Bluegrass Undercover (Bluegrass Brothers)

parked by the field house. She pushed open the door to the locker room and wrinkled her nose. It smelled like sweat, dirt and grass. The smell was overpowering.
    “Cade?” She peeked around one of the lockers but didn’t see anyone. She went off in search for him, passing rows of lockers and benches. There was a large meeting room with plastic chairs and a chalkboard covered with X’s and O’s that took up most of the wall.
    It looked like she turned the wrong way so she headed back for the door and then kept going past it. She looked down more rows of lockers until she saw a light coming out of a door at the end of one of the rows. She headed toward the light and noise reached her ears. As she neared the light, she heard singing, very bad singing. Was that Taylor Swift? No, couldn’t be.
    Annie paused to smile to herself as he continued to sing. She walked through the door and froze in her tracks. Cade was singing alright, singing butt naked in the middle of a huge room with shower heads lining the three walls.
    “Oh my God!” She felt her cheeks go bright red at the sight of him. He was even better without his clothes on. His muscled arms, his chest sprinkled with dark blonde hair that came together in a tiny trail that led past his well-defined abs straight to his…
    “Annie, can I help you?” he laughed. He turned to her fully so she got an eyeful and then some. She covered her eyes with her hands, more to hide the fierce blush than to prevent her from looking. It had been a long time after all, and this was, well, this was art and it deserved to be appreciated.
    “I’ m sorry. I was just going to tell you about the conversation with my boss.” She shifted her ring fingers slightly so she could peek out and study the artwork.
    “Okay, so what did he say?” She heard him chuckle, but she was really busy appreciating the artwork to look up and see his face.
    “Oh, um, he wants you to take the deal with Trevor. He wants us to gather intel and evidence so we can bring the whole ring down at once. I know you won’t like it, but he does have a good point.”
    “If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s keeping my head down and gathering intel, even though all my instincts tell me to do something to protect the people.” Damn. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. She dropped her hands and realized why it was so hard for some guys to keep their eyes on her face, 'cause his muscled chest was not allowing her eyes to go any further upward.
    “What did you do for the Rangers? Both my boss and I tried to access your whole file and we couldn’t. Everything is sealed.”
    “It’s not sealed . It’s just not written down. The things I did were off the books. Surveillance, rescue, and well, things that may make the paper, but you’d never be able to connect it to the United States.” Cade shrugged and pulled on a t-shirt.
    “Well, I guess this isn’t as important as what you did, but you are saving an untold amount of children’s lives.”
    “I know. That’s the only reason I’m going along with it.” Annie watched as he walked out of the showers and felt an odd sort of panic as she realized she didn’t ever want him to walk out on her. And she certainly didn’t want Miss Perky, the chemistry teacher, seeing what she just saw.

Chapter Ten
     
    Annie pulled on her KHS sweatshirt and clapped her hands together as Trey Everett ran for eight yards. The crisp mid-October air mixed with the scent of leaves covering the ground, the noise of the band playing, and the crowd cheering was warming. It filled her with the feeling of being a part of something and she loved it.
    She wasn’t so much in love with the fact that over the past six weeks she hadn’t gotten any closer to learning who the boss of the drug organization was. It had been quiet. No other contact with Trevor, no thugs stopping by, nothing. She had tried poking around at the Café for the local gossip. She did hear an interesting story of some drunken horse groomers riding a horse down Main Street, and teenagers tipping cows, but there was no talk of any drug use.
    The big talk recently had been about the Homecoming Parade and game. And, what a parade it had been! Each class built a float that carried its Homecoming Court, and the football team had three floats. A lot of the area businesses built floats as well. Ashton Farm had a float pulled by horses. Henry Rooney shined in one of his suits on top a gavel-shaped