“Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured, studying my eye before she brightened. “Did you hear?”
I heard a lot of things. I worked in a salon.
So my reply was, “I don’t know.”
“About Hal.”
Hal?”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Hal . . . uh, what’s-his-name. I don’t remember his last name. I kinda don’t want to, he’s kinda a jerk. But I’ve met his wife Ashlee in passing. She’s nice. Not sure you know her, I think she gets her hair done at The Cutting Edge.”
She was rambling and I was tired, in heels and hungry so I cut in to say, “I don’t think I know him,” in a hopefully not rude effort to get her to move this along.
“He’s one of Hixon’s deputies.”
Oh boy.
“He found the gun that killed Faith’s husband,” she declared.
I stood still and stared at her.
“It’s really good he did that. Apparently, he spent ages workin’ hunches on his free time, out with metal detectors with a couple of his buddies on game trails, hiking trails, roadsides. And he found it on a stretch of road over in Sheridan County.”
“That’s excellent,” I told her.
“Yeah.” She grinned. “One step closer.”
I hoped so, for Faith (and, damn it, Hixon).
“And, well . . .” Shari’s look turned cautious, “you probably heard Shaw moved in with Hixon. Permanent-like.”
Uh-oh.
“Yeah?” I murmured.
“Is it okay to talk about this?” she queried. “I mean, I know you two aren’t an item anymore but it didn’t last a long time and . . . hey, by the way, you gonna go out with Mrs. Swanson’s Owen? She’s telling everyone she’s gonna set you two up.”
Crap.
“I’m just kinda . . . doin’ my own thing at the moment,” I replied.
She nodded like she, a woman who was now thirty-six, hadn’t been married to her husband since she was twenty and she had any concept what “doing her own thing” as a single gal really meant.
Then she kept talking.
“Well, as you can imagine, Hope is beside herself. But think she’s finally gettin’ smart, ’cause, see, everyone knows this wasn’t Hixon’s idea. It was Shaw’s. He’s real mad at her.” She leaned in. “Real mad.” She leaned back. “I thought, when I heard, that she’d be spreadin’ it around that she blames Hix. But apparently, Shaw threw such a fit at havin’ to go back to his momma’s yesterday, Jep had to get involved. He came into town. Sat down with his girl. Told her the way of things and the girls went back. But Shaw didn’t. And all day today, all Hope’s sayin’ is that her boy needs his daddy at his age and she thinks it’s good, Shaw havin’ time with his father, learnin’ to be a man before he goes off to be a marine.”
“Well, I hope that all works out,” I said, and I did, but I’d rather not be talking about it.
“Girls won’t be far behind, I reckon, they learn the full truth about their momma,” Shari predicted.
“Well, I hope with that they never do,” I shared, and I hoped that too, a lot.
“Me too, but,” she shrugged, “things got a way of gettin’ out and Hope’s on the back foot now. She’s scramblin’. Losin’ Hix like she did. Losin’ her son like that. Folks knowin’ why and they’re bein’ nice enough, but she’s also feelin’ the cold shoulder. She’s got a lot to make up for, pain she’s caused. So now she’s got Julie Baker spreadin’ around how proud she is of Hix, this sad business with Nat Calloway and how far they got when they started with a whole load of nothin’. Julie’s spreadin’ it wide how Hope always knew what a good policeman he was and how she isn’t glad how he got the reason to prove it, but she’s still glad the county knows for certain we’re in good hands.”
God, Hope Drake was a piece of work.
“Mm-hmm,” I murmured.
Shari gave me a close look that shifted to a horrified one.
“You aren’t okay with talkin’ about this,” she said, aghast at what she thought was her insensitivity.
She was sweet and she was right in what she’d said earlier.
Hixon and I weren’t an item anymore. We never officially were. It was just me who was an idiot bent on proving that fact repeatedly with all men.
So she shouldn’t feel bad.
“It’s just that I’ve been on my feet all day,” I lied, twisted from my cart and lifted up a foot to show her one of my pumps that I could run a marathon in, even right then (okay, maybe not right then but if pressed, I could maybe walk a 5K). “And I just wanna get my groceries, get home and get these off. But Andy ate me out of house and home so I have to restock or go hungry. And from what Andy and I put away this weekend, I can’t put that off and just buy some fried chicken at the deli. I need something green or my body is gonna shut down.”
“I hear you,” she replied and smiled. “Though I don’t because I only wore heels to my prom and my wedding, but those were enough. So I also do and I’ll let you go.”
“Thanks, babe. And it was good to see you, Shari.”
“You too, honey. Give that brother of yours a hug from me when you see him again, and you should bring him for another day in the salon sometime. I wasn’t there any of the times you’ve brought him but all the girls say he’s great and I’d love to meet him.”
“Good idea. I’ll talk with Andy about that.”
“Great. Get done with your shoppin’, get yourself home and I’ll talk to you later.”
She raised a hand, gave me a wave, put it back to her cart and motored off.
I grabbed my salad fixins, fruit and wheeled my cart into the small sea of aisles that were half the number of any King Soopers in Denver, but still managed by some miracle to have all the stuff.
I did this trying to put all Shari had shared out of my mind.
And failing miserably.
They got the gun.
Good.
That meant at least that crazy drifter wouldn’t shoot anybody else (I hoped).
Also, Hixon’s son had turned his back on his mother.
I had no idea if that was good or bad, but in one way or another, no matter the reason, any child doing that was bad.
And Hope was back-peddling.
I had no idea how that would go.
All I knew, and I knew it well, was that Hixon Drake had one hell of a temper, so if he reacted the way he did to spending time with my mother, him discovering his wife ended a two-decade-long marriage over a piece of expensive jewelry, well . . .
She was screwed.
I was in the coffee and tea section when the next thing happened.
And it was a lot worse than Shari gossiping about Hixon and Hope Drake.
I also had my mind filled with what she’d said, much of it about Hixon, so my mind was filled with him.
Therefore I was not prepared for the man himself to make an appearance.
But this he did, saying from close to my side, “Greta?”
I turned my head from perusing the tea selection and stared up at him standing right there.
At my side.
God, that thick, dark hair with its minimal, but awesome, silver flecks, his height, those broad shoulders, his pool-blue eyes.
It was hateful he was so beautiful.
He didn’t stare at me.
His eyes narrowed on my shiner and his face turned to granite.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.