Chapter Six
Brett stepped into the dim light of the barn and breathed in deeply of hay and horses. The smells cleared his head a bit and reminded him what mattered most: the livestock, the ranch and Frank Dempsey’s last wishes.
Would Trish accept them? Hopefully, Maci would be able to get through to her.
But Brett wasn’t naive enough to think that would end their problems. It would just create a whole new set of them because Trish was here.
And someone else was in the barn.
Brett tensed as he heard someone murmur as they shifted within a stall. Then a husky voice began to sing, and he relaxed again.
Frankie really had a beautiful voice. Too bad it was being wasted here on the ranch where more animals than people got to hear it. He walked over to the stall where she’d moved Cocoa, next to the horse that Frank had given to Maci. He opened the stall door and leaned against the opening.
Cocoa was cuddled up against Frankie, who sat with her back against some hay bales. The calf stared adoringly up at her mama.
“You’re spoiling her,” Brett said.
Frankie jumped and glanced up at him. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“And let’s talk about spoiling her,” she said. “You must have fed her this morning before I got in here because she wasn’t interested in her bottle.”
He nodded again. “Yeah, she was hungry so I grabbed the milk replacement for her.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “I promised I would take care of her.”
Their veterinarian, who was also one of Brett’s new stepcousins, had offered to bring the orphaned calf to his practice. But Frankie hadn’t been willing to let her go.
“You got up and took care of Trish last night,” he reminded her. “I owed you.”
“She’s my cousin,” Frankie said and uttered a heavy sigh.
“That doesn’t make you responsible for her,” Brett said.
She snorted. “Like you don’t take responsibility for every member of your family?” she asked.
Heat climbed into his face over sounding like a martyr.
That really wasn’t what he was; he just wanted to make sure that they were happy and felt secure at the ranch.
“I don’t know what you mean. Liam and Blake and Livvy all take care of themselves.
” His sister, a doctor in the emergency department at Willow Creek Memorial Hospital, had never seemed to need him that much.
But maybe if he’d been there for her more, Livvy wouldn’t have gotten engaged to that narcissist.
Frankie snorted again. “And you don’t worry about them? You don’t wish you could help them, protect them?”
She knew him too well, so he groaned and admitted, “Okay…”
“I wasn’t there for Trish,” Frankie said.
“She didn’t let you be there for her,” Brett reminded her again.
“But still…” She sighed. “I don’t know. The whole situation is just so frustrating. We spent all these months thinking she was just being vindictive or greedy…”
“And all along she may have just been protecting the ranch, and us,” Brett finished for her. Another emotion moved through him, and he wasn’t sure that it was just respect for Trish.
“May have been?” Frankie asked. “You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Brett said. “I don’t know her. What about you? Do you believe her?”
Frankie sighed yet again, and this was a very ragged sigh.
“Her mother really is awful,” Frankie said.
“But I think part of the reason she and Uncle Frank got divorced was because of me. Even before my parents died, they left me here a lot when they were on the road with their band. Aunt Belinda made it clear that she didn’t want to raise anyone else’s kid.
She didn’t seem to like her own very much. She constantly criticized poor Trish.”
Sympathy shot through Brett. “That must have been tough for her.”
Frankie nodded. “I wish Uncle Frank had had full custody of her, but despite fighting for it, he couldn’t convince the judge that a young girl would be happier with her father than her mother. So he lost, meaning Trish spent so much time with that woman.”
“You once accused her of being like her,” Brett remembered.
Frankie grunted. “I know. That was a low blow.”
“But you wondered if she was,” he said. “Did you have some other reason to think that? Like all the time she spent with her?”
Frankie shrugged. “I don’t know. Trish and I haven’t seen each other for years, and we’ve haven’t even spoken on the phone that often in all that time either. I really don’t know her anymore.”
“So you don’t know what she’ll decide? If she really will honor her father’s wishes?”
Frankie shrugged. “No idea. I would hope that she would, but that lawyer seems to have as much influence over her as her mother used to.”
“And for some reason he really doesn’t seem to like us Lemmons.” Brett couldn’t help but wonder why. Why did he mistrust them so much?
“He’s an idiot,” Frankie said.
Brett laughed. “You’re not a fan of Stokes? I couldn’t tell.”
Frankie laughed, too. Then her smile slid back into a frown. “I just hope she doesn’t let him manipulate her.”
“Man, I really do need to stop eavesdropping,” a female voice remarked.
Now Brett was the one who was startled. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Trish had walked into the barn.
“My mother was right,” she said. “You don’t hear anything good about yourself when you do.”
“I was trashing Stokes, not you,” Frankie assured her.
She climbed to her feet, then rubbed her lower back.
The calf headbutted the side of her leg.
“I have to go get a bottle made for this one. Now she’s hungry.
I’ll be right back.” She brushed past Brett and then Trish and hurried out of the barn.
Brett was tempted to yell after her to come back. Or to call her a traitor for deserting him like this. He did not want to be alone with Trish Dempsey. But he wasn’t just alone in the barn with her.
Because she moved closer to the stall, stepping into the small opening with him, to stare at the calf.
Her body was so close to him that he could smell the strawberry shampoo she must have used to wash her hair that morning.
He heard her sigh when she saw the calf.
He was much too aware of Trish Dempsey, but she barely seemed to notice him at all as she went over to the small animal.
In that moment, he knew that he was in trouble no matter what she decided about her father’s will. Maybe in even more trouble if she decided to honor his wishes and stay on the ranch.
* * *
Trish’s pride was stung from what she’d overheard in the barn just minutes ago, how her cousin thought she was so easy to manipulate. Not that Frankie was wrong.
Maybe that was what bothered Trish most of all: how weak she’d once been. But she wasn’t that person any longer. She patted her burgeoning belly, which reminded her of that. She’d fought to have her babies. And then she’d fought for her freedom from her bad marriage and from her mother.
She wasn’t weak anymore. Except when she stepped too close to Brett Lemmon—then her knees felt funny, a little shaky. Maybe she just needed to lie down; she really didn’t get much sleep last night. That was why she’d begged off before Blake could explain the ranch bookkeeping to her.
Once he’d mentioned how hard it would be to change Brett’s and Frankie’s minds about her, she’d had to find them.
And of course everyone had figured they were in the barn.
Or somewhere on the ranch, riding around, checking on things.
She’d headed to the barn first and found them talking to each other about her.
Not that she could blame them for that. She’d caused all this upheaval in their lives.
Or had her father’s death caused that?
She had questions about that, too, but she wasn’t ready yet to hear all the details.
She wasn’t weak anymore, but she might not be strong enough for that, not until she got more rest. So she focused on the calf instead, pushing herself past Brett to settle onto a hay bale next to the chocolate brown baby. “She’s adorable,” she said.
The calf nuzzled against her, as if looking for that bottle that Frankie had gone off to get for her. “She is hungry.”
“She’s growing fast,” Brett remarked.
“Hopefully not too fast,” Trish said. “She would be perfect for the petting zoo I want to start on the ranch.”
“What?” he asked, and he pushed his hat back farther on his head as if he needed to see her more clearly to understand her. “What petting zoo?”
“I want to start a day camp and summer camp for kids on the ranch,” she said, her heart beating fast with the excitement she felt over her idea.
“Where? How?” Brett asked. He sounded appalled. “This is a working cattle ranch. It would be too dangerous for kids to be running around here.”
She patted her belly. “There will be kids running around here someday soon. And they’ll be running around here with your niece, Lucy.”
Now his mouth fell slightly open as his eyes widened. But maybe he was genuinely worried about the safety of the children.
“We could have a separate area for the camp,” she said. “Away from the bigger animals.”
“We?” He repeated the word, and then he arched one dark auburn eyebrow. “You’ve made your decision?”
“About the petting zoo and kids’ camps, yes,” she said.
She’d made that decision long ago. Once she’d believed she wouldn’t miscarry this time, she’d allowed herself to start dreaming about where and how she would raise her children.
She wanted them to live the life she wished she’d been able to live here, with fresh air and animals, and not just for the summer but 24/7.
Then she’d considered how lonely they might be without other kids to spend their time with, and so she’d dreamed up the day camps and summer camps for other kids who’d been like her, forced to spend too much of their lives in the city.
“And about the ranch?” he asked. “Are you going to respect what your dad wanted, his final wishes?”