Read Online Just Give In… by Kathleen O'Reilly - Free Book Online

was that beneath the trappings, he was a very practical man. “Leave me three,” he told her, and so she counted out his three and then moved the rest to her work area near the porch.
    By late afternoon, the milk crates were filled, the parts inventoried, and her new blue shirt was cool, crisp and holding up nicely.
    “You need to eat,” the Captain told her just as she was putting a stack of copper tubing away.
    Once inside, the Captain poured her a glass of water and pushed back her hair, looking concerned, his usual expression. “You’re red. I don’t have any sunscreen. I should have thought about that.”
    Brooke put a hand to her warm cheeks. “I’ll be fine.”
    He shook his head. “Stay inside for a while. I need to get some things from town. I’ll be back.”
    She scanned the room, with its lack of standard living room accoutrements and it’s odd hodge-podge order. Some might have called it haphazard, but by now she had seen into the Captain’s hodge-podge brain, and there was never any haphazard at all. “What am I supposed to do here?”
    “Lay down. Watch television.”
    None of which sounded appealing, so she nodded in agreement, watched him drive away and then immediately started to clean. Oh, sure, the sink was spic and span, the stove had never been used. Instead of dishes, the cabinets were lined with jars of nuts—and not the eating kind, either. There were rows and rows of Mason jars filled with screws and wires and tiny unidentified plastic pieces that, according to Google, were transistors.
    With a heavy sigh, Brooke shut the cabinet doors. This was the Captain’s home, and yes, it wasn’t the way she would accessorize her home, but she respected his space.
    Needing to do something, she decided to tackle the bedroom next, but the white cotton covers were straightened with military precision. There were no pictures, no books, an absolutely sterile environment—except for the metal sculpture in the corner. The piece was nearly two feet high, an assortment of rounded metal spheres, with two pipes on the sides, plastic tubing streaming from the top. She studied the placement of the screws, and eventually she knew what it was.
    A female.
    Oh.
    For a long time she held the piece, the metal cold in her hands, but these weren’t her things. Carefully she put the piece back where she found it, and turned to find the Captain had returned.
    “I made it for Max,” he volunteered before she could ask. “He was an old army buddy. It was a birthday present. A joke.” He came over, pressed a small button she had overlooked and twin light beams shot from the two rounded spheres on the top.
    “Oh,” was all Brooke could say.
    “It’s an army thing.”
    “Very creative.”
    The Captain took the sculpture and put it in a box, setting it next to the doorway. “I should have mailed it a long time ago.”
    His face was missing the openness of before, and she missed it. “You don’t have to hide this because of me,” she said, pulling the sculpture back from the box, and then pressing the button, watching the twin red lights shoot from the woman’s bosom. Smiling, she pressed the button again. “Did you name her?”
    “No, she really is for Max.”
    And yes, she believed he had made the sculpture for Max, but… “When’s his birthday?”
    “Last month.” The Captain shrugged, completely missing the obvious. “I’ve been busy.”
    Brooke put the sculpture in the box, suspecting that the Captain would mail it off tomorrow. “He’ll be the only person in town who has one.”
    The Captain folded the lid, putting the sculpture firmly out of sight. “Anyway.”
    Curious, she sat on the bed and wiped her cheeks as if she was tired. “Didn’t you ever make one for you?”
    “I have Dog.”
    Hearing his name, Dog whirred into the room. “You could get a real dog,” she suggested.
    Soullessly he stared at her through his one good eye. “Why?”
    “I’ve always wanted a dog, a fluffy