“You think Trish is the problem?” Blake asked.
“You don’t?” Brett sounded surprised again.
Blake shook his head. “She got us that contract. She doesn’t want to hurt the ranch. She wants to keep it going, make it prosper. She understands everything we’ve been doing and respects it. She just wants to be respected in return, Brett.” Blake didn’t think that was too big an ask.
Apparently, his older brother did because he shook his head as if denying her his respect. “She doesn’t know anything about ranching,” he said. “I don’t think she even knows anything about petting zoos and kids’ camps. She just dreamed up this fantasy from her childhood and doesn’t realize how much work it will be to make it a reality.”
“I think you’re underestimating her,” Blake said. Or maybe Brett just didn’t want her to stick around because she made him uncomfortable. Was he a little more interested in the single mom than he was willing to admit?
CHAPTER TEN
His sleepless nightsand long days working the ranch caught up with Brett a few days after Trish’s arrival, and for once he didn’t manage to wake up early enough to beat everyone else out of the house. He liked being gone before anyone else was up and about, and he liked getting back after everyone else had gone to bed.
Then he didn’t have to talk to anyone. No. He didn’t have to talk toher. Or seeher.
Except not talking to her, not seeing her, hadn’t stopped him from thinking about her, from wondering what she was up to. But whenever he ran into his brothers out in the pastures or in the barn, or if they waited up for him like they had a couple of nights ago, he didn’t let himself ask about her. He didn’t want to care, and he certainly didn’t want anyone else to think that he did.
He would not let Trish Dempsey get to him. He would focus on what mattered to him: the ranch, the cattle and his family.
He grimaced with guilt that his family came last. And they had since her arrival. He’d been avoiding them as much as he’d been avoiding her. Maybe he was a little annoyed with Blake and Liam for being so agreeable to working with her and so accepting of her plans for the ranch.
Had she started on them?
Remembering how she’d nearly fallen off the staircase in the bunkhouse, alarm flashed through him. What if she got hurt trying to fix things up the way she wanted?
He shouldn’t have been avoiding her. He should have been making sure that nothing happened to her. Despite how little he’d seen of his daughter after she’d become an adult, Frank Dempsey had loved her with his whole heart. Brett had kept the ranch running for Frank, but he needed to also make sure that nothing bad happened to his daughter and to his unborn grandchildren, too. He also needed to thank her for securing the contract that he and Blake hadn’t been able to.
Sure, that had been her fault since she was the reason the estate hadn’t been settled sooner. But she’d secured that contract now. She hadn’t had to do that. But she had. She’d settled the will, too.
And he hadn’t thanked her for anything yet.
So when he awoke a couple hours later than he usually did, he searched the house for her. She’d left the door open to her dad’s suite, and it barely looked as if she’d touched it or brought anything into it. She wasn’t in it or anywhere else in the house. But her truck was in the driveway.
Worried that she might be in the bunkhouse, Brett rushed across the yard toward it. But as he passed the barn, he caught the soft lilt of a singing voice. It could have been Frankie’s, but Frankie’s van was gone. Nobody else drove that rattletrap, which meant she must have taken it somewhere.
So who was singing?
The voice drew him into the barn, and he understood that old myth about mermaids luring sailors to their death with their singing. He wouldn’t have been able to resist finding out who this was even though part of him already knew.
He blinked to adjust his eyes to the dim light in the barn. But he still couldn’t see her. She had to be where her cousin usually was, so he walked over to the stall where Cocoa was kept with the kittens. He leaned over the top of the stall door and peered inside the small area.
Trish sat on one of the bales of hay, and the calf leaned across her knees as Trish fed it. One of the kittens was in the crook of her free arm, and the other one was curled up beside her. She finished the lullaby she’d been singing and leaned down to kiss the top of the calf’s head.
“You are as good with animals as your cousin is,” Brett commented.
He must have startled her because she jumped, disturbing all the animals that had gathered on and around her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She pressed her hand to her heart and breathed in deep. “I’m fine. And I’m actually only good with farm animals, not all animals. I have a scar from my mother’s dog to prove it.” She held up her hand.
He opened the stall door and stepped inside to get close enough to see whatever she was showing him. The scar was so small that he hadn’t noticed the fine white line on the side of her palm. “And you still want to open a petting zoo?”
She sighed wearily. “I just said that I have no problems with farm animals. That’s partly why I want to do the petting zoo, because the animals on the farm were always easier to take care of than pets like my mother’s aggressive dog.”
“What’s the other part of why you want the petting zoo?” he asked, as he’d been wondering why she was so set on opening one at the ranch.
“The summers I spent here were so magical,” she said. “I loved taking care of the animals and spending so much time outside in the fresh air.”
He understood that all too well; he’d missed so much when his family had moved away from Willow Creek.
