Page 72 of Wicked Little Secret

Leaning against the counter, she asked with wide eyes, “Why would I be upset with you?”

He was convinced that question was a trap; being married to Patricia for fifteen years had taught him a thing or two. He’d been racking his brain for weeks trying to figure out what he’d done to make her mad.

“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

She walked to the pantry and pulled out the sugar bowl, passing him as she did.

“Nope. Everything’s fine.”

“Great,I love it when things arefine,” he muttered under his breath, then said loud enough for her to hear, “Well, if you realize things aren’t fine, and you want to talk about it, I’ll be in my office. Do you want me to take Sawyer?”

She observed him with narrowed eyes, like he was some stranger planning on running off with her baby. Finally, she handed their son to him.

“He might need to be changed.”

Maverick lifted the little guy’s bottom to his nose and quickly put him back down, wincing as he turned his head to try and escape the smell.

“Whew. That would be an affirmative.”

Her smile was sickly sweet as she spooned sugar into her coffee mug and slowly stirred. “Thanks for taking care of that. If we were divorced, you wouldn’t have to.”

Divorced, my ass.

He noticed she set the wet spoon on the counter and shuffled away without a second thought. She also left a pile of sugar next to her spoon, same as she’d done the day before. Now that he thought about it, she’d been leaving a trail of messes the last few days. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it. Even if he did almost break his neck tripping over her shoes strewn about the hall.

As he stepped over a pile of dirty baby clothes in Sawyer’s room, however, he decided to talk to Juanita about coming more than three days a week.

Chapter Thirty-One

Olivia

She was in the kitchen making a sandwich while Sawyer slept in his crib in the nursery when she heard Maverick come through the door leading to the garage.

“Did you mess with the tools in my toolbox and workbench in the garage?”

Her back was to him, so she was able to disguise her smirk before slowly turning around.

“I needed a screwdriver.”

“You needed a screwdriver,” he repeated.

“Uh huh.”

“For what?”

“Oh, um, a knob on Sawyer’s dresser was loose.”

“So, you had to rearrange all my tools in the process?”

Oh, did I do that?

“I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”

His tone was dripping with annoyance. “The drawer marked ‘screwdrivers’ wasn’t obvious enough for you?”

This was the first time her antics had gotten under his skin, and lord knew she’d been trying. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her sooner to mess with his workspace in the garage.

It had been so orderly, it had been painful for her to fuck with it. Kind of like leaving the messes she’d been making all week. Not picking up after herself went against the very nature of her being, and her hands actually twitched each time she’d walked away and left things dirty. But she knew it would bother Mr. Military Man more, so she’d made herself do it.

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