Rough Play by Keri Ford Page A

moments spent daydreaming.
    A series of loud whistles echoed out. She pulled back from the kiss to the commotion and found a rooftop full of construction workers clapping and whistling at them. She just shook her head.
    Jacob pulled his hands off her, returning to leaning on the cab. “What are the odds I can pull you into one of the empty rooms right now?”
    “Slim to none.” She slid back on the edge of the truck seat and winced at something hard under her rear. She shifted and pulled out the open wallet she’d abandoned in favor of kissing him. It was flipped open to the picture of her in her pigtails and Jacob’s gaze landed on it in a second.
    He plucked the forgotten wallet out of her hands. “Kid pictures of you I’d guess by the shape of your eyes.”
    Her fingers tightened, but she balled them to fists and pushed them in her lap. She knew Jacob well enough that if she snatched back, he’d have too many questions that she wouldn’t want to answer. Keep her mouth shut and maybe she could pass it off as any old regular wallet. “You nailed me.”
    Knots in her stomach tightened as he grinned and stared at the birthday picture. “Cute pigtails.”
    She swallowed the lump in her throat. “The ribbons really set them off.”
    “Looks like two Christmas bows on either side of your head.”
    She laughed and grabbed the wallet back, leaning over the photo and studying it. “Those are probably the finest set of bows to be found at the drug store.”
    “I think they’re bigger than your head.” He squinted at the picture, but his smile wiped off anything serious he might have tried pulling as he glanced back to her, then back at the picture. “What happened to your hair? I like this electrocuted look.”
    She was laughing again. The pit of her stomach relaxed and tension in her shoulders eased. Ridiculous to have even gotten worked up in the first place. This was Jacob. Yeah, he did tend to ask a lot of questions, but he was never judgmental, just teasing. “It was a perm. I was in style then.”
    She tossed it in the glove box and shut it up inside.
    “Uh-huh.” He gestured at the glove box. “That’s liable to get stolen in there like that.”
    She glanced back at the cracked leather glove box. It would be a blessing in disguise. She couldn’t get up the nerve to throw it away so just hung on to it. She didn’t say that though, because of the Twenty Questions game he was so fond of playing. “I’ll lock the truck up before I go inside. When did y’all get in?”
    He sighed with a glance to his watch. “About forty-five minutes ago. Long enough to grab a shower and come find you.”
    “Oh.” Oh, damn . More fluttering feel-good things were happening in her belly. “What happened? I haven’t heard from Gretchen.”
    Jacob grunted and paced a bit with his hands low on his hips. “Stupid. Got something on his mind, worked it up more than it should have been.”
    “He probably had his reasons.”
    His brow lifted as he stared at her. “Are you taking his side?”
    “No. Just figure it had to be big for him to have left Gretchen.”
    “Momma died from breasts cancer a few years back. Apparently Lane had known she was sick. We didn’t find out until a few months before she died when there was nothing doctors could do. We were upset momma had hidden it from us. Pretty verbal about, especially Grant.” He came back to the side of the truck and leaned on the cab, arms over his chest. “So all this time. All of Lane’s bitchiness was because he knew momma was sick and thought we’d be so pissed off at him for keeping it from us that we’d turn our backs on him”
    She rubbed his shoulder. “Sorry you didn’t know.”
    He glanced at her. “What pisses me off the most isn’t about Momma. Lane doesn’t trust us any more than that? Did he really think I would just kick him out of my life forever…over that? I will side with him and say it’s going to be hell to tell Grant whenever he does,