Alex was lifting a pot of coffee from the stove when she entered the room. Josh glanced up from his plate of sausage and eggs and reached over, pulling out a chair for her. She dropped into the chair and scooted it forward. Alex picked the coffeepot back up again and she realized he had intended to push her chair in for her. She blushed as he leaned over her shoulder to fill her cup.
"So tell me," she began, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Did you get to witness the birth?"
He chuckled. "Yes, sleepy head. Too bad you couldn't stay awake."
"No problems, I gather." She sipped her coffee, aware that Josh was watching her intently.
"No, I couldn't believe how easy she made it look." Alex replaced the pot on the burner and resumed his place at the table. Lifting the cup of fresh coffee to his lips, he glanced up at her.
"I'd hate to have to put that many cows in that little barn. I guess the feed bill is considerably smaller, too. Other than that and their size, what's the advantage?"
Josh snorted. "It bugs the heck out of me."
Carmen ignored his remark. "The land would get overgrown with brush in the summer if I didn't have the goats to keep it cleared off."
Josh shook his head. "If you hadn't sold off all the farm equipment, you could have kept it brush hogged. I could run a passel of cattle on that land."
She stared at her plate. "I had to sell something to pay for the funeral."
Josh grimaced. "I would have paid for that, but you wouldn't hear of it. Your father was like an uncle to me."
She put a hand on his arm. "I know you would have, but it was my debt, not yours. Anyway, I didn't figure I'd be running the farm for a while."
Josh groaned. "Yeah, then along came Katie with her wild ideas about a goat dairy. That's when all the trouble started."
Alex pushed his empty plate back and swigged the rest of his coffee. "Katie, why don't you and I go check on the goats?"
Katie gulped her coffee and followed him out the door, pausing to mouth "mother hen" to Carmen. Then she made a face at Josh and left the room.
Josh was silent until they heard the front door close. "What's this about you two sleeping in the barn last night?" he asked, jabbing a fork into his eggs.