In Heat for My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Rodeo

The guard came around the corner with a coffee in each hand.

I stepped back into the dark beside the door and stood still.

He walked right past me, close enough to touch.

"Brought you one, Judd."

"Thanks." Judd took it without looking at it. "Nobody hears what she said to me. Not even my father. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Outside in the pines, Judd walked so fast I had to jog.

"He gave it back to me the next afternoon," he said. "My phone. He said he'd charged it for me."

"Kind of him."

"Everything he does is kind." He stopped and put both hands on a tree. "Ket says hold it until we can prove it. If we say it now, it's my word against his, and my word's been through a rut."

"Then we prove it," I said.

He nodded at the bark.

He didn't let go of the tree for a long time.

Ten days later, the co-op held its fall picnic at the fairgrounds.

Every lineman in three counties came, with their wives and husbands and kids and coolers.

There was brisket, and a bounce house, and a pole-climbing rodeo.

"Apprentice heat," the foreman said. "You're in it."

"I've been on the job three weeks."

"Then you'll lose with dignity. Go get your hooks."

I went to get my hooks.

On the way back, I nearly walked into Judd.

He was standing by the brisket line in a flannel shirt and a co-op ball cap somebody had given him.

"What are you doing here?"

"The old lineman invited me." He nodded across the grass. "He said anybody who brings his granddaughter's diner that much business is family now."

The old lineman lifted his thermos at us.

His granddaughter was beside him in a softball jersey, waving.

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