“My sister, Penny, owns that store.”

Uh…wow.

I’d been to that store. The furniture in that store was unbelievable and the price tags on it were even more so.

“Wow,” I whispered and he grinned then flicked a hand out.

“This is her shit,” he told me.

“Pardon?”

“She furnished this place for me wholesale.”

At that, I blinked. “Your sister furnished your apartment?”

“Yep. She’s a nut. She decorates everything. The inside of her fridge is decorated.”

I blinked again. “The inside of her fridge is decorated?”

Mitch nodded, grinning.

“How do you decorate the inside of a fridge?” I asked, intrigued by this concept.

“She’s got decals on the sides of the fridge and fancy bowls she puts fancy shit in that isn’t food that sits on the shelves. Sometimes she even puts small vases with flowers in there.”

I didn’t know if that was weird or cool. I also didn’t share this indecision with Mitch.

Luckily, he kept talking. “When she redecorated her kids rooms three times in a year, her husband had enough, talked her into opening her own store so she could decorate other people’s houses and make money doin’ it instead of spendin’ all theirs doin’ it. So, when I moved in here, she took over and I let her because if I didn’t, she would anyway and if I fought it, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“So you had no say?” I asked, surprised, seeing as Mitch seemed like a man in command of everything and definitely his surroundings.

Mitch shook his head. “I told her it had to be comfortable and it had to look like a guy lived here and not a gay guy. She succeeded on the first; the second is up for debate.”

He stopped talking but his eyes didn’t leave me and I got the feeling he expected me to chime in with my opinion.

So I chimed in with my opinion and stated, “It’s, uh…not totally gay.”

He threw his head back and burst out laughing. I bit my lip. His laughter became chuckles, his chin dipped back down and he caught my eyes.

“That’s good, I guess,” he muttered through a smile, his eyes very warm making my chest very, very warm.

Instead of belatedly intelligently keeping my mouth shut and absorbing myself in the baseball game, I stupidly decided to clarify, “It looks really nice, Mitch. It suits you since you always look really nice too.”

“So you’re sayin’ that the way I dress is nice and not totally gay?” he teased and my back straightened a bit because I knew he was teasing but I didn’t want him to think I was insulting him, not even a little bit.

And furthermore, the way he dressed was totally nice and not nice in the way gay guys always looked nice.

“No, I’m saying you always look nice as in, um…nice and, uh…that’s it. You just always look really, really nice.”

When I was finished speaking, his face changed as did his eyes. Both got warmer but the latter got dark in a way that made my warm chest even warmer and other parts of me got warm too. Then suddenly his eyes moved over my body curled into the armrest of his not totally gay but definitely comfy and cool sofa.

Then equally suddenly he got to his feet.

Then I watched as he moved into the kitchen then back into the living room and I noticed he was carrying candle jars. Then I watched as he set them in his wall unit and lit them. Then I watched as he turned out a lamp which meant only one was illuminated so the glow of the room changed from functional to something else entirely. Then I watched as he moved to the ottoman, nabbed the remote, pointed it at the TV and it went blank. Then I watched as he tossed the remote back on the ottoman, tagged another one, pointed it back at the wall unit and suddenly Journey’s “Still They Ride” was playing softly from his stereo.

Great song.

And the candles were good ones; the calming scent of fresh cotton was already filling the room.

Candlelight, romantic room illumination and soft music.

Uh-oh!

Frozen, I stared as he dropped that remote on the ottoman, came to me, put his hands right into my armpits and lifted me straight up.

“Mitch,” I whispered as my hands curled into his shoulders. One of his arms slid down over my bottom and he leaned into me then it hooked behind my knees. The other one curled around my upper back, he lifted me up and maneuvered between the ottoman and the couch, taking me with him. Then he shifted, sat with me in his lap, twisted, leaned back so he was reclining and I was reclining mostly on top of him then he rolled so we were both still reclining but now he was reclining mostly on top of me.

Through this, I was silenced by shock.

As he settled on top and beside me with his back to the back of the couch and my back to the seat, I repeated a now breathy, “Mitch.”

“Operation Take out the Trash,” he whispered, his hand coming up to curl around the side of my neck.

“Pah…pardon?” I whispered back, my hands still curled into his hard shoulders.

“I want your Mom and aunt out of Denver,” he announced.

I did too. I suspected he knew that so I didn’t respond and concentrated on trying not to respond to his warm, hard body pressed down the length of the side of mine with his strong hand warm on the skin of my neck.

This got harder when his thumb moved to stroke the underside of my jaw which felt really nice but luckily he started talking again and I decided to concentrate on that.

“As I guessed, they didn’t know shit about what happened to your apartment. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna lay off them. They’re here to give you a hard time. I’m gonna give them a harder time in the hopes that they’ll decide it isn’t worth it and take off home.”

This sounded like a good plan.

“How are you going to do that?” I asked.

“They’ve been here three days and been to the police station twice. If they move on you, I’ll have them arrested.”

I finally stopped thinking about his warm, hard body pressed down the length of mine, his strong hand warm on the skin of my neck and his thumb sweeping sweetly on my jaw and stared at him in shock.

“Isn’t that police harassment?”

“No,” he answered immediately. “It’s the police’s job to stop citizens being harassed. You haven’t seen your Mom in thirteen years. You haven’t shared much but what you’ve shared tells me there’s a reason why. You’ve moved on, away from her and set up a life, a good one also away from her. Then she comes to your door shouting it down, getting your neighbors involved. Then she comes to your place of work and uses foul language, getting your boss involved. An officer of the law explained calmly to her and your aunt what the situation was and how they could communicate with you and they ignored it and did their own thing which was not the right thing. They change their tune, they contact you and act like decent human beings; we stall Operation Take out the Trash. They keep doin’ what they’re doin’, they get another ride in a cruiser. They’ve had warnings. Two strikes. Strike three, you press charges and they sit in a cell. They get out, they have two choices. They continue on their current bent and make those charges worse which means they’ll spend more time in Colorado than they expected or they get their asses home and leave you and those kids the fuck alone.” He paused and held my eyes for a moment before he finished, “They try to get to you one more time, Mara, I’ll be explaining those choices to them through bars. That’s Operation Take out the Trash.”

I stared into his eyes and didn’t know what to say.

What I did know was that the depths of humiliation were fathomless that this good man stretched out beside me was dealing with all that was me which was to say Bill and all his garbage and my Mom and Lulamae and all the garbage that was just them.

And because of this, I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

Mitch didn’t allow me to escape.

His hand cupped my jaw, turned my head back and he whispered his order, “Look at me, sweetheart.”

I opened my eyes.

His head dropped an inch toward mine.

I held my breath.

Then he plumbed the fathomless depths of my humiliation by informing me quietly, “I called Iowa, pulled their sheets.”

Oh God.

He went on, “I know about them.”

Oh God!

His head dropped another inch so he was all I could see. “And, baby, somethin’ else I know. You are not them.”

My hand left his shoulder so I could curl my fingers around his wrist at my jaw and I whispered, “Mitch.”

“You are not them, Mara.”

“I –”

His thumb moved to press against my lips and his face got even closer.

“You…are…not…them, baby,” he whispered.

“You…” I said against his thumb and he moved it to sweep my cheek. “I mean, everything around you, all the stuff consuming your life right now, it’s about me, Mitch. It’s about where I come from. It’s about who I am and who I am is about them.”

“You’re right and you’re wrong,” he told me.

My other hand at his shoulder slid down to his chest and my hand at his wrist joined it when I asked, “How am I wrong?”

“All the stuff consuming my life, as you put it, is about you and, Mara, baby, I do not mind that. And what it’s about is also about you. You being a good person. You tryin’ to do right for your cousins. You puttin’ yourself out there so they won’t live the life I’m guessin’ you were forced to live. But what’s happening to you and them is about them, Bill and how he didn’t pull himself out of that life you pulled yourself out from and that has not one fuckin’ thing to do with you.”

“It does,” I whispered.

“It doesn’t,” he returned firmly.

“Mitch, it does.”

“Mara,” his fingers tensed on my jaw, “why do you think I don’t mind all the shit that’s consuming my life?”

I blinked because this was a really good question.

“I…I don’t know,” I stammered and he grinned with his mouth and his eyes, close up, and it was phenomenal but he added another thumb sweep of my cheek which made it breathtaking.

“Because, you give good Christmas presents,” he stated.

I felt my brows draw together as, still stammering, I asked, “Pah…pardon?”

“You give good Christmas presents,” he repeated. “LaTanya, Bray, Brent, fuck, even Derek, they all talk about them. And they also talk about the birthday presents you give.”

They did?

“But –” I started but he interrupted me.

“And you work hard. Your co-worker thinks the world of you and your boss thinks you’re the shit, so much, he considers you like a daughter.”

I blinked again, my belly getting warm that he got that from Mr. Pierson and I asked, “Really?”

Mitch grinned again and answered, “Really.”

“I –” I began but his hand tensed at my jaw and his face came even closer. So close, I could feel his breath on my lips. I closed my mouth and stared into his soulful brown eyes.

“You look nice. You dress nice. You smell nice. You have a fantastic fucking laugh. You’re loyal. You’re loving. And, honey, every time I’d see you in the breezeway or at a party, it was cute as all fuckin’ hell even as it was just as frustrating how you’d tuck that hair behind your ear, avoid me like the plague and get the fuck away from me as fast as you could. Since that moron you used to date left the picture, I’ve been waitin’ for my shot and it sucks that it comes with you cryin’ in my arms and those kids learnin’ early that life can really suck. But if takin’ that shot means puttin’ up with that shit and comes with you bein’ where you are right now rather than hiding behind your door and retreating into that world in your head, I’ll put up with that shit in order to take it.”

Oh my God.

Oh my God!

“You’ve been waiting for your shot?” I whispered.

Mitch nodded. “For two years and the two years prior to that I watched and wondered what you were doin’ with that asshole who, seriously, sweetheart, even at a glance did not come close to deservin’ to breathe your air much less have you on his arm.”

I had to admit, even though Destry was out of my zone, Mitch wasn’t really wrong about that.

But he was wrong about something else.

And he was a good guy, a nice guy and he needed to know.

“Mitch, there are things you don’t know about me,” I told him carefully.

“You’re right but, we get time, you’ll tell me.”