“You’re good?” he pushed.
She nodded. “At least I think I can take a shower and get to work, and then I’ll tackle Monday Night Football with the two Drake men and after that, we’ll see.”
“Shaw won’t mind you spending the night tonight, baby,” he assured her.
“I don’t think he will and he seems very mature for his age but he’s still only seventeen, so as complicated as this is, darlin’, maybe we should do what we can to make it less complicated for your kids.”
When he opened his mouth to say something, she gave him a shake.
“I might not be able to do it, being here alone . . . uh, just now. So I might need to stay with you tonight. But I should also not let it go on too long.” Her lips tipped up. “And anyway, I can call you, right?”
His lips tipped up too. “Anytime.”
She moved her hands to bunch them in the fabric of his shirt at his sides and she swayed him, ordering, “Then get to work, Sheriff.”
He moved his hands to either side of her neck, bent in and took her mouth with a touch that included a touch of his tongue against her lips.
She parted them so his tongue touched hers.
He gave it that and necessarily pulled away before he felt compelled to give more.
“I’ll meet you at the salon at one to take you to the hospital.”
“Okay, Hix.”
“You want me to bring Harlequin?”
“Maybe we can go there later in the week when I don’t look like I went a round with Muhammed Ali.”
Fuck yes.
“I’d like that.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
He gave her neck a squeeze, kissed her forehead then let her go.
He felt her at his heels as he walked to the kitchen door.
Oh yeah.
That ass in a cell in his station without Greta around breathing and joking and being Greta, that urge he was fighting was going to get harder to hold back.
She had her hand on the door before he even cleared it.
He turned in it and looked deep in her eyes.
“You’re safe, sweetheart.”
She nodded and swallowed.
“One o’clock,” he said.
“See you then, darlin’.”
“Yeah, you will.”
She forced a smile.
He started moving to his truck, hearing the door close and the lock go before he was two feet into that journey.
He idled at the side of the road two houses down with his phone in his hand just in case.
She didn’t call.
So Hix went to work.
Hix walked into his department to see Reva in dispatch, Larry at the back at the copier, Bets at her desk and Hal at his.
He did not look to the cells at the back.
He would not look to the cells at the back.
That asshole existed but Hix didn’t need to remind himself that he did or waste even the energy it would take to aim his gaze at him, because he wasn’t worth it.
He walked right to Hal and stopped beside his desk.
“Weekend on call deputies get Monday off, Hal,” he reminded him.
Hal’s face got hard and he replied, “I wanna take that jackhole to his bail hearing.”
“Larry and Bets can do that.”
“I brought him in.”
“Yeah, and I get why you’d wanna see that through. So you and me will sit in the gallery during the hearing.”
Hal stared at him.
Hix ignored it.
“Greta was hesitant about bein’ back at her place this morning. Think that’s gonna take some time,” he told Hal. “She didn’t mention it because she probably didn’t notice it because she’s not there in her head but I know for a fact it helped, not seein’ her own blood on her island and all over the floor. You mighta done that because I asked you to do it as my deputy, but mostly you did it because you’re a good man. And I appreciate it. So, it’s Macallan, right?”
Hal stared at him a second, lifted the side of his fist to his mouth and coughed in it and dropped his hand before he answered, “Yeah. It is. But you don’t have to do that.”
Hix felt his lips curl up. “I know. If you thought I did, I wouldn’t drop a hundred bucks on a bottle of single malt.”
“It’s only fifty, Hix.”
“You cleanin’ blood from flagstone is worth the fifteen-year, man.”
Hal smiled at him.
“We’ll walk over to the courthouse together, drop by and get a coffee at Babycakes on the way back, and then you need to go home and take your day off, Hal.”
“Right, boss.”
Hix nodded.
Larry gave him a grin and a shake of his head as Hix walked by him on his way to his office.
Bets muttered under her breath, “You’re the shit, boss,” as he walked past her desk, but she did it with her eyes studiously fixed to her computer screen so he replied, “Mornin’ to you too, Bets.”
Her lips quirked.
Hix’s cell beeped as he was walking through the door to his office.
He pulled it out of his breast pocket and felt the warm hit to his chest when he saw Greta’s name above the text on the screen.
He stopped and took it.
It said, Reporting in, I’ve survived the first fifteen minutes. I made coffee and everything. All good.
Hix replied, Great, babe. Keep it up. See you at one.
He hit send and waited.
It sent immediately, no block, and he had only turned on his computer when he got back, One, and until then, pray my next bandage isn’t also the size of a mini diaper.
Getting that, Hix didn’t set the phone aside and tap in his password.
He busted out laughing.
“Bail set at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Judge Bereford announced.
The defense attorney jumped up, shouting, “Two hundred and fifty thousand? That’s twenty-five thousand in bond!”
“I do understand the bond percentage, councilor,” Bereford replied.
“Your honor, that’s outrageous! My client has never been arrested in his life. He has a business in Sheridan County with clients who count on him and employees who need him on the job, so he’s not a flight risk. He—” the defense attorney began.
Bereford cut him off. “I hazard to say those thoughts should have occurred to him before this weekend’s events.”
“Your honor—”
Sitting in the gallery beside Hal watching this, Hix tensed as, uncharacteristically, Bereford swiftly lost patience, lifted a finger and jabbed it at the attorney.
“Listen to me, councilor.” His finger curled in, his thumb came out and he thrust it toward himself. “This is my county. And I’ll share with you right now that in my county men don’t shoot young fathers on the side of the road and they also don’t attack women in their kitchens. If they do, the message will be relayed with a clarity that cannot be missed that they should not.”