Complicated Read online

  It had been amazing.

  Better than Keith by about ten thousand miles, and Keith was excellent in bed.

  Better than anybody.

  Yeah, I wished I could think about that, even if it had ended with him sharing with me indisputably I was only what I was. Something that had been shared with me way too many times before.

  This being a piece of ass not worth any more of his time than it took to get what he wanted out of me.

  And I wished I could think about what an asshole he was for sharing just that with me.

  Especially after I felt . . .

  After I’d thought we’d had . . .

  Whatever.

  I didn’t feel it and we didn’t have anything but near-simultaneous orgasms.

  But no.

  I couldn’t think of that either.

  All I could think was what a complete and utter fool I’d been.

  He’d bought me a drink, stared in my eyes (not at my breasts, a nice switch) while he chatted with me between sets like he gave a shit about what I said, and BAM!

  I forgot all I’d learned.

  All my momma taught me.

  All the things all the guys in my life had taught me.

  All Keith had taught me.

  That being the only good man in the world was my little brother Andy.

  And as ugly as it was to think, that was probably only because he’d had a traumatic brain injury that had essentially arrested him at the age he’d sustained it.

  Fifteen.

  Forever.

  And ever.

  No therapy.

  No relearning of skills.

  No readjusting life expectations, so instead of Andy going for being an architect, he worked as a janitor.

  No nothing.

  Except keeping him safe, and those around him the same, while he lived his life reading comic books, watching movies, experiencing terrifying seizures, occasionally having episodes that were totally forgivable because big chunks of his brain had been damaged beyond repair, but the rest of the time he was so damned sweet, he was a constant toothache.

  And him being the only real, sustained light in my entire life.

  Yeah.

  The only good guy in the world, or at least in my life, was my Andy.

  But I’d forgotten that.

  However, that wasn’t what filled my head after Hixon left.

  Nope.

  It was the fact that he may never have seen me, not in the eighteen months I’d been living in Glossop. Then again, in the beginning, he’d had no real reason to look. And after things went down, he’d had other stuff on his mind.

  But I knew Hope and the girls from the salon.

  And I’d seen him.

  Him and Hope.

  Unreasonably handsome Hixon Drake with his cool, pool-blue eyes, powerfully-built body and natural swagger that wasn’t eye-roll-worthy, but drool-worthy. The tall, beautiful Princess of Glossop Hope. And their three equally beautiful children.

  Lou had a girl on the same soccer team as Sheriff Drake’s girl, and I was close with all of Lou’s family (except her husband Bill, who was likeable, but did things that were really not-so-likeable), so it wasn’t rare I took in a home game.

  And I had a client who had a daughter who thought I walked on water so she asked me to her dance recitals, and I went.

  Sheriff Drake had a daughter who danced.

  So I’d seen them. All five of them, together, in various groups, separately.

  The perfect family.

  Tall. Strong. Proud. Gorgeous. Happy.

  Glossop’s royal couple, hell, royal family—the sheriff and his brood.

  When they fell apart, the town was agog. They couldn’t credit it. They couldn’t believe it.

  It was unbelievable.

  No.

  Unthinkable.

  Everyone thought it’d last a few days. Then they decided it might take a few weeks. After that, a few months.

  When the divorce went through—and I knew exactly when it went through, it was the talk of the salon all day (this making me an even bigger idiot, can anyone say rebound?)—everyone was freaked.

  If it could happen to the perfect family, it could happen to anybody.

  The townsfolk had been split down the middle.

  At first.

  Men and catty women said it was all about Hope being Hope, thinking her shit didn’t stink and her female parts were coated in gold, wanting to bust the balls of a man who would allow that to keep peace in his family.

  Until the time came when he was done allowing that.

  Women and men who wanted to get into Hope Drake’s pants said it was Hixon who was an asshole, probably had someone on the side, or several someones, and she was best shot of him. Because look at her, she’s Hope Drake. She could get anyone.

  Time wore on and Hope sat in Lou’s chair and let her mouth run, and probably did it other places besides, thinking women would feel her pain (when, with what she had and the games she was playing endangering that, we did not) and the mixed looks Hixon Drake was getting started to be not so mixed anymore.

  The tall, beautiful Princess of Glossop thought she was just that.

  So when my mom said Soccer Mom Barbie would get her GI Sheriff Joe back when he came to heel, she wasn’t talking out her ass.

  Everyone knew Hope was pitching one helluva fit to get her man to do what she wanted.

  The thing was, it wasn’t only his Bronco that declared the kind of man he was.

  How the woman who’d shared nearly twenty years with him didn’t clue in made everyone think even less of her (and her waning popularity, especially in the last three weeks, was running out, so not many thought much of her already—not anymore).

  Someone’s tiara was tarnished, and unless she got her head out of her ass and came to heel, broken perfection would not get fixed.

  And it was my experience that a good way to make a woman come to heel was show her she could be replaced.

  Even with a Trailer Trash Farrah Fawcett who had a few too many years on her, it would work.

  Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think Hixon took me to bed to get his wife back.

  At least not consciously.

  I just knew if nothing else would wake her shit up, that would.

  So if my mother had heard, Hope Drake definitely had.

  And the thing of it was, even though I wasn’t Hope Drake’s biggest fan even before it became clear what kind of woman she was and how that had affected her family (and it went without saying also before I slept with her ex-husband), there was a part of me that thought it best that happened.

  They fixed what was broken.

  Maybe not for him.

  Definitely not for her.

  But absolutely for those three kids.

  I knew better than most that the perfect family never existed, but the slightly-imperfect perfect family that still worked was on the endangered species list.

  So if there was a shot, everyone should do what they could to protect it.

  That was what I’d been thinking the past two days.

  That I hadn’t done that.

  I’d been charmed by a handsome man who made me forget I was supposed to have hardened my heart against men who might look at their wives like she was the first female created and God had outdone himself (and that was how Hixon had looked at Hope), but me, he’d treat like dirt.

  And then he made me remember.

  Now . . .

  Well, now, if my mom had heard about what had happened, I was likely going to be thrown right in the thick of it.

  And I had a feeling that wasn’t going to go well for me.

  I had that feeling because nothing ever did.

  And dammit, I’d taken more than my fair share of lickings.

  I’d had enough.

  But it was more.

  After the one Keith had delivered, then me finding the first moments of respite in my life and thinking it might finally go okay, that
being before Mom followed Andy and me out here and blew that all to smithereens, I didn’t know for sure, if I got another one, that I’d be able to keep on ticking.

  The In-Between

  Hixon

  HIX FELT IT the minute he walked into the department the next morning.

  He saw the cause when he looked beyond Donna, Bets and one of his other deputies, Larry, all of them at their desks in the bullpen, and he aimed his attention to his office where Hope was pacing.

  Goddammit.

  He swung through the swinging half door, and it was Larry who moved from his desk, close to the aisle to say, “Mornin’, Hix. And sorry, man. We asked her to wait out here. She refused. And she pitched a fit when Donna said she was gonna give you a call, so Donna thought it best to put her back there and maybe she’d cool off before you got here.”

  He knew from having seen that pacing before, that hadn’t happened.

  “Not your problem,” he growled, tipping his chin down to Larry, lifting it to Donna and noting that Bets was avoiding him but doing it looking under her lashes toward his office.

  Once he’d greeted his deputies, Hix just kept staring into his office as he prowled there, seeing Hope had noticed he’d arrived and was standing smack in the window with her hands on her hips like it was her damned office and she was waiting for a naughty boy to show up and receive his chastisement.

  He didn’t need three guesses to know that word had reached her about Greta.

  What he didn’t quite get was why that drove her here.

  Surely the woman could share what was on her mind on a freaking phone, not dragging his staff in as witnesses to whatever she’d worked herself up to dole out.

  He moved down the side hall that led to the door to his office as well as the one at the back that led to the alley.

  He turned right through the one to his office.

  He hadn’t even closed the door when she launched in.

  “You’re fucking unbelievable! How could you humiliate me this way!” she shouted.

  He closed the door and ground out, “Calm down.”

  “Calm down?” she screamed, advanced quickly and lifted a hand to shove his shoulder.

  It rocked back and he felt his face turn to stone.

  And he was way too pissed to fully experience it, but still, he distractedly felt something else turning to stone, and where that was happening was in his chest.

  “You do not put your hands on me,” he warned low. “With what we are now, not ever. But not in anger. Never in anger, Hope.”

  She rolled up on her toes and spat, “Fuck you. You fucked a fucking hairdresser.”

  “I can see you’re pissed, I don’t get it, but I can see it. So can three of my deputies and Reva. I get you don’t care what that means to me as their sheriff. But they can also see you acting like a crazy woman.”

  After a quick eye flare, Hix was not surprised Hope, who cared what people thought of her and went to pains to keep up a variety of appearances, backed off two steps.

  Hix moved into his office, and after the shove, he felt it prudent not to go to the blinds at the window and lower them.

  Instead, he walked behind his desk, putting distance and furniture between them.

  “You don’t get why I’m pissed?” Hope asked when he’d stopped.

  He lifted his eyes to her to see she’d also moved to stand four feet in front of his desk between the two chairs there.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Are fucking insane?” she demanded to know.

  It sucked but she was even beautiful like this.

  Angry as hell.

  It flushed her cheeks. Made her green eyes bright. Made her chest heave, bringing attention to her full tits.

  She’d also often plant her hands on her hips or hitch out a foot, taking your attention to those areas, reminding you she had a great ass, fantastic, long legs, just how perfectly your hips fit into hers and just how good it felt to have those legs wrapped tight around your ass.

  And she would sometimes toss her long, wavy hair that, at forty-one, she now had to dye back to its natural flawless pink champagne (her words for the hue), but even aided to that color, it was no less magnificent.

  These were several of the reasons why Hix had always found it difficult to argue with her. Seeing her that way, it would make him impatient to get to the part of the fight that would end it.

  That being having angry sex, something at which they both excelled.

  Then again, normal sex with his ex-wife hadn’t sucked either.

  “Nope. Not insane,” he answered her question.

  “You fucked a hairdresser at my salon,” she informed him.

  “Hope, I can’t imagine you didn’t know it would happen eventually. And in a town like this, it could be your salon, the grocery store, a teacher at one of the schools, whoever, you’d hear about it and likely know the woman. You know everybody. Everybody knows you. It’s unfortunate but it was going to happen.”

  “It was going to happen?” she snapped. “I cannot believe you fucked a stylist at my salon, but what I really can’t believe is that you fucked anybody!”

  Since she unfathomably wasn’t noting the obvious, he pointed it out.

  “Me doing anything is not your concern.”

  “It’s not . . . it’s not . . . it isn’t . . .” she stammered irately and finished on a high pitched, “It isn’t my concern?”

  “It’s not your concern,” he affirmed.

  She shook her head in brief, concise shakes. “I can’t . . . I cannot believe you’d say that or even think it. Especially about something like this.”

  Right.

  Hix had to admit, he was confused.

  How could she not?

  “We’re divorced,” he pointed out.

  She leaned forward and on a near shout declared, “For three weeks!”

  “That doesn’t negate the fact we’re divorced. But seeing as I’m reminding you of things, I’ll also remind you that we may have been divorced for three weeks, but you kicked me out a year ago.”

  “And so this is my punishment?”

  He felt his brows draw together. “Your punishment?”

  “My punishment. You making a point.”

  Hix stared at her.

  Then he gave her the honest truth.

  “Not one thing that happened between me and Greta had shit to do with you.”

  Again she leaned forward and this time hissed, “Do not say her name in my presence.”

  Okay.

  Right.

  What the hell was going on here?

  “You do get the concept of divorce,” he noted curiously.

  “Don’t be an asshole,’ she shot back.

  “I’m not. I’m genuinely wondering at this point if you do.”

  “What I get is the fact that I’ve been asking you to have a conversation for the last now more than three weeks and you refuse to speak to me,” she returned, leaning forward each time she put emphasis on her words.

  It had not been the prevailing reason why Hix was overwhelmed with happiness when he’d married Hope nineteen years ago. That reason being from that point forward he’d only ever have one woman in his life he’d have to try to figure out.

  But he couldn’t deny it had been a relief.

  The prevailing reasons were that she had a great sense of humor. She was more into watching sports than even he was, the same with action movies. They’d both wanted the same things out of life, including the number of children they’d had in the exact order and gender they’d miraculously been given them. She could often be generous with her love, affection and time. She was spectacular in bed. And she was gorgeous.

  Now, he realized, after all their years together, he didn’t get her.

  He didn’t get Bets.

  What he did get was that their bullshit pissed him off.

  “Okay, seems I gotta expend the effort to make something else straight this week,” he began.
r />   “Oh, so sorry, Hix. Is your wife and the mother of your three children taxing you with her demands?” she cut in sarcastically.

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s not right. You got it in you to get that or not, the simple matter of fact is that that is not right.”

  His tone went normal, but steely, when he kept on.

  “You’re not my wife anymore, Hope. That’s something you wanted, not me. Like you have a way of doing, you got what you wanted. And getting that, you don’t get to call me over and over again to demand my time. You don’t get to storm into my place of business and pitch a fit. And you do not get to act like I wounded you when I’m living my life, a life you disconnected, legally and emotionally, from yours.”

  “Hix—”

  Like Bets, even though his mother had taught him differently, especially when speaking with a woman, he talked over her.

  “Now I see when we made arrangements for custody and decisions on who was going to get the house and all that other shit, we should have made it clear how this was going to go from now on. Since you’re here, we’ll take that opportunity.”

  She stepped forward, her expression beginning to soften as she noted his mood and the fact it wasn’t shifting, so her game began to change. “Honey—”

  He leaned into his fist in his desk and growled, “Do not ever fucking call me that again, Hope.”

  He watched the color drain out of her face as her eyes widened.

  He ignored that and declared, “Now this is the way it’s gonna be. You got a father and two brothers who live in this county who can help you out if you got a problem with your car, the house. Unless it affects my children, I don’t want to hear from you. You find someone you wanna date, I don’t care. Date him. I don’t wanna hear from you. I find someone I wanna see, that’s my business. I’ll do it. And I won’t be giving you a courtesy call to share that intel.”

  He drew in a breath but continued speaking before she could get a word in.

  “But if you need to change arrangements with the kids for any reason, you text me. It’ll be rare I won’t be able to take my kids so that won’t be a problem and we won’t need discussion. We have an issue to discuss about the children, we talk on the phone unless it’s serious. Other than that, Hope, you didn’t want to be in my life, you are no longer in my life. You wanted us done, we’re done. And listen to that, Hope, because I’m not gonna repeat myself, and having a lot of time to think on it, doing that like I’ve been doing now for years. When I say we’re done, we. Are. Done.”