Chapter One #3
The other voice belonged to her cousin Trish: the reason that Frank’s wishes hadn’t been carried out yet. And now she was here.
Frankie rolled out of bed and pulled open the door. Then she hurried down the short hall to the living room. Brett blocked Trish from her view. A bag dangled from one of his hands as he argued with her cousin. “You can’t sleep on the couch in your condition. Take my bed.”
“Condition?” Frankie asked with concern. Trish was more than a cousin to her. After Frankie had lost her parents, her uncle had become her guardian and Trish had become her sister and her best friend. What was wrong with her?
Brett turned toward Frankie, and as he did, Trish stepped out from behind him.
It had been a few years since they’d last seen each other, but Trish didn’t look any older.
In fact, with her dark hair curling around her heart-shaped face, she looked younger.
She must have finally given up trying to straighten it like she used to.
The only thing giving away her age, or at least her stress, was the dark circles beneath her eyes.
Frankie’s gaze skimmed below her cousin’s face to see that she wore leggings with a shirt over them that was stretched tight across her belly.
A gasp slipped through Frankie’s lips. “You’re pregnant? ”
Of all the things Frankie had been thinking about Trish lately, the fact that she could be pregnant had never crossed her mind.
Trish nodded, and a faint smile curved her lips as she patted her burgeoning belly. “With twins.”
“But…you said in your text that you’re divorced?”
Trish nodded again. “These aren’t Harold’s babies.”
Frankie gasped again.
Trish laughed and shook her head. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean that I did this alone, through IVF and a sperm donor. They’re just mine.”
Brett sucked in a breath, probably over the possessiveness in Trish’s voice. Was she just that way about her babies or was she being possessive of the ranch, too, wanting it all for herself?
But Frankie suddenly realized that maybe Trish wasn’t thinking only of herself, but also of these babies that she looked like she was about to deliver any minute.
“When are you due?” Frankie asked.
“Eight weeks,” Trish said.
So she would have been just a few weeks pregnant when Uncle Frank had had the ranch accident that landed him in a coma in the hospital.
“It’s late,” Brett said. “And she needs some sleep. I was trying to get her to take my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Why not Uncle Frank’s room?” Frankie asked.
It was apparently Trish’s turn to suck in a breath. “You want him to take my dad’s room?”
“I wouldn’t,” Brett said, shaking his head as if the very idea of it horrified him.
“I meant Trish,” Frankie said. “Why don’t you take his room?” Nobody else in the house had wanted to disturb it—leaving it like a shrine to the man they all loved and missed so much.
But Trish was his daughter, and ironically, she was the least close to him of everyone who currently lived in the house, with the exception of Elise and baby Lucy, who had just recently moved in with them.
Trish was shaking her head, too. “I… I’m fine with the couch.”
“I can take the couch,” Frankie offered. “And you can have your bed back. But it’s just a full-size.”
Trish patted her belly again. “You’re saying I’m too big for it?”
Remembering how sensitive Trish had once been about her weight thanks to her mom constantly monitoring it, Frankie shook her head. “No, of course not.”
“I know, but you’re right,” she said. “I don’t know about taking my dad’s room, though.” She glanced around then. “Where’s Buster?”
Tears stung Frankie’s eyes at the mention of her uncle’s old hound dog. “Buster passed away when Uncle Frank was in the hospital. He missed him too much.”
Brett cleared his throat, as if struggling with his emotions, too. “I… I…uh, I should get to bed then. If you’re sure you won’t take mine?”
Trish’s eyes widened for a moment as if she wondered if Brett was offering to share it with her instead of giving it up to her. Trish had no idea how much Brett disliked her for how she’d abandoned her dad.
“I would be fine on the couch,” he said, as if to clarify what he’d meant.
“Don’t worry about it, Brett,” Frankie said. “I’ll make sure Trish gets settled in for the night.” But she really hoped her cousin wasn’t staying longer than that.
Brett handed the bag he held over to Frankie, and then he lowered his voice and said, “This is her overnight one. But there is a truck and a trailer full of the rest of her stuff.”
So Trish wasn’t here just for a quick visit to finally settle her father’s estate. She was moving in, and from the gruffness of Brett’s voice, he wasn’t happy about it.
Frankie didn’t blame him. He’d worked too hard for too many years at the ranch to turn it over to someone who’d never appreciated what she’d had here.
Earlier that day, when Trish had sent that text to Maci, Frankie had hoped that everything was going to work out, but that hope evaporated now.
They were a long way from settling anything.
In fact, things were probably just going to get even messier than they’d already been.
As Brett walked away, Frankie fought the urge to call him back.
She didn’t want to be alone with her cousin.
“You can go back to bed,” Trish told her. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone with Frankie either. She reached for her bag. “I’ve got this.”
“And apparently everything else you own, too?”
Trish’s face flushed slightly, and she nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t come home just to settle the estate,” Trish said. “I’m going to live here.”
Yup, life was definitely going to get even messier…