hair in a tousled, streaked style.
After all this time, thinking about her and wondering, she was standing right in front of him, smiling and greeting him as if they’d seen each other yesterday. As if they’d been casual friends.
Fury streaked through him.
He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Hey, Jenn. What brings you back to Blossom?”
He struggled to match her casual attitude and give himself a moment to round up his feelings. It was going to take some doing, but if that was how she wanted to play this first meeting, he’d go along. His emotions were in such a turmoil he honestly didn’t trust himself to do otherwise. She looked sophisticated and snooty. Dallas had rubbed off on her.
He realized he was slapping his hat against his leg, and he stopped the motion.
Her eyes were just the same. A deep amber color. The same color as the topaz earrings he’d bought her on his way back to Blossom, before he’d known she’d run off to Dallas and left him behind. He kept those earrings in a box in his dresser. They served as a reminder of his lack of judgment where women were concerned.
She shrugged one tanned shoulder and said, “Miranda needs some help this summer, so I decided to spend my vacation in Blossom.”
He’d known she’d stayed in Dallas after college. In a small town like Blossom he didn’t need to ask questions about her. Everybody’s business was common knowledge, shared regularly at the Bee Hive Cafe, the Dairy Dream and the Alibi Saloon.
He gestured to her shorts with his hat. “I never thought I’d see you in a pigpen.”
“Momma is probably turning in her grave. But you know Miranda. If Momma didn’t like it, my big sister was all over it,” she said, her voice holding a hint of sadness.
Oh, Trace remembered Jenn’s mother, he thought with bitterness. Not an easy woman. Jenn’s sister had fought her mother every inch of the way, but Jenn had always gone along with whatever her mother wanted. Including breaking it off with him.
Eight years ago he’d blamed her mother for what had happened between them. He’d had plenty of time to grow up and realize Jenn had made decisions, too. The annulment might have been Mrs. Williams’s idea, but Jenn hadn’t fought against it. She’d never even answered his letters or phone calls or made any effort to contact him.
No matter how he’d felt about or her daughter, he knew his manners.
Mrs. Williams hadn’t thought much of Trace, and she’d let him know he wasn’t good enough for her daughter, but Trace knew losing a parent was hard. “I was sorry to hear about your mother passing.”
Jenn’s smile faltered. “Thanks.”
They stood awkwardly for a few heartbeats. He wanted answers to so many questions. Answers that would help him let go of the feelings he hadn’t realized until now he’d been hauling around for eight years.
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.”
