Kicks for a Sinner S3 Read Online Free PDF

together. Ma’am.”
    That raised her temper. “Cut that out! Call me Cassie.”
    “So we’re friends now? Friendly enough for you to give me your phone number and maybe go out on a date?”
    Panic fluttered inside her like the huge flock of starlings rising into the blue-black evening sky from the fallow cane field across the bayou. Push him away, push him away right now, or you will never be held in Joe’s safe arms. Her mind scrambled for the words to fend him off and they came to her all at once. Something Joe had said very offhand about the Sinners’ punter, Brian Lightfoot.
    “Oh, I thought you were gay! I mean you room with Brian Lightfoot, and I understand he’s…” She fluttered her hand back and forth.
    Howdy took a turn at blushing and did it very well. “Only on the road. I mean, I’m not gay anytime. The kicker always rooms with the punter. I have my own place, a condo, same building where Joe has his, not the penthouse though, but still real nice.” He stumbled on, all of his cool evaporating like dry ice exposed to the air. “Honest to God, I’m not gay.”
    “Are you sure? For a man, you are very graceful.”
    “Only when I’m kicking. Otherwise, I’m a real klutz.”
    “You know what they say about psychology majors—they’re trying to work out their own problems.”
    “Maybe I do have some problems, but my sexual identity isn’t one of them. And how about you, Miss Going for her Masters? You must have twice the problems I do.”
    Nell got between them, running interference with a plastic bag clutched in her hand. “Here you go, Howard. I put a couple of steaks in there and some baked potatoes, a sack of the veggies, and little containers of my yogurt topping and Joe’s steak sauce. Did you really like it?”
    “Sure. I don’t lie about important things—like steak sauce. Just needs to be taken with a little moderation. You surely know how to make a man feel at home, Nell. Thanks for inviting me.” He climbed into the high cab with ease, giving Cassie one last glimpse of his fine, tight ass. To her, he said before he slammed the truck’s heavy door, “Evening, ma’am.”
    A gay guy might covet that ass, and a straight girl could appreciate it every bit as much. Cassie exhaled with relief as he drove away.
    Nell said all eager and excited, “Isn’t Howard McCoy the nicest young man ever? Cute, too, and the way he has with children. He won’t be single long. What do you think of him?”
    “I think I will never see that man again.”
     

FOUR
     
    Howard McCoy left Joe’s Lorena Ranch and Chapelle, Louisiana in a cloud of dust and a mighty roar of his truck’s engine. He breezed through Morgan City and across the swampy region south of there that brought him out on I-10 and back to New Orleans again. All the way, he muttered, “She thinks I’m gay,” and ran a mental inventory of any characteristics making Cassie Thomas think that. Other than having to room with Brian Lightfoot, he couldn’t think of a thing, but men saw stuff like that differently. He should ask Brian. No! The last thing he should do was pal with the punter.
    Gregory, the doorman at the condos, raised his eyebrows when Howdy pounded through the front doors without waiting for him to open them. Mumbling under his breath, the kicker stalked by swinging a white plastic bag and gave him only a curt nod instead of the usual cordial greeting. At the elevator, Howdy turned back and pressed a dollar into the concierge’s hand.
    “Thank you, sir, but I’ve done nothing for you.”
    “Back home when I was a kid, we had a cuss jar. If Grandpa or me said a bad word, we put a quarter in the jar. Tonight, you are my cuss jar. I figured for inflation.”
    “I do appreciate the tip, but you did not swear at me, sir.”
    “I did. You just didn’t hear me. Don’t make it right as Grandma would say. Tell me, Gregory, do I seem gay to you?”
    Gregory took the requests of his patrons very seriously. He gave Howdy