Lock This, Baby

Greta

“THAT WAS FUN, we won! Now pizza!” Maple cried, dancing in front of Lou and me, holding Andy’s hand, Snow on his other side, walking so close to my baby bro that their arms were brushing.

Andy, in his Glossop Raiders sweatshirt, turned and grinned at me.

He’d had a blast at the game. The Raiders won. And it hadn’t been the torture for me I’d thought it would be.

It was the Friday after the Friday that Hix had walked into my house and gutted me.

I wanted to say I was over it.

I wasn’t over it.

I wanted to say I was glad for Faith but not for Hixon that a sketch had been in this week’s Guide of the man who killed Faith’s husband and rumor around town was that the sheriff had everything he needed, including a witness who saw Nat pick up the guy who killed him, they just needed to find that man.

But I was happy for him.

I wanted to say that I hoped like hell they found the guy so Faith could have some closure and not so Hixon could also put this behind him.

But I hoped like hell they found this guy—for both reasons.

I also wanted to say he hadn’t looked amazingly handsome in the picture the Guide printed of him and his deputies in full uniform standing at the gravesite at Nat’s funeral last Sunday (fortunately, they’d printed that picture, not one of Faith or her kids).

And he didn’t.

He’d looked devastatingly handsome.

And I knew he’d looked devastatingly handsome before I’d even seen the picture because I saw it firsthand seeing as I’d been at that same funeral.

I’d also gone to pains to avoid the spear of his eyes I caught twice from where I was sitting and he was standing with his deputies at the side of the chairs set up for funeral-goers.

And, even though Lou had used her magical powers to put the hush on any talk about Hixon and Hope Drake around me, I still heard my fair share. And I wanted to say I wasn’t skimming the range of emotions between interested and concerned when gossip reported that Hixon had instituted a veritable freeze-out of his ex-wife, and it was a known fact his son was angling to live solely with his father (thus giving rise to speculation both had learned why Hope had divorced her husband).

But I absolutely was skimming that range of emotions.

What I wasn’t doing was seeing, speaking to or sleeping with Hixon Drake.

This regardless of the fact that he’d called on Sunday after the funeral, a call for obvious reasons I did not take, however he’d left a message in his lovely, deep voice that said simply, “Greta, we need to talk.”

I had not replied.

I’d blocked his number too.

I was learning.

I was learning I didn’t need my mother’s malicious antics and I didn’t need some man I barely knew treating me like dirt.

So I wasn’t going to have either.

I was going to have Andy. Lou. Her girls. My work. My singing.

And the rest could go to hell.

Now I had Andy for the weekend. When I’d told Gemini my brother wanted to catch a Raiders game, he’d found an act to take my place.

I’d also cleared my client schedule for Saturday.

So I had a full weekend with my brother to look forward to and the Raiders winning to start that off was indication it was going to be a good one.

“Race you to the car?” Snow asked Andy.

“Yeah!” Andy yelled.

She took off.

Maple let him go and took off too.

Andy, knowing he could beat them by a mile, shot another grin over his shoulder at me, this a goofy one. He gave it a few beats to give them a head start, then he took off after them at a sedate lope.

“He’s da bomb,” Lou said from her place striding beside me as we walked out with the rest of the town from Raider Field.

She was right.

I looked up to her then back to where we were heading, watching the girls and Andy weave through the crowd, the girls just going for it, Andy stopping every once in a while to say, “Hey, sorry,” and “pardon,” and “gotta keep up with the girls.”

In other words, they were going to beat him by a mile.

I watched them start to pull away in a break in the crowd and did it noting, “It’s weird, you know. I get so pissed . . . I still . . .” I shook my head. “I grieve for the life he could have had. Then, I realize, if he’d had that, I wouldn’t have this Andy and I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong to feel blessed I have this Andy when he could have had so much more.”

“It’s never wrong to love someone just as they come,” Lou told me.

I glanced at her before again looking ahead. “You’re right. I know that. But I’m not sure it’s healthy I’m still holding on to some of that, Lou. It happened nearly a decade ago.”

“My grandma died when my mom was twenty-two. And to this day, on Grandma’s birthday and the anniversary of her death, you handle Mom with care and don’t mention her red eyes. That was over four decades ago, Greta. I think what would be unhealthy is if you tried to stop yourself from feeling grief. The life he could have had that your mom took from him will always be something he lost. So it’ll always be something you wished he had. Just feel what you feel, babe. And . . . shit.”

I looked up to her after she said that last word to see her gaze narrowed on something in the distance.

“What?” I asked.

“Hixon,” she hissed.

My eyes flew to where she was looking and there he was. Standing talking to a bunch of people just inside the chain link fence that ran around the field, wearing a navy V-neck sweater with a T-shirt under it and faded jeans—making that simplicity look awesome. His younger daughter was not too far from him looking like she was doing a pirouette with two other girls who were doing the same.

Shit!

“We have to get by him without him seeing me,” I said under my breath like he was standing one foot away, not thirty, doing this grabbing Lou’s arm and getting close to her. I gave it a yank. “Move to my other side.”

“Why?” she asked. “He should see you. You look fine. You always look fine. But with that pink in your cheeks and that cute jacket and those jeans that make your awesome ass look even more awesome, he should get a load of what he’s missing.”

“Lou,” I snapped.

“No,” she returned calmly, moving a half step away, forcing my hand to fall from her arm. “Screw Hixon Drake.”

Fabulous.

I kept walking, giving in, but ordered, “Don’t look at him.”

She said nothing.

We carried on and I hazarded a glance up at her.

She was looking right in his direction and I knew by the way she was skewering something with her eyes, it was him.

“You’re not helping,” I told her.

“He’s not looking at me. He doesn’t even know I’m here.” Her attention came to me. “He’s looking at you. And I’m glad. Because right about now he’s probably missing a little of that action and I’m not just talking about the fact you are fine and he was tapping that. I’m talking about the fact pretty much everyone knows he now knows Hope is a spoiled-rotten bitch and pretty much everyone knows, after he escaped a full lifetime of that, he let a great thing slip right through his fingers.”

It felt like my heart skipped a beat after the first part of what she said, and that skip was more like a walloping thump so I kinda didn’t hear the rest of it.

“How lame would it be if I raced you to the car?” I asked.

“Super, double, extra lame,” she answered.

Ugh.

We made it through the gate without incident, and then I stepped it up in my high-heeled boots to get to the car.

I didn’t run. I didn’t dilly-dally.

I wanted to be able to say this was because I wanted to make sure Andy and the girls had made it safely to the car.

But it totally wasn’t.

It was the pounding that woke me up.

But when I was awake, I heard the rain.

Shit!

Rain.

I tossed back the covers and raced out of my room, across the hall, to the room I thought of as Andy’s, even though he didn’t sleep there very often.

I threw open the door, heard the source of the noise but didn’t see Andy, so I closed it, and there he was on the opposite side of the door, standing, hands to the wall, slamming his head against it.

“Sweetie,” I whispered, rushing to him, putting my hands on him. “Shh, just rain. It’s just rain,” I soothed.

Fingers curled tight around his biceps, I pulled back.

He kept slamming his head against the wall.

“Andy, darlin’, please, stop doing that.” I pulled harder. “Come away from the wall.”

He didn’t stop even as he resisted my pull.

“Andrew!” I snapped. “Come away from the wall!”

I tightened my hold and gave his arms a yank, only for him to give my hands a powerful shirk at the same time his body jerked forcefully to the side.

I lost hold, falling back a step, and when I went to move forward and regain it, he lifted an elbow and drew it back sharply, catching me in the eye.

I cried out and fell backward. Tripping on the edge of the rug under the bed, I fell further, hitting the end of the bed, sliding down it and falling to my ass on the floor.

“Ta-Ta.”

I blinked the stars out of my eyes and looked up at him.

He was turned, arms crossed, hands cupping his elbows, swaying and looking at me, and I didn’t know if he understood he’d put me where I was and felt bad or if he was still freaking about the rain.

“Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta,” he chanted then lunged forward, coming to his knees, putting me in a tight grip and yanking me to him as he fell to his ass, burrowing into me as I slid my arms around him. “Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta.”

“It’s okay.” I ran a hand over his hair. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. I’m okay. It’s all okay.”

I didn’t know it was forecast to rain.

If I knew, I’d have taken him back to the home.

He wasn’t good in the rain.

The doctors didn’t think it had to do with the damage to his brain. Not in that way.

They thought it had to do with the fact it had been raining hard when he’d had his accident and this was the way his mind dealt with that psychological trauma.

“Let’s get you to bed, yeah? Let’s get up in bed,” I cooed.

It took a while for me to get him up but I did, got him in bed, and then I slid in with him.

He rocked as I held him in my arms, shushing him and fussing him until he fell asleep.

I kept doing it until the rain stopped.

And I continued to do it until I felt certain it wouldn’t start again.

Only then did I slide away, tuck him in then go downstairs to grab some ice for my eye because it hurt like hell.

I took the ice in a Ziploc bag wrapped in dishtowel with me when I returned to bed.

I did it with my door open, Andy’s open, but even so, I didn’t get much sleep.

Andy was up, sitting at a stool at my kitchen island, scooping up a spoonful of Trix from one of the huge bowls I used for ice cream during my PMS times (and other times besides, if I was honest) when I walked down in the morning.

I kicked myself for oversleeping but was relieved like crazy he just got himself a bowl of cereal and didn’t do what he sometimes did before I learned (or more accurately Keith and I had learned) not to oversleep.

That being walking out the front door and taking a stroll.

My relief didn’t last long when he turned to me, dropped his spoon into the bowl with a plunk and a splash of milk and stared at me.

I knew why.

I had a shiner.

Crap.

“Andy—”

“Me . . .” He straightened from his slump over the bowl, his anxiety chasing away his ability to find words. “Bad. Me bad.”

Unfortunately, since it was random what he would remember and what he wouldn’t, he remembered last night.

I moved to him and put my hand on the island. “It’s okay.”

His eyes were riveted to my black one. “Bruise.”

“It’s okay, darlin’. It doesn’t hurt,” I lied then gave him a huge smile. “And it makes me look badass.” That wasn’t a lie, but unfortunately it didn’t make me look, say, Chuck Norris badass, and not just because Chuck Norris was so badass, he’d never get a black eye. It made me look trailer-trash-had-a-rougher-than-normal-night badass.

His head twitched, he looked to me, his gaze moving over my face then his lips tentatively curled up.

“Put up your dukes,” he joked.

I did, punching him lightly with one on his biceps.

He started laughing.

Crisis averted.

I moved in and gave him a kiss on the side of head.

Then I moved back, leaned against the island and asked, “What are we gonna do today? You wanna go shopping for some new clothes?”

He’d turned back to his cereal but he twisted his neck to frown at me. “No shopping.”

Just like a man.

“Wanna go to the shelter and play with the dogs?” I suggested.

He liked that and they liked when we came. Those dogs needed love and attention and Andy had the capacity to give a lot of both.

But he frowned. “They won’t let me take one.”

This was new.

And it was true.

Maybe I needed to get him a dog.

Of course, that would mean me taking care of said dog while Andy only had visitation.

Next idea.

“Parks and Recreation marathon?” I tried again.

His face lit up. “Yeah!”

He loved that show. We’d seen every episode at least four times.

“Thank goodness I got the stuff to make pulled pork so it can cook all day while we laze in front of the TV,” I replied.

“Pulled pork, Ta-Ta, cool. Thank you.”

He loved my pulled pork.

“Right. We have a plan. I’ll get that in the Crockpot while you finish your Trix, and then get a shower. I’ll get cleaned up and we’ll spend the day with Leslie Knope and Andy Dwyer.”

“Awesome,” he muttered, turning back to his Trix.

I moved around the island to get the Crockpot out of the cabinet under it.

Andy ate his Trix and got a shower as I put the pork shoulder in the Crockpot with the rest of my secret ingredients (secret to the extent Andy didn’t know them but the rest of the world did since the recipe was on the side of the spice packet).

We watched Parks and Rec.

When the time came, we pigged out on pulled pork, homemade macaroni salad and waffle fries. Not long enough after, we scooped up ice cream in my special ice cream (and Andy-cereal) bowls. Some time after that, I went to bed feeling like I weighed a ton and having a dull throb in my head from watching too much TV, not being active enough and eating way too much.

I didn’t care even a little bit.

On Sunday, Andy was feeling the pull to play with the dogs at the shelter.

So we did that after I got a latte and Andy got a hot cocoa at Babycakes, during which Andy, as was his norm, charmed the pants off of Babycakes Watson, the owner, who had that moniker for reasons unknown to me.

She also had a history of dogs she named the same thing, one after the other that replaced one when it had died. They were all poodles and she was currently on Babycakes IV (who was in attendance during our visit at the coffee house, then again, they always were), a standard red who had replaced the sadly departed Babycakes III, a standard blue who had died last year.

After playing with the dogs (and cats) at the shelter, we came home and watched movies.

After that, I took him for ribs at Po-Jack’s barbecue place in Morsprings to finish up our barbecue-themed weekend.

Then my weekend with my brother was done.

So I took him home, went back to my place, made myself tea, gave myself my moment and finally went out to my porch.

Alone.

Just as I’d done every night since Hix ended things.

It was Monday night and I was in the produce section at the grocery store when the first thing happened.

That being Shari walking her cart up to mine and crying, “Ohmigod! Your eye!”

This, or a version of it, had been the refrain all day (and from the workers at the shelter, Babycakes, and the folks who saw me at Sunnydown).

I was learning that a black eye didn’t start out black. It started kinda faded purple.

It got a deep, ugly, horrid black that defied concealer after a few days.

“Andy winged me with an elbow accidentally,” I told her, also a constant refrain that day (though I didn’t share that with others in front of Andy). “It looks worse than it is.”

That last was true. It hurt the first few days but now it was just a dull ache I barely felt at all.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured, studying my eye before she brightened. “Did you hear?”

I heard a lot of things. I worked in a salon.

So my reply was, “I don’t know.”

“About Hal.”

Hal?”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Hal . . . uh, what’s-his-name. I don’t remember his last name. I kinda don’t want to, he’s kinda a jerk. But I’ve met his wife Ashlee in passing. She’s nice. Not sure you know her, I think she gets her hair done at The Cutting Edge.”

She was rambling and I was tired, in heels and hungry so I cut in to say, “I don’t think I know him,” in a hopefully not rude effort to get her to move this along.

“He’s one of Hixon’s deputies.”

Oh boy.

“He found the gun that killed Faith’s husband,” she declared.

I stood still and stared at her.

“It’s really good he did that. Apparently, he spent ages workin’ hunches on his free time, out with metal detectors with a couple of his buddies on game trails, hiking trails, roadsides. And he found it on a stretch of road over in Sheridan County.”

“That’s excellent,” I told her.

“Yeah.” She grinned. “One step closer.”

I hoped so, for Faith (and, damn it, Hixon).

“And, well . . .” Shari’s look turned cautious, “you probably heard Shaw moved in with Hixon. Permanent-like.”

Uh-oh.

“Yeah?” I murmured.

“Is it okay to talk about this?” she queried. “I mean, I know you two aren’t an item anymore but it didn’t last a long time and . . . hey, by the way, you gonna go out with Mrs. Swanson’s Owen? She’s telling everyone she’s gonna set you two up.”

Crap.

“I’m just kinda . . . doin’ my own thing at the moment,” I replied.

She nodded like she, a woman who was now thirty-six, hadn’t been married to her husband since she was twenty and she had any concept what “doing her own thing” as a single gal really meant.

Then she kept talking.

“Well, as you can imagine, Hope is beside herself. But think she’s finally gettin’ smart, ’cause, see, everyone knows this wasn’t Hixon’s idea. It was Shaw’s. He’s real mad at her.” She leaned in. “Real mad.” She leaned back. “I thought, when I heard, that she’d be spreadin’ it around that she blames Hix. But apparently, Shaw threw such a fit at havin’ to go back to his momma’s yesterday, Jep had to get involved. He came into town. Sat down with his girl. Told her the way of things and the girls went back. But Shaw didn’t. And all day today, all Hope’s sayin’ is that her boy needs his daddy at his age and she thinks it’s good, Shaw havin’ time with his father, learnin’ to be a man before he goes off to be a marine.”

“Well, I hope that all works out,” I said, and I did, but I’d rather not be talking about it.

“Girls won’t be far behind, I reckon, they learn the full truth about their momma,” Shari predicted.

“Well, I hope with that they never do,” I shared, and I hoped that too, a lot.

“Me too, but,” she shrugged, “things got a way of gettin’ out and Hope’s on the back foot now. She’s scramblin’. Losin’ Hix like she did. Losin’ her son like that. Folks knowin’ why and they’re bein’ nice enough, but she’s also feelin’ the cold shoulder. She’s got a lot to make up for, pain she’s caused. So now she’s got Julie Baker spreadin’ around how proud she is of Hix, this sad business with Nat Calloway and how far they got when they started with a whole load of nothin’. Julie’s spreadin’ it wide how Hope always knew what a good policeman he was and how she isn’t glad how he got the reason to prove it, but she’s still glad the county knows for certain we’re in good hands.”

God, Hope Drake was a piece of work.

“Mm-hmm,” I murmured.

Shari gave me a close look that shifted to a horrified one.

“You aren’t okay with talkin’ about this,” she said, aghast at what she thought was her insensitivity.

She was sweet and she was right in what she’d said earlier.

Hixon and I weren’t an item anymore. We never officially were. It was just me who was an idiot bent on proving that fact repeatedly with all men.

So she shouldn’t feel bad.

“It’s just that I’ve been on my feet all day,” I lied, twisted from my cart and lifted up a foot to show her one of my pumps that I could run a marathon in, even right then (okay, maybe not right then but if pressed, I could maybe walk a 5K). “And I just wanna get my groceries, get home and get these off. But Andy ate me out of house and home so I have to restock or go hungry. And from what Andy and I put away this weekend, I can’t put that off and just buy some fried chicken at the deli. I need something green or my body is gonna shut down.”

“I hear you,” she replied and smiled. “Though I don’t because I only wore heels to my prom and my wedding, but those were enough. So I also do and I’ll let you go.”

“Thanks, babe. And it was good to see you, Shari.”

“You too, honey. Give that brother of yours a hug from me when you see him again, and you should bring him for another day in the salon sometime. I wasn’t there any of the times you’ve brought him but all the girls say he’s great and I’d love to meet him.”

“Good idea. I’ll talk with Andy about that.”

“Great. Get done with your shoppin’, get yourself home and I’ll talk to you later.”

She raised a hand, gave me a wave, put it back to her cart and motored off.

I grabbed my salad fixins, fruit and wheeled my cart into the small sea of aisles that were half the number of any King Soopers in Denver, but still managed by some miracle to have all the stuff.

I did this trying to put all Shari had shared out of my mind.

And failing miserably.

They got the gun.

Good.

That meant at least that crazy drifter wouldn’t shoot anybody else (I hoped).

Also, Hixon’s son had turned his back on his mother.

I had no idea if that was good or bad, but in one way or another, no matter the reason, any child doing that was bad.

And Hope was back-peddling.

I had no idea how that would go.

All I knew, and I knew it well, was that Hixon Drake had one hell of a temper, so if he reacted the way he did to spending time with my mother, him discovering his wife ended a two-decade-long marriage over a piece of expensive jewelry, well . . .

She was screwed.

I was in the coffee and tea section when the next thing happened.

And it was a lot worse than Shari gossiping about Hixon and Hope Drake.

I also had my mind filled with what she’d said, much of it about Hixon, so my mind was filled with him.

Therefore I was not prepared for the man himself to make an appearance.

But this he did, saying from close to my side, “Greta?”

I turned my head from perusing the tea selection and stared up at him standing right there.

At my side.

God, that thick, dark hair with its minimal, but awesome, silver flecks, his height, those broad shoulders, his pool-blue eyes.

It was hateful he was so beautiful.

He didn’t stare at me.

His eyes narrowed on my shiner and his face turned to granite.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

“Hixon,” I whispered back.

Suddenly, and honest to God I didn’t know how it happened or how it happened so fast, I didn’t have hands to my cart and head turned to Hixon Drake.

I had my back pinned to shelves and Hixon Drake in my space, his thumb curved around the bottom of my jaw, fingers splayed along my cheek, tilting my head back, his face in mine, his eyes sweltering, his voice an enraged (loud) rumble.

“What the fuck?” he near-to bellowed.

“I—”

“Who did this to you?” he demanded to know.

“It was just a—”

His hand slid from my jaw to clamp, firm but still surprisingly gentle, around the side of my neck. “Why didn’t you report this to me?”

My head twitched in confusion.

“Report . . . what?” I asked.

“I’m the sheriff, Greta,” he bit out. “A man takes his fist to you, you call the fuckin’ sheriff.”

“A man didn’t—”

“Who did it?”

“Hixon, it was just—”

He got nose to nose with me. “Who fuckin’ touched you?”

God!

It was infuriating how he never let me speak.

“Step back,” I demanded.

“Greta, tell me who did this to you,” he growled.

“Take your hand off me, Sheriff, and step back!” I yelled.

He stared into my eyes and didn’t move.

“Back!” I shouted.

He stepped back and took his hand from my neck but he did it putting his other one to my cart and holding it steady, angling his body, me imprisoned by the cart, his frame and the shelves.

“Talk to me,” he ordered.

I was at that moment very aware we had an audience.

I didn’t look from Hixon.

“It’s not your business.”

“A man harms a woman in my county, it’s my business,” he forced out between clenched teeth.

“It’s not what you think.”

Now he was letting me finish sentences, but he still didn’t listen to me because he didn’t refer to that with his next, he just continued on with what he had to say.

“And I’ll make this clear to you right here, I don’t give a shit you’ve blocked my calls, any man harms you, Greta, you, you tell me and I deal with it for you first as a man then as the sheriff.”

Um.

What?

No. No. No.

He wasn’t going to put his dibs in to look after me after he stood in my house and gutted me.

“Step away,” I ordered.

“Talk to me.”

“Step away!” I yelled.

He dipped his face in mine and roared, “Talk to me!”

“My brother did it! All right! He doesn’t like rain, freaked out, elbowed me in the face.”

He slid back an inch and stared at me in surprise.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. He’s fine. Now step back!” I screeched the last.

“Your brother?” he asked a whole lot more calmly.

I wasn’t so calm.

He didn’t get to pin me against shelves like some alpha-male run amuck and ask me questions he should have asked me when he was sleeping in my bed and eating breakfast at my kitchen island.

“My brother,” I bit out. “Now, Sheriff, you don’t get to do this. You made things clear in my living room and, I don’t know, say just now, jumping to conclusions I’d be stupid enough and also slutty enough to get myself another man about a week after you dumped me before we even had a date and then letting that man hit me without turning his ass in to the cops.”

“That’s not what I thought.”

“What’d you think?”

God!

Why had I asked?

I needed to get out of there.

“Your mother is connected to Kavanagh Becker and he’s not a nice guy but he is a guy who has a posse of equally not-nice guys.”

“I’ve never even heard that name in my life.”

“Okay, sweetheart, but it doesn’t make that fact any less true.”

Sweetheart.

Oh shit.

I was going to cry.

I hadn’t cried since it happened.

I couldn’t cry.

“Step back, Hixon,” I whispered.

“Greta.”

“Step back!” I shrieked.

He stepped back.

I snatched my purse out of the seat of the cart, turned and ignored the onlookers we had (especially the sheer number of them) as I ran out of the grocery store, leaving my groceries behind, leaving my cart behind, probably leaving a healthy dose of my dignity behind, thus focusing on the fact I had leftover pulled pork in the fridge.

I probably couldn’t eat it without throwing it up.

But in case I managed to pull myself together, at least I wouldn’t starve.

The ringing of the doorbell came first.

When I ignored that, the knocking came.

When I ignored that, with only intermittent spurts of respite, it just kept coming.

Finally (and by “finally” I meant this lasted probably five minutes, but that was a long five minutes) , I moved and stood on the opposite end to the door at the picture window at the front of my house and peeked through the windows.

From my angle, I couldn’t see who was at the door.

But I could see a Bronco in my drive.

Not at the curb this time.

Oh no.

He wasn’t trying to share with anyone who saw it that he was there for just a visit and not for an all-night booty call by parking casually at the curb. He also wasn’t intent on sharing with me that he was going to do what he had to do and get the hell out of there and he wanted to do it without the bothersome effort of reversing out of my drive.

Nope.

He’d parked in my driveway like his badass and supercool (it sucked, but it was true) Bronco belonged there.

He wanted to push this?

Fine.

I had a few things to say to make things clear too.

And maybe he might allow me to finish a few sentences for once so I could say them.

But after I did, we’d be done.

For good.

So I went to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open and glared into Hixon Drake’s devastatingly handsome face.

“What?” I snapped.

“Can I come in?” he asked gently.

Fuck him.

And fuck his gentle.

“Be my guest,” I declared, stepping back and moving away, far away, putting the couch between me and him.

He walked to the back of it, his eyes never leaving me, and stopped.

“Greta—”

“I let you in here because this time I have a few things to say and if you don’t want to listen, you can leave right now.”

He just held my gaze and said nothing.

He also didn’t move.

I took that as indication he was going to listen so I launched in.

“Not that you deserve an explanation, but it’ll make,” I jerked a thumb at myself, “me feel better to share with you my relationship with my mother is nonexistent. From the moment she nearly killed my brother in a drunk-driving accident, her being the drunk, she became nothing to me but a nuisance I had to throw money at way too often to stop her from interfering with my life. Something, I’ll also share because I’m feeling in the mood that has stopped very recently. She wasn’t liking that all that much, even though apparently she’s found another meal ticket, so she took that out on me and did it through you.”

Several moments after I quit talking, Hixon asked, “She almost killed your brother?”

I jerked up my chin. “That record I told you about. She served eight months. However, if it was up to me, after what she did to him, she’d still be in prison, rotting.”

Again several moments after I stopped, he asked, “And your brother?”

“He’s at Sunnydown. He has a TBI. Severe issues with recall. Deficits in attention and concentration. Problems reading and writing. Lack of motivation. He has episodes. Sometimes they’re seizures. Sometimes they’re aggressive. He also has regressive behaviors that the doctors think have nothing to do with the TBI and everything to do with the trauma of having our mother be a mother who was okay being shitfaced and picking up her fifteen-year-old son from a party in the rain. And that also explains the rain. He gets agitated and sometimes harms himself when it’s raining. It rained Friday night. He was spending the weekend with me. He had an episode. I tried to stop him from hurting himself, he caught me with an elbow.”

I pointed with my whole hand, fingers out straight and pressed together, to my eye and then offered my conclusion.

“That’s it. So we’re done. Finished. As you said . . . over. Thank you for listening and have a nice night. Don’t worry. I’ll lock the door after you leave.”

Again with the gentle when he replied, “There’s more to say.”

“You’re right, there is,” I agreed and then gave him exactly that. “Even if we were together, it would not be your right to pin me against shelves in a grocery store or anywhere. It would also not be your right to detain me in any way if I didn’t so wish, especially after I repeatedly asked you to step back.”

“I mentioned this the other night, but as I unfortunately conveyed, I wasn’t in a space to be as forthcoming as I should have been since I also unfortunately assumed incorrectly that you already knew. But Kavanagh Becker cooks meth. A lot of it. In this county. And he’s tight with your mother.”

I stared at him.

God.

God.

My mother.

“He’s a dangerous man,” Hixon carried on. “He cooks it and distributes it out of this county, but he doesn’t deal it in this county. Regardless, to do what he does and to get as wealthy as he is doing it, he’s good at it but doesn’t keep great company. After your mother and Becker had their fun with me, Becker paid a visit to me at my department the next day and shared your mother is not happy you’ve cut her out. It isn’t a leap, baby, with the games they played with me, the way they both were during that, to think that something broke with that and they came after you.”

Okay, well.

Damn.

That made sense.

And damn again.

Mom had a really bad guy in her corner.

I hadn’t thought of that at the time, what with losing Hixon taking precedence and all.

But I thought of it now.

I bit my lip and looked away, considering the many atrocities she could inflict on me with these new resources.

And Andy.

Shit.

“I’m sorry.”

When those words came from Hixon, I looked back at him.

He continued talking.

“I saw your eye and I’ve not been in a good way about what I said to you, how I left it between us, you blocking my calls, me worried that they might be affecting your life and how that might be, and I didn’t curb my reaction. I should have, in a grocery store, in your living room, it doesn’t matter. But you have a black eye, Greta, and I’ve had a coupla those. They don’t feel good and there’s never a good way to get one. I just jumped to what I hope you get now are valid, if erroneous, conclusions about how you got yours.”

Crap.

That made sense too.

And crap again.

If something like that was swirling around someone I cared about and I saw they had a black eye, I might pin them against some shelves too to demand their story, and I wasn’t even a six-foot-one, built, badge-wielding alpha-male.

I didn’t give him that.

I snapped, “Fine.”

“I still shouldn’t have pinned you in like that and forced a scene.”

“You’re right. Thank you for your apology. Now you’re free to leave.”

“Greta—” he started, his body moving like he was going to make a move to come to me.

“Don’t,” I whispered and he froze. “Not again, Hixon. Just don’t.”

“Corinne knows about us.”

And another time that night, my head twitched in confusion at his sudden, bewildering announcement.

“Sorry?”

“My daughter. Corinne. Hope told her about us. She’s . . . not pleased. She sees it as a betrayal of her mother. On the other hand, Shaw already knew, talk in school, his girlfriend filled him in so he wouldn’t get surprised if kids said something to him. He’s cool with it. But he wasn’t cool with his mother sharing news he knows I would have shared when the time came to share it. He’s been having issues with Hope for a while, with what she did to our family, those came to a head, and right after Corinne blasted me, he called and asked to live with me. All this happened on the way to Becker’s. I actually hung up with Shaw getting out of my truck at the foot of the stairs to his house. Then I walked in and got hit with your mom and Becker’s form of fun. I took that out on you—”

I interrupted him to confirm, “You did.”

“And it was wrong,” he carried on.

“It was,” I agreed.

“And I regretted it almost as soon as it happened.”

“And you show this by calling me the next morning and telling me what I should do when I run my mouth?”

“Then I was pissed at Lou.”

“I see.” I nodded. “And you took that out on me.”

He bent and leaned into both hands on the back of the couch, his head tipped back to keep hold on my eyes, and I lamented the fact he looked amazing doing that too.

“Right,” he started, “I get this doesn’t look good for me and I get why. I totally get that, sweetheart. But I’ll point out, I don’t usually have a nineteen-year marriage ending because my wife didn’t get a promise from me I’d buy her some fancy-assed ring for our twentieth . . .”

He trailed off and studied me, not moving from his position.

And I knew I gave it away.

“You knew,” he said quietly.

I pressed my lips together but they unpressed themselves to blurt, “I’m sorry, Hixon. Everyone knew.”

“Right,” he muttered, oddly not looking pissed out of his brain, as he should be. “Whatever,” he kept muttering.

Whoa.

Whatever?

When he spoke again, he wasn’t muttering.

“I live in a shithole apartment not big enough for my kids when I have them, and I don’t like it much even when I don’t. My daughter feels I betrayed her mother, and her, by seeing another woman, and I wasn’t with her or in a position to have the time or anything close to it to explain things to her how they should have been explained. My son is setting himself up to despise his mom until his last breath and I’m struggling with the fact I know I should do somethin’ about that and the understanding, with the harm she’s willingly inflicted on our family, I have no motivation to help her repair things with her boy. I was investigating a murder where every second is crucial in the days closest to the event to find as much as we could to catch the killer, and I’m driving twenty miles out to Becker’s place for him and your mother to play with me. That was all happening and I lost it. With you. I regret it. Because it was the wrong thing to do. But mostly because you didn’t deserve it and I know I hurt you.”

He was calm.

He was apologetic.

He was making sense.

He was taking his time in what was his busy, crazy, messed-up life to explain this to me.

He was beautiful, all tall and dark and leaning into my couch.

But I couldn’t do it.

Because when he’d said he wanted to complicate things with me, I’d never wanted anything more in my life, except Andy to have a happy one, and of course, the time I sat in the waiting room with Keith while Andy was in surgery, wanting Andy to get out of that surgery room alive.

I hadn’t even wanted Keith that much and I’d loved him with what I’d thought was every part of me.

But with Keith there was always the knowledge that he gave, I took, and the guilt I carried with me constantly because of that.

With Hixon, I got to give. I got to take care of him. I got to be the one he came to when he needed to suck back bourbon, not able to share anything but wanting to try to unwind from serious business after an incomprehensibly ugly day.

He gave too. He teased me and made me laugh and looked at me in a way that made me feel beautiful, and he not only showed, but verbalized that he appreciated what I gave to him and that it meant something.

He also didn’t hesitate to take all that away.

I couldn’t do it again.

Maybe from the beginning he’d been right.

Bad timing.

We should have waited. Waited for his life to calm down. Waited for him and his kids to settle into a new life.

Just waited.

We didn’t.

And now it was broken in a way it couldn’t be fixed.

I hated it that he knew he broke it and he was there trying to fix it.

And I hated it that I had to tell him it couldn’t be fixed.

“I can’t risk it again, Hixon.”

He kept his place but dropped his head.

God, I hated that too.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He tipped his head back and again gave me those blue eyes.

I didn’t hate those.

God.

“What we have is good,” he said softly.

“It’s not the right time.”

“Then we’ll give it time.”

I shook my head.

And I’d thought he’d gutted me the last time he was in my living room.

But I was wrong.

He gutted me right then.

“Greta, you’re the finest woman I’ve ever met. We work together. We fit together. I know you feel it the same as me. And we’d be fools not to see where that would lead, and I don’t give a shit all that’s swirling around me, or you. If we can make it through what I did to you, I can earn your trust again, and we can get beyond all that’s happening now, I got a strong feeling where it would lead.”

“I had a good man like you who left me because of my mother, Hixon. She’s not going anywhere.”

“I wanna know that story, but I don’t care about your mother.”

“Trust me, I’ve had thirty-eight years of it, and she’s been quiet for a week. She’s just sharpening her knives. Eventually, you’ll care.”

“Babe—”

“It hurt too much, what you did to me,” I whispered.

He shut up.

“It had only been days,” I explained quietly. “What happens when I have more and you take it away?”

“What could happen if that never happens?” he returned.

“That’s not the life I lead.”

He pushed up from the couch, kept looking me straight in the eyes, and declared, “I’m stronger than that other guy.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can because I know this, if you wanted a twenty-five thousand dollar ring for our anniversary, I’d take a second job to get it for you.”

I gasped.

And I stared.

“And that’s because in two days you gave me more than my wife did in nineteen years, notwithstanding our children and the fact she’s got issues, but she’s a good mother. That’s an uncomfortable realization, sweetheart. And she had her way of doin’ nice things. But she wasn’t you.”

“You can’t know that either.”

“I can. I do.”

Oh my God.

“Hixon.”

He lifted one hand and dropped it.

“You need time. I’ll give it to you. I need time too. Corinne is still pissed and Shaw’s not in a good place. But Greta, I leave, it’s not my right to ask this of you, but I’m gonna do it anyway. Think about it. Unblock my fuckin’ number. And after I give us time, take my call.”

“I don’t want to hurt you but I have to say at this juncture I don’t think that’s smart, and I say that for the both of us.”

“You seen the Avengers movie?”

And again my head twitched.

“Sorry?”

“The Avengers movie. You seen it?”

“Which one?” I asked stupidly because I’d seen them all. Andy liked them.

“Whatever one.”

“Yes . . . uh, all of them.”

He nodded. “I was a selfish fuck. I get you. I get that guilt you carried in your marriage. I don’t know the story. I just know in my way, I did that to you. I took from you and I didn’t give back. I did that because you came into my life in a time I needed to take. And that’ll happen again. But that’s not all there is to me. I just need you to think about whether you’ll give me the shot to prove it to you.”

That was incredibly sweet.

Still.

“Why did you ask about the Avenger movies?”

He smiled at me.

And I wished he hadn’t done it.

“Because my daughter says boys are stupid. They talk about themselves all the time, don’t ask girls questions, don’t let them talk, don’t listen. And I’ve unfortunately proved grown men who should know better do that too.”

Goddammit.

Now he was making sense, being sweet and now kinda cute.

“I wanna know all about you, Greta,” he said in a voice that sounded like velvet and felt that way too. “So I’ll give you time to think about it. And after you have that time, I hope you give me that privilege, ’cause before the season ends, I wanna go watch my son play ball and have you there, walking out of Raider Field with me next to you. Not Lou.”

After delivering that, he turned and strolled to the door.

He opened it.

Stopped.

Looked at me.

And smiled.

“Lock this, baby.”

Then he disappeared.