I crossed my arms on my chest, looked forward and announced, “Well I’m glad to know you can be a jerk. It’s easier to deal with a hot guy who’s a jerk than it is to deal with one who’s unnaturally nice.”

Of course I sounded like a fool but I didn’t care. I always sounded like a fool and anyway, he’d told me I had my head up my ass. What did I care that he thought I was a fool?

“Finally, I’m getting somewhere,” Mitch returned. “All I gotta do is be a dick to you, you let go and a little of that Mara Light shines through. What now, Mara? I keep bein’ a dick to you, you let me get my hands down your pants and the only way I can keep that privilege is continue to treat you like shit? Then eventually you’ll kick me to the curb and it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy that all men are dicks? Is that how it goes so you can retreat into that cocoon you’ve built around you and rest safe in the knowledge that you’re makin’ all the right moves?”

My head swung to face him again. I was breathing heavily because he was, indeed, being a dick and he’d intimated he wanted to get his hands down my pants, which was insane.

“Are you insane?” I asked with my voice pitched high.

“This is what I know. I’m nice to you, you’re scared as shit, you barely speak without ums and uhs and at one point you ran away from me, literally. I’m a dick; you got no problems communicating with me. Is that an insane conclusion?” he asked, shook his head at the windshield and answered his own question. “Fuck no.”

“Can you explain exactly why you were so all fired up to take me to Billy and Billie? Is it so you could be an ass**le about not getting to taste my pizza?” I asked acidly and with very bad timing.

We’d come to stop at a red light which meant he could turn his full attention to me. This he did, with his arm draped on the steering wheel and his eyes locked to mine.

Then he said, “I hope I got a little window into Mara World and this gets through because it’s really f**kin’ important,” he growled, at least as angry as I was, maybe angrier. “I don’t want to taste your pizza, Mara. I don’t give that first f**k about your pizza. Clue the f**k in, sweetheart, before you wake up at eighty-five years old and wonder where your life has gone.”

I stared at him, or more like glared at him and shot back loudly, angrily and with a fair amount of exasperation, “Then why’d you make such a big freaking deal about the pizza?” I hesitated then finished on a near shout, “Twice?”

He glared back at me and his glare was pretty scary. Luckily I was so angry I didn’t care.

Then he closed his eyes, turned his head away and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

I faced forward and informed him, “The light’s green.”

I heard him pull in a deep breath.

Then we were moving forward.

Chapter Four

Exactly the Kind of Friend I Intend to Be

Mitch had barely come to a halt in the parking space outside the door to the Stop ‘n’ Go before I had the door open and was jumping out.

This was because I wanted to get to the kids but it was also because I was freaked out and really, really pissed off.

It was late April nearly May. We were having a warm spell so I was in flip-flops, jeans (unfortunately the jeans that Bradon told me to wear last Saturday, which even I had to admit did great things for my ass) and a tee. My flip-flops were thin strap Haviannas and a nice, muted gold color and my tee was cream with a square neckline, cute, pleated ruffles as sleeves and it clung to my br**sts and ribs fairly provocatively. Not exactly skintight but it stated its case. My hair was in a ponytail at the back of my head, that fat, stupid lock at the front had fallen out. I shoved it behind my ear as I yanked open the door.

Billie ran screaming straight at me before I cleared the door. I stopped and braced because I knew she wouldn’t stop.

She didn’t. She slammed into me with all her six year old, happy it’s a wonderful life no matter what exuberance and I started to go back on a foot. The thing was I didn’t and this was because Detective Mitch Lawson wasn’t only beautiful and a big, fat jerk who moved really well but he apparently moved really fast. He was right behind me so when Billie slammed into me, I slammed into Mitch.

One of my hands went to her head, one to her shoulder as I twisted my neck to glare at Mitch. He absorbed my glare and hurled back his own. His was more effective so I scrunched my face at him in an added effort to tell him nonverbally I thought he was a big, fat jerk. His eyes dropped to the vicinity of my nose and mouth and his glare instantly evaporated. He pressed his lips together in a weird way as his eyes lit with what appeared to be amusement.

Jerk!

“Auntie Mara!” Billie screamed and I looked down at her to see she’d tipped her head back to look up at me. “I want burritos!” she was still screaming.

Whenever I saw them, I always took them out to a meal. This was because Bill filled the house with junk food (when he remembered to buy food at all) and forgot to make certain his children ate and never made certain they ate well. Therefore, Billie was conditioned that seeing Auntie Mara meant a full belly.

“All right, baby, let’s see what your brother wants,” I said softly to her. Then I felt Mitch’s hands at my h*ps and he was shuffling us in and to the side, the front of his body still in contact with mine at the back.

I noticed belatedly that a customer was wanting out the doors we were obstructing and I tried to sidestep for the customer and to get away from Mitch. I didn’t succeed in this because Mitch’s hands clenched my h*ps and he kept me right where I was. Plus I felt it was undignified to struggle even if we were only at the Stop ‘n’ Go.

He did move us out of the way and when he halted us, Billie had forgotten about her empty belly and, like any girl be she six or sixty, she noticed Mitch.

“Hi!” she chirped.

“Hey there,” Mitch’s voice rumbled in my ear, down my neck, all down my back and I had to fight the goose bumps rising on my skin. A fight I lost.

“I’m Billie,” she announced.

“Mitch,” he replied.

Her eyes came to me. “Is he your boyfriend?”

Oh God.

“No, he’s my neighbor,” I answered.

She was still latched onto me and since her arms were around my h*ps and Mitch’s hands were at my hips, her eyes had a direct line of sight to his hands, including his h*ps which were snug against me. She took this in then looked back up at me, her head tipped to the side in little girl confusion (and, honest to God, I felt her pain) and she smiled.