The squeal of the pig reminded him they were standing in the middle of a barn. Now was not the time or place to bare his soul to Jenn.
“So, you’ll be in town for a while?” He needed to talk to her, but he wasn’t going to open their can of worms here in the pig barn.
She nodded. “For the fair. Miranda is off her feet until the baby comes, so I’m going to take on Kelly and Miss Cranky here.” She gestured to the pig, who was busy scooting her empty water dish around the pen and complaining.
He wondered if it was hard for her to see her sister pregnant, if it made her think of the child they had lost that summer after she’d graduated from high school. Maybe she’d been able to move on, but the unfinished business between them still gnawed at him.
He reached into the enclosure and grabbed the dish as the pig went by. He handed it to Jenn. “Well, I’ve got to get along. You staying with Miranda?”
She nodded, her head bent down, looking at the stainless steel bowl as if it held some fascination for her.
“I’ll be in touch.”
She glanced up at him with a resigned look on her face. “Okay.”
They both knew they needed to have a conversation they should have had eight years ago.
Chapter Two
Trace strode away from Jenn, still trying to get his emotions under control. He wanted to put his fist through a wall.
Hey, Trace, how’s it going? What kind of a greeting was that after almost eight years? He jammed his sunglasses back on and stomped out of the swine barn into the blazing sunshine.
They had been as close as two people could be. He had loved her so much he’d ached with it. Was he the only one who remembered that? Had he been harboring the remnants of some adolescent crush all these years? Obviously his emotions had been deeply buried, surfacing to smack him unexpectedly now. Now he had no idea what to do about them.
He stepped into the judging barn and headed for the fair offices. He needed to find Stan, the 4H adviser. Trace had offered to help out with checking in the projects, but he wasn’t going to deal with Kelly’s pig—or Jenn–until he had some time to figure out what was going on in his head and how he was going to handle it. Stan would have to check in Kelly’s project.
Over at the stock pens, where animals waited for the vet, a child climbing up the slats had Trace changing direction.
The boy, his back to Trace, was on a pen that held a particularly nasty bull from the rodeo herd. He had a broken horn and a bad attitude, along with a habit of charging the fence.
“Hey, kid, get down off there!” Trace broke into a run as the bull turned and spotted the child.
When the boy didn’t respond, Trace hollered again. “You, kid, in the red shirt, jump down!”
The boy continued to ignore him. The bull’s head was down and Trace could hear him snorting from twenty feet away. Trace closed the distance in record time and snagged the little boy around the waist, jerking him off the pen.
The sound of ripping fabric was quickly drowned out by the bull crashing into the fence, his horns raking the wood with a splintering screech.
Trace backed up, set the boy down and spun him around. “What were you thinking?” he yelled. The boy’s terrified freckled face didn’t look familiar.
The child looked up at Trace, but said nothing. His whole body shook.
“Who are you here with?” Trace moved the child another few steps away as the bull readied himself for another run at the boards. Whoever was supposed to be supervising this boy was doing a bad job.
The child turned to bolt, then flinched when Trace reached down to keep him in his place. Just as he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder someone called his name.
“Trace, stop!”
He saw Jenn ran toward them, looking as scared as the boy.
“Don’t hurt him.”
Hurt him?
She arrived panting and out of breath, and scooped the boy into a hug. His little arms went around her shoulders and his legs gripped her waist as he buried his face against her neck.
“What did you think I was going to do? Give him a beating?”
“No, oh, no. Sorry. I was scared.”
He nodded, but the notion that she thought he would hurt a child stung.
“Thank you,” she said, gulping air as she patted the boy on the back.
“Who is this kid?”
“My son, Zack.” She continued to stroke the boy’s thin little back.
For the second time that day Trace felt as if he’d been smacked by a two-by-four. Jenn had a child?
She smoothed a hand over Zack’s curly brown hair, as if to reassure herself he was all right. “He was supposed to stay with Kelly, but she came back alone.”
How come he’d never heard that Jenn had a child? Feeling as twisted up as old hay wire, Trace shoved his hands into his pockets. “I yelled at him to get down, but he ignored me.”
Jenn’s big hazel eyes filled with tears. “He didn’t hear you. Zack is deaf.” She lowered the boy back onto his feet, and used sign language to ask him something. Zack pointed to the front of his red shirt, where there was a big hole.
Jenn looked up at Trace. “He was trying to get down, but he got stuck.”
There was a piece of the boy’s shirt hanging from a splinter on the fence post. “He never should have been there in the first place.”
Jenn nodded, and had started to say something when Zack shook her hand to get her attention. He pointed to his shirt and then signed something.
Jenn laughed and nodded, signing back and speaking to him. The child watched her lips. “I know it’s your favorite. We can get you another one.”
Trace took another look at the boy’s red shirt and realized it had the Chicago Bulls’ mascot on the front.
The boy made some motions with his hands, and Jenn translated.
“Zack said he’s sorry. He wants to thank you.”
Trace nodded at the boy, then looked up at Jenn, still trying to absorb the fact that she had a child.
She gave him a wobbly smile and said, “I want to thank you, too. I’ll keep him with me in the future.” She took Zack’s hand and walked away.
Trace watched them leave, and slowly withdrew his hands from his pockets. He wasn’t very good at guessing ages, but the boy looked as if he could be about seven.
The same age the child they had supposedly lost would be.
Trace started after them. He needed answers. Now.
His phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket, saw the “911” designation and swore under his breath. As much as he needed to confront Jenny, his job called. He flipped open the phone and barked, “What?” He didn’t take his eyes off Jenn or Zack until they disappeared from sight.
There was a moment of silence and then his dispatcher, Henrietta, said, “Sheriff?”
Trace ran a hand over his face. “Sorry, Henrie. What’s up?”
“Accident on the highway, four miles south of the fairgrounds. Butch thinks one driver might be drunk.”
“Any injuries?” Trace glanced at his watch. Geez, it was ten o’clock in the morning.
“Doesn’t look too bad, but one of the passengers is trapped in the car. I