The kitten pounced on him. And then the other one jumped down to join her littermate.
Trish tried to stifle a laugh that bubbled up, but it slipped out between her lips anyways.
“Mmm-hmm, very funny,” he muttered, but his lips were curved into a slight grin.
“What happened?” she asked.
He sat up, with the kittens in his lap, and shrugged. “Lost my balance.”
“That’s been happening to me a lot lately,” she admitted. Usually around him. “Thankfully, you caught me in the bunkhouse before I fell.” She touched her belly, concerned over what might have happened to her babies. Then her stomach stiffened, the skin stretching taut across it. Were the babies having a growth spurt? She doubted she had much more room to give them. And she had seven weeks left to go in her pregnancy.
She had an appointment soon with her current ob-gyn, but she would rather switch to one in Willow Creek so she didn’t have as far to drive. And so that she would be prepared if the twins came early as twins sometimes did.
“I was worried that you might have started working on the bunkhouse yourself,” he said. “I was heading that way when I heard you singing. Being good with animals—I guess that’s another family talent you and Frankie share.”
She smiled. “Well, I don’t have any scars from singing. But I don’t come close to Frankie’s talent.”
“No desire to go on the road with her and her band?”
She touched her belly again. It was still hard. “And the babies? She’s going to have enough trouble trying to bring Cocoa with her. I don’t think she could handle all of us.” Especially when Frankie hadn’t really let her back in, not as close as they’d once been.
The Lemmon brothers, at least Blake and Liam, and Liam’s wife, Elise, had been more welcoming to her than the two women she’d considered sisters. But because they’d once been so close, she had probably hurt them the most when she’d pulled away from them.
Just like she must have hurt her dad.
A pang struck her, first in her heart and then in her side, as regret overwhelmed her for a moment.
“Yeah, and it would be hard to run your petting zoo and kids’ camp from the road,” he said.
“You’re not going to fight me over those?” she asked.
He sighed. “I don’t think it’s going to work, but since I’m obviously outnumbered, I don’t get a say.”
She flinched now with another little jab of pain. “That doesn’t seem fair,” she remarked. She knew how hard he’d worked. She’d recently sat down and had Blake show her the books for the ranch, and she’d seen the years that Brett had deferred his salary in order to keep it going.
“How else are we going to run the place?” he asked. “Having one person in charge doesn’t seem fair either.”
“Are you worried that I want to be that person?” she asked.
“You are a Dempsey, Frank’s daughter,” he said. “You thought once that you should have been the only heir—”
She gasped at another sharp jab. “I never thought that. Frankie was like another daughter to him. Maci was, too.”
“But me and my brothers were strangers,” he said. “Just ranch hands.”
Heat rushed to her face. “I’m sorry. I made some assumptions that I shouldn’t have.”
He sighed. “I think I did, too.”
“That I was greedy and selfish and uncaring?” she asked, curious what he thought of her.
He grimaced. “Maybe.”
“And now?”
He blew out a breath. “I don’t know, Trish. I still don’t know you.”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve been avoiding me,” she said with a slight chuckle.
