Hard Charger: Jake & Sophia: A Hot Contemporary Romance by Tracy Fobes Read Free Book Online Page B

silky sheen, and she still fit into the jeans she’d worn in her twenties.  He was surprised she still hadn’t replaced his father with another man.  She certainly deserved some happiness. 
    When she heard him stumbling down the stairs, she poured him some, too, and handed it to him as he walked in and dropped his boots on the floor.
    “Morning, Jake.”
    He tried for a smile, but kissed her cheek instead.   “Morning, mom.”
    “You working the site down at Holy Trinity today?”
    “Yeah.”  He took a drink of his coffee, and then threw a few slices of bread into the toaster.  “We’re still working on Father Al’s rectory.”
    “If you see him, tell him I said hi.”  Laurie sat down at the kitchen table and picked up yesterday’s newspaper. 
    “I will.”  Jake got the butter out of the refrigerator, and grabbed a knife.  “You’ll be down at Beach Waves today?”
    “We have a full appointment load—cuts, colors, highlighting, two perms. I’ll need to be there before we open,” she confirmed, then slipped a pair of glasses on her nose and began to read the newspaper.  “Heard you talking to your Uncle Martin last night.”
    For a moment, he stilled, then grabbed a plate out of the cabinet.  “More like an argument.”
    “Yup.  I heard.”  She never looked up from the newspaper. 
    He groaned aloud.  This was usually how she liked to conduct her interrogations: She asked lots of questions but never looked at her suspect.   He supposed that the lack of eye contact allowed her to be more ruthless in her questioning—she didn’t have to acknowledge how uncomfortable she was making the accused feel.  Silently he reminded himself to go look at a few more apartments next weekend. 
    His toast popped.  He started to butter it.
    “You were rude to him, Jake.  That’s not how I raised you.”  She turned a page of her newspaper and focused on a new article.
    “Uncle Martin caught me on a bad night.”  He gulped a sip of coffee and eyed the clock.
    “You’re going to apologize to him, right?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I’ll apologize.”
    A few moments passed, and then she glanced up at him, briefly, before returning to the newsprint.  “What made last night so bad?”
    He sighed.  He wasn’t about to tell her about his motorcycle stunts or his accident with the deer—he didn’t want to hear her scolding him about safety.  He thought of something else and turned to face her, toast and coffee in hand.  “I was talking to Alex and Ray last night down at the roadhouse,” he said.  “About all of the devastation from Sandy that still hasn’t gotten fixed, and Ray was saying something about the government and insurance companies not paying out enough.”
    She continued to look at the newspaper, but something about the way she’d gone still told him that he had every bit of her attention.   “Yup, that’s right,” she murmured.  “Not everyone had good insurance.”
    He shook his head.  “It’s just a damned shame, what the storm did to this town.  At least Ray found the money to fix his place up,” he continued, then glanced around the nearly-new kitchen, recalling how his mother had also dumped tens of thousands of dollars into repairing the house. 
    “I know, Jake.  It’s been tough for everyone.”
    “Yeah, but Ray claims he didn’t get an insurance payout or government money,” he continued.  “When I asked him where he’d found the cash to repair the roadhouse, he wouldn’t answer.”
    She shook her head, but kept her gaze on the newspaper.  “Damned if I know where that old coot gets his money.”
    He realized she’d been reading the same article for several minutes now.  “Thank God you had good insurance.”
    “Mmmm,” she agreed.
    He narrowed his eyes.  “Mom?” 
    “What?”
    “You had good insurance, right?”
    She looked up then, and he saw something dark in her eyes, the same evasiveness and worry he’d seen in Ray’s.