No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(105)

“What is it?” he pressed. “With what’s been going on in my personal life, I haven’t had the best day.”

“Well...I’m fairly certain that what I have to tell you will only make it worse, so...”

This piqued his interest. Apparently, she wasn’t about to issue another invitation to dinner, after all. “What is it?”

“It’s about your ex-wife.”

He almost corrected her. He and Sadie weren’t divorced yet and wouldn’t be until he decided to let her go. But he bit his tongue. He was getting tired of saying that, would have to prove it instead. “What about her?”

“She’s here, at The Blue Suede Shoe.”

“What’s she doing at the bar?”

“Dancing. With Dawson Reed. They’re here together—and are having a darn good time from the looks of it.”

He gripped the phone so hard the plastic dug into his fingers. “What do you mean by that?”

“They’re dancing about as close as two people can. Looks like she’s madly in love with him. A murderer. Who would’ve thought? Who goes from a cop to a criminal—and then flaunts it around town? She should be ashamed.”

“She isn’t in love with him. He’s messing with her mind, that’s all, making her think he can fix everything that’s wrong in her life. She’ll come around, get straightened out once it dawns on her that isn’t the case.”

“No, she won’t,” Dixie argued. “She’s gone, Sly, and she isn’t coming back. I think it’s time you let her go—and realize that there are other women out there who can make you happy. Haven’t you been through enough with her? I mean, let it end.”

Dixie was glad to see Sadie out with someone else, especially Dawson, Sly realized. She thought it would make him forget about his wife and start seeing her. “I gotta go,” he said.

She hesitated. Then, with a bit more determination, she said, “I’m heading home now and will be there all night, if you’d like to come by. Sometimes it’s easier to get over someone when you have someone else to hang on to, you know?”

He hit the gas pedal, peeled out and swerved into the road, narrowly missing a car coming from the opposite direction. He saw the panic on the driver’s face, but he didn’t care that he’d nearly caused an accident. “I’m not in the mood, Dixie. Not tonight.”

“So what are you going to do? Go home and pout? Drink some more? Word around the station is that you’re drinking too much as it is. People are starting to worry about you.”

“I don’t care what the ‘word’ is. What I do when I’m off duty is my own business. But I’m not going to drink tonight. I’m going over to the bar to knock some sense into Sadie. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Don’t, Sly. You need to let her go!”

“I’ll decide when it’s time for that,” he said and disconnected.

*

“I haven’t seen him,” Dawson said. “You ready to move on to another location?”

Sadie hugged him a little closer. “Stairway to Heaven” was playing—an old song, but a good one. She could’ve danced with him like this all night. They weren’t out just to have a good time, but she was having fun in spite of that. She enjoyed being with him regardless of what they were doing. “Not yet.”

“I’d like to stay, too,” he said. “But we’ve been here for over an hour. If we want to gain Sly’s attention, we need to spread ourselves around.”

She noticed Dixie Gilbert coming back into the bar and frowned. “Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?”

“See that woman over there? The one with the short, dark hair?”

Dawson turned her as they danced so that he could take a look without seeming too obvious. “Yeah.”

“She’s on the force with Sly.” Sadie hadn’t thought much of seeing Dixie when they first came in. If Sly spoke of her, it was usually with contempt. He claimed the city had only hired her so that it wouldn’t come under fire for being sexist, that she was a terrible officer. But the loyalty Dixie had shown to Sly when Sadie went in to the station, and the way she was behaving tonight, as if she relished the idea of seeing Sadie out with another guy, made Sadie wonder if there wasn’t something between them in spite of what he’d said about her in the past.

“Unless Sly’s coming to meet her, I don’t see where that’s going to help us,” Dawson mused.

Neither did Sadie. But Dixie had left her seat at the bar, gone outside and returned a few minutes later, as if she’d gone out for a smoke. Except Dixie didn’t smoke. Sadie was thinking she might’ve made a call, might’ve told Sly what she’d been seeing at the bar.

Or was that assuming too much? Most of the patrons in The Blue Suede Shoe were keeping a wary eye on them. That trip outside could simply have meant that Dixie needed a breath of fresh air.

When Dixie paid her bill and gathered her coat, Sadie decided she must’ve been mistaken. “You’re right. It’s probably nothing,” she told Dawson. Just more of the usual bias against him. “Let’s go.”

As soon as Dixie saw them making their way over to the bar, she stopped and waited. “I’d get out of here, if I were you,” she said without preamble.