Peaks around the corner then dashes for the computer Sorry don't have much time until they catch up with me. Hope you enjoy the chapter. door creaks open and author sees her professor coming after her with a dripping red pen EEEP!! Dashes back to her study room/prison cell

Part 5

Chris found himself growing ever more nervous over the next several days. By the next Friday, the boys had caught on to his unease and it was telling in their reactions.

JD was jumpier than usual and would not stop talking about how "Papa and Mr. Buck" wouldn't let anything happen to Ezra and the nasty "Miss Maude" wasn't getting anywhere near his brother ever again. Papa and Mr. Buck would throw her in jail and never let her out again.

While his confidence in them was gratifying, his constant chatter was grating on people's nerves, plus it was keeping there worries in the forefront of everyone's minds. Not something that they really needed to be reminded about anyway, but it wasn't helping. Especially since Ezra was fully conscious of the fact that they couldn't arrest her without solid proof of something she had done wrong and even if they did arrest her, she had ways of getting out of the charges. And the chance of keeping her in jail for any extended period of time was less still, since as far as Ezra knew she had no criminal record that could be traced down. All in all, JD's chatter ended up doing the exact opposite of what he intended, which made him try that much harder to cheer up his brother.

Vin was getting quieter and quieter. He never was a chatter box in the first place, but it was getting so that even Chris would lose track of where he was because he simply wasn't making any noise. Raine had told Chris and Buck last year that abused children sometimes learned not to make noise as a defense mechanism and it was a lesson that Vin had obviously learned well.

Ezra was the worst though. The sensitive little boy had become almost an automaton in his interactions with the team that had come to be their family. Only with Vin and JD would he act naturally most of the time. When JD had surprised him one morning, Ezra had whirled around and for just a moment, there had been an expression of terror in his eyes. If Chris had not been behind JD at the time, he never would have glimpsed that flash of fear as Ezra covered it quickly with his usual admonishment to JD that sneaking around was not appropriate behavior. Apparently JD didn't notice Ezra discomfiture, for he just grinned and went ahead and started chattering about that he thought they would be doing as school that day.

As he watched the boys walk into Mountainside, Josiah following close behind, he determined that they all needed a day off and away from the stress. Saturday was usually the team's day off anyway, and some time together and not thinking about Maude would be great. But what should they do?

After Buck and Nathan arrived at the office, Chris headed out to the bullpen.

"Buck, Nate, come here for a second," Chris called waving the two men over.

Buck raised an eyebrow at him in question, and hurried over. "What's up, Big Dog?" Buck looked more than a little worried. "Something happen after I left this mornin'?"

Yes, Chris thought, we definitely need to unwind. "No, just had an idea to run by you guys. I'm thinkin' to get the boys off the ranch for a few hours tomorrow and thought we might could make it a team outing. Nate, you'd be more'n welcome to bring Raine with you. I know the boys would love to see her some outside her office. What d'ya think?"

Buck and Nathan both smile widely. This was a great idea!

"That's a great idea!" Nathan said. "Raine was just mentioning yesterday that she wished she could spend more time with the boys."

"So where are we taking them?" Buck said, excitement coloring his voice. Buck was still a little child at hear sometimes.

Chris shrugged, "Don't know. It's getting' a bit cold for trail rides. Any other ideas?"

Nathan and Buck both thought about it for a few moments, then Buck's face lit up.

Chris looked at him warily. Buck tastes in entertainment were not always suited for those under the age of twenty, let alone boys less than fifteen.

Noticing the expression on his best friends face, Buck looked affronted. "Hey! I'm not that bad! I was just thinkin' that Cindy mentioned that the fairgrounds down past Purgatorio have opened back up. Supposed to be a real nice place for kids now!" You could tell how excited the big man was by the way he was beginning to bounce on his toes.

Chris looked uncertain about that suggestion. It was a few miles past the notorious gang section of Denver, but being that close to Purgatorio still wasn't exactly reassuring.

"Come on, Chris," Buck practically whined. "I'll bet the boys have never been to a County Fair before, 'cept for maybe Vin when he was really little. They'll love it!"

Appealing to Chris's love for those boys was just about as sure fire a way to get him to agree as there was, and Buck knew it. This time though Chris's reservations about the boys' safety held him back from agreeing immediately.

"We'll all be there with them, Chris," Nathan assured his team leader, catch a little of Buck's excitement at the idea. He hadn't been to a good fair in several years himself, and began to look forward to it.

Clamping down on his gut reaction of Hell NO! I am not taking my boys anywhere near that place! Chris thought about the idea a bit more clearly. The South County Fairgrounds was a good five miles past the edges of Purgatorio and Nathan, Raine, and Buck, at the least, would be with them. If Josiah agreed to come too, that would be five adults with the boys. That should be all right. They would just have to keep a close eye on them and make sure the boys never left their sight.

Nodding slowly, Chris agreed. "That should work. I'll have to call Josiah later to see if he can come."

"He will," Nathan state with a grin. "There's no way he'd miss it."

True, Chris mused. Josiah is probably almost as attached to those boys as Buck is. Give him half a chance and I think he'd try to adopt them himself. Chris rolled his eyes as he turned back toward his office. Of course he would, why else had he been leaving pamphlets on adoption proceedings in strategic places about the ranch for the last ten months!

Just as predicted, Chris's call to Josiah met with a hearty, "Of course! I'd love to come with you all." It also yielded information about the price of tickets, as Josiah had been going to suggest the fair to Chris before the situation with Maude has sprung up. He just hadn't felt comfortable making the suggestion with as tense as everything had been since them.

Chris smiled freely for the first time in days as he hung up the call. It would great to get away from the city for a few hours and just be together as a team. If Chris noticed how much they were all beginning to be family to each other, he steadfastly ignored it.

By common consent, Chris and Buck decided not to tell the boys about the upcoming outing until the next morning. They figured if they did tell them, JD would be too excited to sleep and a sleepy JD could be a bit of a handful, even for highly trained Federal Law Enforcement Agents. Whiny seven year-olds just were not part of the training course, leaving Buck, Chris, Nathan, and Josiah out of luck and without a clue how to deal with the situation, as they had found out before.

Instead, Chris and Buck picked them up from school and with a quick nod and hand motion indicated for Josiah to be at the ranch the next morning and they'd head out from there. In keeping with Raine's recommendation on the boy's fear of separation, Chris and Buck allowed the boys to decide who would ride with Buck and who would ride with Chris. They would then play follow the leader back to the ranch. To their surprise, instead of Vin volunteering to go with Buck, JD was the one to pipe up and say he wanted to go with him. Buck smiled hugely and Chris was sure there was just a hint of wateriness in the man's blue eyes.

Smile still plastered all over his face, Buck bent down and asked, "You sure, Short Stack?"

Trying to be brave, JD nodded, and said, "I'm a big boy, and I know you coming home, too, Mr. Buck."

With a loud whoop, Buck scooped up the now squealing JD and headed off to his classic pickup laughing.

Chris, Vin, and even Ezra smiled as they watched the two stride off laughing. It was an honestly happy sound that he hadn't heard much of over the last couple of weeks.

Look back to his two elder boys, Chris grinned himself, "Guess you got stuck with me this time."

Vin just shrugged and grinned at his father, but Ezra looked slightly nervous. "Da, we want to ride with you, really. You know that right?"

Not wanting Ezra to retreat back to the way he had been acting for the last couple of days, Chris quickly reassured him. "Of course, Ez. I'm just joking with you."

Ezra let out small sigh of relief. He really didn't want his Da getting the idea that he didn't want to be here with him. He was just nervous about what Maude was going to do, and sometimes it was hard not slip back into the defenses he had built up before she left him here.

Chris smiled as he watched the boys climb into the truck. It would be good for the boys to have a bit of time away from all of this stress. He just couldn't wait for tomorrow to get here.