Complicated

by Kristen Ashley

  Her eyebrows were up, her eyes blinking rapidly, before she whispered, “You can’t . . . you can’t mean that.”

  He felt his head dipping to the side in mystification.

  “I loved you,” he told her.

  She moved another step forward, lifting her hand, her face again warming. “Hix.”

  “I loved the family we made. I loved the life we created.”

  She stopped in front of his desk and put her hand on it, her mouth beginning to curve up.

  “And you tore that apart,” he went on.

  Her lips parted as her face went slack in shock.

  “You broke us,” he reminded her. “You broke me. Then you ended us. You wanna be friends now, that’s not gonna happen. You think you can do that and still depend on me to be there whenever you need me, that’s not gonna happen either.”

  “I—” she whispered but he didn’t stop speaking.

  “I wanted to grow old with you, Hope. I wanted to drive around the country in an RV or buy some bungalow in Arizona to spend the winter months, or whatever we decided we were going to do. But I wanted to do it with you. Hold your hand when our son stood at the front of a church waiting for his bride. Turn right into your arms when our daughters safely brought grandchildren into the world. Sign the cards you gave me for our grandkids’ birthdays, graduations, whatever we could celebrate, until the day I died. I told you all this before when I tried to find a way to fix whatever you thought was broke. But you didn’t listen. You didn’t even share with me what you thought was broke so I could try to fix it. You just took all that from me. And it hurt like fuck. So I am not gonna be your friend or the man you call when the toilet gets backed up. This time, you pushed for what you wanted, it’s you that lives with the consequences. You don’t push even more to make it the way you now want it to be.”

  “We really need to talk, Hix,” she whispered urgently, almost pleading.

  His voice shared exactly how much he meant it when he stated, “You know my answer to that, and I will not answer that request again.”

  They stood staring into each other’s eyes until he watched it happen.

  Bets could get mean.

  Hope could get ugly.

  And right then, she got ugly.

  “You want it that way, Hix, you got it,” she bit out.

  He pushed off his fist in the desk and crossed his arms on his chest, deciding not to remind her, again, that wasn’t the way he wanted it and point out that was the way she’d made it.

  He’d said his piece.

  They were done.

  And he was done.

  “Now I know another election won’t be coming around for a few more years, but don’t think, you treat me like shit this way, it’ll be that easy to win when the other two times you won was because of my dad, my mom, my brothers and me.” She jerked a thumb at herself. “We’re McCook and I’m not thinking it’d be hard to remind folks you’re not.”

  Was she serious about that bullshit?

  For Christ’s sake, the first time he ran unopposed.

  He opened his mouth to speak but she wasn’t done.

  “And I hear your slut does good hair, though thank God her hands have never been in mine. But thinkin’, her movin’ in on you the way she did, she might find herself losin’ clients. And fast.”

  He felt all the muscles in his body get tight and started, “Hope, don’t you—”

  “Nope,” she shook her head, moving away but not losing eye contact with him. “You stood there telling me the way it was, Hix, now you get to know the way it is. And part of that way is that you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”

  Like he’d ever told the woman what to do.

  He rounded the desk and followed her, warning, “You don’t wanna play it this way.”

  She put her hand on the door handle, turned to him and spat, “Wanna bet?”

  He made it to her just as she’d half-pulled open the door.

  He slapped a hand on it above her head and shoved it closed.

  She jerked her head back to look up at him with narrowed eyes.

  He tipped his chin down to look at her, right up in her space and not moving.

  “Shaw is going into the military, but we got soccer camps, dance classes, college tuitions, then weddings to pay for, Hope,” he informed her. “Not certain the Schroeder name holds the sway you think it does, but regardless, I just wanna see if I have this clear. Your play to hurt me because you’re not getting your way is to threaten my livelihood and take away my ability to see to my children?”

  “You’re a good cop, Hix. You’ll find another job in another county or some city, where you always really wanted to be anyway.”

  He could not believe he was hearing this.

  “So your play is to try to take me away from my kids?”

  She gave a casual shrug but her eyes were flashing with fury.

  He was hearing this.

  He just couldn’t believe it.

  “And you don’t even know Greta, but you know Lou, and you’re gonna try to throw them under the bus to have your tantrum?”

  “Greta should know better than to jump on a man before the ink is dry on his divorce papers.”

  “Greta didn’t pick me up, Hope. That was me.”

  “I don’t need the details,” she hissed, coming up on her toes to do it. She rolled back and continued, “But like you said, she got what she wanted, she lives with the consequences. She’s probably been panting after you since she got into town, lying in wait.”

  “I’ve never seen the woman before Saturday.”

  “Maybe not, Hix, but for sure she’s seen you. All the women have seen you. And she’s a woman, she saw her shot, so don’t be stupid. You didn’t pick her up. You didn’t do anything but be Hixon Drake, which is all you ever needed to be.”

  He had no idea what that remark meant.

  And he didn’t give a crap.

  “Leave Greta alone,” he warned.

  Her face twisted, and suddenly, she wasn’t beautiful at all.

  “Kiss my ass.”

  She turned to the door and yanked on it so Hix removed his hand and stepped away.

  He turned and watched through the window as she stormed out of his department.

  “Goddamn shit,” he muttered when she slammed through the front door.

  He took his gaze from the window not meeting any of his deputies’ eyes and stalked to his desk. He turned on his computer but didn’t enter the password.

  He didn’t even sit down.

  He stalked back around the desk and only stopped when he saw Donna in the door.

  “Got somewhere I gotta go, Donna,” he told her.

  Instead of nodding and getting out of the way, she walked in and closed the door quietly behind her.

  Christ.

  Was he having to repeat himself with a woman again?

  “Donna,” he clipped.

  “Think you should let Hope have some time to get her head together.”

  “I’m not worried about Hope.”

  Without hesitation, she continued, “Then I think you should know Lou opens at eight, but on Tuesdays Greta doesn’t start seeing clients until ten. She does late hours so ladies who work can get to see her. Being a lady who works, and seeing as she’s my stylist, I know her schedule.”

  Hix ground his teeth.

  “I see you’re not in a good mood,” she said carefully. “But I know you’re a man who doesn’t like to be blindsided, so I’m gonna say it even though I think you probably already know. Everyone in town is talking about it.”

  “Shit,” he hissed between his teeth.

  She took a hesitant step forward, her eyes sliding to the window before they came back to him.

  “And, uh, we didn’t say anything about it because we were all pulling for you. We thought, up until, well . . . you know, um . . .” She didn’t finish that but she did go on, “It’s just that, we had hope. We didn’t say anything because w
e thought it would all work out. But now, well, I think you should know that the town’s been talking about it since ’round about the time you stood in your own driveway and threw your suitcases in the back of the Bronc.”

  Hix drew breath into his nose, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling and lifting his hands to rest them on his hips.

  “But I figure you probably knew that too,” she said quietly.

  He again looked at her.

  “For what it’s worth,” she went on, “I’ll say, at the beginning this time, Greta’s really great.”

  “Nothing is happening with me and Greta,” he ground out.

  She looked him right in the eye, hesitated a beat, then whispered, “That’s a shame.”

  “My divorce was final three weeks ago,” he pointed out.

  She nodded. “Unh-hunh.”

  “She doesn’t need the shit I got in my head right now,” he shared. “But it’s way too soon for me, my kids, and because of that, it wouldn’t be fair on any woman.”

  “Right,” she said softly.

  “We just had a thing.”

  She again nodded. “It happens.”

  Hix dropped his head and looked at his boots, muttering, “Hope is gonna grind her to ash.”

  “Jep and Marie Schroeder are salt of the earth,” Donna declared, and Hix lifted his head to look at her again. “Cook and Reed too. Everyone likes ’em. Hope’s family has that from the town and they also got a lot of respect.”

  Her gaze leveled on his in that way of hers that got attention even from the drunkest drunk or the most punkish kid.

  And she kept talking.

  “But none of them held Krissy Schultz’s hand until the fire department got there with the Jaws of Life to get her out of that car, Hix. And none of them was seen having a word with Lyle Koch at the side of the church when his wife turned up at work with a black eye for about the fifteenth time. And none of them treated old Mrs. Olson like she was perfectly sane to think her house was haunted and went to it every night. Driving all the way out to that old farm, thirty miles, before he went home to his family, just so he could do walkthroughs to give her peace of mind that some poltergeist was not gonna spirit her to another realm. All this until her kids got her sorted in a nursing home. None of them did any of that. But you did. And everybody knows it.”

  “You heard,” he murmured.

  Her face changed in a way he’d never seen it.

  But only for an instant.

  Then she shook her head and said, “I grew up in this town. Grew up here just like Hope did. I know her, Hix. And she’s a great gal. That’s getting lost in all this, but she just plain is. I know that because I grew up with her. But even if I didn’t, I’d know it knowing you and knowing you’re not a man who would put up with a woman who wasn’t. We all know she’s a great gal.”

  She pulled in a breath, kept her eyes trained on him and kept going.

  “Except when she doesn’t get her way. She’s always been like that, from way back. And right now she’s not getting her way and everyone who knows her knows how that goes. The point I’m trying to make is, don’t let her get into your head and give you even more to worry about. It’s not just your deputies that are rooting for you, boss. And it’s not just us who wanna see you happy again.”

  He acknowledged that with a short nod of his head.

  “This will pass, for all of us,” he told her.

  “It always does.”

  “Thanks for comin’ in here, Donna.”

  She gave him a small grin and said, “Always around, you need me, Hix.”

  She was.

  He had his boys in that town, but now that he was thinking on it, the person he was closest to was Donna. She hung out with him at the Outpost before Hope asked him to leave, but she did it a lot more frequently after. She was his most veteran deputy, so in the rare instance anything went down, she was his number one. He counted on her to keep the others focused when he wasn’t around, and she never let him down.

  She was a good deputy. A good woman. Her husband knew it. Her kids. The town.

  And so did Hix.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, turning back to his desk.

  “Right, boss, that’s outta the way, you should know, Peters’s cows got loose again. They’re blocking County Road 16, and traffic, such as it is, is backing up. Which, through the report, is all of three cars. He’s not answering his phone. Should I send Larry and Bets out there to deal with it?”

  Peters was probably still passed out from drinking alone in front of his television like Hix suspected he had every night since the mean sonuvabitch’s wife came to her senses and left him two years before.

  His fields had been fallow those two years and Hix had no idea how his cows hadn’t wasted away.

  But his fences had, seeing as the man wasn’t a good farmer even before his wife took off.

  “Send ’em with the message that this is the third time, and McCook County Sheriff’s Department gives more than three strikes, but less than five. So he best get onto sorting out that damned fence or county fines will have to be deducted from his whiskey budget. And if the drivers are still idiotic enough to be waiting for cows to pass when our deputies get there, tell them to thank whoever called it in and divert the drivers. This county is on a grid system, it shouldn’t be difficult for them to find an alternate route.”

  Her lips ticked on her, “Gotcha.”

  And with that, she took off.

  Hix turned to his computer, thinking, if Greta wasn’t going to be showing up at work in less than two hours, he’d have gone to deal with Peters himself.

  A banner day for the sheriff. That meaning there was something to do.

  However she needed a heads up. And it should come from him.

  But the last time they’d dealt with Peters, they’d had to wedge open his door and throw a glass of water in his face to wake his ass up. He might not have time to deal with Peters and get to Greta in time to warn her before she faced her day at the salon.

  What should not be was him showing at her front door unexpectedly, invading her space after he’d exited it the way he had.

  It wasn’t better he’d be showing at her work, but he figured it was better than invading her home, even to stand on her porch.

  So work it was.

  And until then and after that chore was done, he just had to hope he was right.

  That this would pass.

  And do it without any more of Hope’s casualties piling up.

  At five to ten, Hix pushed through the door at Lou’s House of Beauty, and seeing as he’d been there before to drop off or pick up Corinne and Mamie when they had their appointments (albeit infrequently since Hope normally went with them), he didn’t have to take in the décor.

  It was, like pretty much everything in Glossop, suspended in time. The women there could be wearing those dresses with shoulder pads and having their hair rolled in the way they did during World War II, or they could be how they were right then. The woman in Lou’s chair getting a hot-pink lock of fake hair what looked like Velcroed to her roots.

  “Uh . . . well . . .” He looked to Lou when she started stammering and saw her wide eyes cut to the back of the salon even if her face remained pointed to him. “Um, hey, Hix.”

  “Lou,” he greeted, skimmed a glance through the woman in her chair who he didn’t know and looked back to Lou. “She in the back?”

  He knew he didn’t have to say who “she” was.

  If any crime ever happened in that county, he’d have Lou on his confidential informant list.

  That’s the way it was everywhere.

  From rumor to speculation to hard facts, if they were to be had, the first place they were had was at the local beauty parlor.

  “Yeah,” Lou answered.

  “Thanks,” Hix muttered, and without invitation, moved that way.

  He did it wondering if Greta had been in that salon any of the times he’d been there for Corinne a
nd Mamie and he just hadn’t noticed her.

  Then he pushed through the door to the back, saw her standing at some shelves filled with bottles, boxes and tubes, and she turned to him, the visual of her right there, a few feet away, live and in person smacked him in the face, and he knew there was no chance in hell he hadn’t noticed her.

  He loved his wife. When they were together, his mind had not once taken him to another place, not even to wonder how it would be with another woman.

  But he was still a guy.

  And Greta was tall and she was built. She had a few pounds on Hope, but they’d settled in all the right places.

  On Saturday night, she’d been wearing a tight black dress that hit her knees. It had one shoulder bare, material swooping over the other, and it was covered in sequins with dangling spangly bits that moved when she did.

  Now she was wearing a pair of faded jeans that had a wide cut at the hem and a cream, slouchy, collarless shirt that almost looked like a man’s, except for the silky material it was made from and the fact the long tails were cinched loosely at her waist in a knot. The shirt’s arms were rolled up near to her elbows and its buttons undone at the chest to the point cleavage was a given.

  And Greta had fucking great cleavage.

  There was a mess of thin gold necklaces coming down her chest to flirt with the opening in her shirt, long thin hoops that tangled in her hair and brushed her shoulders, and peeking under the hems of her jeans he could see a pair of spike-heeled, tan suede sandals that, across the foot, had a load of thin straps.

  Her toes were painted a wine color.

  As were her nails.

  It was far from good she not only looked great in a tight black dress, she looked seriously great in just a pair of jeans and a shirt.

  But it was her hair, face and eyes that had him standing silent, staring at her.

  Eyes a light blue that was almost gray. They were big, wide set, making her seem open, approachable, friendly. And she had a lot of hair that had a lot of big curls, feathering and waving away from her face, a mix of honey and sunshine in the tendrils.