For now, he had duties to tend to.
“No, Justin, that is not true. Daddy said that if she’s a girl, I get to name her. And she’s a girl.”
Spencer couldn’t help the smile growing wider on his face as he listened to the most articulate seven-year-old he’d ever known. Justin was a handful but didn’t faze him a bit. Tabitha was going to be the death of him.
“Well, I get to pet her first...”
When he heard the intensity rising in his son’s voice, Spencer entered the room to see two dark-haired little kids standing on stools, their brown gazes at war in the mirror. Neither of them had anything resembling toothbrushes in sight.
“You’re supposed to be brushing your teeth.”
“We did.” Justin’s immediate response was followed by a drop in his gaze. And then his chin met his chest. “No, we didn’t,” he corrected himself before Spencer could take the breath necessary to challenge the boy. “But...do we gotta?” Justin’s eyes widened as he gave Spencer an imploring look. “They’ll just get dirty again, and I’ll brush it all away tonight.”
Spencer pressed his lips together, hoping he looked stern.
The hardest part about being a single parent was having no one with whom to share the laughter.
“I want to see Bella before we have to catch the bus, and...”
“Who’s Bella?” He allowed himself to be distracted. Just until he could demand brushing with the firmness it deserved.
“Ellie’s baby. Justin thinks he’s naming her,” Tabitha said, opening the cabinet where their teeth-brushing paraphernalia was stored. She handed her brother his brush and then took her own. “But he’s not, is he, Daddy? You said if she’s a girl, I can name her.”
He had said that. He couldn’t remember when. Or why. But he vaguely remembered making the promise.
“Yes, I did. If she’d had a boy then Justin would name her.”
Satisfied, Tabitha wet her brush and stuck it in her mouth.
“Toothpaste?” Spencer gave her the look. The one with eyebrows raised, warning that a child wasn’t going to get away with something.
“I’ve got toothpaste, see?” Justin held out his brush, turning lips smeared with goo up at Spencer. And dripping a blob of blue on the linoleum floor while he was at it. Which was why Spencer had installed the linoleum over the old wood floors when he’d remodeled the bath for the twins to share. He didn’t want to have to worry about spills and other little things.
Making a mental note to wipe up the blob later, Spencer nodded. He didn’t care about drops on the floor. What he cared about was that the twins loved the ranch, their home, as much as he did.
That they felt the same sense of excitement—of security—that he’d always felt there.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, doing a quick mental rearrangement of his morning. “You two finish brushing and grab your backpacks.” He picked up Tabitha’s hairbrush and started in on the morning ritual of getting the tangles out of her long, dark hair, remembering to be gentle on the ones that invariably rested at the base of his little girl’s neck. She winced.
He winced, too. Waiting for the morning when he could get through this part without hurting her.
“Lunches are made,” he continued. “So if everyone is on his best behavior—” said for Justin’s benefit “—we’ll take a walk over to say good morning to Ellie.”
“We’ll miss our bus.” Tabitha spoke with her brush in her mouth, leaving spots of toothpaste on the mirror as she met his gaze in the glass.
“I’ll drive you to school this morning.” He had no need for a trip to town but welcomed the idea of being away from the ranch for a couple of hours.
And he made no pretense to himself about the reason for that.
He wanted to spend as little time as possible with the city girl who’d invaded his space.
In more ways than one.
THE PEAL OF her old-fashioned ringtone woke Natasha from a sound sleep. Not sure where she was at first, Natasha reached an arm toward the side table, pulling herself to a sitting position.
Her mother called only when she had something important to say. And the ringtone was reserved exclusively for the woman who’d birthed her thirty-one years before.
Birthed. She knew, firsthand, what that meant.
By the time her eyes were fully open and focused on the paneled walls of the cabin’s master bedroom, Natasha had regained full faculties. And memories of helping to bring a calf into the world came flooding back.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” She forced cheer and wakefulness into her tone. Susan Stevens wouldn’t approve of sleeping past six—no matter that she’d not made it back to bed until sometime after four that morning.
The red digital numbers glaring at her from the nightstand let her know that she was over two hours late getting up.
By her mother’s standards. Which had been firmly indoctrinated as her own...
“How are you, dear?” Polite conversation meant that her mother was displeased. Or worse, disappointed. Now she felt like a real slough off.
Searching her brain for what she could possibly have done to earn this, she came back to the time. Had her mother already called once? Had she slept through the ring?
“I’m fine, Mom,” she said, standing beside the bed to ensure that her blood was flowing and she sounded busy.
It was half past eleven in New York City. Her mother would have already handled a full calendar that morning and would be off the bench for the next hour and a half before her afternoon calendar began.
Susan wouldn’t think ill of her for not taking her call. It was understood that they were both busy women. Missing a call was to be expected...
Which meant her own sleeping habits had nothing to do with her mother’s displeasure.
Maybe a case had gone bad. As a superior court judge on the criminal bench in a city like New York, Susan led a less-than-peaceful life.
She lived in a less-than-peaceful city.
So had Natasha...until...
“The new season of the show starts in a couple of days,” Susan stated, as though Natasha didn’t know her own schedule. Because she wanted Natasha to know that she knew. That she kept track.
Her way of saying that she cared.
“I’m already at the ranch,” Natasha said, collapsing to the side of the bed. She told her mother about Ellie. About birthing the cow. And when Susan
