Chapter Five
Brett backed away from the door to the den hoping that neither of the women inside it had seen him. But he didn’t head back toward the living room where the others were still gathered. Instead, he slipped out the back door off the kitchen and started across the yard toward the barn.
Now Brett knew how Trish had felt when she’d heard him talking about her, because he’d just overheard what Maci had said about him. It’s really all he has.
She wasn’t wrong. The ranch was all he had. But for some reason it sounded sad when she’d said it. And Trish had looked sad when she’d heard it.
No. She’d looked disappointed. She didn’t want to work with him.
She wanted to buy him out. Him and the others.
She wanted the ranch all to herself and her babies, which he couldn’t even blame her for.
If this had been his family ranch, he would have felt possessive of it. Heck, he felt possessive now.
And Frank hadn’t really been family at all, except in Brett’s heart. That was how he’d felt about the older man—like Frank could have been another father to him. Kind of like Sadie Haven March was now another grandmother to him.
He’d had two. Lem’s first wife, Mary, who’d been an incredibly sweet woman even when she’d suffered from dementia.
And then there was his maternal grandmother, whom he hadn’t even been able to call Grandma.
She’d preferred Mimi or Gigi or anything that didn’t make her sound too old.
Not that they’d seen that much of her, even after his dad had moved them from Willow Creek to Chicago to be closer to them or maybe farther away from Grandpa Lem and his meddling.
Brett had hated living in the city and had counted the days until he graduated high school and could head back west again. He’d worked a few other ranches before accepting the foreman position from Frank Dempsey. And he’d known the moment he’d seen it that the Four Corners was home.
No. It was more than that for him. For him, it was his life, like Maci had said.
Did that mean that losing it would kill him? He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out, but even though Trish had explained her reason for holding off on settling the estate, it was also clear that she didn’t want to share it with them.
She wanted to buy them out.
But there was nothing that Brett needed that money for if he didn’t have the Four Corners.
So if he refused the buyout, would she continue to contest the will?
Her lawyer was obviously eager to fight for her to get everything he thought she deserved.
And he thought that Trish, as Frank Dempsey’s next of kin, deserved it all.
* * *
Trish was alone in the den. At least physically, since Maci had left her. But she didn’t feel alone. She could feel and still smell her father’s presence in the sweet scent of cigars and leather and horses.
Maci had left the will with her. And for the first time, Trish read through it and noted the thick scrawl of his signature and his bold initials on every clause.
This was what he wanted. Not for his family, she and Frankie, to split the estate, but for the two of them to share it equally with each of the three Lemmon brothers.
These were definitely his final wishes. She had no doubt about that now.
Maci had told her, and now he was telling her in the way that he’d signed the papers.
It wasn’t a faint scrawl, but a thick one, purposeful and definitive.
Her father had never asked for much from her; he’d known how hard it was for her to deal with her mother and the fallout she would face had she asked to live with him instead.
But she regretted now that she hadn’t done that. That she hadn’t been stronger, for herself and for him. She patted her belly, and one of the babies kicked in reaction. She would be stronger now for herself and for them.
And for her dad, too.
She would honor his final wishes no matter how hard it might be for her to run the ranch with strangers who probably had their own vision for it. Maci had mentioned that they had plans.
Nolan had implored her not to make any final decisions until she talked to him. She wasn’t prepared to have a discussion with him until she had all the information she needed to make that final decision.
She needed to know what the Lemmons had planned for the Four Corners. And so she tried to lever herself up from the couch to go find them. But the couch was low to the ground and the leather was slippery, and she struggled to get enough momentum to lift herself and her belly up.
“Need a hand?”
The voice sounded similar to Brett’s, but it wasn’t as husky as his. And she didn’t get that little shiver in reaction like she did when he spoke to her.
Blake walked around the couch to the front and held out a hand to her. “I’ll help you.”
Trish understood right away why Maci had fallen for him. In addition to being good-looking, he also seemed kind. She hesitated for just a moment before putting her hand in his. Then he hoisted her up.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked.
And she nodded. “Yes, I’d like to know more about the ranch.”
Brett might have judged her for asking, might have given her that look of disapproval he had last night when he’d told her how lonely her dad had been. But Blake just nodded.
“Sure, I can show you the books,” he offered. “I’m the one who usually does the invoicing and pays the expenses.”
“Not Brett?” she asked with surprise. For some reason he had struck her as the leader of the group.
“He was doing it before I came to work here,” Blake said. “But I have more of our dad’s head for numbers than Brett does. Our dad is an accountant. He has an office in Willow Creek. Maci rents office space from him.”
So Nolan hadn’t lied when he’d told her that Maci was enmeshed with all the Lemmons, not just the ones at the ranch. He had sounded disapproving of that. But now Trish wondered why.
If they were men as good as Maci and Frankie thought they were, why shouldn’t Maci associate with them?
Maybe Nolan was just bitter and cynical from his divorce. Trish was, too, but not to the extent that she considered all men selfish and controlling just because her ex-husband had been. Her father hadn’t been. Nolan didn’t seem to be, so why would he naturally assume that the Lemmons were?
Blake picked up a laptop from the desk, and then he asked, “Do you want to sit back on the couch or at your dad’s desk?” He glanced at the chair, almost as if he could still see her father sitting there.
She could envision him there, too, with Buster at his feet, as he puffed a cigar and signed his name on checks. Or on that will he’d had Maci write up for him. Almost as if he’d known that he was going to have that accident…
That he wasn’t going to be able to run the ranch himself much longer.
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked to clear them away.
“Yeah, we can’t sit there yet either,” Blake said, as he carried the laptop back to the couch and sat down. Then he held up his hand for her to use to lower herself back onto the cushions.
“Not even Brett?” she asked as she settled onto the leather again.
“Brett least of all,” Blake said. “It’s been tough on all of us losing your dad, living here without him, but Brett seems to be struggling the most.”
“How so?” she asked.
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s just not happy.”
A twinge of sympathy struck her heart. She had been unhappy for so long, wanting something that the people in her life just hadn’t been capable of giving her.
Unconditional love. And her babies. She touched her belly again, and a little foot or fist moved against her palm.
She’d wasted years waiting for happiness to come to her, for other people to make her happy, before she’d figured out that she was the only one who could do that.
Blake sighed. “Maybe Brett’s so unhappy because he’s all alone. I’m lucky. I have Maci.” He grinned so brightly. “And Liam has Elise and Lucy.”
“What about Frankie?” Trish asked. “Brett doesn’t have her?”
Blake laughed. “She and Brett are like brother and sister. That’s never going to happen no matter how much meddling my grandpa and grandma try to do.”
“Your grandpa and grandma would meddle like that?” she asked, her heart beating a bit faster as she thought of all the times her mother had meddled in her life.
Like with her ex-husband. He worked for her stepfather; her mother had picked out Harold for her and coached him on all the things Trish liked and wanted.
Like the children Harold had said he wanted when he’d really had no intention of ever having them, had even had a vasectomy.
Trish shuddered at the memory of how she’d been manipulated and how Harold had just acted the part of the husband she’d wanted.
But he had never really been that man. The man she’d wanted—a loving, supportive family man—had never existed. He and her mother had duped her.
But Blake didn’t sound upset with his grandparents. He actually laughed over their antics. “They’re infamous matchmakers.”
That didn’t slow the pounding of Trish’s heart. “Did they set you and Maci up?”
“I’m sure they would have had we not already started falling for each other ourselves.”
She released a shaky breath of relief that her friend hadn’t been tricked or coerced like she’d been. “So you already fell for each other before they got involved?”
He nodded. “The first time I saw her. Your dad always talked about how smart she was and how sweet. He hadn’t told me how beautiful. And the first time I saw her, I was done. I was in love.”
“So you’ve been together awhile then?” she asked.
He tensed for a moment. “Is that what Stokes told you?”
She shook her head. “No. You just said you fell for her at first sight.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think I was good enough for her,” Blake said. “She’s smart and successful and so driven. I’m just a cowboy.”