mma stood just outside the barrier around the pettingzoo and watched Kenny carry Peter toward the center of the miniature barnyard. “It’s all right, Petie. That old goat’s not going to hurt you.”

Petie wasn’t buying it and he clung more tightly to Kenny’s neck.

Emma smiled. The petting zoo had been set up in the parking lot attached to a small strip mall that was celebrating its first anniversary. The buildings’ pastel-painted Wild West exteriors formed a background to a carousel, an assortment of clowns giving away balloons, and various family-friendly companies promoting their products with free food and games.

“This goat looks mighty hungry to me.” Kenny stooped down and held out a handful of feed. As the goat nudged Kenny’s legs to get to the food, Petie climbed higher on his brother’s chest. Kenny laughed and dropped the pellets. “Maybe we’d better go see the rabbits. I think they’re more your speed.”

Emma tried not to let the image of the two of them together etch itself into her heart. Spending one night with a man didn’t give her the right to start imagining that it was her child he held in his arms. Silly, desperate Emma. So hungry for love she wanted to imagine herself having a baby with a man who was completely unsuitable. Had she forgotten that she’d never fancied rogues? Her own pitifulness disgusted her. Still, truth was truth, and she couldn’t deny the obvious. She had fallen deeply into infatuation with Kenny Traveler.

Infatuation, not love, she reminded herself. They didn’t have enough in common for her to love him. But, oh, she was infatuated. She was infatuated by his humor, his easy charm, the love he displayed for his baby brother, as well as the way his quick intelligence forced her own brain to full alertness.

But she wouldn’t pretend that there wasn’t also a dangerous element to her infatuation. To the rest of the world, Kenny might appear to be nothing more than a sublimely handsome athlete with an overabundance of charm, but she knew better. He had a whole world of psychological demons haunting him.

She saw Peter’s forehead wrinkle at the baaing of the lambs, and he drew up his knees to protect himself from their nosy exploration. Kenny kissed his head and carried him out of the petting zoo toward Emma.

“I think it’s safe to say you’re not going to have a big career as a farmer, Petie boy.”

She tickled the baby’s belly. “You’re still young, aren’t you, luv? Lots of time to get used to savage animals.”

“Yeah, I swear that baby lamb looked a little bit like Hannibal Lecter around the eyes.”

“Easy for a big man like him to make fun, isn’t it?”

Peter gave her a drooly grin and poked a wet finger at her mouth. They began wandering toward a clown holding balloons. On the way, a young woman holding a clipboard approached them and smiled at Emma. “The next round of the Diaper Derby’s starting soon if you and your husband would like to enter your baby.”

A pang of embarrassment mixed uncomfortably with longing. “He’s not my—”

“What’s a Diaper Derby?” Kenny asked.

“A crawling race for babies.”

“A race?” His face split in a grin. “Now we’re talking.” He tossed Petie up in his arms, tucked him like a potato sack in the crook of his elbow, and turned toward the Diaper Derby arena. “Greatness moves on to the next generation of Travelers.”

“Kenny, maybe we’d better think about this.” But, for once, she was talking to his back.

The race was being held behind a waist-high barricade on a padded red mat that was about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide with six narrow lanes divided by white lines. One parent positioned the baby at the starting line, while the other parent sat at the finishing line urging the child forward. The first of the six babies to make it was the winner.

“Now, here’s the way we’re going to do this,” Kenny said after he’d studied the layout. “Petie’ll crawl to me faster than you, so you start him off, and I’ll wait for him at the finish line.”

She looked over at the spectators who’d gathered to watch. “I don’t know. Peter wasn’t overjoyed with the petting zoo, and it’s quite noisy here.”

“Petie’s not afraid of a little gallery noise, are you, bro?”

Peter gave a baby chortle and smacked his fist against the Top Flite logo on Kenny’s shirt. Kenny laughed, tossed him up again, and handed him over to Emma.

He went to her easily. Her heart ached as she looked into those bright violet eyes with their tiny fringe of spiky lashes. Despite her years of experience with children, she hadn’t spent much time with babies. Now she felt a pang of longing so intense it surprised her. She pushed the emotion away and watched Kenny head for the opposite end of the mat. She realized he was actually studying the competition, and she hugged Peter a bit tighter. “I’m afraid you’re in for it, luv.”

She could see Kenny dismissing a fairy-sprite of a little girl dressed in a yellow romper with layers of lace across her bottom. Then he passed over a blond-haired baby of indeterminate sex who was desperately clinging to his or her mother. For a moment, his attention lingered on a set of lively chocolate-colored twins, but they seemed more interested in each other than the event.

Suddenly he stiffened. His eyes narrowed, and she could almost hear the theme fromRocky playing in his brain. He’d found the one man who stood between a Traveler and athletic glory.

The challenger had a single spike of red hair shooting up from a nearly bald head. His body was strong and brawny, clad in plaid overalls and a Tigger T-shirt. His feet were encased in a pair of miniature Nikes that pumped as he struggled to get down. Twenty-five pounds of raw dynamite. This was the man to beat.

The young woman in charge gave the instructions. As Emma sat behind the starting line with Peter on her lap, she cast a wary eye at Kenny. He seemed to be taking this a little too seriously.

After one last look at the spike-haired bruiser in the lane next to Peter, Kenny crouched at the finish line and called down to his baby brother. “You’ve got to stay focused. Make them play your game, Petie. A hundred and ten percent. You’ve got to give it a hundred and ten percent.”

The mother of the little girl in the lacy romper looked at Kenny as if he’d escaped from a lunatic asylum.

Emma sighed and stroked the baby’s soft arm, while she tried to catch Kenny’s eye. But his entire focus, all one hundred and ten percent of it, was on the game.

“Ready. Set.Go.” At the command from the starter, Emma set Peter on the starting line and released him.

With a superb display of finely honed Traveler crawling skills, he shot toward his brother.

Kenny slapped the mat. “That’s right! Faster.”

Peter slowed.

“Pick it up, Petie. Let’s go!”

The baby came to a dead stop. Wrinkled his forehead. Plopped back on his bottom.

Kenny held out his arms. “Come on, Petie! Don’t stop now. You’ve got the lead.”

Peter stuck his fingers in his mouth and looked up at the cheering spectators. Kenny’s knee inched forward across the finish line.

Two lanes over, the baby in the androgynous clothes dropped to the mat and began a lazy sideways scoot.

“Let’s go, Petie! Let’s go!” Kenny slapped the mat again as his other knee crept over the finish line.

Peter’s bottom lip sagged in a pathetic quiver.

The red-haired bruiser let out a howl and darted back to the starting line.

Kenny’s brows shot together. “You’ve got it now, Petie! The big man’s DQed!”

Peter’s eyes filled with tears.

“No, no! Don’t do that!”

The chocolate-colored twins moved into the same lane and rolled on top of each other.

“They’re dropping like flies! You can take it, Petie! Only a little farther.”

Peter’s small chest shook with a sob.

“Shake it off! Shake it off and come to Kenny.” He crept farther into the lane.

Peter let out an earsplitting howl.

“No crying, buddy! Don’t ever let ’em see you cry. Come on! I’m right here.”

Frozen, Peter sat on the mat and sobbed.

The little girl in the lacy yellow romper shot across the finish line to win the race, but Kenny was too busy inching forward on his own hands and knees to notice.

“Don’t quit! Nobody remembers a loser. Come on, Petie! You can’t quit!”

Emma couldn’t take any more. She hurried forward onto the mat and snatched the sobbing little boy up into her arms. “It’s all right, luv. I won’t let that crazy man get you.”

Kenny came out of a trance and looked up. For the first time he seemed to realize where he was.

On his hands and knees.

A third of the way down the lane.

In the middle of a baby race.

Quiet fell over the small crowd. Kenny turned red and shot to his feet. The quiet intensified. Then a grizzled man in a John Deere cap gave Kenny an admiring salute.

“Now,that’s the way you turn a kid into a champion.”