Chapter Seven #2
She patted her burgeoning belly. “For them. I want to raise them here where I was happiest.”
He sucked in a breath. “I wish your dad knew that.” He blinked as if he was fighting the same tears that were rushing up on her. “That this is where you were happiest.”
“I hope he knows,” she said. “I loved it here. I loved him.” And Frankie and Maci.
“Then why did you stay away so long?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Pride. Stupidity. Stubbornness.” She had so many regrets. But she would be careful to make sure she didn’t do anything else she would wind up regretting.
He didn’t say anything then, just stared at her as if trying to figure her out.
“I can’t undo the past,” she said. No matter how much she wished she could. “All I can do is focus on the future.”
He nodded in agreement. “And what do you see in that future, Trish? And who?”
She patted her belly again. “Them.” Her children were most important to her now, and doing whatever she had to in order to secure their happiness. “They’re all I really need.”
“Not Frankie or Maci?”
“I would like them back in my life,” she admitted. “But I know I pushed them away.” And maybe she’d done irreversible damage with Frankie at least if not Maci as well.
“So your plan is to raise your babies alone?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Babies are a lot of work,” he said. “Lucy showed me that.” He shuddered now like she had when she’d seen the mouse.
“You don’t like babies?”
“I love my niece,” he said. “But she just reinforced my belief that I’m not cut out to be a father.”
A twinge of disappointment struck her. “You’re not? Why not?”
He shrugged. “Ranching and raising kids are both a lot of work. Too much work to do both well from what I can tell. One or the other will suffer.”
She sucked in a breath. “You think the ranch was failing because of me?”
He shook his head. “Not you. But the divorce took a toll on your dad and the ranch. He had to take out a mortgage on it and still pay child support to your mom. You can tell from the books that it was hard for your dad to take care of you and the ranch.”
Fury bubbled up inside her that her mother had lied to her about so much. But she shouldn’t have been surprised that she had. If only she’d known the truth sooner…
“Also,” Brett continued, “ranching is hard. It takes long hours and there are always emergencies that unexpectedly pop up. That puts stress on a relationship and on a family.”
“So what about Liam and Elise?” she asked. “Are you worried about their relationship? And Blake and Maci? Will ranching destroy those relationships?”
He shook his head. “I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. That all the hard stuff and the long hours fall on me, not them.”
“So you’re sacrificing yourself to make sure your brothers are happy?” she asked. Could anyone really be that selfless? She couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone else that was.
He shook his head again. “It’s not a sacrifice. Ranching is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Despite how hard it is?” she asked.
He grinned. “Maybe because it’s hard, it’s even more rewarding when it prospers.
But it is hard, so before you talk to your lawyer, you need to think about that, about if this life is really what you want.
You might have enjoyed your summers here, but ranching day in and day out can be grueling work.
And then to try to raise two babies while doing it… ”
“It’s not like I intend to be out on horseback cutting cattle from the herd or anything,” she murmured.
Her dad had taught her and Frankie how to do it, but it had been so long ago.
And who would watch the babies while she helped out?
If she’d been able to buy out the Lemmon brothers, she would have had to hire ranch hands to help with that part of the work.
“What do you intend to do, Trish?”
“The kids’ camps…”
“Summer and day camps,” he said and sighed. “I still think that isn’t a good idea. They’ll just add more work for everyone else when there’s already so much work to do around here, especially in the summer.”
For the first time, doubts about her plan crept into her mind. The camps obviously wouldn’t support the ranch on its own. The beef business would have to continue, which she knew was hard work with long hours.
Had she romanticized the ranch? Would it not be the best place to raise her kids like she’d believed it would be?
* * *
Liam hated living in limbo like this. They’d spent entirely too many months doing it.
If he hadn’t had Lucy and Elise, he probably would have lost his mind by now.
But because of Lucy and Elise, he wanted to know that their future was secure, that they could continue living on the ranch while he worked it with his brothers and Frankie and maybe Trish.
“Do you think she’s really staying?” he asked Blake as they walked from the barn to the house.
Brett had beat them back some time ago from the pastures.
His horse had already been tended, its black coat shiny and clean from Brett brushing him out.
As a former rodeo rider, Liam appreciated animals and especially appreciated how well his brothers took care of the ones on the ranch.
Frankie did, too. She was still in the barn tending to her calf.
Where was Brett?
Blake pointed at the trailer as they passed it on their way to the house. “She hasn’t unloaded it yet, but it sure seems like she brought everything she owns with her.”
Liam nodded. “But like you said, she hasn’t unpacked it yet.”
“That might be a little hard for her to do in her condition,” Blake said.
“We should help her,” Liam said.
“We need to know if she’s really staying,” Blake said. “I think she wants to see if she’ll be able to get along with Brett and Frankie before she makes any decisions.”
“Brett and Frankie definitely aren’t happy with her,” Liam said.
“And you?” Blake asked.
“I hate living in limbo, but I understand now that she has her reasons.” The babies she carried. Since becoming Lucy’s father, Liam knew that children had to come first. They had to be protected because they couldn’t protect themselves.
“Hopefully Frankie and Brett can accept that, too,” Blake said.
Liam wasn’t all that hopeful that would happen. Even though Frankie and Brett loved Lucy, they were determined to never become parents themselves. They didn’t understand how parents thought.
He followed Blake up the steps to the front door. Then he followed him inside the house. As he turned to pull the door closed behind them, he noticed someone else walking toward the house now.
It wasn’t Frankie. She was probably still inside the barn with Cocoa.
But the woman walking next to his brother Brett looked a lot like Frankie. If her hair was a little longer, her eyes a little darker and she wasn’t pregnant, Trish would have looked like Frankie’s twin. Despite how much they looked alike, their personalities seemed very different, though.
Frankie was decisive and strong and an open book with her thoughts and feelings. Trish was harder to read.
But as they drew closer, Liam noticed the glances she kept shooting at his brother.
Maybe he’d been spending too much time around his grandparents because he found himself wondering where they’d been and what had happened between them and if there was any chance of more than a working relationship between the two of them.