If he was with me and Mitch wasn’t around, he asked about Mitch all the time. Where was he? What was he doing? When was he coming home? Didn’t I think Mitch’s hamburgers were the best? Wasn’t it cool how Mitch could do multiplication questions in his head without writing anything down?

After our first date, four times in one day he asked when he and Billie could go back to Penny’s house to spend the night. Then, two weeks later, when Mitch and I had another night on our own with Sue Ellen looking after the kids, when he got home the next afternoon he asked twice when they were again going to Sue Ellen’s.

Then, three days ago, Mitch and I were having an inconsequential tiff in his SUV, about what, I didn’t even remember. The kids were with us and I felt something rolling through the truck that made me feel weird. I turned to look into the backseat and I saw Billy staring out the side window, his profile hard, his teeth clenched, his hands in fists, his shoulders bunched but his lip was trembling. He looked terrified and near tears.

It alarmed me and I immediately quit having terse words with Mitch, gave him a look and jerked my head toward the back. Mitch’s eyes went to the rearview mirror then they went to the road and his jaw got so tight, a muscle jumped there.

Later, in bed, Mitch pulled me on top of him and stated, “You get pissed, I get pissed, we have our words private, not in front of the kids.”

“You saw it then,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I saw it.”

I told him something I guessed he already knew considering he was a cop and very insightful, “He’s not right, Mitch, something is wrong with him.”

“You live bad, sweetheart, you taste good, you’d do anything to keep it. You know that.”

I really did.

I nodded.

Mitch continued, saying softly, “He’s terrified.”

I bit my lip. “Yeah,” I agreed then asked, “Should we talk to him about it?”

Mitch studied me but he did this thinking.

Then he said, “Don’t know. He thinks we cottoned on, might cause more anxiety. We play it cool and give him day to day good and steady, he might relax.”

“I’m going to talk to Bobbie at work about it,” I told him and it was his turn to nod.

“I mentioned it to Slim,” he informed me, surprising me. “Slim caught on when we played catch, though it was hard to miss.”

Slim was Brock, Mitch’s partner’s nickname.

Brock was good. Brock had two boys. Brock probably had a wealth of experience.

“And what does he say?”

“He says if he thinks we cottoned on, it might cause more anxiety. If we play it cool and give him steady, he might relax,” Mitch said on a grin.

“Great,” I muttered and Mitch’s arm gave me a squeeze.

“Our play, we give him two weeks. He doesn’t settle in, we talk again and decide who talks to him. You with me?”

I smiled and whispered, “Yeah. But if you ready, break me, I’m going to protest the play.”

His head tilted on the pillow and his lips twitched. “Why’s that?”

I pressed my body into his and told him, “Because I’m comfy.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t sleep on me,” he pointed out.

“Who’s talking about sleeping?” I asked and his eyes flashed.

Then his hands moved. Then my hands moved.

Then our mouths and tongues moved. Then other parts of us did the moving.

By the time we broke, I was way more comfy, in fact, I was nearly catatonic. But, even so, I got up and cleaned up, put my nightie and panties back on and Mitch tugged on his pajama bottoms. We got naked, obviously, but we didn’t sleep naked. It wouldn’t do for Billie to come in and puke and us to be in our birthday suits.

This concerned me. I’d been scheduled for my foster care classes and CPS had not been around again, although Mitch had informed them of the situation with my apartment and told me I could probably expect another visit when we returned to it.

But I didn’t know how they’d feel about me sleeping with my boyfriend every night with the kids in the same house. Even if that boyfriend was nice guy, good guy Detective Mitchell James Lawson. I didn’t need them to have any reason to shake up the good and steady we were giving the kids.

So, curled into Mitch, I sleepily shared this concern.

To which, Mitch, not sleepy at all, replied, “Anyone tries to take those kids from you, Mara, they deal with me.”

I blinked at his shadowed chest then lifted my head to look at his shadowed face.

“Pardon?”

“You got enough to worry about, don’t worry about CPS. I don’t know where they stand on shit like this but they hear you got a sleepover boyfriend and try to place those kids somewhere else, I’ll create a shit storm like they’ve never seen. So don’t worry about it.”

“How will you do that?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Mitch –”

I stopped talking when he rolled into me so he was on me, totally on me. All his weight and his hands were at either side of my head, fingers in my hair, his shadowy face close to mine. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could definitely feel his intensity.

“You didn’t learn this from the one you had but I learned it from mine. Parents do anything to protect their kids. Anything. Whatever they have to do. They exhaust themselves. They bleed themselves dry. They run themselves ragged. They do whatever they have to do. My Mom and Dad are good now but, growin’ up, we didn’t have a lot and I never felt it. I didn’t even fuckin’ realize it until I was out on my own and looked back at my life. I didn’t need for anything, I rarely wanted for anything. They did that for me and worked themselves to the bone to do it. They taught me life lessons and they let me take my share of falls but the real shit of life, they cushioned me from. Bud and Billie have already taken their share of falls. That’s done for them, Mara, and if it has to be me who sees to it, I’ll see to it.”

I was breathing heavy because he was heavy on me but it was more. A lot more.

“I…I don’t know what to say,” I wheezed. He heard the wheeze and took one hand out of my hair to plant his forearm in bed beside me and take some of his weight off me.

“Nothin’ to say,” he told me. “I just laid out the way it is.”

“Mitch –”

He stopped me talking by touching his mouth to mine then whispering, “Go to sleep, baby.”

“I think –”

“Don’t think,” he growled, his intensity returning. “Hear this. Four years, I watched you be cute and I enjoyed watchin’ your ass move in your tight skirts. But in five minutes at a fuckin’ Stop ‘n’ Go my world was rocked seein’ you with those two kids. Not two hours later, a woman came up to us and told us we had a beautiful family. I didn’t get it because we didn’t have it then but I get it now. She was right. But I also learned I have somethin’ else on my hands. I gotta protect those kids from any more falls and I gotta protect my woman from takin’ any more too and I’ll exhaust myself, bleed myself dry and run myself ragged to see to doin’ that.”

I stared up at him, silent and completely motionless.

Then I burst into tears.

Mitch rolled with me in his arms and I cried in them too.

When I quit crying, Mitch’s hand came to my face and his thumb swept across my wet cheek while he whispered, “Never believed in this shit but now, I’m thinkin’ I fell in love with the promise of you the first time I saw you.”

My body bucked as my breath hitched and the tears came back.

“Mitch –”

“And Bud and Billie mean more to me because they were the catalyst that got me in and gave me you. Just lucky they came with.”

Another hitch another buck another broken, “Mitch –”

“I love you, sweetheart,” he whispered.

I shoved my face in his neck and burst into tears again. These lasted longer.

When they faded, silently, he turned me and curled into my body, holding me close, his face in the back of my hair.

And when the tightness in his arm around me relaxed, I whispered, “You’re my dream man.”

“I know.”

I blinked at my shadowed pillow. “Pardon?”

“Mara, baby, never believed this shit either but now I know you were made for me. So, seein’ as that’s true, it goes the other way too.”

Oh my God.

“I was…I was…made for you?”

“I’m a cop for a reason, honey.”

“So you were made to save me,” I guessed, not sure I liked that.

“No, I was made to protect you and you were made in a way that it would always be worth the effort.”

Okay, that was good. I was definitely sure I liked that.

Too much.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, lips trembling, “I think I’m going to cry again.”

His body shook but his arm got tight as his face burrowed deeper into my hair and I listened to him chuckle.

Which kinda pissed me off.

“Mitch! You don’t laugh during a heart to heart.”

“You do during one that involves Marabelle Jolene Hanover.”

I found myself glaring at my dark pillow. Then I realized I was exhausted from an orgasm, two crying jags and a heart to heart with Detective Mitch Lawson.

So I muttered, “Whatever,” which got me another chuckle.

And…whatever.

I snuggled backwards into Mitch and his arm got tighter. His breath went steady and it got looser.

But I didn’t fall asleep. I stared at the obscure folds of my pillow and played his words in my mind.

Then I played them again.

And repeat.

And each time, my soul sighed.

Then I went to sleep.

* * *

That was three days ago.