Night Maneuvers - By Jillian Burns Page 0,22
not saying anything, Mitch looked up from pouring paint. She was watching him with such intensity, if he’d been a kid he would’ve squirmed. “What?”
“You always do that.”
“Do what?” He smiled and poured the paint into the tray, reading the sticker on the can. “Celestial Celery? Come on. Why don’t they just call it green?”
“Deflect. Change the subject. Anything but talk about your childhood.”
Mitch shrugged and shook his head. He’d always regretted going to her that awful night his marriage ended. Letting her see him weak and sniveling. No way he was going to expose anything more. “I was a kid, I went to school.” He spread his hands out to his sides in a gesture that said that’s all there was. His smile was getting more difficult to maintain under her penetrating gaze.
She folded her arms and raised a brow. “You can talk about it with me, you know.”
“Jeez, Hughes.” He picked up the roller and dunked it in the tray of paint. “What are you, my therapist all of a sudden?” He tried to fake a laugh.
“You told me your mom was an alcoholic—”
“Just drop it, all right?” He jabbed the tray of paint with the roller, splattering paint, and then attacked the walls with it.
He heard her suck in a deep breath. Here it came. With Hughes’s temper, she’d tell him off before marching out.
But all she said was, “I came to tell you your burger’s ready.”
Mitch blinked at the spot where Hughes had been standing. He took a step toward the door. Ready to leave, to drive off and forget all about the stupid painting party. But he’d be damned if he’d retreat like a yellow-bellied coward. So, he dipped the roller in the tray again and slapped paint on the walls as if they were the enemy.
The physical labor released the tension, but the mindless repetition of the job gave him too much time to think.
Not too many people, male or female, he’d spend his day off helping. He could name his buddies on half a hand. And he’d never ask them for anything. He didn’t like the feeling of being in someone else’s debt. Too many times he’d watched his mother humiliate herself for a loan that would only be paid back one way.
Forty-five minutes later he’d finished all four walls and his stomach was growling. He cleaned up and made his way to the kitchen.
He caught sight of Hughes at the front door hugging Jordan and Jackson. “Y’all come back next weekend and we’ll swim. I should have the pool cleaned and filled by then.”
“Let’s do brunch tomorrow, just us girls,” Jordan suggested. “And then go shopping. Lily wants to look at cribs.”
“Sounds fun,” Hughes answered as she waved them off.
Lily was pregnant? They sure worked fast. Grady had only been home from Iraq a couple of months. And looking at cribs sounded fun to Hughes? Since when was she interested in babies?
When he’d asked her about buying this house, she’d scoffed and said something about turning thirty and being tired of apartment life.
Mitch took in the rest of her house. Curtains on the front windows, a dining table with place mats. Candles and knickknacks on the small fireplace mantel, and kitchen towels that matched the place mats.
Were these somehow signs of a lifestyle change? Was she getting ready to settle down and have a family? Her career was more settled now. Was it that guy she’d mentioned dating while she was stationed at Langley? That SEAL?
Feeling a little off, he rubbed his empty stomach.
Before Hughes could throw him out, he headed for the patio where Grady and Lily were. Lily was leaning against Grady and he was rubbing her back with one hand and cupping her flat belly with the other, murmuring something in her ear. She nodded.
“Thank y’all for helping,” Hughes said from behind Mitch. “But, Lily, if I’d known you were pregnant, I would have insisted y’all stay home.”
“Oh, no. The paint’s nontoxic. I’m a little tired, but nothing a nap won’t cure.”
Grady and Lily said their goodbyes, Grady shaking Mitch’s hand, Lily hugging him. Hughes walked them out.
A paper plate with two juicy burgers loaded just the way he liked them, a bowl of chips, a bowl of barbecued beans and two icy cold drinks sat on a battered picnic table. Mitch gratefully swung a leg over, grabbed a burger and dug in.
When Hughes came back out she was carrying a large bottle of some sort of cleaner. Without