“Yeah, let me grab my purse.”
His eyes moved through the room and he dipped his head to the woman sitting in a dryer chair, the one in Lou’s chair, and he murmured, “Ladies.”
He got a “Hixon,” and a “Sheriff,” before his gaze hit Lou.
She tried to hide it but she looked uneasy.
He got why.
He was there getting Greta, but there might have been times since he last saw Lou that Lou, being a good friend who looked out for her girl, a girl Hix had asked to think about trying to make a go of it with him after what he’d done to her, had stated her case against Hix.
But it was more.
The last time he saw Lou she’d been out of line in a variety of ways and now that things had come around with Hix and Greta, she had a good friend who was seeing the man who she’d instigated him learning something about his ex-wife that another man might wrongfully lay blame on her just because she did it.
So it was his job to get them at least past that.
“Lou, you good?” he asked.
It seemed her entire body drooped with relief when she replied, “Yeah, Hix. Thanks.”
He felt Greta come up to his side, her fingers start to touch his, and he turned his own to lace them through hers and looked down at her.
“Ready,” she said.
“Right,” he replied, bent in and touched his mouth to hers.
He could swear he heard a fluttering, female sigh coming from the dryer chairs.
So he was grinning when he pulled away.
She was grinning too and her fingers were tight in his.
“Do me a favor, lawman,” Lou called out, and Hix turned his attention to her to see her jerk her head Greta’s way. “Get that one to cancel her clients tomorrow. She might look like a Charlie’s Angel but she’s not, and even Charlie would let one of his angels sit out a day, she got her nose busted by an asswipe . . . sorry, ladies,” she said to the women in the room.
“No apology necessary, Lou,” the one in her chair declared.
“He is an a-wipe,” the one at the dryer decreed.
Lou looked to Hix. “Seein’ as I’m her Charlie, she should listen to me. But she’s not. Now if I gotta get a speaker to talk to her through, I will. Though I’d rather someone else talk sense to her so I don’t have to go through that effort.”
“I rent my chair from you, Lou, you’re not my boss,” Greta chimed in.
“Girlfriend, I’m totally the boss of you when you’re bein’ plum nutty.”
“I’m not being nutty. I’m totally fine,” Greta returned, sounding like she was getting heated.
She also lied, because anyone looking at her could tell she wasn’t fine, and not only due to the bandage covering her nose.
“You do know I’m the mother of two girls, don’t you?” Lou asked sarcastically.
“Neither of them are thirty-eight years of age,” Greta retorted.
“And when they’re thirty-eight and bein’ stubborn in a way that makes them stupid, I’ll share my wisdom with them too.”
Hix felt Greta’s body tighten at his side, so instead of laughing his ass off at their exchange, he intervened.
“Maybe you two can make a mud pit and sell tickets for the football boosters while wrestling this out after Greta’s nose sets. But now, I need to get her to the hospital so we can make sure her nose will set properly.”
“That’s disturbingly sexist, Sheriff Drake,” Lou shot at him.
“And it would totally buy us a big screen, Lou, and don’t argue, you know it would.”
“It would. I’d buy tickets to that,” the woman at the dryer put in.
“And I’d absolutely take you,” Greta announced.
Lou’s eyes grew huge. “You would not.”
“It would be embarrassing,” Greta taunted.
Hix fought chuckling as he started pulling her to do the door.
“Right! You’re on!” Lou shouted as they moved.
Hix stopped chuckling.
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” Greta retorted.
That was when Hix frowned.
“As soon as that bandage is off, the gloves are off,” Lou returned.
He stopped at the door and turned back. “You’re gonna both get over it and not in a mud pit. I was jokin’, Lou. Greta’s getting nowhere near a mud pit with an audience or without one, but definitely not with one.”
Greta jumped right on that. “That’s only because Hix doesn’t want me to embarrass you.”
Lou opened her mouth but Hix spoke.
“Say goodbye, Lou.”
She snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at him.
He looked down at Greta, and not just to hold back the impending storm of him laying an order on a woman like Lou, to declare, “And you’re takin’ the day off tomorrow.”
She glared up at him. “I am not.”
He dipped close and said softly, “Baby, you’re dead on your feet. Lou’s right. You need to look after yourself.”
“She is right, you know, and so is Hixon,” the woman in Lou’s chair called. “Hair usually won’t wait for another day, but, Greta, honey, your girls will wait for you.”
Greta kept glaring up at him as she ignored that and asked, “Can we go to the hospital?”
He grinned. “Sure.”
She looked away with a roll of her eyes.
He looked over his shoulders and tipped down his chin.
They got goodbyes as he walked her out.
He took her right to his Bronco and helped her in the passenger side before he swung in the driver’s seat.
He started her up, backed her out and had them on their way before he asked, “You get lunch?”
“Yes,” she said shortly.
He grinned again and asked, “You pissed at me?”
It took her a second to reply and she did it after he heard her push out a breath. “No. I’m just tired and a little achy, so I’m also just annoyed you and Lou are right, but I’m not pissed.”
He reached out, took her hand and rested both on her thigh. “Good. Now you want the good news or the good news?”
He felt her gaze so he glanced her way before he looked back at the road.
“If it’s that way, I want all the news,” she answered.
“Well, to say the judge was not a big fan of a woman being attacked in her kitchen in his county is an understatement. During the bail hearing, he laid that asshole out. Essentially told him to make a deal or, if it got to him having the chance to announce a sentencing, he’d give him the maximum.”
“Ohmigod,” she breathed.