Kicks for a Sinner S3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

quick, she already knew how to protect what she had.
    “That’s the way, Jude. Don’t let the guys strip the ball,” Joe shouted. “And she scores!”
    Jude handed the football to Howdy and executed a prim princess curtsey as if she wore a ball gown and not jeans and sneakers, her triumphant demonstration of victory over her brothers. Then, practice began in earnest.
    Howdy chalked the insteps of the children’s shoes and showed them after each kick where their foot should have hit in the right quadrant. Cassie thought Tommy did the best. The girls were feeble kickers, and Dean always approached the ball too aggressively and shanked it. Annie, the quietest of the Billodeaux kids, cried when she missed the ball altogether and sniffed, “I want to be a ballerina, anyhow.”
    “They say punters and kickers are the ballerinas of football,” Howdy told her. He followed that comforting statement with a silly pirouette on the tips of his big toes that got them all laughing. Cassie couldn’t keep in the smile no matter how hard she tried. Okay, so he was a nice guy just as Nell said when she’d told her another guest would be coming. You could detect the fix-up in her words. Cassie guessed she preferred bad boys like Bijou and Joe before he became a devoted family man because she had a bad streak herself and wanted another woman’s husband.
    Howdy coaxed Annie to try again. This time she managed to hit the broad side of the barn a few feet off the ground. The children continued to take turns until the early winter dusk descended and the cold air prickled their skin. The pro kicker sent one last ball over the barn for the fun of it and let the kids scramble for its return. This time Dean brought back the ball with Tommy shadowing behind him as he so often did.
    Cassie hugged her son and whispered too low for the other children to hear, “You were the best, the very best.” She did not lie. Dean and Jude always kicked too hard and Annie too soft. Her boy performed perfectly. He beamed at her, so proud.
    She swallowed her hostility and forced herself to walk over to where Howdy waited by his shiny, new red truck with the double cab and extended bed, much like the one Joe used at the ranch. Nell had gone to make up a box of leftovers for which the cowboy said he would be “mighty obliged.” Did anyone actually talk that way, like the star in an old western movie?
    “Thanks for teaching Tommy to kick. Dean is such a natural leader sometimes my son gets left his the dust. I thought he did really, really well. Joe might be right about his not being built for football, so this means a lot to him.”
    The cowboy shrugged and leaned his length back against the truck’s cab. “Once the football coach tapped me, my grandpa built me a regulation goalpost in the cornfield. I had a talent for kicking, but I practiced all year round in wind and snow and into the sun to get better in all conditions. Drop a word and I’ll bet Joe would build the right-sized goalpost for Tommy, too. The good thing is kickers tend to have long careers and don’t get beat up as much—even if we are only glorified soccer players. If that doesn’t work out, plenty of other careers to choose from in this big, wide world, ma’am.”
    She had the grace to blush again and apologize. “I am sorry I was so rude. You are a vital part of the team. What will you do when you are done playing? Coach other kickers?”
    Another loose-shouldered shrug. “Maybe, but I do have a degree in psychology. I thought I might counsel troubled boys.”
    “Really? I’m getting my master’s in psychology. I thought I’d like to work with troubled girls.”
    He showed no surprise, nor had he about her being Tommy’s birthmother. Probably, Nell filled him in before introducing them. He hadn’t cringed or lost interest because she had an illegitimate son the way some men did. A nice guy and kinda cute.
    He gave her that ear-to-ear grin. “Maybe we could go into practice