Page 16 of Stay Toxic

My brows rose to my hairline. “Are you telling me that you’re actually taking some time off of work?”

I had four brothers and two sisters.

We were a family of seven belonging to two of the best people in the world, Cane Sweat and Reba Faith Sweat. Daddy was a bull rider and was on the circuit since he was a baby and his own dad had hauled him around from rodeo to rodeo.

Dad had caught the bug and had devoted his life to it, even taking Mom along for the ride when they met at a rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

They married fast and produced kids faster.

They’d produced four boys first: Ryler Hughes, Bronc Kash, Holden Tru, and Tibbs Thomas.

But it wasn’t until the first girl was born, me, Brecken Navy Sweat, that Mom and Dad started to settle down.

They found a house in rural Texas and had started raising bulls for a living instead of Dad riding them.

Over the next couple of years, Mom and Dad had two more girls, JJ—Judy June—and McCoy Mariah.

And though we all loved our parents to death and thought they were the greatest parents ever, none of us fell in love with their rodeo life.

So the moment we were all eighteen, Mom and Dad started traveling with the rodeo again, leaving us the property and some cash.

As my brothers turned eighteen, all of them joined the military.

As for my sisters and I, we’d all taken different paths.

I was a high school teacher. JJ was a court reporter. McCoy, the one to never leave, had taken over the farm.

When my brothers had gotten out of the military, they’d started a construction company.

But not your normal construction company.

A construction company that specialized in building fortresses. Places that not even God could break into.

Their business was booming, and it was amazing to me that people wanted houses like the ones that my brothers built.

But I had a feeling there was more to it than construction.

They just didn’t want me too far into their business.

Which I allowed.

I wasn’t one to insinuate myself into things.

I was more lackadaisical. If they wanted me to know, I’d know.

“No McCoy or JJ?” Holden asked.

“Nope,” I said. “JJ is on a case today.”

“Shocker, she’s actually working for once,” Tibbs grumbled.

I laughed. Tibbs was right, though.

JJ had crazy hours. She barely worked and she made way more than me.

If that wasn’t a great job, I didn’t know what was.

JJ was like the wind. She went wherever life carried her. She was what you would call a free spirit. She lived, laughed, loved, and ran.

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