Chapter Four #2
Realizing that she was still touching Brett’s hand, Trish jerked hers away and turned back toward her friend.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t so much as contesting it as just stalling so it wouldn’t be settled before my divorce was.
I wanted to make sure that the man my father disapproved of me marrying wouldn’t get any part of it.
Dad was right about Harold. He wasn’t in love with me.
He was in love with my stepfather’s money and with moving up the company ladder.
And because of his obsession with money, I didn’t want him or my mother to find out about the inheritance.
She took his side in the divorce.” After her mother’s betrayal, Trish had been reluctant to trust anyone, but Nolan Stokes had genuinely wanted to help her.
And he’d advised her to trust no one but him, not even the women she loved like sisters.
He’d been concerned that they would betray her for the Lemmon brothers, just as her mother had betrayed her for her ex.
“You should have told us that,” Frankie said. “We could have been there for you through your divorce.”
Not wanting Frankie to hate Stokes any more than she already did, Trish didn’t blame him.
“Harold and my mother were watching my every move once I filed for divorce. I think they might have had cameras planted in the house, too. I couldn’t talk on the phone because I didn’t want to risk him finding out that my dad had died.
I didn’t want my mother to know either. She definitely would have used it in some way to get me to drop the divorce proceedings.
I wouldn’t have put it past her to come after the ranch then, too. ”
Brett cleared his throat. “So you’re saying you contested the will in order to protect the ranch?”
She sighed. “And to protect myself, too,” she admitted. “I couldn’t handle much more at the time…” She touched her belly. “I—I hadn’t had much luck with IVF before this pregnancy.” Tears rushed to her eyes. “I had several miscarriages…” A tear trickled out.
Suddenly Frankie and Maci were there, one on either side of her, their arms wound tightly around her. “Aw, Trish, you should have told us,” Frankie said. “I would have been there for you all the way. I would have beat up your ex and your mom. I would have taken care of you.”
Trish wrapped an arm around Frankie and held on tightly. Then she wrapped her other arm around Maci. She’d missed them so much, but that had been her fault. “Even before the divorce, I pushed you both away, just like I did my dad.”
“Why did you do that?” Frankie asked, her voice cracking with emotion.
Trish groaned. “My stupid pride. I didn’t want you all to know that my dad had been right about Harold, and that I’d been a fool again. And after I pushed you all away, I didn’t know if you would come. If you would care…”
“We love you,” Maci said. “You’re our sister.”
“I’m sorry,” Trish said. She was so very sorry for all the stress she’d caused, not just the two of them but herself as well.
And the others…
She still didn’t know what to do about the Lemmons. She pulled away from Frankie and Maci then. They both had tears streaking down their faces. Blake wrapped an arm around Maci, as if to comfort her.
But Brett didn’t step forward to comfort Frankie.
Elise did. She wrapped her arm around her shoulders.
And for a moment Trish wondered if Brett might comfort her.
But he stayed near the door, and it was clear from the look on his face that he wished she hadn’t stopped him.
This was obviously way too much emotion for him, and that reminded her of her father, when he’d struggled to deal with the drama she and Frankie and Maci had sometimes found, like the summer that ranch hand had tried to simultaneously date the three of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said to all of them. “I know I handled everything so badly. Probably the worst way that I could have.”
“You had help,” Frankie said, her voice sharp with irritation again. “That sleazeball lawyer—”
“Nolan is really a good guy,” Trish insisted.
“He fought very hard for me in the divorce. Since that’s over, we’ll be able to settle the estate.
” She’d had to promise Nolan that she wouldn’t sign anything and make any final decisions without consulting him, though.
Or he wouldn’t have left her alone just now.
“How?” Brett asked the question. “How do you want to settle this, Trish?”
The thought of wrapping this up suddenly filled her with dread. Maybe because she hadn’t seen her father in the hospital or attended his funeral, she’d been able to hold on to him by not dealing with the estate. But now, in order to do this, she would have to let him go.
She drew in a breath to steady herself as tears rushed in again. She blinked them back and focused on Brett, on his dark eyes. “I want to know what my father really wanted. What his wishes actually were for the Four Corners.”
And then she would have to respect them. But she wasn’t sure that she would be able to live with them if that meant living with the Lemmon brothers.
Or maybe just this Lemmon brother.
* * *
“Didn’t your lawyer show you the will?” Maci asked Trish as she set a copy of it on the coffee table in Frank Dempsey’s den. She’d brought Trish in here to show her, and it was just the two of them now.
The others had stayed in the living room.
Or maybe they’d gone out to work the ranch.
This was the legal stuff, and they trusted Maci with that.
She hoped she deserved their trust and was able to get through to her old friend that the settlement laid out in her father’s will was really what he’d wanted.
Trish leaned forward from where she sat on the leather couch and stared down at the document. But she didn’t read it. “Stokes told me what was in it, and he thought it was strange that my father would leave the same amount to a ranch hand as he would to his daughter.”
Maci grimaced. “You really have to stop calling them ranch hands,” she said. “They were so much more than that to your dad. They were more like your father’s sons.”
Trish flinched then. “Sons? How? He didn’t know them that long.”
“Brett’s worked here for five years,” Maci said.
“After his first year working at the Four Corners, he convinced Blake to leave another ranch and come here to help him save your father’s ranch.
Without them…” She trailed off as emotions overwhelmed her.
Then she cleared her throat and continued, “Without them, it wouldn’t be here.
The bank would have foreclosed and sold it already. ”
Trish flinched again. “It was really that bad?”
Maci nodded. “I didn’t know either until I wrote the will. Your dad paid for my law school—”
“And for some of my wedding,” Trish said. “Even though he didn’t approve and wouldn’t come.”
“That was what? Four years ago?”
Trish nodded.
“It was bad then. Brett would have already been working here for about a year. I don’t know how he kept the place going. He certainly wasn’t getting paid for quite a while.”
“But he still worked here anyway?” Trish asked, her light brown eyes wide with surprise. There were probably few people in her world like the Lemmons, so she didn’t understand that kind of selflessness.
Maci nodded. “They’re really good guys, Trish. All of them.”
“You love Blake.”
That love warmed Maci, making her smile. “With all my heart. But that’s not why I wrote the will this way. I wrote it because it was what your father wanted. He wanted the Lemmons, you and Frankie to each have an equal share. He wanted you all to work together to run it, too.”
“Why?”
A little annoyed, she replied, “I just told you that they literally saved the ranch—”
“No, why does he want us all to work together to run it?” she asked. “Frankie doesn’t want to do that, right? Isn’t she still touring with her band, doing shows?”
Maci shrugged. “She says she is, but she doesn’t seem in any hurry to get back at it.”
“Oh…” Trish shook her head again, tossing her curls around her face. This was the prettiest she’d ever looked. She was actually glowing, like people always said pregnant women did. “But did he really think I would come back to run it with some strangers?”
“Frank didn’t consider the Lemmons strangers,” Maci said. “They were all so close.”
Trish looked her in the eye. “What about me, though? I more or less became a stranger to him.”
“You weren’t a stranger either,” Maci said. “He loved you, and he knew you loved the ranch once.”
Trish sighed, and it was such a wistful sound. “I still do,” she said. “And it would be such a great place to raise the babies.”
“Yes, it would,” Maci conceded.
“Will they let me buy them out?” she asked eagerly. “I have some money from my divorce settlement.”
Maci shook her head. “The Lemmons love this place, too. It’s not just where they work now. It’s their home, and their life, especially for Brett. It’s really all he has.”
Trish sighed again, but this one sounded as if it was full of disappointment. “So I won’t be able to buy them out.”
Maci shook her head again. “They won’t want to sell. To you. Or to anyone. They have so many plans for the place.”
“So do I.”
“Try to work with them,” Maci urged. “It’s what your dad wanted.” But clearly it wasn’t what Trish wanted. She’d said she would honor his wishes, but would she when they weren’t the same as hers?
Tears shimmered in Trish’s eyes. “I know that’s what you’re saying…”
“But you don’t believe it’s really what he wanted?”
“I don’t know…”
“What are you going to do, Trish?” Maci asked, her heart heavy again with dread. She’d hoped this would all be settled soon, and she could keep the promise she’d made to Frank to make sure his will was carried out the way he’d wanted.
“I promised Nolan I wouldn’t make a final decision without talking to him first,” Trish said.
“You know he’ll tell you to keep fighting,” Maci said. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to fight anymore. That’s why I would just rather buy them out.”
“Well, that’s not happening,” Maci said. “You’re going to have to accept this is what your father wanted or…”
Go to court. But she couldn’t even bring herself to say those words. She’d been so hopeful that this would all be over once Trish showed up at the Four Corners. But it was clearly not going to be that easy.