Hix’s gut went tight as he watched Greta wrap her arms around her brother and close her eyes like she just hit heaven.
Andy jumped back, out of her arms, and Hix watched his frame string tight.
“Your face!” he yelled.
“I fell, bud,” she said quickly. “That’s why I couldn’t come last Sunday. My hand slipped away and, crunch, busted my nose.” She gave him that like it was nothing at all then didn’t let Andy focus on it before she grabbed his hand, shook it and asked, “You good? You okay?”
“Police took Mom,” he told her.
“I know,” she said carefully. “I saw. Are you okay?”
“It was awesome.”
Hix felt himself relax even as he watched Greta do the same.
Her mouth quirked as she said, “I’m not sure we should think it’s awesome our mother got arrested, buddy.”
“Maybe not. It was still awesome.”
Hix watched as she drew in a deep breath she was trying to hide pulling in and let it out before she glanced at him and back to her brother. “Did you meet Hix?”
“Hix?” Andy asked, sounding confused. She took a step his way and Andy turned with her, caught sight of Hix and said, “That’s the sheriff.”
“Yeah, Andy,” she confirmed. “Hix. Hixon Drake. The county sheriff.”
She was guiding Andy to him by his hand.
“Trespassing and disturbing the peace,” Andy said to him when they arrived.
“What?” Greta asked.
“Mom,” he said to Hix then turned to his sister. “Trespassing and disturbing the peace.” He looked back at Hix. “She’s good at disturbing the peace.”
“I got that impression.”
Andy smiled big at him and repeated, “I got that impression.”
He then started laughing.
But Greta was smiling so that was when Hix fully relaxed.
“Do you, uh . . . wanna, maybe, um . . .” she stammered then swallowed and finished, “Maybe ask the sheriff if he wants to come to lunch with us?”
Hix felt a burn in his gut like he’d just put back a good bourbon.
“Yeah!” Andy exclaimed. “Yeah, Sheriff. Wanna eat with us?” he asked.
“You can call me Hix, Andy, and yeah. That’d be good.”
“We’re gonna go to the Harlequin for chicken fingers,” he shared.
Hix had been wanting to take Greta to the Harlequin for weeks.
But right then, he didn’t give one shit that the first time they sat opposite each other in a booth there, her brother would be with them.
“Sounds good,” Hix said.
“Can I ride in your cop car with you?” Andy asked.
“Andy—” Greta started.
“It’s a cop truck, bud, and sure. Your sister thinks it’s okay.”
Andy’s head swung to Greta.
“If Hix says okay, it’s okay by me,” she allowed.
Andy beamed at her then to Hix.
Hix grinned at him and then to Greta. “We’ll meet you there?”
She nodded, biting her lip but it didn’t quite hide her smile, a smile that was shining at him from her big eyes.
“Ready to go?” he asked Andy.
“Go,” he said then he started into his room but looked back. “Jacket,” he explained and he disappeared.
Greta got close and Hix looked down to her.
“Are you . . . I put you on the spot. Is this okay?” she asked.
“Hell yeah,” he answered.
That was when she aimed the full force of her smile at him.
Hix fought back a blink.
“Ready!” Andy declared, jumping out of his room.
“Right, let’s go, man,” Hix invited, wanting to touch Greta, give her a kiss, but just giving her a look before he started down the hall, Andy walking beside him, Greta beside her brother.
“Whoa! Way cooler than a cop car!” Andy declared when he saw the Ram.
Hix bleeped the locks and Andy moved to the passenger side door.
Greta got close and skimmed the back of her fingers against his.
He looked down at her. “He’ll be okay with me.”
“I know,” she whispered.
And more of that bourbon feel hit his gut.
She smiled, looked to her brother, waved and yelled, “See you there!”
“Yeah!” he yelled back from inside the truck.
She moved to her Cherokee.
Hix got behind the wheel.
“You can’t do it, you know, ’cause this isn’t official or anything, but later, when we get there, can you turn on the lights?” Andy asked when he’d started up the truck.
He looked to Greta’s brother. “Absolutely.”
“Cool,” Andy whispered.
Hix backed out and idled, making a point that Greta caught.
So she pulled out in front of him and he and her brother followed her back to town, straight to the Harlequin.
For a variety of reasons, Hix was in a far better mood when he returned to his department than he was when he’d left it.
And it was so much better, Tawnee calling out to him as he walked down the aisle, “We can get a curtain, Sheriff, put it up, then I can give you the mother part of the mother-daughter experience all private-like,” didn’t shake it in the slightest.
He’d barely looked at her when Donna said loudly, “Perhaps due to the uncanny resemblance, they gave Greta to the wrong woman at the hospital.”
Hix grinned at his deputy.
“You bein’ a man-woman and all, just because you couldn’t get any dick unless you paid for it doesn’t mean you should be ugly to a sister,” Tawnee sneered to Donna.
Donna looked over her shoulder at Greta’s mother. “I’ll tell my husband that after I give him his nightly blowjob.”
Hal let out a bark of laughter.
Hix swallowed his.
“Tell him, he wants to feel how good it is when it’s really done right, he should give me a call,” Tawnee returned.
“Honey, if he ever gets the urge for aging skank, I’ll send him right your way, and he gets that disgusting urge, you can have him,” Donna fired back.
Tawnee shot hate from her eyes but fortunately shut up.
Hix went to his office to make a call he knew he was going to enjoy, not half as much as he enjoyed being let in over lunch on the sweet Greta had with her brother, but it would still feel good.
Allowing Andy to turn on his lights outside the Harlequin might have been a good call.
But Hix suspected he just loved his sister.
So when Greta pulled Hix into the booth beside her, making a point that Andy’s damaged brain didn’t miss, it just made him grin at them a lot during lunch, it made Hix feel like he’d downed a double shot of the finest bourbon there was.
“Yo, Hixon, how’s it hangin’, son?” Kavanagh Becker said as greeting when he picked up Hix’s call.
“Courtesy call, Becker,” Hix replied. “We got your woman down here, arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace at her son’s home.”
“Her what?”
Oh yeah.
As he suspected.
Becker hadn’t mentioned Tawnee’s son in their previous conversations. Instead, he’d said that Greta was the only child Tawnee had. At the time, Hix didn’t know Greta had a brother so he didn’t cotton on to what Becker not knowing about Andy might mean.
Now he had a feeling he knew what it meant.
Yes.
Definitely.
He was going to enjoy this.
“Her son. At his home. Sunnydown.”
Silence from Becker.