And he was way too pissed to fully experience it, but still, he distractedly felt something else turning to stone, and where that was happening was in his chest.
“You do not put your hands on me,” he warned low. “With what we are now, not ever. But not in anger. Never in anger, Hope.”
She rolled up on her toes and spat, “Fuck you. You fucked a fucking hairdresser.”
“I can see you’re pissed, I don’t get it, but I can see it. So can three of my deputies and Reva. I get you don’t care what that means to me as their sheriff. But they can also see you acting like a crazy woman.”
After a quick eye flare, Hix was not surprised Hope, who cared what people thought of her and went to pains to keep up a variety of appearances, backed off two steps.
Hix moved into his office, and after the shove, he felt it prudent not to go to the blinds at the window and lower them.
Instead, he walked behind his desk, putting distance and furniture between them.
“You don’t get why I’m pissed?” Hope asked when he’d stopped.
He lifted his eyes to her to see she’d also moved to stand four feet in front of his desk between the two chairs there.
“No. I don’t.”
“Are fucking insane?” she demanded to know.
It sucked but she was even beautiful like this.
Angry as hell.
It flushed her cheeks. Made her green eyes bright. Made her chest heave, bringing attention to her full tits.
She’d also often plant her hands on her hips or hitch out a foot, taking your attention to those areas, reminding you she had a great ass, fantastic, long legs, just how perfectly your hips fit into hers and just how good it felt to have those legs wrapped tight around your ass.
And she would sometimes toss her long, wavy hair that, at forty-one, she now had to dye back to its natural flawless pink champagne (her words for the hue), but even aided to that color, it was no less magnificent.
These were several of the reasons why Hix had always found it difficult to argue with her. Seeing her that way, it would make him impatient to get to the part of the fight that would end it.
That being having angry sex, something at which they both excelled.
Then again, normal sex with his ex-wife hadn’t sucked either.
“Nope. Not insane,” he answered her question.
“You fucked a hairdresser at my salon,” she informed him.
“Hope, I can’t imagine you didn’t know it would happen eventually. And in a town like this, it could be your salon, the grocery store, a teacher at one of the schools, whoever, you’d hear about it and likely know the woman. You know everybody. Everybody knows you. It’s unfortunate but it was going to happen.”
“It was going to happen?” she snapped. “I cannot believe you fucked a stylist at my salon, but what I really can’t believe is that you fucked anybody!”
Since she unfathomably wasn’t noting the obvious, he pointed it out.
“Me doing anything is not your concern.”
“It’s not . . . it’s not . . . it isn’t . . .” she stammered irately and finished on a high pitched, “It isn’t my concern?”
“It’s not your concern,” he affirmed.
She shook her head in brief, concise shakes. “I can’t . . . I cannot believe you’d say that or even think it. Especially about something like this.”
Right.
Hix had to admit, he was confused.
How could she not?
“We’re divorced,” he pointed out.
She leaned forward and on a near shout declared, “For three weeks!”
“That doesn’t negate the fact we’re divorced. But seeing as I’m reminding you of things, I’ll also remind you that we may have been divorced for three weeks, but you kicked me out a year ago.”
“And so this is my punishment?”
He felt his brows draw together. “Your punishment?”
“My punishment. You making a point.”
Hix stared at her.
Then he gave her the honest truth.
“Not one thing that happened between me and Greta had shit to do with you.”
Again she leaned forward and this time hissed, “Do not say her name in my presence.”
Okay.
Right.
What the hell was going on here?
“You do get the concept of divorce,” he noted curiously.
“Don’t be an asshole,’ she shot back.
“I’m not. I’m genuinely wondering at this point if you do.”
“What I get is the fact that I’ve been asking you to have a conversation for the last now more than three weeks and you refuse to speak to me,” she returned, leaning forward each time she put emphasis on her words.
It had not been the prevailing reason why Hix was overwhelmed with happiness when he’d married Hope nineteen years ago. That reason being from that point forward he’d only ever have one woman in his life he’d have to try to figure out.
But he couldn’t deny it had been a relief.
The prevailing reasons were that she had a great sense of humor. She was more into watching sports than even he was, the same with action movies. They’d both wanted the same things out of life, including the number of children they’d had in the exact order and gender they’d miraculously been given them. She could often be generous with her love, affection and time. She was spectacular in bed. And she was gorgeous.
Now, he realized, after all their years together, he didn’t get her.
He didn’t get Bets.
What he did get was that their bullshit pissed him off.
“Okay, seems I gotta expend the effort to make something else straight this week,” he began.
“Oh, so sorry, Hix. Is your wife and the mother of your three children taxing you with her demands?” she cut in sarcastically.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s not right. You got it in you to get that or not, the simple matter of fact is that that is not right.”
His tone went normal, but steely, when he kept on.
“You’re not my wife anymore, Hope. That’s something you wanted, not me. Like you have a way of doing, you got what you wanted. And getting that, you don’t get to call me over and over again to demand my time. You don’t get to storm into my place of business and pitch a fit. And you do not get to act like I wounded you when I’m living my life, a life you disconnected, legally and emotionally, from yours.”
“Hix—”
Like Bets, even though his mother had taught him differently, especially when speaking with a woman, he talked over her.
“Now I see when we made arrangements for custody and decisions on who was going to get the house and all that other shit, we should have made it clear how this was going to go from now on. Since you’re here, we’ll take that opportunity.”
She stepped forward, her expression beginning to soften as she noted his mood and the fact it wasn’t shifting, so her game began to change. “Honey—”
He leaned into his fist in his desk and growled, “Do not ever fucking call me that again, Hope.”