Lone Star Read Online Free Page B

grown woman over his head—but he let it go.
    “No need to stand on ceremony. You just tuck right in.” Mamie carved a wedge of quiche and piled it onto Web’s plate.
    Web muttered thanks.
    Plates filled, coffee from the thermos poured, they concentrated on their food. Or at least, Web and Mitch concentrated on their food. Mamie chattered on about people she seemed to believe Mitch knew, filling in what probably would have been a mostly unbroken and largely uncomfortable silence.
    “Do you still drink chocolate milk like it was going out of style?” Web asked during one of Mamie’s rare pauses.
    “Yeah.” Funny that Web remembered that. “And pickle juice right out of the jar when I have leg cramps.”
    Mamie exclaimed, “Pickle juice!”
    “It works.” Mitch smiled. In some ways it was kind of nice to be with people who’d known him forever. People removed from his professional life. The dance world was so ferociously competitive he would never admit in public to having the occasional hangnail, let alone muscle cramp.
    “We saw a picture of you in People magazine.” Aunt Mamie turned to Web. “What show was it from, Web?”
    “I don’t remember,” Web said through a mouthful of blueberry pecan muffin.
    Mitch tried to picture Web thumbing through People magazine. Maybe while he was on a stakeout? Yeah, right.
    “I don’t remember either, but it sure was…dramatic. Your hair was all wild and you had jeweled eye makeup on.” She added primly, “And not a lot of clothes.”
    “Oh. People . That was Puck in A Midsummer’s Night Dream .”
    “I guess that might have been it.” She looked to Web, who shrugged.
    Yeah, well, Mitch had got a lot of acclaim for his Puck—had even been accused of stealing the show—but he’d looked like a crack whore after a rough night in the woods. No wonder Aunt Mamie was mildly shocked.
    He said vaguely, “We have to wear a lot of makeup on stage.”
    Mamie brightened. “I suppose that’s true.” She was off and running again.
    Mitch listened with one ear. Most of his attention remained on Web, who was devoting himself to cleaning his plate like he was afraid he wouldn’t get dessert if every crumb didn’t disappear.
    That hypersensitivity to everything Web was doing—or not doing—was aggravating. Surely Mitch should have outgrown that by now? If twelve years wasn’t the cure, what was?
    He became aware that Mamie had paused. He glanced up guiltily.
    She said briskly, “Now I don’t want to hear any hemming or hawing. You just say thank you, ma’am like the polite boy you always were.”
    Had he always been a polite boy? Mitch suspected most people would have said he was a sullen, withdrawn boy. But he’d had his polite moments. He was having one now. “Thank you, ma’am.”
    “He didn’t hear a word you said,” Web told Mamie.
    She shook her head. “Mitchell Evans. You’re coming to dinner tonight.”
    Oh. God . “No. I can’t. I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but I’ve got things I need to get done.”
    She was looking at him with frank disbelief.
    “It’s nice of you to ask. It’s just that…with so much to do and me only staying a couple of days. But I’d like to. Maybe another time—” He was making the mistake of overexplaining, but he couldn’t seem to shut up.
    “Maybe Mitch has plans.” Web cut right through the hemming and hawing.
    “What plans?” Aunt Mamie demanded.
    Mitch said. “Well, I’m only here for a day or two and I—”
    “You still have to have supper.”
    “Sure, but I can just fix something quick and keep sorting through all this junk.”
    “Now that’s just plain foolishness,” Aunt Mamie pronounced. “You come to supper tonight, and I’ll bake my world-famous pecan pie.”
    Mitch’s mouth started watering right on cue. That was the problem with eating carbs. The more you ate them, the more you wanted to eat them.
    He looked automatically to Web—like everybody looked to Web.
    “You