Bucking the Rules(85)

“Okay, Bea-Bea, okay. Calm down, now. We’ll fix it. Where are you exactly?”

She named the small town where her car had been towed. Trace mentally calculated the distance. At least an hour out, maybe more depending on traffic.

“Okay. Someone will come—”

“No,” she wailed. “You. Please, Trace. Peyton’s not at the house, and neither is Emma, and Red is gone for the week. And I don’t want any of the hands. I want my brother!” she ended on another sob.

“I’m coming. I’ll come get you,” he tried to soothe her. Inadequately, as it turned out, because she kept crying. “Are you sure you’re okay? Should someone take you to a hospital just to check?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just scared and I keep shaking.”

“Try to find a blanket or something to stay warm in. That’s shock. You’ll be fine, Bea-Bea. I promise.” He closed his phone and momentarily pressed his thumbs into his eyes.

If he drove all the way back home to drop Seth off—and with whom? Emma wasn’t home now—he’d lose another hour or more, as Bea’s location was in the other direction from the ranch. But there was nobody in town to take the boy.

Nothing he could do about it. He pocketed the phone and walked back to the living room. The sight that greeted him lifted his spirits momentarily, dragging him up from the trenches.

Seth had a hank of Jo’s hair wrapped around his wrist. She was tugging on it playfully, whipping it around like a lasso and tickling his belly at the same time. Seth could barely keep upright, he was laughing so hard.

“We have to go.”

Jo immediately recognized his tone and stood, shifting Seth to her hip in a natural motion that made Trace’s chest squeeze. Did she even realize how good she could be with his son? “What happened?”

“Bea was in an accident, about an hour north of here.” He reached for Seth, but the boy buried his face in Jo’s neck. “Come on, kiddo, we’ve gotta go rescue your Auntie Bea.”

Seth whimpered.

“Seth, little man, come on. I don’t have time.”

“I could keep him,” Jo said, then her eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe she’d said it.

Trace paused in the act of taking hold of Seth. “Seriously? You don’t have to do that.”

She watched Seth for a moment, then shrugged. “He’s not even one yet. How hard could it be, right? You’ve got things for him?”

“In the truck. Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I can figure something out. I can—”

“Go get the stuff, Trace.” She rolled her eyes. “Offer closes in five minutes.”

“Got it. Right.” Not one to look a gift babysitter in the mouth, he hustled out the door to grab Seth’s bag and prayed he wasn’t making a huge mistake.





“How hard could it be, right?” Jo quietly mimicked herself as she paced the floor for the umpteenth time. “He’s not even one yet.”

Seth made a pathetic sort of sniffling sound and hiccuped. He was as fed up with the situation as she was.

At a loss, she rubbed his back a little and bounced. But the bouncing, which had worked twenty minutes ago, had lost its appeal with the little guy. He whimpered, so she stopped.

After a few moments, the sounds died down, and she walked past the hall mirror to check over her shoulder whether he was asleep.

Nope. Wide awake. But not crying. Yet. Taking a chance, she eased him to the floor, laying him on his back. “You’ve got the run of the place, dude. Explore.”

Instead of rolling to his belly and taking off like a rocket as she expected, he stared up at her pitifully, as he had been doing the last hour.

“Go ahead. You can go,” she said. Right, like that was going to make sense to him.

His lip quivered, and then the wailing started again.

Oh, God damn it.

“What?” She grabbed a handful of her own hair and tugged to relieve the tension in her skull. “What do you need? You’re not dirty. You’re not hungry. You’re not cold, you’re not hot. You don’t want to be walked, you don’t want to be put down, you don’t want to be held. You’re like an adult male, impossible to please. Let’s cut the games and get to the good stuff. What do you need?”

The sarcastic outburst did nothing to improve the situation.

Of course, it didn’t. What was she expecting? The kid to respond to adult humor? Unlikely. She let her head hit the table, and her phone rattled over the top. Phone. Who could she call?

She had the Muldoons’ number … but that seemed like a cheat. Plus, wasn’t that the reason she had Seth in the first place? Nobody was home.