Vinia groaned. "We may fly fast, but the hours they'd be here helping aren't any quicker, you idiot." She shook her head. "And they are on vacation. Basically, their overdue honeymoons. You are not asking them to fly back and forth. Don't even think about it."
He grinned and kissed her cheek. "Hey, I had to try.
Sarah strolled into the kitchen. "What's with the kissy kissy?"
"Your brother and I were just talking about him helping you with your chores."
"You mean the baking because the smell of bread makes me queasy as hell?"
Drake stared her down. "Shouldn't the father of the baby be helping you with that?" He knew very well that it was a sore subject, but his mood was making him snarky.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Cute, jackass. Real cute."
"He's not wrong," Vinia added. "We could use the help around here."
Sarah leaned against the counter. "It's not going to work. When I'm ready to tell you my secrets, you'll be the first to know."
Drake told her about the rodeo, suddenly regretting that he had brought up the subject. He didn't want one of the famous fights between daughter and mother to break out when he was the only one there to referee or break it up.
"A rodeo here?" Sarah wrinkled her nose. "Where will they stay?" She groaned. "That'll mean more food. More baking. More morning sickness."
Vinia reached for the coffee pot. "They bring their own trailers, so we'll need a staging area to park the campers away from the barns. I figured they can use the blue barn for their horses. I think they have a few calves and goats, too. Maybe sheep." There were several barns, and each had been painted a separate color for the ease of the guests.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Great. A real travelling petting zoo."
"How do you think I feel?" Drake mumbled. "I have to babysit them."
Vinia stared at them. "Nobody said anything about us feeding them or providing lodging or entertainment. I figured it might be fun for whichever guests we have at the time."
Colton came in from the barn. Drake watched with humor as Sarah suddenly scurried out the door to avoid talking to him. The two of them had been at odds since her pregnancy was made known because she refused to name the father. Colton felt they had a right to know, and even though Drake stayed out of it, he agreed with his older brother. None of them could figure out why it was such a big secret.
The fact that Sarah had stayed close to the house the last few months made Drake wonder if the father was no longer in the picture. She had run off for days at a time before she got pregnant, then all of a sudden she was home all the time.
"You tell him about the rodeo?" Colton nodded toward Drake as he headed for the coffee pot.
Vinia nodded at Colton's question. "I did. He's fine with it."
"Whoa, whoa," Drake interjected. "I never said I was fine with it. I repeat that I don't like babysitting."
"You're fine with it," Colton responded. "And don't think of it as babysitting. Think of it as supervising. All you have to do is make sure their horses stay in their barn, they stay out of ours, and they don't make a mess around their campers."
"Babysit, in other words."
"Whatever you want to call it, just get it done." Colton turned to his mother. "And I don't appreciate your daughter slinking out like a scalded dog just because I walk in."
"She just doesn't want to have the same old fight with you."
"I'm not fighting with her. We have a right to know who she got hooked up with."
Drake inched his way to the door. He didn't want to get involved with their fight either. "I'm going to check out the blue barn and make sure everything is secure."
He hurried out and left them to their bickering. Sarah's drama was really putting a toll on their family unit, but Drake didn't want to choose sides. He figured that eventually she'd come clean about everything, and he just hoped there was some rational explanation.
He wandered through the blue barn. It had been used for the trail horses the summer before, so they had done an overhaul on the stalls and common areas before the guests arrived. He huffed out his cheeks. "At least that's one positive about the circus coming to town."
His words echoed in the empty barn. He headed down to get the tractor to pull in some bales of hay so he could prep each stall for the incoming livestock. He sent up a silent prayer that they had enough hay left to supply all the animals. He didn't want to have to drive into town.
Luck was with him when he reached the storage area, and an hour later, he had the barn ready for occupants. He shook his head at the area where the campers would be staged. "This is going to be a muddy mess if it rains again." There had been a storm the day before he figured there was enough time to dry out. Otherwise, the tires were going to leave muddy ruts through the entire field.
