“It hasn’t,” Brett confirmed. “The last ranch hands we had didn’t live on site. They commuted from their homes to the Four Corners because they lived close.”
“You don’t have them anymore?” she asked.
He shook his head. “My brothers and I can usually handle everything. We just hired extra help during calving season or when one of us was going to be gone. Not that the young guys we hired were much help.” If they had been, Frank Dempsey might not have lost his life. He’d been out checking pastures alone when he’d fallen off his horse.
“What?” Trish asked as she studied his face. “Was there a problem with them?”
He sighed. “One of them is the reason that baby Lucy was abandoned in the barn.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said, her hand going to her heart like it had yesterday when they’d talked about her father. “Someone abandoned her?”
He nodded. “The mother didn’t realize that the ranch hand had lied to her about his name. She thought he was really Liam Lemmon, and that’s what she put on the baby’s birth certificate. The child protective services investigator believed he was the father even though a rodeo accident made it impossible for Liam to ever have biological children.”
She gasped again. “That’s sad.”
Brett shook his head. “No. He has Lucy, and I’m sure he and Elise will adopt more children. Elise is the CPS investigator who helped make sure that Lucy stayed where she belongs, here on the ranch.”
Trish’s lips curved into a slight smile. “Are you worried that I’m going to throw Lucy out of the house?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “We’ve all worried about that during the limbo we feel like we’ve been living in while the estate stays unsettled.”
She sighed. “I understand the frustration of that. I’ve been living in limbo for a while myself.”
“So?” he asked. “What have you decided?”
“Is that why you followed me out here?” she asked. “To find out my decision?”
“I didn’t follow you out here,” he said. “I was checking out the bunkhouse for myself. Clearly you’re not comfortable with strangers in your father’s house.”
“So you’re considering moving in here?” she asked. She glanced around and shuddered again.
“What about you?” he asked. “Why are you out here? Are you considering moving into the bunkhouse?”
She shook her head. “I was just checking it out.” She headed toward the stairwell on the inside wall of the long room. As she started up the steps, she reached for the railing. It wobbled, then creaked as it gave way, falling off the stairs onto the floor below.
Trish wobbled on the steps, as if she was about to fall, too. Then she let out another little scream like she had over the mouse.
Brett raced toward her, desperate to catch her before she tumbled down the stairs and hurt herself or the babies she carried.
* * *
The second therailing gave way beneath her hand, Trish struggled for balance. Her arms flailed as she searched for something to grab on to, for something to stop her fall, but then her feet slipped and she floundered in open air, bracing herself for the crash to the ground.
Thankfully, strong arms wrapped around her, catching her. Holding her. “I’ve got you,” Brett said. “You’re not going to fall.”
But she already had. She just hadn’t hit the ground because of him. Because he’d rescued her.
Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh of relief. She found his shoulders with her hands, holding on to him as she regained her footing on the floor. “Thank you.”
He hadn’t only rescued her; he’d rescued her babies, too. They kicked now and moved around in her belly, and she couldn’t imagine what might have happened had she fallen to the ground. She wouldn’t let herself imagine. But still a tear trickled out as her fears overwhelmed her.
Brett tightened his grasp on her for a moment. “You’re fine,” he said. “You didn’t get hurt.”
“Scared,” she admitted in a shaky voice. “That scared me.” And she was even more frightened of the feelings coursing through her as he held her. She forced herself to push back from his shoulders until his arms loosened around her and she slipped free of his embrace.
“You need to be more careful,” he said. “This place is in bad shape. Why in the world are you checking it out?”
“For the camps,” she explained. “It’s a great open space for kids to play and has a kitchen and a couple of bathrooms.”
