“Right,” Mitch whispered back, immediately turned and asked the hall at large, “Who’s comin’ with me to the drugstore?”
I blinked in surprise at his back.
“Me!” Billie shouted and skipped after him.
“I am too,” Billy added and fell in step beside him.
The kids shot out the door and turned left toward the parking lot. Mitch turned at the door and gave me a warm grin. Then he was gone.
I stood in the hall amongst a bunch of piles of kid laundry on the floor and I stared at the door long after they left.
They came back over an hour later when I had the futon out and made up for Billy to use. Load one was in the dryer and load two was in the washer.
There was a drugstore not five minutes away so by the time they got back, I was worried. I was in the kitchen inventorying my grocery supplies as I didn’t think, leaving Bill in cuffs with two officers of the law, that the kids were heading back there anytime soon. And kids needed food.
When they came back, I didn’t have to wonder what took them so long considering both kids raced in carrying a big plastic Target bag each. Mitch was carrying four, not to mention, he had a brand new car booster seat.
I watched Mitch set the booster seat on the floor by the wall next to the front door. Then my eyes moved and I stared at the kids who ran directly to my couch and dumped their bags then I stared at Mitch.
“That looks like a lot of shampoo,” I remarked but a new kind of whoosh was surging through the region of my belly. This had to do with the Target bags, the booster seat and the warm look on Mitch’s face as he followed the kids into the house.
“Look Auntie Mara! Look! Look! Look!” Billie shrieked, digging frantically through her bag, finding what she was looking for, she turned. Her arms were straight up in the air. I saw she held a piece of plastic on which dangled supremely girlie ponytail holders with what looked like plastic butterflies attached to them. They were clenched in one little girl fist and equally girlie barrettes, with what looked like hearts and stars, were clenched in the other. “Mitch bought me butterflies!” she screeched.
The idea of super hot, super gorgeous, super masculine Detective Mitch Lawson buying girlie hair shit made my mouth drop open. My gaze slid back to super hot, super gorgeous, super masculine Detective Mitch Lawson who was dumping his bags on the bar.
I managed to hide my shock before his gaze came to me.
“Please tell me you bought shampoo,” I said to him.
His eyes smiled and he opened his mouth to speak but Billie tossed her prized hair shit aside and started digging through her bag again. She was pulling stuff out at random all the while informing me, “He got me girl shampoo and he got Billy boy shampoo and he bought Billy new jeans and he bought me a jeans skirt and it has a pink ruffle at the bottom!” she shouted breathlessly and then kept going. “It matches the pink t-shirt with the flower on it.” She pulled out the t-shirt, whipped around to me, stretched the tee out on a muddled diagonal across her front and gave me a wonky grin. “Isn’t it pretty?”
It was. It was adorable. Furthermore, I didn’t know there were such things as girl shampoo and boy shampoo. Shampoo was shampoo. Wasn’t it?
My eyes slid back to Mitch. He was leaning against the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room and he was watching Billie while smiling.
Oh God.
“It’s very pretty, baby,” I said to Billie as she clutched the shirt to her chest like she wanted to graft it to her skin, leaned forward and breathed, “I know!” Then she whirled back to the bags.
I decided to get some order so I told the kids, “All right, sort out what’s what. Billy take your stuff to your room, help Billie get her stuff to our room and anything that needs to go in the bathroom, put it in there. All right?”
“Yeah, Auntie Mara,” Billy agreed, looked to his sister and said, “Come on.”
Thus started bag rustling and running back and forth into various rooms. This I ignored because I needed to get something straight with Mitch.
So the minute the kids’ attention was on their chore, I called, “Mitch.”
He turned to me, leaned into his forearms on the bar and his gaze leveled on mine. I instantly forgot what I needed to get straight when I started drowning in the depths of his soulful brown eyes.
“These are groceries,” he dipped his head to the bags. “The kids told me what they liked to have around the house and I got some shit I figured you’d need.”
“Mitch –”
He kept talking. “Colorado law says kids need to be in car seats until they’re eight.” He tilted his head behind him. “That’s for Billie. Got an extra one for my truck.”