Free Bluegrass Undercover (Bluegrass Brothers) by Kathleen Brooks

things began to fall apart. Austin was sloppy. He wasn’t seeing the field. He thought he was a running back instead of a quarterback and tried to run the ball every down.
    Cade was undecided about what happened at half-time. Austin was an arrogant ass. He refused to admit he needed to hand the ball off to Trey, the actual running back, or that he was refusing to throw the ball to Ryan. Trey had stepped forward and given an emotional speech to try to charge the team. It had worked. They had run out in the third quarter and put together a great drive until Austin decided to play running back again. They had to settle for a field goal. And now here it was nearing the end of the game and Austin throws and interception.
    “Austin. What were you looking at when you threw that? There wasn’t a receiver around?”
    “Ryan missed his route. He should have been there. He just lost the game for us, so go yell at him.” Austin yanked off his helmet and threw it to the ground. It rolled over to the metal bench and came to rest at the feet of a very upset Ryan.
    “Ryan didn’t miss his route. He was to run a fifteen yard post, and you threw the ball right into the middle of coverage while Ryan was still five yards from his mark.”
    Cade saw Ryan pick up the helmet and head over towards them. Austin was a strong guy. He was around Cade’s size but still needed muscle. Even though Ryan was two years younger, he was much more developed. He was already Austin’s height but probably had twenty pounds on him. Cade was sure by his senior year Ryan would be All-State.
    “You dropped this.” Ryan shoved the helmet at Austin. “And try to show some leadership. Stop blaming others for your mistakes.” Ryan turned around and headed back over to Coach Parks. He also had a maturity Austin was lacking.
    “Take the bench, Austin. I’m putting your backup in if we even have another chance to score.” Cade watched as Austin sulked his way to the bench and sat down, ignoring all his teammates.
    Cade took a quick glance back at the crowd and saw Annie scanning the people in the bleachers. He smiled as she evaluated the threat level of every person. At least one good thing came out of this game – he knew Annie was interested him thanks to Miss Lily! He turned his attention back to the game and watched as his defense managed to hold Oakdale to a field goal as the last seconds ticked off the clock.
     
    Annie didn’t know what she was doing. She was hanging around teenagers too much because she was starting to act like a lovesick girl. She leaned against the bleachers and sighed. Maybe he would think she was just slow to leave? Maybe she could say she was talking to the parents, who were the only ones left milling around the parking lot?
    “Waiting for me?” Annie almost jumped as Cade came up behind her.
    “Um. No. I was talking to some of the parents.” Annie took a step away from him. She couldn’t think straight when she was so close to him.
    “I’m sure they appreciate you coming and supporting their sons. Some of them have talked about you, you know?”
    “The parents are talking about me?” Annie stopped looking at the old cracked pavement and looked up into his eyes. They seemed browner tonight.
    “No, my kids are talking about you. They really appreciate someone taking such an interest in their extracurricular activities. They said you’ve been trying to get to know each of them. That’s real nice of you. Our last guidance counselor never sought out kids just to get to know them and to find out how they are doing in class and on the field.”
    Annie left her face blank. She wasn’t expecting the kids to talk to Cade about her interrogations. She called them conferences. She had the boys come in and go over their classes, their goals and then tried to get them to talk about football as much as she could.
    “They’re great kids. I’m sorry about the loss tonight. It was a tough game.” She kept her eyes on his and