summer really sucks. I don’t see why you even had to come. I can take care of myself.” The girl stood up so quickly she knocked her stool over. “It is, like, so disgusting.”
Jenn didn’t know what she was referring to. “What is?”
Kelly did the eye roll that was becoming annoyingly familiar. “Mom having a baby. She’s, like, so old. And just because she has to stay home doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”
Jenn could tell Kelly was trying hard not to cry. Poor kid was having a rough time since her stepfather had walked out on them, but Jenn couldn’t let Kelly take it out on her or Zack. “Well, Kel,” she said gently, “it would be tough to haul a three-hundred-pound pig to the fairgrounds on the city bus.”
Kelly glared at Jenn. “You’re as bad as Mom!”
Ah. A truly teenage insult, Jenn thought as she watched her niece turn and run toward the sunlight streaming through the stock-barn doors.
Kelly had been through so much during the past few months. Her stepfather, the only father she remembered, had run off with another woman. According to Miranda, Roger hadn’t even said goodbye to Kelly before he moved out, nor had he talked to her since. Add all that to a raging case of hormones, and this was not shaping up to be Kelly’s finest summer.
Jenn had nothing but sympathy for her niece’s situation. She suspected this was not going to be her best summer, either.
“Jennifer?”
A male voice startled her out of her thoughts. She looked up at a vaguely familiar face.
He held out a hand. “I’m Stan. Stan Donnely. I was in Miranda’s class.”
She hadn’t seen him for years, but she remembered him. He had been a close friend of Miranda’s first husband. When Rob had died, Stan had helped with the arrangements. “Of course. Stan. How are you?” She shook his hand.
“I’m fine. How’s Miranda?”
Jenn didn’t miss the look of genuine concern on Stan’s face. “She’s on bed rest.”
“I’ll stop by later and see if she needs me to do anything around the place.”
Jenn nodded. “Miranda would appreciate that.” Stan had always been a nice guy. He’d never married, and Jenn had suspected he’d had a crush on Miranda since high school.
“Where’s Kelly?” He motioned with his clipboard to Petunia. “I’m here to check in her project.”
Stalling, giving herself time to think, Jenn said, “Are you the 4H adviser?”
He nodded and smiled. “Yup.”
Jenn decided to cover for Kelly. “I sent her to get me a soda. Does she need to be here, or can you do this without her?”
“She needs to be here. I can get started, but I’ll bet she’ll want to be here for the birth.”
Jenn looked at him blankly. Miranda was not due for weeks. “Birth?”
He gestured toward Petunia, who lay on her side panting. “Unless I miss my guess, she’s in labor.”
In the wake of everything that had happened in the past hour Jenn had forgotten the pig was pregnant. What did you do for a pig in labor?
Stan chuckled and said, “Relax. She knows what to do.”
“I hope so.” Jenn glanced at Zack, who was still playing across the aisle, then dug her cell phone out of her bag and dialed Kelly’s number, praying the girl would pick up.
On the fourth ring Kelly answered, with a rude “What?” Obviously she’d recognized her aunt’s number on the incoming call.
Jenn said cheerfully, “Kelly, sweetheart, you’ll have to forget my soda. You need to hurry back. Mr. Donnely is here to check Petunia in and he thinks she’s in labor.”
She heard a yelp and then the line went dead. Jenn smiled up at Stan. “She’s on her way.”
As they waited for Kelly they chatted about her job in Dallas and how hot the weather was getting. Then the conversation, as it tended to do with old acquaintances, turned to the past.
“You used to go with Trace McCabe, didn’t you?”
Jenn tried not to wince at the question. The last thing she wanted was to discuss Trace. “Yes, for the last two years of high school.” People in small towns never forgot anything, Jenn thought.
“Have you seen him since you’ve been back?”
She nodded and struggled to keep her tone light. “Sure did. He stopped by just a bit ago.” She actually managed to make it sound as if it had been no big deal.
She wanted this conversation to be over. It was hard enough to keep her thoughts away from Trace without any reminders.
Stan droned on about the sheriff and the great job he was doing while Jenn kept a pleasant look plastered on her face.
After all, that is what her mother had taught her, she thought with a feeling of rising panic. Self-control. No matter what was going on, keep your face composed and don’t give anyone “something to talk about.” As if being talked about was the worst thing that could happen to a person.
Jenn’s pleasant expression was about to crack when Kelly finally ran toward them, straw and dust flying as her feet pounded the dusty corridor.
Breathless, she said, “Mr. Donnely. I was just getting my aunt a soda.” She threw Jenn a grateful look and let herself into the pen.
Jenn led Zack to the end of the pen, and they settled down on a bale of hay to wait for Petunia to get through her ordeal.
Her son, always full of questions, was bound to be asking some interesting ones today. Jenn sighed and put her arm around Zack. Her quiet summer in Blossom had developed into a whole lot more than she had anticipated.
Chapter Three
Jenn sat on the porch swing in the dark, enjoying the quiet night sounds. It was so comfortable in the house she’d grown up in, and so different to what she’d become accustomed to, living in the city.
Miranda and her second husband, now referred to by the sisters as Roger the Rat, had moved in a few years ago after their mother died. Miranda had, surprisingly, changed very little about the house. In fact, Jenn thought, the entire neighborhood had changed very little since she’d been away.
A light went on in the house across the street. She could see the rooster wallpaper in Mrs. Kincade’s kitchen. She smiled at the sight.
Her neighborhood in Dallas was so impersonal. She hardly knew the people who lived on either side of her and had never been in their homes. A week ago she hadn’t thought anything about the fact that her neighbors weren’t a part of her life. Now, with memories of a different lifestyle pressing in on her, she wasn’t so sure her neighborly
