Well Done

Greta

THE DOORBELL RANG.

I tottered to it on my high heels, the girls moving in behind me.

I then hit the outside light switch that meant the porch went dark, but the revolving lights that Hix had put out that displayed dead trees and cats with their backs arched and witches flying across full moons could be seen, the images covering both sides of the porch along with hanging fairy lights with ghosts on them.

Everything at the ready, I opened Hix’s front door for the umpteenth time that Halloween night.

I bent low, and in a ghoul’s voice, said through my fake fangs, “Good eeeeeeeevening.”

I then stepped aside.

That was when Mamie and three of her girlfriends, all in tattered tutus and leotards with blood dripping down their fronts from two fake holes in their necks, faces made up pale, eyes shadowed, hair in perfect ballerina chignons (makeup and hair courtesy of me), flitted out with arms gracefully held out to their sides.

They arrayed themselves, two by two on either side of the door. They then got up on pointe, arms curled in front of them, and did a pirouette. They stopped and raised their arms over their heads, but with heads drooping to the sides, staring down at the five trick-or-treaters (a Harry Potter, two Reys from Star Wars, an Elsa and a Captain America).

All five trick-or-treaters stared among the dancers in awe.

“Oh no! The sheriff and his deputy!” I cried, and all the ballerinas flitted back into the house as the kids whirled around and watched Hix and his deputy, Bets, walking up the front steps wearing jeans, boots and their sheriff shirts, both carrying big, orange jack-o’-lantern, handled buckets filled with candy.

“The sheriff,” Captain America breathed.

“Hey, kids,” Bets greeted, coming to the top of the steps.

She got a couple of waves (from both Reys) but the other three were staring at Hix.

“Candy after you promise to look both ways when you cross the street, always let your parents know where you are, brush your teeth morning and night and you never talk to strangers. You with me on all that?” Hix asked.

“Totally!” Harry Potter exclaimed, jumped toward Hix’s bucket and Captain America followed him.

Elsa went to Hix (not surprising). Both Reys went to Bets staring up at her in wonder (also not surprising).

Hix looked at me.

I’d talked him into doing this. He’d only agreed when I’d allowed him to lecture the kids (slightly) prior to them getting candy. Bets was all in since she said giving out candy alone sucked.

“You’re the awesomest vampire I’ve ever seen.”

I turned my head to one of the moms (who was also one of Lou’s clients, I thought her name was Georgina), and smiled.

My makeup was the bomb. I had pale skin, winged brows, dark makeup around my eyes that gave way to a bright purple and dribbling blood coming down the sides of my mouth. My hair was fabulous and huge and sprayed black. And I was wearing my blood-stained cocktail dress from the night of real terror in my kitchen.

That night made for a far better memory in that dress than the last time I’d worn it, for certain.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“Right, kids, say thanks to the vampire and the sheriff and his deputy and let’s go,” the other mom said.

The kids cried their enthusiastic thanks. Hix and Bets wandered toward me. And as they left, I heard one child say, “We’re totally coming to this house every year.”

That made me smile again.

I loved Halloween. It was my favorite holiday (not counting Christmas because Christmas was in a league of its own). Last year, I’d gone trick or treating with Lou and Maple and some of Maple’s friends (Snow declared she was too old to go with us, she’d done something with friends). It had been great, but I missed handing out candy.

This was way better.

I felt Hix’s lips at my ear. “I’m totally fucking you in that getup later, but you’ll have to lose the fangs.”

Oh yeah.

This was way better.

We moved in and I saw Andy standing with the girls, smiling at me.

“So . . . awesome,” Andy said.

I smiled at my brother too.

He was also done up as a vampire. We were taking turns opening the door. And if there was ever a time his scar worked for him, this was it. Even he said so, declaring after I was done with his makeup, “I’m scaring even myself. I’m Scarface Vampire!”

“It’s getting late, girls,” Hix said to his daughter and her friends. “You wanna go out, the time is now.”

They looked undecided.

I knew why. They were having a blast doing our thing with us.

It was Mamie’s time with her mom but when I talked to Hix about doing this with him and Andy, she’d been around and said she’d wanted to join in. She’d then asked her mom if it was okay and Hope had said yes.

Mamie had been elated.

It had been only just under two weeks since Hix talked to Hope, during which nothing had happened, so it showed progress from Hope.

That made me elated.

Hix decided for the girls.

“Next year you’ll be freshmen, too old for this, so pack it in. Get out on the sidewalks, and Mamie, like we talked about, two block radius and you’re taking Greta’s phone.”

“We got great costumes and totally awesome makeup, we should,” Mamie told her friends.

“Pointe shoes off,” Hix ordered.

“Right, Dad,” Mamie said. Then to her girls, “Let’s go!”

They ran up the steps.

I slid my fangs out and looked to my brother.

“It’s up to you and me now, bud,” I told him.

“I’m in!” he replied.

The doorbell rang.

A cacophony of ballerinas instantly could be heard storming back down the stairs with Mamie screeching, “One more time!”

Hix gave me a look I liked a whole lot, full of sweetness and tenderness and hotness and promise, before he and Bets took off to go out the back and walk around the house.

So when I turned to the door as Andy rushed to it, I did it smiling.

I was riding Hix and getting close when his hands at my waist lifted me off.

He tossed me to the side, rolled me to my belly, pulled me up to my knees and drove back in.

I flipped my hair to the side (or, with all that black spray in it, it more like shifted to the side), looked back at him and breathed, “I can’t suck your blood like this.”

He kept thrusting inside me even as he grinned and said, “My blood is all in one area of my body now, baby. But you wanna suck that, I’m good to lie back and take it.”

“No, no,” I said hurriedly (or more like, moaned hurriedly). “Carry on.”

His grin turned wicked and his hand slid from my hip down, around and in, and it was then I stuffed my face in his bed and got makeup all over his comforter.

I didn’t think he minded.

“I don’t know. That’s all Larry saw. But she’s still with him.”

It was Monday the week after Halloween. Hix had had his kids back, but that day, they’d gone again to Hope. All of them, including Shaw for the first time since he moved in exclusively with Hix.

Hope was doing her thing, Hix was doing his.

And it seemed to be working.

This meant he could resume Monday Night Football at the Outpost with his buds, Toast and Tommy. He’d brought me. Donna had showed. So had Hal and Ashlee.

And now he was telling me Larry had seen Mom with Kavanagh Becker getting a coffee at Babycakes.

I hadn’t heard from her since the Sunnydown incident.

Maybe this was why.

“So, you think she got her meal ticket, you made your point you’re not gonna take her crap or let me do it, she smartened up enough to take heed of your official position, and she’s doing what she has to do to try to settle in with this guy for the long haul?” I asked.

“Been in the woman’s company not even a handful of times, sweetheart,” Hix replied. “Got no clue. You said she’d come and go. It’s been a while. She ever go for this long?”

I looked to my beer and muttered, “She didn’t keep a schedule.” I looked back to Hix. “Sometimes it would be long enough I’d think that was the end. Then she’d come back.”

He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and dipped in close. “Just givin’ you the info on what Larry saw. Keepin’ you apprised. Didn’t do it to bum you out. But just to repeat, she tries any more shit, we’ll deal.”

I held his gaze and nodded only to have my arm cuffed on the other side and hear Toast say, “It’s Monday Night Football, people. Serious conversations are verboten.”

“Her first Monday Night Football and the chick is breakin’ all the rules,” Tommy, on Toast’s other side, teased.

“Shush,” Toast hushed Tommy. “You might scare her off and she’s a chick that doesn’t glare at the plate of nachos like she can make it combust with her eyes or act like she doesn’t want to shove her face in it and eat it all herself. Be gentle with this unknown entity, Tom, she might bolt.”

“Right,” Tommy said. “Sorry, Greta. You can get serious with Hix all you want. Don’t glare at our nachos and make them combust.”

Through my laughter I assured, “Your nachos are safe, boys.”

“No they’re not,” Donna declared, pushing through Toast and me holding a salad plate and commencing scooping half the remains of the nachos on it.

“Hey! You’re hoggin’ it all!” Toast shouted.

“I told you to move it down my way,” Donna reminded him, licking melted cheese from her fingers.

“Then it wouldn’t be smack in front of me,” Toast returned.

“Betty-Jean, another plate of nachos, yeah?” Hix ordered, and when I looked to him, I saw his eyes on the bartender.

“Got it, Hixon,” Betty-Jean replied and shuffled to the electronic cash register to put our order in.

“Stop being logical, Sheriff, it kills the fun of gettin’ up in Donna’s shit,” Toast demanded.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Donna returned. “I’ll do something else you feel you need to get up in my shit about. Like continuing to root for the Cardinals.”

“Don’t make me puke,” Toast retorted. “The Cards? This is Broncos country.”

“It is not. It’s Chiefs country,” Tommy fired back.

“Dude, give it up with the Chiefs,” Toast advised, turning from me to Tommy. “The Broncs are where it’s at.”

“You grew up rooting for the Chiefs. You only switched to the Broncs like, four years ago. Where’s your loyalty?” Tommy replied.

“It’s Seahawks all the way,” Hal put in from down the bar.

“Yeah!” Ashlee cried. “They have the best colors for their uniforms.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” Toast asked.

“No,” Ashlee retorted. “That green is amazing.”

“Someone shoot me,” Tommy requested of the ceiling.

“Okay,” Ashlee agreed. “Hal, give me your gun.”

Hal started laughing.

Toast and Tommy dipped a shoulder hunched Hal and Ashlee’s way and began to launch in.

“You’re welcome,” Donna said, and my eyes swung to her. She motioned between Hix and me with her plate. “Carry on.”

She then went back to her seat on the other side of Tommy and tucked into her nachos.

I turned to Hix. “Your friends are da bomb.”

His eyes lit. “Did you just say da bomb?”

“Yes, because they’re da bomb.”

He burst out laughing.

I watched, grinning at him the whole time.

And when he quit, he dug into the nachos.

I did too.

That Wednesday night, I watched Hix walk up my front walk and I did it with more than my usual admiring eye, and not because there was more than usual to admire due to the fact that there was always a lot to admire about Hixon Drake.

I did it because I could tell by the line of his body and the look on his face that something was wrong.

I stayed where I was like I always stayed where I was when Hix came to me at night (these being the nights I didn’t go to him, which was most of the time when his kids weren’t with him).

I was under a blanket with a sweater and scarf on, my tea on a heating pad beside me, my book forgotten on my lap as he made his way to me.

He bent deep and took my mouth in a quick, wet kiss before he turned and did what I’d trained him to do. Sit and give me his order of what he needed.

But this time, instead of folding into the chair beside me and telling me he wanted beer, bourbon or food, he collapsed in it and stayed silent.

He was wearing his sheriff’s shirt, a thermal under it, and a cool brown leather jacket with his badge pinned on the outside of it.

I approved of his winter sheriff’s uniform.

I did not tell him this.

I noted softly, “It looks like a bourbon night.”

He didn’t turn his eyes from the street.

He stared at it for long enough for me to get more worried then lifted his hands and rubbed his face, which made me definitely worried.

“Hixon, darlin’,” I murmured.

He dropped his hands but kept his eyes to the street when he said, “Faith came in today to ask if there was any progress with the case.”

Oh boy.

I hadn’t seen Faith since the murder. Her mom had called to cancel her appointment, which was every six weeks and would have fallen three weeks after Nat was killed.

It had been way longer than that and she hadn’t been in. I also hadn’t bugged her to reschedule.

And looking at Hix, I thought maybe I should have.

“Talk to me,” I urged gently.

“She looks like hell. She’s lost, I don’t know, least twenty, thirty pounds. Eyes sunk in. Hair a mess.” Finally, his head turned my way. “She needs answers. She needs closure.”

“I’m sure,” I murmured.

“That gun was registered. It was also reported stolen.”

I said nothing because he’d never talked about any case to me, not in any depth, and definitely not Nat’s, so I was surprised.

“Guy in Kansas reported it stolen the day he came home and found someone broke into his house, this being months before our guy showed in Grant County and did Nat.”

“Okay,” I said quietly to that when he didn’t go on for a long time.

“Crazy shit, guy breaks into his house and what does he steal?”

When it was clear he was actually asking a question, I shook my head but answered, “His gun, obviously.”

“His gun, all the leftover meatloaf and potato salad in his fridge, and far’s the guy can remember, three candy bars.”

“That’s very weird,” I murmured.

“Owner of the gun was cleanin’ it. Left it out on the kitchen table.”

“Not smart,” I muttered.

“Nope.”

“So if he was cleaning it, was it loaded? Or did your guy buy bullets somewhere?”

“He reports it wasn’t loaded and he also reports his ammo was untouched, though that was in a locked cabinet where the gun should have been. Cops saw no indication the guy went anywhere but the kitchen, got in breakin’ a window on the kitchen door to do it. So the guy broke in because he was hungry. Ate ’til he was full. Grabbed some snacks and the gun on the table and took off, leaving the Tupperware in the sink. Where the guy got the bullets, we don’t know. Anywhere he could get them between here and there, we checked and no one remembers seeing him.”

“Did anyone in this place in Kansas see him?”

“That gun turned out to be our murder weapon, the boys in Kansas asked around and even though it had been months, this guy is memorable, so yeah. Our drifter was seen by three people. A kid leavin’ after his shift at a fast food restaurant, a man out walkin’ his dog and a mom in the neighborhood where the robbery took place, goin’ out to her car to pick her kid up from preschool.”

“So you’ve got him there.”

“Yep. Though they saw him around at the time of the robbery, no one had ever seen him before or after. So we got proof our drifter is a serious drifter, makin’ his way from middle-Kansas, hundreds of miles to here. What we don’t got is any understanding of the origins of where this guy started drifting. Outside Kansas and Grant County, no one has seen him. But now we got pictures and bulletins out to every homeless shelter in forty-eight states should this guy go lookin’ for another meal or whatever else he might need, and we got everything to nail him. We just don’t have him.”

“Did they get prints in Kansas?”

Hix shook his head. “Like the truck here, wiped clean. Gracious guest. Put his Tupperware in the sink and wiped down his prints.”

Damn.

I reached out and wrapped my hand around his forearm. “Even if you had him, you couldn’t heal what’s hurting in Faith.”

“You’re right and you’re wrong, baby. Victims of this kind of thing benefit from a case being closed. An understanding of what happened. Knowing justice was served. It isn’t a miracle cure. That wound will remain open a long time and the scar will never fade. But it helps.”

I nodded because I figured that was right. He would definitely know.

Hix looked back to the street. “I need to get this done for Faith.”

“You’re doing everything you can do.”

He gave me his attention again. “I know that. First thing I do every morning is open that case file and sift through it, hoping something will jump out at me, a new idea, a thread of a lead. Nothing ever does. But that doesn’t change the fact I need to find this guy and at least put that to rest for Faith Calloway and her kids.”

I leaned his way and offered what I could, as weak as it was, it was all I had.

“She hasn’t been in. I’ll call her. If she needs it, I’ll go to her place, do her hair, have a chat, see where she is. Talk to Lou, some of the other ladies, start looking after her better. I didn’t push things because I don’t know what she’s going through and I thought she’d need some time. Maybe it’s time for us to start pushing things, help her pick up the tatters of life after Nat and find a way to carry on.”

“Think that’s a good idea, Greta.”

I nodded. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

He twisted his arm in a way he could catch my hand and he did just that, trapping it under his on the arm of his chair with the back of my hand up so he could run his fingers along he insides of mine.

He did this and he watched himself do it.

I let him and I let him do it in silence for some time, watching the preoccupation on his handsome face, knowing the thoughts behind that were troubled and frustrated, and thinking that the people of McCook County lucked out that someone who cared this much ran for their sheriff.

Finally, I spoke.

“I don’t know what you need from me, Hix, but whatever it is, I’m here. I’ll listen. I’ll get you bourbon and sit with you. A beer. Make you some dinner. All you need to do is tell me.”

His eyes drifted up to my face. “You’re doin’ it, sweetheart.”

I gave him a small smile.

He looked to the street, still touching my hand.

I scooched my hip against the side of the chair, leaned into him and dropped my head to rest on his shoulder.

We both sat in the cold, one of the final days we’d have before it chased us inside, and studied my street, letting its peace envelope us.

Hix’s voice was less tight, not less exhausted, when he murmured, “Bourbon and a warmup would be good about now, babe.”

I nodded my head still on his shoulder, lifted it up and set my book aside. I grabbed my blanket and cup of tea, got up and threw the blanket over my arm so I could take Hix’s hand.

He walked me into my house.

I threw the blanket over the back of the couch and he threw his jacket over it.

I got him some bourbon.

And we snuggled in my couch over mindless TV and warmed up before we went to bed, Hix took his time making love to me, and we fell asleep.

I entered the auditorium feeling anxious.

It was the night of Mamie’s recital.

I wasn’t nervous because it was Friday and timing was tight. By my calculations, I’d have just enough of it to watch Mamie’s recital, maybe be with Hixon after she was done as he gave her the big bouquet of flowers he’d brought with him, before I had to take off and get to the Dew Drop. There, I had to slap on some extra makeup, do something with my hair, pull on my dress and be onstage for the first of my sets, which thanks to Gemini being cool, started that night at nine thirty not my usual eight thirty.

No, I was nervous because I’d been able to talk Hix out of pressing me into going to see any of Corinne’s volleyball games because I didn’t want to be too in your face to Hope about my place in Hix’s life so soon after they’d established their détente. Even if it made timing to get to the Dew tight, I went to all the home football games with Hix because Raider Field was larger, more open and seemed safer, for Hope and for me. The gymnasium seemed more closed in, smaller, with less opportunity to be able to put space between us.

I felt guilty about this because Corinne definitely wanted me to go see a game. She didn’t come right out and say it but I could tell by her demeanor when the Drakes talked about the games around me that she was disappointed I didn’t show. And the season was almost over. Not to mention, it hadn’t been days since Hix and Hope sorted things out, it was now weeks. I needed to hit a game.

But Mamie’s dance recitals didn’t come around very often. The next one was a Christmas show that would heavily feature the younger dancers, with no solos, while this one was about the older girls, and specifically Mamie, who had a solo. The next big recital wasn’t until spring and it wasn’t a given she’d have a solo.

So I had to attend.

I wanted to attend.

However, the auditorium was even smaller than the gymnasium and Hope and her entire family would be there.

So I was nervous. I didn’t want an incident. And Hope had proven to be like my mom in some respects, especially the ones where you couldn’t predict when she might pull something.

This was why we hadn’t brought Andy. It sucked because he’d wanted to come. But if some scene was to play out, I didn’t want it to play out in front of him, especially in public. He had an excuse for his unpredictability, but he was still unpredictable, and if something should happen, I could deal. I didn’t want Andy to have to deal too.

We’d promised he could go to the Christmas recital. I just hoped Hope would carry on as she was so he actually could.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Hix whispered in my ear as we walked down the aisle, the attention we were getting something we always got because Hix was Hix, I was with him, all that had gone on had gone on, and that came with the territory.

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.

“Babe,” he said as he stopped us beside a row but didn’t start leading us in.

I looked up at him.

“It’s been weeks. And this is Mamie’s night. She’s makin’ an effort. I know her, Greta. Can’t say I fully understood the games she played over the last year but the woman we’re dealin’ with now I know well. She loves her daughter. She’s not gonna screw up this night for her.”

Before I could reply, I heard, “Hix, son. Greta, darlin’. Good to see you both.”

We turned to see Jep and his wife Marie standing close.

Jep had his hand raised.

Hix took it, shook it, offered a greeting to them both and let Jep go to move in and kiss Marie’s cheek.

Jep then moved in to kiss mine before Marie moved in to give me an awkward hug.

We settled in our uncomfortable huddle with eyes all over the auditorium on us and Jep said, “Lookin’ forward to watchin’ our little girl wow us tonight.”

“Yeah,” Hix replied.

“Heard . . .” Marie started, stopped, and started again. “Heard that cute thing you did on Halloween, Greta. Mamie told us all about it. Reckon all the kids in town’ll be goin’ up Hixon’s walk next October thirty-first.”

I smiled at her and at the kind way she made it plain she thought I’d be with Hix next Halloween and she was (relatively) okay with that.

“Best buy more candy then,” I replied.

She smiled back and I turned when a man’s voice said, “Ma, Dad, we need to find our seats.”

It was then I saw one of Hope’s brothers standing not close but not far. But how he was standing was turned slightly to the side, his arm up behind him toward Hope, like he was holding her back because she faced some physical threat from Hix and me.

“Reed, have you met Greta?” Jep asked.

“Heard enough about the woman, don’t need to meet her,” Reed replied.

I stilled.

Hix turned fully to Reed, his frame set in a way that was more than a little alarming, but the vibe coming off him was beyond alarming.

“Reed!” Marie snapped like he wasn’t whatever-age-he-was (I was guessing mid-forties) but instead about eight.

“Son, this is not—” Jep started.

“Reed, for crap’s sake,” Hope hissed, rounded her brother’s arm and got closer to all of us in order to whisper irately, “Don’t be a dick.”

This time it was Hix who grew still.

I blinked.

“Hix, pretty flowers, Mamie’ll love them,” she said to Hixon and looked to me. “Hey, Greta. Sweet you can make it. Mamie was hoping you could.”

My mind was tumbling with things to try to catch onto in order to push out a reply, but Hope kept talking before I got the chance to say a word.

“Now the curtain will be up soon and seats are filling so we should find some. Hix, Greta, enjoy,” she bid us then started hustling along.

It was then I got over my surprise and noted how much that took out of her because she didn’t do it for the audience of onlookers who were watching with avid interest. She did it for Hix. For Mamie. And maybe for me.

But it hurt her to do it.

It hurt a great deal.

“Hope’s right, we best be gettin’ on. Take care, you two,” Jep said, and he led Marie after Hope.

Her brother Reed glared at us as he stomped past but her other brother stopped, said hello to Hixon and so did Jessie, his wife. Molly, Reed’s wife, who looked fit to be tied, also stopped, forcing a smile at me in between glaring at her husband’s back.

They left.

Hix guided me into the row, right in the middle, where we could see everything. It was also four rows back from where Hope and her family settled, also right in the middle.

Hix took my hand.

I pulled in a deep breath.

“That cost her,” I whispered trying not to stare at the back of Hope’s head.

“Yeah,” Hix whispered back.

I turned eyes up to him. “You okay?”

He looked down at me. “Sure. You?”

I nodded.

He bent in and touched his mouth to mine.

When he pulled back a couple of inches, he grinned gently and said softly, “This is gonna work.”

I grinned back and nodded.

“You think we’ll miss complicated?” I asked.

He settled in, eyes to the stage, muttering, “It’ll come back, sweetheart. So let’s enjoy this while it lasts.”

I knew he was not wrong.

What I didn’t know was how heartbreaking it would be when he was proved right.

I was up in my bathroom putting the final touches on when the doorbell rang.

I turned and stared at the opened doorway to my bathroom, frowning and wondering who that could be.

It couldn’t be Hix. I’d given him a key. He’d come right in the side kitchen door and shout, “Babe!” to let me know he was there seeing as that’s what he always did when he showed and I wasn’t on my porch.

But I was expecting Hix. We had a reservation for Jameson’s that night. It was Tuesday, a kickoff to a big week that included Thanksgiving Thursday.

And I couldn’t wait to have what was really our first, official, just-him-and-me romantic date (we’d been to the Harlequin together repeatedly, we went out with the kids and/or Andy also repeatedly, we met his friends at the Outpost often, and once we went to a movie together, but that was just a date, not a romantic one).

I was totally looking forward to it.

But what I really couldn’t wait for was Thanksgiving.

The kids were spending the morning and early afternoon with Hope and her family at her mom and dad’s ranch, and then they were coming to my place for pie and more football. In the meantime, Andy, Toast, Tommy, Lou, Maple, Snow and Bill were coming over, and obviously Hix would be there, and we were doing dinner together with the added goodness of the kids being there in the evening.

This was a bigger occasion than just our first family holiday together, because in all this time, the kids had never been to my house. Hix and I had talked about me making them dinner but with them at their mom’s half the time, games, dates, practices, me singing at the Dew Drop, we could never get anything scheduled (ditto that for our date at Jameson’s).

As much as I’d wanted that to happen, things worked out the way they should and I loved it that the first time they’d be in my house, at my table, was Thanksgiving. A family day. When Andy and Hix’s friends, and Lou and her family would be there.

But right at that moment, I loved that Hix had made reservations at Jameson’s for a special date for just him and me where I could wow him with my new dress (forest-green, chunky cable-knit, slinky, clingy sweater dress with a cowl neck).

I’d ordered an amazing pair of fawn suede booties to go with it. I had big hair and smoky eyes. I knew Hixon was a sure thing, but I also knew that he thought I was beautiful and loved the way I dressed, so I was hoping that sure thing would get (even more than usually) inspired after sitting through dinner that night with me wearing that dress.

What I didn’t love was having an unknown caller when Hix was due any minute and I hadn’t put on the finishing touches.

Since they were unknown and Hix was due, I decided to go through those finishing touches, hoping it was someone who wanted to guide my path to Jesus or something like that, and who would take a hint when I didn’t open the door. But I did it in a hurry just in case it was something else.

So when the doorbell rang again, I was putting my gold hoop earrings in at the same time zipping up my booties, going back and forth between each.

I finished with the last earring after I got the second bootie on and hurried down the stairs toward the door.

When I hit the bottom, I became confused. Through the sheer curtain, silhouetted by the outside light, I could see a hulking frame that could be Hix’s but also couldn’t because he’d come right in.

Maybe he’d lost his keys.

Though if he did that, he’d phone me.

I hastened to the door, pulled the curtain aside and stared in shock up at Keith who had noticed me and was staring down at me.

What in the hell?

In that moment of surprise, I took him in. His brown hair. His beautiful straight nose. His big, brown eyes. His square, clean-shaven jaw. His broad shoulders.

He was maybe an inch taller than Hix, but though his build was strong and could not be described as lean, it was somehow less substantial than Hix’s. Hix had slightly more bulk, but since it was all muscle, it gave his frame that nuance of added power.

Keith had the body of a tight end.

Hix had the body of a linebacker.

“Greta,” I heard him clip, and it was then I saw he was not only surprisingly there, standing on my porch, unexpected, at six twenty-seven at night, two days before Thanksgiving, he was doing it pissed.

What in the hell?

I quickly unlocked the door, pulled it open and only noticed then he’d already opened my storm door and was standing in it.

I then immediately scuttled back because he was forcing his way in.

“Keith, what . . . I . . . hey. What are you doing here?”

He looked me up and down and he did it seeming strange, like he was holding himself in check and the effort to do that was immense.

Suddenly, he lost that battle and reached out with both hands, yanking me to him and wrapping his arms around me tight as I stood in them, my hands held slightly out to the sides because I didn’t know what to do with them and I had no clue what was going on.

“God, God, God, honey,” he whispered into the top of my hair. “God. Okay. I’m here. It’ll be okay. I’ll make you safe.”

I stared at his jacket in my face and it took a few seconds before I pushed out, “What?”

“He won’t hurt you again. I’ll get you safe. I’ll get Andy safe. We’re going home.”

Safe?

Home?

I was home.

I blinked at his jacket and repeated, “What?”

He transferred his hands to either side of my face, tipping it back and coming right in.

I stiffened entirely as his mouth brushed mine and I hadn’t recovered from the shock as he pulled back, and that shock deepened when he spoke.

“I fucked up. I knew it then,” he whispered. “I just couldn’t see past it. It tore me apart but I couldn’t see past it. Then Tawnee called me. Told me what was happening. Showed me what was happening. And I saw past it. Now I’m here. I’m here to make it all better. I’m here to get us back to where we’re supposed to be.”

Oh no.

What had my mother done?

I carefully tried to pull back, starting, “Keith—”

And then it happened.

Coming from the direction of the kitchen, we both heard, “What the fuck?”

It was Hix.

I tore myself from Keith’s hold and turned to Hix, watching him prowl down the hall from the kitchen, past the dining room, his eyes darting from me to Keith, his face carved from granite, his gait beyond aggressive straight to hostile.

I began to move to him, opening my mouth to speak.

But Keith hadn’t needed a chance to recover.

He was approaching Hix in the same manner and doing it talking.

“You are no longer welcome here.”

That jolted me out of my inactivity, that and the fact that Hix’s face changed to incredulous fury, not to mention they were about to connect in a way it looked like both of them would be thrilled to start brawling in my living room.

I ran directly to them, shouting, “No!”

They had fists raised, torsos twisted to put power behind whatever they were going to do, but I shoved in between them, hands to Hix’s chest, pushing him back (he wouldn’t budge), so I twisted my torso and kept one hand in Hix’s chest and added a hand to Keith’s chest and shrieked, “Stop it!”

“Greta, step aside,” Hix ordered, his hand to my waist trying to make that so.

But I held steady even if I wanted to scream or stamp my foot or at least glare at him, because he was ready to throw down and not only did he not know what was happening (as, I will point out, neither did I), he didn’t even know who Keith was (though, he was the sheriff, he probably could guess).

“Calm down, Hix,” I hissed and looked to Keith. “Step back, Keith.”

“Greta, move,” Keith growled.

“No!” I snapped then shouted, “Step back, Keith! Right now!”

His eyes cut down to mine. “Do not protect this man. I know what he is. I know he’s got you twisted up. And I know I’m gonna get you free.”

“Okay, that. That right there,” I stated, shoving into Keith’s chest (who also didn’t budge) standing firm between them, my other hand still to Hix’s chest, “needs to be explained because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You do,” Keith retorted.

“I do not,” I asserted.

“Then you’re twisted up more than Tawnee said you were.”

God!

My mother!

“Keith, you realize you’re spouting shit Mom told you, and first, you know anything she says is suspect, and second, you know anything she says that’s suspect is also bullshit. So putting that together, pretty much everything out of her mouth is pure bullshit.”

“I have pictures,” he declared.

“Pictures of what?” I asked.

At that, thankfully, he stepped back (though unfortunately not very far), his gaze slicing to Hix’s face as he pulled his phone out of his back pocket.

He engaged it not looking at it but eventually looked down only to lift it up and turn it our way.

I was pretty certain I gasped but I was too busy staring in complete and utter disbelief with a healthy mingling of being creeped right the fuck out at the picture on the screen.

It was of me with the shiner Andy gave me. I was walking from my Cherokee toward the salon.

“Not enough?” Keith asked snidely, but I didn’t take my eyes from the screen when his finger came up and he swiped the picture to the side.

My stomach dropped at what I saw next, and Hix growled, “Jesus Christ,” from behind me as we were treated to a picture of Hix pinning me up against the shelves at the grocery store, the photo taken during the part where he had his hand locked on my neck and his face right in mine.

“Want more?” Keith asked antagonistically, and another swipe showed a photo of me with my nose completely taped up after the kitchen incident, the photo taken while Hix was escorting me to his Bronco that Monday in order to take me to the hospital to have my dressing changed.

“More?” Keith went on, swiping again, and we had a photo of me, again walking into the salon, but this time with only tape on my nose, however the bruising under my eyes was horrendous. “I don’t know what hold this asshole has on you, Greta, but it ends now.”

I looked from the phone to him, feeling Hix pressing into my hand in his chest so I removed it but moved in a way his chest was now pressing into my back and I was returning that, leaning into him.

“Keith, Hix didn’t do those things to me.”

“Yeah, your mother said you’d say that. Small town, fucked-up, shady sheriff gettin’ away with fucking with women. He’s got power. He’s got authority. He’s got ways to fuck with your life and make bad shit turn nasty, so you can’t get away.” His gaze lifted beyond me to Hix. “Wife got fed up, yeah? Took years of it then finally kicked your ass out? So you had to go lookin’ for fresh meat.”

“Greta, sort this guy out,” Hix growled from behind me.

“Keith, look at me,” I ordered.

He didn’t look at me.

He kept his eyes on Hix and stated, “You got ten seconds to move out, motherfucker. You don’t, I’ll move you out, and if I have any problems with you and your deputies, trust me, my lawyers will make mincemeat of you and these pictures will hit every paper from Iowa to Nevada.”

“Greta,” Hix warned.

“Keith, look at me.”

It took him a second before he did, his face held its wrath but then softened a little before he said, “Honey, it’s okay. It’s over. Please come here.”

“Andy gave me that black eye.”

He shook his head. “Don’t do that. Don’t cover for him. He may have power here, baby, but he can’t abuse it this way and I’ll see he learns that.”

“I had Andy for the weekend. It rained.”

Keith’s frame visibly tightened.

He knew about Andy and rain.

“That broken nose, I’m sorry, I hate to share it with you this way, but I had an admirer from the club, he turned out to be a creep and he attacked me in my kitchen. He broke my nose. I got away. I went to Hix. His kids took care of me as he and his deputy arrested the guy and now that guy is serving five years in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. That’s on record so it’d be easy for you to validate, not to mention, it was reported in the local paper. As for the black eye, you’d have to ask Andy. If he remembers, he’ll tell you. But it upset him he did it so I’d rather him not be reminded of it if he’s forgotten.” I licked my lips and hurried on, “Mom lied, Keith. We’ve had some run-ins since she’s come here and she’s upping her game. She’s screwing with me, with Hix, with Andy and now . . . with you.”

He stared at me.

“It’s true and I’m sorry,” I carried on. “I’m so, so sorry she fed you those terrible stories but they aren’t true. That picture of me and Hix in the grocery store was the first time he saw me with the black eye. Mom’s seeing the local meth cooker and Hix was worried they’d worked me over. He was a little distressed. But it isn’t what it looks like. He was just really concerned for me.”

Keith just stared at me some more.

So I kept explaining. “She . . . well, she clearly has it out for Hix, probably because he arrested her when she was making a scene at Sunnydown, and you know Mom. She’s not a big fan of not getting her way and obviously, pulling her crap and it being a misdemeanor means the local sheriff can intervene and she won’t get her way. So he was already in her sights, us, um . . . being together. But obviously he’s now a target and that’s just . . . that.”

Keith said nothing and kept staring at me.

“I’m telling the truth, honey,” I said softly. “And I think you know that. She can get ugly, and you know that as well as me. But lately, she’s ratcheted that up to unprecedented levels as, obviously,” I threw a hand lamely his way, “you’re seeing.”

It took a second of him staring at me some more before his jaw went hard(er). He looked to the side, lifted his hand like he was going to do what he did when he got frustrated and tear it through his hair. Instead it dropped and his gaze scored through Hix before coming back to me.

“You got attacked in your kitchen?” Keith asked.

“I’m okay now.”

“You got attacked in your kitchen.” It was a statement this time, anger warring with not a small amount of pain I heard threading through it, but also saw on his face.

I knew that pain.

He was worried about me. He hated that that happened to me.

But maybe most of all, he hated that I’d gone to Hix, he’d taken care of it and Keith was hearing about it for the first time now when it had always been Keith who had taken care of things for me.

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

He stared at me again, doing it hard, his eyes finally flicking up to Hix before coming back to me.

“I didn’t take her calls,” he said, sounding calmer, still angry, also, upsettingly, still feeling pain.

“Keith—” I started.

“Then she sent the pictures and I took her calls.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“You deal with this,” Hixon said close to my ear from behind me. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

I turned to him to nod, but he wasn’t looking at me, his eyes were locked on Keith.

“I’ll be wanting those pictures.”

“Why?” I asked.

He looked down at me and he was not feeling pain. He was just feeling anger.

A lot of it.

“That, Greta,” he jabbed a finger Keith’s way, and from what he said next I knew this movement indicated Keith’s phone and the photos, “is criminal stalking. I want that evidence. I want it in front of the judge. I want that fuckin’ bitch to have a protection order slapped on her so she can’t get near you. And I want this on her record so the next time that woman pulls her nasty shit, I got as much as I can get to land her ass in jail.”

“I’ll get the photos, baby,” I murmured soothingly.

He just scowled at me before he looked again to Keith and declared, “I’m just down the hall and I hope you get me when I say I’m gonna be fuckin’ listening.”

“Darlin’—” I began.

His gaze sliced down to mine and I shut up.

He speared Keith with a look then he turned and stalked out, and that was the first I noticed he was wearing a beautiful, tailored, dark-blue suit, a sky-blue shirt and a pair of awesome brown dress shoes, all of it making him look like a linebacker-sized, male model.

It wasn’t what I’d met him in.

But it was just as hot.

Right.

I absolutely, totally hated my mother.

Doing this to Keith?

Then making me miss my dinner with Hix looking that hot?

I turned to Keith.

“Janice knows I’m here,” he announced.

I felt my shoulders fall and my heart lurch.

Janice, better known as Lawyer Barbie, Keith’s new wife.

“Keith,” I whispered.

“She knows why. It was her opinion it was none of my business. Not that she wanted harm to come to you, just that she wanted me to find a way to intervene without me actually doing the intervening. I got in my car to drive to you while she was putting suitcases in hers to leave me.”

I closed my eyes, opened them and started to him but stopped when he leaned away from my movement.

“Darlin’.” I was still whispering.

“She was right to go. Not fair on her. Me coming here to visit you and Andy and not letting her come with me and her knowing exactly why. Me racing here when I thought you were in a bad situation and her knowing exactly why that is too, seein’ as I’m still in love with my ex-wife. And that’s seein’ as I knew, just like Janice knew I knew, that I never should have let her go.”

My heart didn’t lurch at that.

It started bleeding.

“I don’t . . . I honestly don’t know what to say,” I told him.

He studied me a second before his gaze flicked toward the kitchen then came back to me.

“And I honestly didn’t think that’s what you would say after I shared that.”

Oh my God.

Keith.

I took a step to him, trying again, “Keith—”

He took a step back, forcing out a rough, tortured, “Don’t, honey.”

I stopped and swallowed in order to soothe the burn in my throat.

But nothing could soothe the burn in my eyes except, maybe, the tears I felt trembling at my lower lashes before I felt them begin to glide down my cheeks.

He watched me cry then whispered, “Fuck me, I fuckin’ blew it.”

“Now you don’t, Keith,” I urged huskily.

“She reminded me of you,” he told me.

“Stop it,” I whispered.

“Didn’t even know I was doin’ that shit to her, until she threw it in my face.”

“Keith, please.”

“Married my rebound, lost my shot at reconciliation, doin’ that dickin’ around.”

“I can’t—”

“I did, didn’t I?” he asked. “If I didn’t move on fast to prove to myself I was right to let you go, get on with my life, draw that line in the sand between us, I could have won you back.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I shared honestly.

“Guess it doesn’t,” he bit out, jerking his chin to the kitchen.

I took another step to him, begging, “Keith, please—”

“Don’t come closer, Greta,” he warned.

I stopped again.

“I see I gotta let you go but I can’t do that to Andy so I’ll go visit him tomorrow and then I’ll leave, but he’s not part of this fucked-up shit so he shouldn’t pay for it. I’ll email you when I’m comin’ to see my guy. But I won’t bother you.”

I hated that.

I hated it so much, I didn’t think it was possible, but it made me hate my mother more.

“Maybe we can someday get to the point where—” I began to attempt to lessen the damage.

He again didn’t let me finish. “That’s not gonna happen. Not ever.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I shoulda known, I divorced you, you changed your name back to hers. The name a woman you hated gave you, not keepin’ the name of the man who loved you.”

“I did that for you,” I told him quietly. “For Janice. And for Andy. He shares that name too, Keith.”

“Right,” he stated dubiously.

“I did,” I asserted.

He jerked his head toward the kitchen this time. “You gonna give him a kid?”

My body locked at being confronted with this version of a familiar refrain, but I forced my lips to push out, “He has kids.”

“Right,” he clipped that word this time. “Greta gets to spread her abundance of love wide but do it removed so the shit of life can’t deliver another blow that will rip her apart. You orchestrated that good. Well done, baby.”

Now my heart was aching.

“Don’t do that.”

I lost his attention in a way that he was looking beyond me and it made me pivot. When I did, I saw that Hixon was indeed listening, and now he was sharing he didn’t like how the conversation had turned because he was leaning against the newel post of my stairs, arms crossed on his chest, deep in a staredown with Keith.

Keith ended the staredown by announcing, “Think that’s my cue to get the fuck out.”

I turned back to Keith to see him sauntering to the door.

For a split second, I didn’t move.

Then I found my feet rushing to follow him.

“Keith, please, God, darlin’, don’t leave it this way.”

He pulled open the door when I made it to him and he turned to me.

I halted and froze when he lifted his hand to cup my jaw.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, his aching eyes roaming my face. “But I blew it.”

A tear slid into the side of his palm and he didn’t do what he’d done time and again when he’d had a crying Greta on his hands—sweep it away with thumb, fingers or lips.

It wasn’t his right. Not anymore. He knew it. So did I.

And even though I’d moved on to something beautiful, that didn’t mean I didn’t feel, right then, like I’d lost him all over again.

He dropped his hand, shoved through the storm door, strolled across my porch, down my steps, right to his slate-gray Range Rover parked at the curb, his tall, striking body at his command, even if there was a stiffness to the loose agility he usually always carried himself with.

The storm whooshed closed as I stood in the open door and watched him round the hood of his truck, the lights flashing as he unlocked it.

I continued standing there as he folded in, started up the truck, the headlights illuminated the street and then he drove away.

I felt an arm wrap around my chest, another one around my belly, and the hard heat of Hix pressed into my back.

The tears just kept coming and I didn’t pull my eyes away from the now-empty, dark, peaceful street.

“Come away from the door,” Hix murmured into my hair.

I stayed where I was, silently weeping.

He put slight pressure on, not too much, but stopped when I refused to move.

“Baby, come inside,” he urged.

“What makes her this way?” I asked the sleepy street.

Hix settled in behind me and answered, “I don’t know.”

“Does she enjoy knowing that she causes this pain?”

“I wish I had answers for you, but I just don’t, sweetheart.”

“Now she’s destroyed one young man’s life and two marriages. That young man her son, one of those marriages her daughter’s. How can she even sleep?”

“Don’t know,” he whispered.

“I hate her,” I whispered back.

His arms gave me a squeeze. “I know.”

“I hate her, Hix,” I decreed, my voice breaking.

“I know, baby,” he said, and forced me to turn into his arms, but he didn’t move us from the door as he held me close and I sobbed into his sky-blue shirt, standing at the front door to the house that the man I’d just lost forever in a way I never thought I’d lose him had bought for me.

It took time but I pulled myself together, pulled an arm from around him and shoved it up between us to wipe my face.

Only then did I tip my head back to look up to him.

“He’ll email me those pictures,” I told him.

He nodded. “I know.”

“Do you think we can still make our reservation?”

He put a hand to my face and it was Hix’s thumb that drew away the wet still there, one side, then the other, as he answered, “Think I should get you a gin and tonic and we should order a pizza.”

I shook my head. “I’ll fix my makeup and I wanna go.”

“Greta—”

It came out suddenly harsh when I stated, “She won’t beat me.”

Hix’s thumb stilled on the apple of my cheek and he stared into my eyes.

“So I have puffy eyes and it’ll take until glass of wine number three for me to wash away a little bit of what just happened so I can maybe taste my steak, but I had romantic dinner date plans with my man and we’re gonna keep those plans. We’re gonna spend too much on dinner. I’m gonna get tipsy. And then we’re gonna come home and I’m gonna fuck your brains out. And she can go fuck herself, living in her nasty world doing nasty shit to people she should treat with respect and love and . . .” I lost the urge to rail on about a woman who didn’t deserve my time or my anger, so I finished, “Fuck her. Just fuck her. I want steak.”

I didn’t want steak. I was pretty sure if I ate steak, I’d throw up.

But damn it, I was going to take this licking and keep on ticking, and Tawnee Dare could go jump in a lake.

“That’s what you want, I’ll call the restaurant and tell them we’re gonna be a little late. It’s Tuesday in McCook County before Thanksgiving and they’re a restaurant where you can’t get out without payin’ at least fifty bucks a plate. They won’t give our table to someone else.”

“Good,” I bit off.

He grinned a small, careful grin, dipped in and touched his mouth to mine.

When he pulled back he murmured, “Go fix your face so we can head out. I’ll make the call while you’re doin’ that.”

I nodded, got on my toes, brushed my lips to his and when I was rolling back, he let me go.

I rounded him and headed to the stairs only to stop with my foot on the first step when he called my name.

“Yes?” I asked, looking back at him.

“Really like that dress, baby.”

That bought him a small, not-careful grin before I took my time and maybe swayed my hips more than normal as I walked up the stairs to go fix my face in order to go out and have a romantic date with my man, county sheriff, father of three, excellent lover, all-around good guy, Hixon Drake.

One thing Keith had been right about, as heartbreaking and terrible as he’d meant it to be when he’d said it, it made it no less true.

Landing Hixon Drake was a job well done.

And I could live with that.

Easily.