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 hips 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 hips 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 hips and Mitch’s hands were at my hips, her eyes had a direct line of sight to his hands, including his hips 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.
Now Billie’s smile was wonky and it was one hundred percent adorable. My Mom’s which meant Bill’s Mom’s side of the family had all the dominant characteristics. This meant Billie looked a lot like me. Except on Billie, it was cuter: long, thick, lush, shining dark brown hair, beautiful, wide cornflower blue eyes, flawless skin and long limbs. If you didn’t know, you’d think she was my child except she was going to be a knockout because she was already a mini-knockout.
“Auntie Mara,” I heard and I looked beyond Billie to see Billy.
Billy was a slightly older, male version of Billie and I figured Mitch probably looked like him as a kid. There was no mistaking it; Billy was going to be gorgeous when he grew up because he was already a mini-hot guy.
Bill, their father, could have been all of this. But a hard-living, hard-drinking, stupid-decision-making life meant he was tall, not built but reed thin. His skin was sallow, he had dark marks under his once shining blue eyes and his hair was too long, lank, lifeless and often dirty.
This hit me harder than normal when my mind took that moment to fast forward to the future and I didn’t like what I saw. I wanted these two beautiful kids to be able to be all they would be. Not just gorgeous but Billy to have the chance to use his brains, loyalty and sweetness to find a good life and Billie always to have a bit of that lively, innocent girl somewhere inside her.
It was definitely time to make a decision about what I was going to do with Bill but more, what I was going to do about his kids.
“Hey, buddy,” I greeted Billy. “You hungry?”
His eyes flicked to Mitch then back to me. He’d stopped throwing himself in my arms a while ago. He was too grown up for that now. I missed it. But he wasn’t usually this distant and I could see he didn’t know what to make of Mitch. Billie had adored Destry because Billie adored everybody. Billy not so much.