“My great-nephew, Owen, just moved back into town, Greta,” Mrs. Swanson said to me from her chair, and I looked down at her. “He’s a good boy. His dad’s gettin’ on and needed help with things. His wife had her head in her bottom too. But she messed things up at least three years ago. It won’t be too soon for him.”
“I’m not looking for a fixup, Mrs. Swanson,” I said gently. “But it’s nice of you to think of that.”
Her eyes turned to the mirror as I used the pointed end of my teasing comb to separate another bit of hair to roll, “Well, you just say the word when you’re ready, sweetie. Be my pleasure to introduce you two.”
I again looked to Lou to see she was unravelling Mrs. Young’s curlers but doing it watching me.
We had a hectic day seeing as we always had hectic days. Because of that, I hadn’t had the opportunity to share the fullness of what happened with Hixon in the back room with her.
Lou and I had met years ago when she had to come out to Denver for her cousin’s wedding and the salon I’d worked at had sent stylists out to do the bride and her bridesmaids’ hair. Lou had sat in to keep an eye on things, we got to talking, and I knew she was my kind of people within minutes of meeting her.
She didn’t hide she felt the same.
We kept connected through email, texts and occasional phone calls, and not long after Keith ended things with me, she told me about Sunnydown, and the fact her stylist was moving to Omaha because the man she met online was there and things were getting serious.
I’d then taken vacation out in Glossop, stayed with Lou and her family, looked into Sunnydown for Andy and found it was cleaner, nicer, the people were great, and it cost a whole lot less than where he was at in Denver.
So I’d moved, and as his guardian, I took Andy with me.
And Lou, with her long history of living in Glossop (she’d moved there from Yucca when she’d married Bill sixteen years ago) and all her connections through her work, had settled me right into that town like I’d been there since birth.
So we hadn’t known each other since forever, but we worked together every day, she’d looked out for me from afar, and she meant the world to me.
In return, I gave great hair at her joint, treated her daughters like they were my own, and didn’t point out Bill was an asshole when she was at my place, drinking whiskey and telling me all the reasons Bill was an asshole.
In other words, we were tight.
And looking at her right then, I knew she was worried.
Worried that word had gotten out about Hixon and me. Worried that my mom had thrown down. Worried that Hope Drake had declared war. And worried that Hixon had walked into the salon and talked to me in the back room about things I hadn’t yet had a chance to process through with my best bud.
So I set Mrs. Swanson’s hair and put in Shari’s foils while Mrs. Swanson was under the bonnet. I then finished with them both while Lou took care of her clients that wandered in, got their hair done, had their say about Hope, Hixon, my momma and me.
And when we had a lull with one of Lou’s appointments flipping through a magazine waiting for her dye to set, and I had a break to go out and get us a late lunch, she cornered me in the back room while I was getting the stuff I was going to need for my next client.
“One-time thing?” she asked.
I turned to her. “Lou—”
“Got three calls last night about what happened at the Dew, you know that, told you when you got here. Not ten minutes after, Hix strolls right in like he comes to visit you every morning before you start work. Then he leaves and smiles at you like he smiled at you. And it’s a one-time thing?”
I stared at her. “How did he smile at me?”
“Girlfriend, he aimed it right at you. How’d you miss it?”
What was she talking about?
“I . . . he . . . we . . .”
How did he smile at me?
I shook that question out of my head and spit out what I needed to say to Lou.
“It’s his idea that it’s a one-time thing. He just came this morning to share that Hope was on the warpath. I . . . he . . . we . . .” On that, I just shook my head then whispered, “He was just being nice because what happened with us . . .” I sucked in a big breath and finished softly, “It was good, Lou.”
She leaned back and threw out both hands. “Of course it was good. God can be a jokester but He wouldn’t play a joke so cruel as to make a man that fine and not give him the talents to see that concept all the way through.”
God had definitely done that.
“How did he smile at me?” I repeated.
“Like he didn’t want to walk out that door, leaving you behind, but instead he wanted to drag you out right along with him.”
I started breathing hard.
She was right.
How did I miss that?
“Always liked Hix and Hope together,” she announced, and I again stared at her. “They looked good together. Both of ’em love their kids like crazy. Both of ’em loved each other like crazy. She can be a spoiled brat, and he’s a man, no escaping any man having his moments of being totally clueless, not even a man like Hix. But he loved her. Way he looked at her stated plain he didn’t care everyone knowing just how much. Thought it was a shame, them going through that rough patch.”
As much as I never really liked Hope, and I hadn’t known Hixon at all, I’d felt the same.
“Until I got my first call about what happened at the Dew,” she went on. “And then he walked out of my place and smiled that smile at you. Then I thought, God works in mysterious ways. He looked at his wife the way he did for years and now it’s been proved she didn’t deserve it. But one night with you has proved he has it goin’ on, seein’ as he realized what he’d found with the way he looked and smiled at you.”
I again shook my head. “He was . . . what happened . . . it was just a mistake. Not a mistake, exactly, but bad timing. Nothing’s happening. He just divorced her a few weeks ago.”
“I don’t care if he divorced her yesterday,” she retorted. “He may be in denial, Greta, too much coming at him too soon. Got no idea what it takes to rebuild your life after a marriage of near on two decades falls apart. Don’t wanna know. But even a good guy like Sheriff Drake doesn’t hear his ex is on the warpath and then walk his ass to the local salon to warn his one-night stand to batten down the hatches. He gets on with things and lets the sisterhood work out their issues and the chips fall as they may. At best, he sends his deputy, who’s one of your clients, to give you the warning. What he doesn’t do is take his time to have a private moment with you in the back room of your place of business, then walk out after sharing with you it was what it was and now he’s moving on by looking at you and smiling at you the way he did.”
“I can’t believe that,” I told her.
“I can since I saw it with my own two eyes. And just sayin’, I wasn’t the only one.”
I couldn’t think on that.
She had to get me.
And I had to get me too or I might do something dangerous.
Something I never did.
Hope.
“No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. I can’t believe that in the sense I won’t.”
She shut up.