They’d started to do this after Thanksgiving, come to her home for dinner, because Greta liked having them all there. He didn’t know exactly why, since she had all of them at his house, except for the fact it was part of who she was, having a bent to take care of people she cared about, and there was something in it for her to do it in her own space. So now, a couple of times in a way Hix knew there’d be more, the kids and Hix came to her.
Then again, the kids liked her house. Greta had made them comfortable there from the moment they’d walked in the door Thanksgiving night. Not to mention there was a fully-stocked kitchen in all the ways that could be and Greta made more than just great breakfasts, so his kids knew they’d get a good meal that wasn’t takeout, delivery or its origins were mostly from a box.
But that wasn’t the only reason they did it.
“Hey, Dad,” Shaw greeted.
“Hey, Mr. Drake,” Wendy called.
Greta looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.
Mamie whirled and cried, “Hey, Daddy!”
“Hey, guys,” Hix said, coming in, shrugging off his jacket and moving around the room to lift a hand and squeeze the back of Shaw’s neck, get Mamie’s hug when she danced to him and bend in to touch his lips to Greta’s mouth. “We need a second,” he told her quietly when he’d pulled away.
She stared into his eyes and nodded.
He retraced his steps to go to the living room and jerked up his chin to Corinne before he threw his jacket on the back of the couch. Curled in Greta’s armchair, his daughter grinned at him and gave him a little wave before she went back to her conversation, curling a lock of her hair around her finger.
He unbuckled his gun belt and started up the steps, going to Greta’s room where he hung it on hook inside her closet, coming out of that closet to see her walking into the room, eyes on him.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
He moved into her space, putting his hands to her hips.
“Right, you filed for that protection order on your mom and the judge granted a fourteen-day order, ex parte. Yeah?”
“I know,” she told him, looking like she spoke even while holding her breath.
“Yeah, you know. What you need to know now is that we haven’t been able to find her to serve the order. I called Becker, he told me he scraped her off and has no idea where she is. He didn’t sound happy to be talking about her, so my guess is, she finally did some shit that made him find his way free of whatever hold she had on him and he’s done with her.”
“Not great news for Mom but I’m not in the mood to care that my mother lost her meth-cooking boyfriend so . . .” She didn’t finish that but did lift her brows in request he get to the point.
“If she isn’t served, sweetheart, the order is ineffective. She needs to be aware that the order has been issued, if she isn’t, it hasn’t officially been processed. And she needs to have that order served so that fourteen days can play out so you can return to the judge and request a permanent one.”
“Do you . . . want me to call Mom? Ask her to come around?” she asked.
“Hell no,” he answered.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m just saying, she pulls shit, gets near you, takes pictures after she’s been served by a protection order, that pushes her into felony territory. But if she hasn’t been served, she can still do whatever the hell she wants.”
“Awesome,” she muttered sarcastically.
“She doesn’t have a job, she’s not at home, she lost her sugar daddy. Maybe she took off,” Hix suggested hopefully.
“Maybe,” Greta replied skeptically.
He bent in and touched his lips to her forehead before moving back. “Seein’ as the process servers for McCook County are me and my deputies, not thinkin’ we’ll give up on this one.”
That made her grin.
Hix grinned back.
She watched his mouth a beat before she looked again to his eyes.
“We have kids to feed,” she reminded him.
“Yeah,” he murmured.
She lifted a hand to his neck, rolled up on her toes and kissed the bottom of his jaw.
She then rolled back and they held hands to the top of the stairs.
He let her go so Greta could walk down before him.
They managed to pry Corinne’s phone from her ear to sit down to eat.
Then they sat at Greta’s awesome table and had a family dinner.
“You need to call Hope. We need to know what she’s buying them from these lists. We shouldn’t double up.”
Greta was sitting across from him at his desk at the department, her head bent as she shuffled through the papers in her hands—his kids’ Christmas gift wish lists—doing this bossing him.
“I’ll get on that right away,” he muttered and her eyes shot to his.
“This is serious, Hixon.”
“Of course it is,” he assured.
She gave him a hard stare to assess if he found her amusing (which he did) but he figured he’d managed to hide that when she raised the lists and shook them in the air. “We also need to be careful to go equal. It wouldn’t be cool to make it bigger than what she gives them since there are two of us.”
“Babe, they’re gonna be at their grandparents’ house Christmas Eve night, gettin’ spoiled rotten, dropped at my place at the end of that to wake up and get spoiled rotten on Christmas morning, then heading to Hope’s to get spoiled rotten Christmas night. With all that, I don’t think anyone is gonna be able to keep track of who spoils them more rotten.”
“It’ll be noted,” she returned.
He leaned into his folded arms on his desk and reminded her, “Hope’s lettin’ that kinda shit go.”
“I know she is,” Greta replied. “And I know it has to be hard on her, the holiday is going to make it harder, so we shouldn’t do even the littlest thing to make it even harder.”
He stared at the woman he loved, having reason once again to love her more before he sat back and said quietly, “I’ll call Hope and we’ll get it straight.”
“Thank you, Hix,” she replied quietly.
It was time to move on to something else.
“I’m settin’ up the guest room,” he declared.
“I . . . okay,” she returned, sounding confused.
“My folks come visit every once in a while, they don’t have plans to hit town until the weather shifts since they’re not big fans of snow, which is why they now live in Florida. But Andy can’t sleep on the sectional anymore when he’s over. I know he doesn’t mind and that just means he’s closer to the TV and Shaw so they can play videogames every waking moment they’re together. But the man should have his own space when he’s at home so we’ll set it up for him. I’m sure it’ll be cool with him that we use it as a guest room when he’s not around.”
It was Greta staring at Hixon when he got done talking, and the way she was doing it he felt in a number of areas of his body, his gut and chest the most prominent.
“What?” he whispered when she didn’t speak.
“Can we shut the blinds to that window and do something probably very illegal on your desk?”
That he felt in his dick.
“No,” he unfortunately had to answer.
“Shame,” she murmured.
“But the minute the kids are back with Hope, you can do something not illegal to me in my bed and I’ll return that favor.”
She gave him a look he also felt in his dick.
“It’s gonna be so good it’ll feel illegal, smokey.”
“Then I’ll look forward to that, sugar.”