Poker Posse 1: Looking at Rose Read Free

mother’s Chevy Nova. Grinning over her shoulder, she quipped, “Is my butt that big?”
    A slap against her posterior only made Rose laugh.
    “Terrible girl. You know I didn’t mean that at all.”
    Rose finished checking the alternator and moved to the starter. “I know, but Daddy wouldn’t have forgiven me if I let that opportunity slide.”
    A heavy sigh punctuated her mother’s response. “Of course. Joe loved his jokes almost as much as he loved his motors.”
    “Which made me very popular with the guys.” Rose could hear the sarcasm in her own voice and hoped her mother didn’t pick up on it.
    Viola Whittman didn’t miss a thing. “Your daddy knew who your real friends were, Rose. That’s why he let you take care of running off the fake ones yourself.”
    Rose rested her hands on the radiator and looked at her mother. “Really? I thought he only tolerated Nick and Harlen because they were the sons of your friends. And he tolerated Jake because he was Nick’s and Harlen’s friend.”
    Viola, perched on the stool near Rose’s father’s workbench in the garage, shook her head, the soft blonde hair curling over her shoulders. “Oh no. Joe could tell those boys kept an eye out for you, honey. Why do you think Judge Hampton only gave Jake eight months in juvenile detention when he stole your daddy’s car?”
    Rose looked over at the covered GTO that had belonged to her father. “Daddy loved his goat. I was surprised he let Jake back into his shop when he got out.”
    “He was disappointed in him, but he knew Jake looked out for you the most.”
    Rose turned back to the car. From the time she was six and they were ten, Rose had tagged along with the three boys on their excursions around Magnolia. They’d been the ones to teach her how to cast a line into the creek and hit dead center instead of bouncing her lure off the opposite bank. And when Rose was twelve and drawn the attention of an older boy on the football team with Jake and Harlen, it had been Jake that had shown her the moves to fend off unwanted advances.
    “Until they left,” Rose grumbled. It still hurt, even twelve years later, that Nick, Harlen, and especially Jake, simply walked out of her life.
    “But you had the girls.”
    Frustration and anger that she’d kept bottled up bubbled to the surface. “By default, Mama. Norah and Ellie accepted me because their brothers liked me. Mirrie and Ari let me hang around because they were friends with Ellie and Norah.”
    “That’s not true. They liked you , not because of their brothers.”
    Wiping her hands on a rag, Rose moved past her mother to the workbench and began rummaging around for the part she needed. “Mama, I’m not saying that they don’t love me and I don’t love them. I do. They’re like my sisters. But I’ve never felt like I fit in with them. I was taller than all of them and more interested in fishing and fixing cars than Barbie dolls and dress-up. When we had sleepovers, I had to sleep on the floor because I was too big for the beds. And being as sweet as she was, Mirabeth always made sure everyone else slept on the floor.
    “I could never swap shoes or share clothes with them because everything I had, if it fit, was too long on them or theirs was too short on me.” She slapped the rag on the work top and turned to look at her mother. “I didn’t feel like I fit in. I still feel like a freak sometimes.”
    Viola slid off the stool and wrapped her arms around Rose. The warmth and comfort of her mom’s touch, the strength in her arms as she held Rose, settled the jangled nerves and awkward feelings inside Rose. She didn’t return the hug, not with the grease and dirt on her hands likely to smear her mother’s pretty pink dress, but she lowered her head so her cheek rested on her mom’s crown. “I’ll get you dirty,” she mumbled.
    An indelicate snort sounded, and Viola pulled back. “Like I can’t wash my clothes and change into something else.” She