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 f**k 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 f**kin’ 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, f**k, 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.