Complicated Read online

  When Hix hit the Dew Drop, he didn’t select a table like he did the last time.

  He took a seat at the middle of the bar.

  This made him still visible, but when he spoke with Greta, the intimacy of one of those little tables with their shaded lamps would not be there nor would it be communicated to anyone watching them.

  Nor to Greta.

  It wasn’t lost on him he had a lot of attention as he made his way to the bar.

  But that was why he was there so it also didn’t bother him.

  He was just glad Greta was obviously between sets, because soft jazz was playing in the background and the stage was empty. It gave him a chance to continue the effort he’d expended on his way there to get his shit together so he’d be able to hold it together when the time came they had their chat.

  After he took his seat at the bar, he glanced at the bowl of hot nuts the bartender set in front of him, ordered a beer and surveyed the scene.

  It was Saturday night, all the tables taken, all the booths, most of the stools at the bar, a few folks standing and talking, but no one at the bar waiting for a drink. This was because Gemini Jones kept plenty of servers on hand so his patrons could relax in their seats without worrying about when their next drink would come.

  Hix also noted what he’d noted the first time he was there years ago with Hope.

  There weren’t a lot of places or occasions in McCook County that made you give up your jeans. Church. Weddings. Graduations. Anniversary parties. Jameson’s Steak House in Dansboro.

  And the Dew Drop.

  So he, along with most of the other men, was wearing nice trousers and a dress shirt. The men not dressed like him wore suits.

  That was the respect you showed the Dew Drop. There wasn’t an official dress code. Then again, no one would ever dis the Dew or Gemini Jones by showing up in a way that would be frowned upon.

  “Sheriff.”

  He turned his head and saw Jones himself standing beside him, looking at the bartender and lifting his chin at him for some reason.

  “Gemini, I’m off-duty, but even if I was on, most times folks just call me Hix.”

  Gemini turned his attention to Hix and slashed a white smile at him.

  “Then . . . Hix.”

  Hix didn’t need to take Gemini in. Even with Hix not a regular at his club, Gemini wasn’t a stranger in town or in the town’s business. He went to Town Board meetings. He had kids at the school. He was involved.

  He was also short, had his hair cut close to his scalp and a precisely groomed, thin mustache over his top lip. Even though he couldn’t be more than five six, he was burly, had wide shoulders, sturdy legs and a stomach that protruded but didn’t give any indication the man wasn’t fit.

  That said, his height or build didn’t matter.

  Not with Gemini.

  With Gemini, it was about presence.

  He had that, not just in his place, a place he’d inherited from his momma, who’d inherited it from her daddy and so on. A place he grew up in that was just him, every inch of it.

  He was also that anywhere he went.

  Why he had it was something you couldn’t put your finger on and Hix had learned with that kind of thing, you didn’t try. He was who he was to the Dew Drop, the town, the county, and since that was a force of class and intelligence, you didn’t question it.

  “She’s in back, touching up perfection,” Gemini told him, and Hix held back a sigh at his comment and what it shared he knew about why Hix was there.

  “Like to have a word with her,” Hix replied.

  Gemini looked to his club but did it shaking his head and speaking to Hix. “She’s back on in a few.” His eyes went to Hix. “I’ll get word to her for her next break.”

  “Thanks,” Hix muttered.

  “Always like repeat business, but ’specially glad to see you here,” Gemini noted. “Word around town . . .” Gemini shrugged. “Started off good enough, then nothin’ more juicy to gnaw on happened, things began to turn.”

  It didn’t surprise Hix that Gemini was giving him indication he not only liked Greta, but looked after her.

  And with the other info he shared about things beginning to turn, something Hix had not heard, now he knew it was good he’d taken his seventeen-year-old son’s advice.

  “Had my kids this week,” Hix murmured.

  “Mm-hmm,” Gemini murmured back.

  Hix shifted on his stool to face the man closer on, this regaining him Gemini’s focus.

  “You’re makin’ it clear she’s your business, and I understand that. But with respect to you and the same you obviously give to Greta, just to say, we connected. She’s a good woman. But we’re not goin’ there and she gets why. I’m here as a friend and ’cause I like to listen to her sing.”

  Gemini didn’t break eye contact when he repeated, “Mm-hmm.”

  “That’s all I’m gonna give you, man,” Hix said low.

  Gemini’s head tipped to the side, but all he said was, “I’ll get word to her you’re here.”

  With that, he glided away, melting into his club with an ease borne of being born to it and a coolness that no one could imitate no matter how hard they tried.

  The bartender had served his beer through this and Hix took a sip, watching the piano player come out before Greta made her return.

  But when she did a minute later, he had to suck in breath.

  She had a different dress on. This one a shiny dark-red satin that had gathers all around her middle and hips. The deep vee of the front dipped low to show cleavage, her arms were bare, the hem cut above her knee.

  Her hair was pulled back in a huge mess of curls at her nape, fat curls falling around her face, the ends of some brushing her collarbone.

  She also had big, rhinestone earrings dropping from her ears, more of that bling on a wrist, and a pair of spike-heeled sandals with big chunks of bling encircling her ankles and gold straps across her toes on her feet.

  And her beautiful face was made up like it had been last Saturday.

  Dark and bold.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  She was gorgeous.

  So gorgeous, it took a beat for him to realize she was scanning the tables in front of the stage nervously as she gracefully, even in those heels, but also very quickly made her way to the piano player as subdued, respectful applause broke out at her appearance.

  She bent to the piano player and said something. He shook his head. She put her hand on his arm and kept talking. He kept shaking his head, saying a few words, and then he was scanning the crowd.

  Hix saw the piano player’s glance linger slightly on him before he looked right in Greta’s eyes and spoke very briefly.

  She stiffened and paled before she turned away from him and walked equally stiffly to the mic set up at the end of the baby grand, center stage.

  “Hey, ya’ll,” she said in it, and the applause that came after that was louder. “Thanks for hanging. Time to give you a bit more.”

  She barely finished saying that when the piano sounded and the clapping stopped instantly.

  Not because she didn’t deserve more.

  Because they were glad she was back and they wanted silence so they could experience fully what she was about to give them.

  And right then, what she gave them was Rihanna’s “Stay.”

  It was also then he got why she’d had her conversation with the piano player.

  She hadn’t wanted to sing that song. A song he’d heard in passing but the words coming out of Greta, her piano player taking the mic above the keyboard to accompany her when the time came, he heard every fucking word.

  He also knew, since she didn’t want to sing them, just what they meant.

  And each word beat into him as he watched her stand in front of that club and lose herself in the song, her eyes closing, her body not swaying an inch, her fingers staying wrapped loosely around the mic stand without budging, just her lips moved as she poured h
er yearning all over them.

  All over him.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  She ended the song, smiling and not looking anywhere near the bar in a way he suspected she guessed that was where he was, while the patrons showed their approval and as the rest of the band—a drummer, two guys taking up guitars—walked up and took their positions on that small stage with her.

  Once the band was ready, she immediately went into “Come Away with Me” by Norah Jones, and Hix heard it, he liked it, she sang it beautifully. But mostly, through that and the songs she sang after it, he sipped his beer and retreated back to where he had to go to pull his shit together so he’d have it tight when she walked up to him in that dress, those shoes, with her hair like that, her face like that, after she sang that first song.

  When she completed the set, she said in her sweet voice through the applause to the audience, “Thank you. Gonna take a little break but I’ll be back.”

  The applause ran deeper as she smiled, lifted her hand slightly in a lithe gesture of thanks and farewell-for-now and walked off the stage.

  After she disappeared, Hix fought ordering another beer. It wouldn’t make him drunk but that didn’t matter. In his position, he had to live his life as an example.

  Normally, this wasn’t taxing.

  But right then, he needed another freaking beer.

  She came through some dark curtains hanging over a door to the left side of the room, and her eyes hit him briefly before she made her way to him slowly when someone stopped her, having to touch shoulders, say some words, bend over to listen to a few.

  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.

  “Well, then that makes McCook lucky since the Dew Drop got you,” he replied.

  “And that’s sweet too.” She shifted in her seat and tilted her head. “Sorry, but I probably need to get back. You stayin’?”

  “Got my kids, Greta. Might catch some of the next set but should get home to them.”

  “Of course,” she murmured then reached out and touched his wrist fleetingly before she whispered, “I’m real glad you came, Hixon.”

  “Me too, Greta.”

  She gave him another blinding smile before she slid off her stool and glided away with much the same skill as Gemini had done, but with a far more attention-grabbing sway of her ass.

  He decided to take in a couple of songs to make things even more clear to the folks who were no doubt watching and then he’d get home to his kids.

  And maybe, he might come again next Saturday.

  It hadn’t been easy, at first.

  Then Greta made it not hard.

  So maybe they could be friends.

  These were his thoughts when his eyes left her ass and went to the back of her head as she abruptly stopped moving to the curtained door.