes. “I grew up in a trailer park.”
When she let that lie, he grinned at her and asked, “Am I supposed to take that as a dire admission?”
She laughed softly again and turned her attention back to the street.
He took in her hair, her smooth forehead, her taped nose, before he also turned back to the street while she was answering.
“Not really. But our park wasn’t a very good one. Even so, there were a lot of nice people in it. Good people. They helped look after me. Then when Andy came, they helped me look after him. But there was always a lot happening. A lot of noise. Folks fighting. Coming and going at all hours because that was their work schedule or it was their play schedule. Parties. Loud music. Cops showing. This . . . a place like this is like heaven.”
Hix stared at the street.
“I like the city,” she informed him. “I like malls and Cineplexes and nice restaurants. But I like better going to the grocery store and running into someone I know and having a natter. I like getting a coffee and knowing the lady who runs the place and she knows me because that’s the only coffee place in town. And it has good coffee, but it kinda feels like you’re getting coffee at a friend’s house. I like the fact that most people know most everyone else and they care. If someone dies, they make a casserole. Someone gets engaged, they buy a gift. I know there are bad seeds. I know bad stuff still happens. But it feels like . . . it kinda feels like the trailer park but without the bad parts. Like a big family. The good kind of family.”
Hix stared at the street feeling something move deep in his chest.
And he knew what that something was.
It was the understanding that that was what Hope had wanted them to have. Not just their family, but her giving it to Hix too.
She’d never explained it that way, maybe didn’t know how because it was what she grew up with. She just knew how good it was, and she wanted the people she loved to have it.
He’d just never understood it, the gift she’d wanted them to have.
Until now.
Greta must have felt his thoughts had turned because her head came off his shoulder and he felt her gaze.
He looked to her.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked.
“Not even a little bit.”
She studied him closely. “Then what is it, darlin’?”
He gave it to her without hesitation.
And he’d discover, he maybe shouldn’t have hesitated, but he should have been more careful with how he gave what he gave.
“She didn’t explain it that way, but I think that’s why Hope wanted us to move here. What she wanted to give us. She grew up here. She knew how good of a place it was to do that and more, just have. Life in a small town where the mall might be a trek and the only movie theater is fifteen miles away and there are only two screens.”
Something crossed her expression he wasn’t a big fan of before she twisted away to grab her mug and let go of her hold on his hand.
“Greta,” he called as she sipped, and when she looked at him, he noted, “It’s what she wanted for us. I didn’t get it then, but I’m getting it now. Think I was getting it before, after Nat was killed, what a shock that was because that kind of thing never happens here. I’m getting how folks look down on small towns, and maybe in my way, I did that too. How they think the people in them are hicks. How nothing much happens in a small town so folks think the people in them don’t know much about life. But it isn’t that. They just get more of the good without the shit leaking in. And now, getting that, I don’t mind as much that my boy is goin’ into the marines because he’s gonna have learned all he needs to know about bein’ a good man, a good person, leading a good life because of the goodness he grew up around that wasn’t screwed up with big city shit.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
She still had a look on her face he didn’t like.
So he asked carefully, “Okay, sweetheart, you get it too, why do you look like I killed your puppy?”
Her expression turned startled then it softened with her smile as she put her mug back, twisted his way and leaned into him, getting close, her breasts brushing his arm, her smile not its usual luminous but kind of sad.
“It happens like this,” she stated confusingly. “You get low. Ask yourself a lot of questions. What did you do? What could you have done? Then you get pissed. Why didn’t they see what we had? Why didn’t they fight for it with me? And then you come to understand. You come to understand a lot of things. And that’s where you are right now, Hix. You’re coming to understand.”
He wasn’t, not even close.
But he guessed, “Are you talking about Hope?”
She nodded.
“Babe—”
“It’s okay, Hixon,” she said quietly, her smile gone, her face still soft, but the sadness was not close to hidden in her eyes.
He didn’t like that look.
And he still didn’t understand.
“What’s okay?”
“You said that night after the grocery store incident that it was an uncomfortable realization that she was a good mom but other than that . . .” She tipped her head to the side in a kind of shrug. “The truth is, you loved her. You don’t see the reasons why right now because you’re ticked at her. But they’ll come back through. You’ll remember them and the good times and—”
“Stop,” he ordered.
She stopped.
He watched her closely as he asked, “Are you saying you think I’m gonna get back with Hope?”
“You loved her a lot, Hixon. Everyone saw it. Even me.”
That was when he stared at her.
Before he started chuckling.
He didn’t roar with laughter mostly because Greta wasn’t looking sad anymore. She was looking miffed.
So he shared, “I’m not gonna get back with her.”
The sad came back. “You don’t know what the future will bring.”
Now he got it.
And it was definitely funny.
But since she didn’t think so, he had to take the time to explain.
“Right.” He turned to her, transferred his beer again and lifted a hand to cup her jaw, moving in to bring their faces even closer. “Even if she didn’t end our marriage not actually wanting to end our marriage but as a play to get an expensive ring, she never told me why she ended our marriage. Maybe it was dawning on her how I’d react to the real reason. Maybe she felt justified and truly thought I would get with her program. But regardless of all that, Greta, since then she’s behaved in ways that, yeah, I loved her. There were reasons. I’m not feelin’ ’em right now because I’m not feelin’ real warm and fuzzy about Hope right now. And maybe some miracle will occur and she’ll sort her shit out so I can remember some of that fondly so we have some kind of relationship that isn’t bitter or difficult and we can carry on raising our kids and being their parents in a way that isn’t ugly. But other than that, babe, believe me, it is well and truly done.”
“I know you can think that, Hixon, but history has a strong pull.”
What was she really telling him?
He withdrew a couple of inches and dropped his hand from her jaw.
“Are you still hung up on this Keith guy?” he asked.
Her eyes rounded, her lips tipped up and her body started shaking.
Her answer was shaky too. “Uh, no.”
“So what are you saying?” he pressed.
Her humor died. “Hix, I saw you with her.”
“Babe, you shared a decade with a man who,” he jerked his head to the side to indicate her house, “if what he gave you when he divorced you is any indication, when he had you, he gave you and the brother you adore a pretty damned good life. I don’t have to see you with him to know you’re speaking from some kind of experience right now.”
“Hix—”
“Everyone saw me with Hope. It’s a small town. We got kids so we’re always out and around, and I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’m in an elected position, but they had more than a healthy interest in her and me, and I don’t gotta say because you gotta know, now you and me.”
“You don’t know why?” she asked, her eyes big again.
“No. People gossip but I get they do it more about me. Hope and me. The kids and me. You and me.”
“You don’t know why,” she repeated as a statement this time, her words again shaking.
“I’m not seein’ anything funny.”
“Hixon, you’re hot.”
“Greta—”
She put her fingers over his lips. “No, baby. Seriously. You’re hot. You’re like, movie star hot. You’re like a twenty-four-seven reality program starring yourself. You don’t even have to do anything interesting, but you wear that sheriff’s shirt and it makes you more hot. You looked great with Hope. Your kids are gorgeous. You were like the royal family of Glossop.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her fingers away but didn’t let her go when he declared, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Apparently, our sheriff hasn’t deduced the pull of a hot guy law enforcement officer,” she muttered over his shoulder, not hiding she thought this was hilarious.
“Greta,” he growled.
She grinned and looked back at him. “Get on Facebook sometime. Or Google. Or anywhere.”
Fuck.
“There’s pictures of me?”
She leaned into him. “No, Hix. There’s pictures of random hot guys. Women are taking that action back. Men have spent years ogling calendars and magazines, objectifying women, reducing them to a pretty face, a head of hair and a hot bod. With social media, there’s probably more pictures of shirtless hot guys with six-packs wearing cowboy hats or shrugging off police shirts than there are oiled-up hot chicks rolling around on Ferraris.” She pulled back and finished with sham seriousness. “Of course, I frown on that entirely. Turnaround, in my book, is not fair play.”
She was totally lying.
And she was very cute.
However.
“I’m not getting back together with Hope.”
Her humor died.
Hix curled his hand around the back of her neck. “I’m getting, the life you led, you don’t expect good things to come to you. What I hope is that you think I’m a good thing. And you got me. We work on this, you’ll keep me, because I hope I’ve made it clear, I want you to. I won’t stray. I won’t go back to her. But I also get I have to prove that too.”
“Hixon—”
“And I will.”
“Okay,” she whispered, her hand coming up between them to slide along his jaw and back into his hair. “And just to say, you know, Keith’s already remarried, but even if he wasn’t, he gave up on me. And I loved him. We had a good life. I missed it when it was gone. I missed him. But that’s done, baby, because he did the one thing I can maybe understand due to the circumstances, but I can’t forgive. He gave up on me.”
Her eyes tipped down to his mouth then back to his and she kept whispering.
“And there is the aforementioned fact that you’re hot. But I failed to note that I’m somewhat enamored with your creative uses of my headboard.”
He was glad of that, almost more than he was pleased to hear her ex was remarried, and he was thrilled to get that news.
“So we’re good,” he murmured, moving closer, seeing her beautiful face but thinking about her headboard.
“We’re so good,” she breathed in reply, tilting her head.
Hix took her mouth.
It was necessarily gently. It was also wet. It lasted a long time. It was its usual spectacular. And he didn’t care his dick started to get hard during it after Greta started nibbling his lips and mewing in his mouth.
It further didn’t stop until they heard, “Greta. Sheriff.”
He had his hand tangled in the back of her hair, she had hers wrapped tight around the side of his neck, when they both turned their heads to the street to see a man and woman (a different woman this time) out with a dog on a leash.
“Sheriff,” the man grunted, clearly unamused that his wife had interrupted and trying to pull his woman along.
She was standing solid and staring up at them, smiling huge.
“How are you two?” she asked.
“Nancy,” her man bit out.
“We were great,” Hixon told her.
The woman’s smile got even bigger.
“Hix,” Greta hissed, but he could tell she was laughing.
“Sorry, sorry,” the man called and put more force into it with his wife so she would actually start moving. “We’ll let you get back to it. Have a good night.”
“’Night, guys!” Greta called.
The man waved behind him, still dragging his woman and also his dog.
The woman called, “’Night, Greta!”
Greta turned to him, and when he felt her gaze, he tore his annoyed one from the departing couple.
“Well, that killed the mood,” she noted.
It unfortunately did.
“What were you saying about good people in a small town?” he asked.
She busted out laughing but kissed him quickly in the middle of it.
When she sobered she looked deep into his eyes and announced, “I’m telling Andy about you tomorrow.”
And he knew he’d at least passed one test.
Brilliant.
“That means a lot, baby,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“When you’re ready for me to meet him, I’m there,” he promised.
She shot him a happy smile. “I kinda can’t wait.” Her hand still at his neck gave a squeeze. “He likes cop shows. He’s gonna love you.”
He grinned at her.
She moved in, brushed her lips against his jaw and moved out, murmuring, “Drink your beer, smokey.”
“Ten-four, angel.”
Greta laughed softly.
He glided his hand from her hair, settled in his chair and threw back some beer.
And then Hix stared into the quiet night, drinking beer and keeping it light as he got to know his woman, pushing it to the last minute until he had to go home and wait for his son.
Late the next morning in his office, after he did what he did every day since things cooled with the case, this being going over Nat Calloway’s file hoping something would jump out at him, Hix was reading Donna’s report on a bust-up she and Larry had waded into the night before at the Lasso, the country and western club outside Yucca, when he heard Hal call, “Boss?”
Hix looked up to see the man in his door.
“Yup?”
Hal walked in. “Just, uh . . .”
He stopped talking but didn’t stop moving until he was standing between the chairs in front of Hix’s desk.
He looked uneasy.
This could mean anything, coming from Hal.
Damn.
“Just what, Hal?” Hix prompted.
Hal moved his neck in an uncomfortable way before it seemed like he forced himself to look in Hix’s eyes and he rushed out, “I got no plans on Saturday.”
“Sorry?” Hix asked.
“I could . . .” Hal gave a short cough and started again. “Ashlee said she’d make sandwiches and bring ’em over. And I could, uh . . . help you all out, movin’ you to your new place.”
Hix stared at him a beat before he inquired, “You’re volunteering to help me move?”
“Not, like, as a brownnose or any of that shit,” Hal stated shortly.
“I didn’t think that,” Hix returned immediately. “I thought maybe I should call in the doc and have your head examined because you clearly forgot the stories of what a huge pain in the ass it was to get that sofa in my apartment, and I don’t figure it’ll be any less of a pain getting it out.” He shrugged, his lips twitched and he concluded, “You’re up for that torture, I’m not gonna say no. But I am gonna supply the pizza and beer at the end. And Ashlee can come and join us then, but she doesn’t have to make sandwiches.”
“She likes doin’ stuff like that,” Hal murmured.
“I figure around noon when everyone is plotting my murder, sandwiches will be appreciated.” Hix smiled at him. “We’re gonna start at eight, man, but anytime you get there would be good.”
Hal smiled back. “I’ll be there at eight.”
“Right.”
Hal looked like he didn’t know what to do so his movements were awkward when he turned to walk away.
Hix called his name and he turned back.
“Just wanna say at this juncture that I’ll be gettin’ on writing those commendations for yours and Bets’s files, and not because you’re helpin’ me move. Because you both went beyond the call, her lookin’ for Nat, you ridin’ that hunch that guy would toss the weapon and finding that gun. It was good work, Hal. Not just solid. It was smart and showed serious initiative. We ever find him, you tied that bow. And I’ll make sure that’s in your file.”
Hal’s voice sounded clogged when he said, “Thanks, Hix.”
“Not sure why you’re thankin’ me, but you’re welcome.”
Hal nodded, moved out looking even more uncomfortable and that didn’t change when Donna passed him walking in and she did it smiling at him.
She came right to his desk and her smile went strange as she said, “It sucks I gotta dim the glow of whatever you said to Hal leading him to tackle the herculean effort of proving he’s a decent human being, but Jep’s here.”
Hix looked out the window to see Hope’s father standing at reception.
“Jesus, shit,” Hix muttered.
“You want me to tell him you’re busy?” she offered.
He did.
But that wouldn’t nip this in the bud like he had to do.
So he shook his head, coming up from his chair.
“I’ll talk to him.”
He followed her out but stopped at the back of the aisle between desks and called, “Jep, you wanna come on back?”
“Yeah, son,” Jep returned, and then moved through the swinging half door.
Hix watched him and did it noting Jep, who was always sure of himself, looked even more awkward than Hal had.
They shook hands when Jep arrived at him but they said nothing until Hix walked him into his office and closed the door behind him.
He moved to the back of one of the chairs at his desk, stopped, turned to the man and crossed his arms on his chest.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“You got time to have lunch, Hixon?” Jep asked back.
“Not really,” Hix lied.
“Son—”
“Jep, I got a phone. You got a phone. We need to talk about somethin’, you can call me. You wanna have lunch, you can call me about that too. You showin’ here, it tells me this is either official business or it’s somethin’ else. If it’s official, you can talk to me here. If it’s somethin’ else, we gotta have another conversation.”
Jep’s hand started to move up to his collar, dropped, and he blew out a breath between pursed lips before he said, “I’m sorry, Hixon, but I’m here because I gotta urge you . . . strongly . . . to have a sit down with my daughter.”
Hix didn’t move a muscle. “Right. Since that’s the case, I hate to do it but I’m gonna have to do it. This is my place of business, Jep. You don’t pin me here because you know I’m gonna be here and Hope’s activated you to deal with her shit. That isn’t right, it isn’t appropriate, and I’ll end with it not bein’ your style.”
“It’s important.”
“I don’t care.”
“She’s the mother of your children, Hix.”
“We got a problem?” he asked.
His ex-father-in-law stared at him a beat before he shook his head once. “No. Nope.” He lifted a hand palm out and again dropped it almost before he got it up. “I know you’ve moved on. Hear she’s a great gal. None of my business. But Hope’s got some things she wants to explain to you and she knows she’s messed it up so she can’t approach you. She’s sent me as proxy. I’m her father.” This time, he lifted both hands low to his sides. “What’m I supposed to do?”
Hix gave him the obvious answer, “Tell her no.”
Jep looked to the wall beyond Hix’s head.
Hix gave it a few moments before, quietly, he stated, “This can’t happen again, Jep. It’s not right how you went about this and it’s not right how Hope asked you to intervene. She wants a chat, she can grow up, suck it up and ask me for one.”
Jep’s eyes came to him and his face was set to stubborn.
“You got two girls, you’ll learn. They grow up but they never quit bein’ your babies.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he allowed. “Maybe one day I’ll have cause to remember this and feel like an ass. But if I do, what I’m gonna say is gonna sound harsh, Jep, but it’ll be in the middle of me already feelin’ like an ass because I know I’m in the middle of a situation where I’m in the wrong for bein’ where I am and doin’ what I’m doin’.”
Jep looked ticked for a second before that wore away and he muttered, “Damned if you ain’t right. Knew it before I walked in here but . . .” He shook his head and finished at the same time Hix’s cell rang. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Obliged,” Hix muttered, walking to his phone that was sitting on his desk, saying, “I hope you get part of what she’s done is possibly put important things we share, that I’m thinkin’ mean something to the both of us, in a bad place.”
“Nope, son, I did that not havin’ the fortitude to tell my girl to do right.”
But Hix didn’t hear Jep’s reply.
Because he saw his screen told him Greta was calling.
At that time she should be off to Sunnydown to take her brother out for lunch.
Why would she be calling?
“Gotta take this,” he muttered, turned his side to Jep and took the call, acutely and irritatingly aware of the company he was in. “Hey.”
“Hix, she’s here.”
Hix felt his spine snap straight at her tone.
“Who?” he asked.
But shit.
He knew.
“Mom!” she cried, giving him the answer he knew. “She’s making a huge scene. She knows. She knows it’s my day off and I come here to see Andy and she’s here. Shouting and carrying on and demanding to see him, saying I’m keeping her away from her baby and—”
He snatched the keys to his Ram from the desk and cut her off. “You with Andy?”
“I can’t get to him. She keeps shouting at me and getting in my space, shoving me off. I can’t get in a catfight with my mother in Andy’s home, Hix!” Her voice had been rising but it dropped with her next in her increasing panic. “I know he’s hearing it. Everyone is but his room isn’t far from the front. And it’s probably freaking him out.”
That was not good.
But no.
Hell no.
That bitch did not put her hands on Greta.
“Go sit in your car,” he ordered, moving by Jep, dipping his chin, saying, “Gotta take this,” and that was it.
He was out the door.
“Go sit in my car?” she asked, her voice pitching higher with her also increasing anxiety.
“Go sit in your car,” he demanded and stopped between Donna and Bets’s desks. “Both of you,” he looked between them, “in a Ram. Follow me.”
“Hix,” Greta called in his ear as he started moving again, feeling Donna and Bets move behind him.
“I’m coming. I’m bringing some deputies. She can either calm down and remove herself from the premises or she can be arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace. But I’ll be giving her that choice. You’ll be sitting in your car while I’m doing it.”
“It’ll take you twenty minutes to get here and—”
“Not with my lights on.”
“Oh,” she mumbled.
“Get in your car, baby.”
“Okay, Hix.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“Right. Okay.”
“Letting you go now.”
“Okay, darlin’. Uh . . . see you.”
“You will.”
He hung up standing by his Ram with Donna and Bets standing with him, eyes to him.
“Greta’s mom is at the home where her brother stays. Greta is his guardian. Her mother is a lot of things, including the woman who gave him the injuries he has that put him in the home by driving drunk and getting in an accident when he was a teenager.”
That got him big eyes from Bets, narrowed ones from Donna, but he ignored both and kept going.
“Greta’s denied her mother access to him. She’s there, causing a scene. You heard what I said to Greta?”
“Yeah, boss,” Bets replied.
“Yeah, Hixon,” Donna said.
“Follow me,” he commanded, went to his Ram, angled in and rolled out, the light on his dash and the two that blinked through the grill going as he raced to Sunnydown with Donna driving the Ram, Bets in the passenger seat, following him.
He got the call from Reva that Sunnydown had reported the disturbance on the way.
He swung in at the diagonal yellow lines that were at the front doors of Sunnydown, but he’d caught sight of Greta getting out of her Cherokee as he swung in.
Donna swung in beside him as he folded out of his Ram.
He lifted a hand his woman’s way and ordered, “Stay by your car, Greta.”
She stopped walking toward him and started walking backwards.
Hix prowled into the building to see a man in a security uniform, big guy, big stomach hanging over his belt, no baton or gun on that belt, not even a Taser, barring the way into a wide hall, staring unhappily down at the woman who was standing in front of him, her voice scratchy from continuous shrieking.
“You can’t keep me from my boy!” She leaned beyond the guard, who bent that way to impede her should she make a break for it, and screeched, “Andy! Andy, baby! Your momma is out here.”
“Quiet!” Hix barked.
She jumped and whirled.
Then he watched her lip curl.
“Well if it isn’t—” she began.
“I said quiet,” he bit off.
“You can’t muzzle me!” she shouted then swung an arm behind her, finger pointed. “My baby’s back there!”
“You have two choices,” Hix announced. “You settle down, get in your car and leave, not to return unless you’ve received word you’ve been approved as a visitor for Andrew Dare, or these deputies will be arresting you for trespassing and disturbing the peace.”
“I can’t trespass where my boy is kept,” she spat.
“You aren’t legal guardian of your boy so that’d be wrong.”
“Just because you’re fuckin’ my—”
Hix turned and dipped his chin to Donna. “Arrest her.”
“You can’t arrest me!” she screamed and whirled again, making a break to run down the hall and colliding with the security guy who jumped in her way, screeching, “Andy! Andy! Your momma’s—”
Donna took her forearm in one hand, stating, “You have the right—”
She whirled again and twisted her arm from Donna’s hold. “Take your fuckin’ hands off me!”
Bets moved in. “Ma’am, calm down.”
Greta’s mother shuffled back. “Fuck you.”
“Ma’am, calm down, turn around and put your hands behind your back,” Donna instructed.
“Kiss my ass,” she bit out, turned again and shouted, “Andy!”
“Hon, no. No,” Hix heard coming from down the hall and he looked that way to see a tall young man with dark hair and a serious scar marring handsome features shuffle sideways into the hall. “Andy, honey—” A woman was trying gently to push him back in the room.
Fuck.
Hix started to make his way there as Tawnee saw her son and shrieked, “Andy! My boy!”
Hix halted at Greta’s mother, turned his back to her brother and whispered, “You make one more move to resist arrest, we’re charging you with that too. Now, I’ve had occasion to sit in front of the judge recently and we’ll just say, with current events, he’s not in a good mood.” He leaned closer. “But I think someone else will not be pleased you’re makin’ this play and I got a feelin’ you should be more concerned about his reaction. So shut your mouth, Ms. Dare. Calm down. Walk with these deputies out of this building where you’ll put your hands behind your back so they can cuff you and read you your rights without your boy seein’ them do it, then allow them to take you to the station.”
Suddenly, making his stomach turn, she smiled and exposed this was all a play to upset Greta when she threatened in a quiet voice, “Buckle up, baby. I’m just gettin’ started.”
“Whatever,” he muttered and saw her face go slack in confusion before he jerked his head to Donna and she moved in.
She put a hand on Tawnee’s biceps but Tawnee snatched her arm away, tossed her hair and didn’t even glance at her son as she strutted out of the building, Bets and Donna following.
Hix looked at the security guy. “Could you please follow them and make sure all’s well out there, then, when they got her in the back of their vehicle, tell Greta she can come in here?”
“Sure ’nuf, Sheriff,” the man replied, then broke into a lumbering jog, following Donna and Bets.
Hix drew in breath, turned and walked down to where Greta’s brother was standing outside his room, worrying his lip, staring down the hall where his mother disappeared.
“Andy,” he called, and the man’s eyes moved from the hall to Hix.
He didn’t look a thing like his sister.
But he was a good-looking kid.
He lifted a hand to him. “I’m Hixon.”
Andy looked from Hix’s eyes to his hand to his badge back to his eyes.
“You’re police.”
“Yes, Andy, I’m the sheriff.”
“Police,” he repeated.
Hix dropped his hand and looked to the woman at Andy’s side.
She gave him a shake of her head that Hix could not interpret before Andy stated, “Police took Mom.”
“I’m sorry, Andy, but yes. Greta’s outside and she—”
“Ta-Ta?”
Ta-Ta.
Sweet.
Hellaciously sad coming from a man his height, his age.
But sweet.
“Yeah, buddy. She’s outside and she’ll be in—”
“Police didn’t take my mom.”
“I’m sorry, bud, but we had to—”
“Ta-Ta’s my mom.”
Hix closed his mouth and looked again at the woman with Andy.
She gave him big eyes.
No freaking help at all.
“My sister, but my mom,” Andy gave it to him and Hix looked at Greta’s brother again.
“Yeah, bud. I get it.”
“That lady, I don’t care,” Andy told him.
“Yeah, Andy,” Hix said quietly. “I get it, man.”
“Man,” Andy said and then he grinned. “I coulda told her to go. I didn’t mind tellin’ her to go. She doesn’t visit much and I don’t miss her when she’s gone.”
“I can imagine.”
Andy grinned again, his eyes shifted and his whole face lit up.
That was when Hix watched him lope down the hall and take Greta in his arms, doing it twisting his head to rest the side of it to Greta’s shoulder like a little kid.
Hix’s gut went tight as he watched Greta wrap her arms around her brother and close her eyes like she just hit heaven.
Andy jumped back, out of her arms, and Hix watched his frame string tight.
“Your face!” he yelled.
“I fell, bud,” she said quickly. “That’s why I couldn’t come last Sunday. My hand slipped away and, crunch, busted my nose.” She gave him that like it was nothing at all then didn’t let Andy focus on it before she grabbed his hand, shook it and asked, “You good? You okay?”
“Police took Mom,” he told her.
“I know,” she said carefully. “I saw. Are you okay?”
“It was awesome.”
Hix felt himself relax even as he watched Greta do the same.
Her mouth quirked as she said, “I’m not sure we should think it’s awesome our mother got arrested, buddy.”
“Maybe not. It was still awesome.”
Hix watched as she drew in a deep breath she was trying to hide pulling in and let it out before she glanced at him and back to her brother. “Did you meet Hix?”
“Hix?” Andy asked, sounding confused. She took a step his way and Andy turned with her, caught sight of Hix and said, “That’s the sheriff.”
“Yeah, Andy,” she confirmed. “Hix. Hixon Drake. The county sheriff.”
She was guiding Andy to him by his hand.
“Trespassing and disturbing the peace,” Andy said to him when they arrived.
“What?” Greta asked.
“Mom,” he said to Hix then turned to his sister. “Trespassing and disturbing the peace.” He looked back at Hix. “She’s good at disturbing the peace.”
“I got that impression.”
Andy smiled big at him and repeated, “I got that impression.”
He then started laughing.
But Greta was smiling so that was when Hix fully relaxed.
“Do you, uh . . . wanna, maybe, um . . .” she stammered then swallowed and finished, “Maybe ask the sheriff if he wants to come to lunch with us?”
Hix felt a burn in his gut like he’d just put back a good bourbon.
“Yeah!” Andy exclaimed. “Yeah, Sheriff. Wanna eat with us?” he asked.
“You can call me Hix, Andy, and yeah. That’d be good.”
“We’re gonna go to the Harlequin for chicken fingers,” he shared.
Hix had been wanting to take Greta to the Harlequin for weeks.
But right then, he didn’t give one shit that the first time they sat opposite each other in a booth there, her brother would be with them.
“Sounds good,” Hix said.
“Can I ride in your cop car with you?” Andy asked.
“Andy—” Greta started.
“It’s a cop truck, bud, and sure. Your sister thinks it’s okay.”
Andy’s head swung to Greta.
“If Hix says okay, it’s okay by me,” she allowed.
Andy beamed at her then to Hix.
Hix grinned at him and then to Greta. “We’ll meet you there?”
She nodded, biting her lip but it didn’t quite hide her smile, a smile that was shining at him from her big eyes.
“Ready to go?” he asked Andy.
“Go,” he said then he started into his room but looked back. “Jacket,” he explained and he disappeared.
Greta got close and Hix looked down to her.
“Are you . . . I put you on the spot. Is this okay?” she asked.
“Hell yeah,” he answered.
That was when she aimed the full force of her smile at him.
Hix fought back a blink.
“Ready!” Andy declared, jumping out of his room.
“Right, let’s go, man,” Hix invited, wanting to touch Greta, give her a kiss, but just giving her a look before he started down the hall, Andy walking beside him, Greta beside her brother.
“Whoa! Way cooler than a cop car!” Andy declared when he saw the Ram.
Hix bleeped the locks and Andy moved to the passenger side door.
Greta got close and skimmed the back of her fingers against his.
He looked down at her. “He’ll be okay with me.”
“I know,” she whispered.
And more of that bourbon feel hit his gut.
She smiled, looked to her brother, waved and yelled, “See you there!”
“Yeah!” he yelled back from inside the truck.
She moved to her Cherokee.
Hix got behind the wheel.
“You can’t do it, you know, ’cause this isn’t official or anything, but later, when we get there, can you turn on the lights?” Andy asked when he’d started up the truck.
He looked to Greta’s brother. “Absolutely.”
“Cool,” Andy whispered.
Hix backed out and idled, making a point that Greta caught.
So she pulled out in front of him and he and her brother followed her back to town, straight to the Harlequin.
For a variety of reasons, Hix was in a far better mood when he returned to his department than he was when he’d left it.
And it was so much better, Tawnee calling out to him as he walked down the aisle, “We can get a curtain, Sheriff, put it up, then I can give you the mother part of the mother-daughter experience all private-like,” didn’t shake it in the slightest.
He’d barely looked at her when Donna said loudly, “Perhaps due to the uncanny resemblance, they gave Greta to the wrong woman at the hospital.”
Hix grinned at his deputy.
“You bein’ a man-woman and all, just because you couldn’t get any dick unless you paid for it doesn’t mean you should be ugly to a sister,” Tawnee sneered to Donna.
Donna looked over her shoulder at Greta’s mother. “I’ll tell my husband that after I give him his nightly blowjob.”
Hal let out a bark of laughter.
Hix swallowed his.
“Tell him, he wants to feel how good it is when it’s really done right, he should give me a call,” Tawnee returned.
“Honey, if he ever gets the urge for aging skank, I’ll send him right your way, and he gets that disgusting urge, you can have him,” Donna fired back.
Tawnee shot hate from her eyes but fortunately shut up.
Hix went to his office to make a call he knew he was going to enjoy, not half as much as he enjoyed being let in over lunch on the sweet Greta had with her brother, but it would still feel good.
Allowing Andy to turn on his lights outside the Harlequin might have been a good call.
But Hix suspected he just loved his sister.
So when Greta pulled Hix into the booth beside her, making a point that Andy’s damaged brain didn’t miss, it just made him grin at them a lot during lunch, it made Hix feel like he’d downed a double shot of the finest bourbon there was.
“Yo, Hixon, how’s it hangin’, son?” Kavanagh Becker said as greeting when he picked up Hix’s call.
“Courtesy call, Becker,” Hix replied. “We got your woman down here, arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace at her son’s home.”
“Her what?”
Oh yeah.
As he suspected.
Becker hadn’t mentioned Tawnee’s son in their previous conversations. Instead, he’d said that Greta was the only child Tawnee had. At the time, Hix didn’t know Greta had a brother so he didn’t cotton on to what Becker not knowing about Andy might mean.
Now he had a feeling he knew what it meant.
Yes.
Definitely.
He was going to enjoy this.
“Her son. At his home. Sunnydown.”
Silence from Becker.
Hix didn’t extend that further courtesy.
“She lost guardianship doin’ time for puttin’ him in a place like that after drivin’ him home drunk from a party. Greta looks after him. And she wasn’t feelin’ a lotta love for her mom so she took her off the visitor list. Tawnee felt her next move was causin’ a scene on the day she knew Greta came to spend time with him. This didn’t go well, not because Greta’s seein’ me and I intervened, but because Andy doesn’t really give much of a fuck his mother was arrested. But this is neither here nor there for you. These aren’t serious charges, we’ll just make a note of the arrest on her record and I’m happy to release her to you under her recognizance and her promise that she doesn’t do that shit again.”
Becker still said nothing.
“Did I lose you?” Hix asked.
“We got a problem because of this?”
“You mean a bigger one than the last one she caused?” Hix asked for clarity.
“Yeah,” Becker bit out, not sounding happy.
The light went out of his voice when Hix ordered, “Come get her ass and impress upon her I don’t want it in my department again. Be convincing, Becker. And for your efforts, I’ll share you know I don’t like what you do. You also know you bought me steppin’ over the deal you had with Blatt. But I figure you further know I got dick on you or I’d have been up in your shit after you made your last bad play. So that’s where we are. You trip up, I catch it, we’ll go from there. You stay smart, I won’t have any choice. In the meantime, you buy me not feelin’ the need to get really fucking nosy for a good while, you get that woman to refocus on something other than her daughter and son.”
“Not sure how you got the idea she means that much to me,” Becker replied.
“Then she has a problem and so do you because right now I’m feelin’ your connection more than you are, and everything she pulls, I’ll read as shit comin’ direct from you. And I can assume you’d understand it doesn’t make me happy to walk into my department and have her offer up a taste so I can compare mother and daughter.”
“Jesus,” Becker muttered.
“Those blowjobs probably don’t seem so awesome right about now, am I right?”
“I’ll send a man to get her,” Becker stated on a sigh.
“Obliged.”
He gave it a beat before he said, “I didn’t know about her boy, Hixon. That shit’s fucked up.”
Like him understanding the concept of a mother disabling her own son because she operated a vehicle inebriated made Hix think he was a better person.
“You’re correct,” was all he said.
“I’ll deal with her for you then I’m scrapin’ her off. Too much trouble,” Becker declared.
“That’s not my business. Just take her off my hands, and for now, we’re good.”
“My man is already on his way.”
“Thrilled,” Hix muttered, said, “Good luck,” and he hung up.
“Please, God,” Bets begged, walking in the second he put his phone down, “let me record five minutes of that woman and then let me shoot her. Judge Bereford won’t arraign me, he listens to five minutes of her crap. He might pin a medal on me.”
“Becker’s sending a man to pick her up.”
“Becker?” she asked.
“Ms. Dare likes to be multi-faceted in the ways she’s a piece of work.”
“Can I hide in here until he shows?” Bets asked.
He smiled at her and joked, “Where’s badass Deputy Bets?”
“Badass Deputy Bets is badass enough to admit she can’t spend another minute with the trash in our cell and she’s okay with that, that trash is so trashy.”
“Then go on patrol, don’t bug me.”
She grinned. “Good idea. I’ll take Donna with me. And Larry. And Hal.”
“Bring me a coffee from Babycakes.”
“You got it, boss.”
He looked down to the file he’d never finished reading but back up to her when she called his name.
Then he braced when he saw her face.
“It was uncool,” she said hesitantly. “I was just bein’ stupid. You’re a good guy and there’s not a lot to choose from around here, but you were—”
“It’s okay, Bets,” he said quietly. “Forgotten.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
She shot him a relieved smile and disappeared.
Five minutes later, he got up and walked to the door she’d left open when Tawnee screamed, “Where’s everyone going? Fuck you! I didn’t do dick! Let me out!”
He shut it, shutting out her voice.
He did it thinking that Donna’s suggestion had merit.
They looked alike.
But Hix had concerns when they handed Greta to her mother in the hospital, they’d given her to the wrong woman.
“So, he likes you.”
“Yeah?”
“Like, a lot.”
“Good.”
Hix and Greta were not on her porch that night.
They were making out, stretched on her couch.
As well as, apparently, talking about her brother.
Hix didn’t want to talk about her brother.
“What we got?” Hix asked to change the subject, sliding his mouth up the side of her neck.
“What we got?” she asked back breathily, sliding her hands up either side of his spine.
He made it to her mouth and looked in her eyes. “Hours.”
She knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Twenty-two.”
He grinned against her lips.
She frowned against his.
“Shaw’s gonna be home soon,” she noted but did it with her arms closing around him.
“Yeah,” he grunted, doing it rolling off her, to his side, and taking her to hers in front of him.
She shoved her face in his throat and held on to him.
He buried his face in her hair and held her back.
“Thanks for today,” she whispered against his skin.
“My job in two ways.”
He felt her press close.
It was a good response.
And all she had to say.
She tensed against him when she warned, “She’s just warming up.”
“We’ll get through it.”
“You’ve got kids.”
“She sinks even lower, which it’s clear she’s capable of, I’ll talk to them and then we’ll all get through it.”
She pulled her face out of his throat and he tipped his head down to look at her.
“If that guy dumps her—”
He’d told her about Becker.
“Baby,” he gave her a squeeze, “we’ll get through it.”
“Just . . . batten down the hatches.”
He grinned. “Consider them battened.”
She frowned at him. “It sucks you can be cute and hot and you won’t have sex with me.”
“Twenty-two hours,” he reminded her.
“My nose is not attached to my lady parts, Hixon.”
He started laughing, gathering her closer. “It feel better?”
“Yep.”
“Every day?”
“Yep.”
“Then trust me.”
She rolled her eyes.
When she was done doing that, he ordered, “Now kiss me. I gotta go home to my son.”
“Just to say, after I’m done with my clients, I’m helping you move on Saturday. I’ll be done at three.”
“You can unpack boxes.”
“My nose is also not attached to my arms or legs.”
“You can unpack boxes,” he repeated.
“Part of me thinks I should not find a protective man annoying, but I do,” she informed him.
“Get over it.”
“I also find a bossy man annoying,” she shared.
“Get over that too.”
“And a repetitive one.”
“Greta?”
“What?”
“Kiss your man so he can get home to his son.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, but still, she kissed him, wet and sweet.
Then he pulled them both off the couch and walked her to her door, holding her hand.
It was Hix who kissed her, wet and sweet, at the door.
“Twenty-two hours,” he whispered when they were done.
She shot him one of her blinding smiles. “Yeah.”
He touched his lips to the tip of her nose, let her go and walked out.
He heard the lock go before he was halfway across her porch.
Twenty-two hours.
An eternity.