Bluegrass Undercover (Bluegrass Brothers)

have been here sooner to help you.” Dinky shifted his weight slightly but stood firm.
    “That was a great job, Dinky.” Static sounded, and he excused himself to radio in. “DEA is here. I directed them down here. What do you need us to do?”
    “Crowd control?” She laughed. She stopped laughing though as everyone cringed. “What?”
    “I’ll rock, paper, scissors you for it,” Dinky told Noodle.
    “Crowd control? Seriously?”
    “You ever try to keep the Rose sisters or John Wolfe from a crime scene? And this is a BIG crime scene,” Dinky explained.
    “I better check the batteries on the taser,” Noodle drawled.
    “Oh, that’s horrible! Stop joking.
    “If she’s going to be hanging around, she’ll learn,” Dinky said to Noodle as they went out the door.
    Was she going to be hanging around? She loved Keeneston. But, with her job at the DEA she didn’t have a real say in where she was going to live. She could be transferred at any time. Suddenly the prospect of moving again didn’t sound nearly as fun and exciting as it used to.
     
    *     *     *
     
    Annie and Cade took a seat at the Blossom Café later that night. Her foot was fractured and in a large air cast. She had wanted to go home, but Cade had sworn up and down that they wouldn’t be able to hide. If they didn’t tell the story, the town would hunt them down and they wouldn’t get any rest. Better to go to the hot spot and tell the story once.
    “Miss Blake, I’m so glad we can finally call you that. I was terrified I would slip up and call you the wrong name and get you shot,” Miss Daisy said as she whipped out her notepad to take their order.
    Annie stared at her dumbfounded. “You knew too?”
    “Of course. See, Edith told my sister Lily that she had heard from her brother’s, wife’s, second cousin’s third son that you were DEA. She was real careful who she told though so we wouldn’t blow your cover.”
    “Well, thank you for keeping it quiet.” Annie suspected Stephanie was maybe the only person in town who didn’t know who she was.
    “Of course, what do you take us for, a bunch of old gossips? We protect our own.” Miss Daisy headed over to another table to fill them in. Annie looked over at Cade who just raised an eyebrow. This seemed all very normal to him. What scared her was the fact that she wasn’t upset about her blown cover. Instead, it felt good to have a whole town looking out for her while she did her job.
    “Psst.” Annie looked past Cade’s shoulder to the plump face of Miss Violet sticking out from the kitchen. “January is still a great time to get married you know.”

Chapter Twenty-Four
     
    Annie gasped and brought her hands to her mouth to cover her surprise. “I’m so sorry, Paige.”
    “It’s okay. After a season of sitting next to me you should know I don’t mind.” Paige shook out her arm and smiled.
    “Actually, it’s only fair someone hit her for once. You notice I’m only sitting down here with my daughter when you’re the one next to me.” Marcy handed her a cup of hot cocoa and took the seat to her left.
    Commonwealth Stadium was packed for the high school state championship game. They were playing a great team from Danville, but Austin and Trey had found that magic groove again. Now in the fourth quarter, they were pulling away. Trey had just run in a thirty-eight yard touchdown.
    Cade was pacing the sidelines, yelling out defensive plays, pulling players aside to pump them up and teach them what to do when on the field. Even though they had the lead, she could tell he was nervous. He had told her he had never expected to make it to the playoffs, let alone the championship game.
    Annie jumped up and screamed as J.T. King leaped into the air and intercepted a pass. He fell to the ground and came up with the ball still in his hands. The towns people were on their feet cheering. Flashes from cameras lit up the stadium as J.T. collapsed underneath the weight of his team jumping on him in celebration.
    Cade stood on the sidelines and closed his eyes for just a moment. He knew it was coming, but there was no way he’d move. The cold water still took his breath away as his team dumped the water cooler on him in victory. Cold water ran down his back as his winter coat soaked a lot of it up.
    His team was around him then. The cheers were deafening. Music blared in the stadium as he shook hands with the opposing coach before the field was stormed by his friends,