She finally broke free of her admirers and took the final steps to him.
“Hey, Hixon,” she said softly, her chin tipped down a bit so she was looking under her lashes at him.
This didn’t last long, but it was affective in a way he knew she didn’t intend by the nervousness she couldn’t quite hide she was holding her body, and then she glanced at the bartender.
“On it, Greta,” the bartender said.
She finally looked fully at him from where she was stopped at his side.
He turned his stool to face her and said low, “Hey, Greta.”
She looked surreptitiously side to side, noting the stool to his left was empty, the one behind him had a man’s ass on it, but Hix knew even though his back was to him that that guy was turned to his date beside him.
Her attention came back to Hix as she stepped a step closer.
Different perfume this time. Deeper.
Sultry.
Damn.
“Uh . . . this isn’t exactly a smoke signal, darlin’,” she murmured.
Hix couldn’t stop his smile.
Her eyes dropped to it then immediately looked away.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
She smiled politely beyond him, and even polite, he felt that hit his gut. Then she reached beyond him and he felt that hit his gut too as she took up what looked like sparkling water on the rocks in a tall, thin glass with a curved, dark-blue straw and looked again at him.
“So, what are you doing here?” she asked, put the straw between red-painted lips and sucked.
Him being there was the right thing to do.
But her looking like that, right there with him, sucking on a straw with those red lips, that right thing was killing him.
“Met this woman who sings here. She’s talented. So I thought I’d take in the show.”
“Unh-hunh,” she mumbled, staring into his eyes.
He leaned closer to her and watched her brace.
Yup.
Killing him.
“Maybe some other time I’ll explain shit a lot more fully to you. But had reason to think on things, and what I thought was that things might not be what they could have been but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy your singing. It also doesn’t mean this can’t be cool between us. You’re smart. You’re funny. No one on this earth can have too many friends, they’re the good type of friend. So there’s no reason why we can’t have that even if we can’t have the other.”
This made her surprised, and as he was learning was all Greta, she didn’t hide it.
“You want to be my friend?”
That made Hix go still.
Shit, he hadn’t thought how that would sound.
“I didn’t mean—” he started quickly.
But he stopped when she tipped back her head and busted out laughing.
Christ, even that sounded like a song.
She looked back at him, and still chuckling, stated, “You crack me up.”
He felt his lips give a relieved twitch as he replied, “Noticed that.”
“Might be good to have the county sheriff as a friend.”
He grinned flat out and jokingly warned, “A friend doesn’t ask a friend to fix their speeding tickets.”
She chuckled again but he got serious.
“Hope give you any more shit?”
She got serious too.
“Nope.”
With that, she slid onto the stool beside him and rested her arm and her drink with her fingers around it on the bar.
This time, her nails were painted gold.
But her toes were painted red.
He turned on his stool toward her.
“You?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
A look of concern came over her face. “Has she . . . ?”
She said nothing more so Hix prompted, “Has she what?”
“None of my business,” she muttered to her glass.
He leaned into her again and said quietly, “Friends don’t ask friends to fix speeding tickets but they do ask questions if they give a shit.”
She lifted her gaze to his.
“Is she dragging your kids into this?”
He leaned away and shook his head. “No. Not yet and hope to God not ever. She does that, the girls’ll have to be married in a church the size of a football stadium for her to be far enough away from me in the front pew.”
She smiled at him, he liked it, buried that, but her smile slid away.
“Sucks, you have to think about stuff like that,” she noted gently.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“I don’t know her real well,” she shared. “And I reckon you know there’s been a lot of talk.”
“Yeah, I know that,” he muttered.
She gave him a somewhat sad but understanding smile before she continued, “But everyone says she’s a nice lady. Divorce is tough. It takes its toll. But things’ll get better.”
He tipped his head to the side. “You know about divorce?”
She lifted her drink and put her straw to her lips, sucked up some and put it back to the bar before she said, “Yeah.”
“Kids?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“How long were you with him?”
“Nine years.”
Interesting.
He knew by the look of her that she wasn’t twenty-two. But he also figured she wasn’t close to Hope’s age.
But married with no kids in nine years?
He didn’t ask. Their “friendship” all of five minutes long, it wasn’t his place.
He decided to change the subject.
“How long you been singing?”
“Since choir in junior high. Won the state competitions a couple of years going in high school. Knew I didn’t have it in me to make the big time but I like doing it. It’s extra money which never hurts, so I’d get gigs here and there like this one. Friday and Saturday only, when they don’t have an act that’s come into town.” She shot him another smile. “Bonus, I get to do up my hair and wear a pretty dress, even in the fields of Nebraska, so it’s fun.”
“Get that but not sure about you not having what it takes to make the big time,” he noted.
“Is our sheriff A&R for a hot record label on the side?” she teased.
“Nope. But my ears know what they’re hearing.”
“That’s sweet,” she whispered in a way she told him plainly it also meant more to her. She straightened in her chair, took another sip from her water, and stated, “But life has a way of telling you where you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to be doing. Had someone once tell me after a gig in Denver he wanted me to try out to be a backup singer for a big act. But . . .” she lifted her well-formed shoulders, “the time wasn’t right.”
“Time is always right to chase your dreams.”
At that, she gave him a full white smile, lighting the space around him, making him fight back a blink.
“Born with a nice voice, a great head of hair and a good hold on common sense,” she declared. “And don’t think I’m bragging, I’m just saying it like it is. Promise you, if I could belt it out like Céline or Christina, I would not be sitting here with you. I’d be ignoring your ass as I swanned by you at a club with a hundred times this capacity surrounded by my bodyguards. But I just don’t, Hixon. And honestly, I’m cool with that.”
And honestly, she was. Nothing about her said she wasn’t. No hesitance in tone. No rigidity in her frame. No shadows behind her eyes.