She turned to the door and yanked on it so Hix removed his hand and stepped away.
He turned and watched through the window as she stormed out of his department.
“Goddamn shit,” he muttered when she slammed through the front door.
He took his gaze from the window not meeting any of his deputies’ eyes and stalked to his desk. He turned on his computer but didn’t enter the password.
He didn’t even sit down.
He stalked back around the desk and only stopped when he saw Donna in the door.
“Got somewhere I gotta go, Donna,” he told her.
Instead of nodding and getting out of the way, she walked in and closed the door quietly behind her.
Christ.
Was he having to repeat himself with a woman again?
“Donna,” he clipped.
“Think you should let Hope have some time to get her head together.”
“I’m not worried about Hope.”
Without hesitation, she continued, “Then I think you should know Lou opens at eight, but on Tuesdays Greta doesn’t start seeing clients until ten. She does late hours so ladies who work can get to see her. Being a lady who works, and seeing as she’s my stylist, I know her schedule.”
Hix ground his teeth.
“I see you’re not in a good mood,” she said carefully. “But I know you’re a man who doesn’t like to be blindsided, so I’m gonna say it even though I think you probably already know. Everyone in town is talking about it.”
“Shit,” he hissed between his teeth.
She took a hesitant step forward, her eyes sliding to the window before they came back to him.
“And, uh, we didn’t say anything about it because we were all pulling for you. We thought, up until, well . . . you know, um . . .” She didn’t finish that but she did go on, “It’s just that, we had hope. We didn’t say anything because we thought it would all work out. But now, well, I think you should know that the town’s been talking about it since ’round about the time you stood in your own driveway and threw your suitcases in the back of the Bronc.”
Hix drew breath into his nose, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling and lifting his hands to rest them on his hips.
“But I figure you probably knew that too,” she said quietly.
He again looked at her.
“For what it’s worth,” she went on, “I’ll say, at the beginning this time, Greta’s really great.”
“Nothing is happening with me and Greta,” he ground out.
She looked him right in the eye, hesitated a beat, then whispered, “That’s a shame.”
“My divorce was final three weeks ago,” he pointed out.
She nodded. “Unh-hunh.”
“She doesn’t need the shit I got in my head right now,” he shared. “But it’s way too soon for me, my kids, and because of that, it wouldn’t be fair on any woman.”
“Right,” she said softly.
“We just had a thing.”
She again nodded. “It happens.”
Hix dropped his head and looked at his boots, muttering, “Hope is gonna grind her to ash.”
“Jep and Marie Schroeder are salt of the earth,” Donna declared, and Hix lifted his head to look at her again. “Cook and Reed too. Everyone likes ’em. Hope’s family has that from the town and they also got a lot of respect.”
Her gaze leveled on his in that way of hers that got attention even from the drunkest drunk or the most punkish kid.
And she kept talking.
“But none of them held Krissy Schultz’s hand until the fire department got there with the Jaws of Life to get her out of that car, Hix. And none of them was seen having a word with Lyle Koch at the side of the church when his wife turned up at work with a black eye for about the fifteenth time. And none of them treated old Mrs. Olson like she was perfectly sane to think her house was haunted and went to it every night. Driving all the way out to that old farm, thirty miles, before he went home to his family, just so he could do walkthroughs to give her peace of mind that some poltergeist was not gonna spirit her to another realm. All this until her kids got her sorted in a nursing home. None of them did any of that. But you did. And everybody knows it.”
“You heard,” he murmured.
Her face changed in a way he’d never seen it.
But only for an instant.
Then she shook her head and said, “I grew up in this town. Grew up here just like Hope did. I know her, Hix. And she’s a great gal. That’s getting lost in all this, but she just plain is. I know that because I grew up with her. But even if I didn’t, I’d know it knowing you and knowing you’re not a man who would put up with a woman who wasn’t. We all know she’s a great gal.”
She pulled in a breath, kept her eyes trained on him and kept going.
“Except when she doesn’t get her way. She’s always been like that, from way back. And right now she’s not getting her way and everyone who knows her knows how that goes. The point I’m trying to make is, don’t let her get into your head and give you even more to worry about. It’s not just your deputies that are rooting for you, boss. And it’s not just us who wanna see you happy again.”
He acknowledged that with a short nod of his head.
“This will pass, for all of us,” he told her.
“It always does.”
“Thanks for comin’ in here, Donna.”
She gave him a small grin and said, “Always around, you need me, Hix.”
She was.
He had his boys in that town, but now that he was thinking on it, the person he was closest to was Donna. She hung out with him at the Outpost before Hope asked him to leave, but she did it a lot more frequently after. She was his most veteran deputy, so in the rare instance anything went down, she was his number one. He counted on her to keep the others focused when he wasn’t around, and she never let him down.
She was a good deputy. A good woman. Her husband knew it. Her kids. The town.
And so did Hix.
“Thanks,” he murmured, turning back to his desk.
“Right, boss, that’s outta the way, you should know, Peters’s cows got loose again. They’re blocking County Road 16, and traffic, such as it is, is backing up. Which, through the report, is all of three cars. He’s not answering his phone. Should I send Larry and Bets out there to deal with it?”
Peters was probably still passed out from drinking alone in front of his television like Hix suspected he had every night since the mean sonuvabitch’s wife came to her senses and left him two years before.
His fields had been fallow those two years and Hix had no idea how his cows hadn’t wasted away.
But his fences had, seeing as the man wasn’t a good farmer even before his wife took off.
“Send ’em with the message that this is the third time, and McCook County Sheriff’s Department gives more than three strikes, but less than five. So he best get onto sorting out that damned fence or county fines will have to be deducted from his whiskey budget. And if the drivers are still idiotic enough to be waiting for cows to pass when our deputies get there, tell them to thank whoever called it in and divert the drivers. This county is on a grid system, it shouldn’t be difficult for them to find an alternate route.”
Her lips ticked on her, “Gotcha.”