Chapter Eight #2
He snorted. “It’s not much of a ranch,” he said. “Less than a hundred acres and not much livestock. But one of the reasons I bought the land and built the house was because I like being self-sufficient.”
Self-sufficient.
That was what Trish wanted to be. She wanted to take care of herself and her children. And even though it wouldn’t be easy, she was determined to do it.
“Are you going to be able to work with the Lemmons?” he asked. “Let alone live with them?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Brett had never really answered her question. She didn’t know if he would respect what she wanted. And Frankie…
She and Frankie still had a long way to go to get back to how close they’d once been, if that was even possible after everything that had happened. “I’m actually more worried about my cousin than I am the Lemmons.”
He grunted. “Your cousin is unhinged.”
Trish tensed. “Not at all. Frankie is very loyal.”
“Just not to you.”
“I haven’t earned that loyalty,” she admitted. “Not with how I handled things.”
“You had no choice,” Nolan said.
“I could have—I should have—handled everything much better,” she said. “Especially with my cousin.” Until these babies came into the world, Frankie was the only biological family she had left. Her mother had disowned her over the divorce.
Despite being angry with her, Frankie had hugged her, along with Maci, when Trish had talked about her divorce and her miscarriages, but they hadn’t had a one-on-one conversation since that day. Frankie seemed to be avoiding her.
She’d thought Brett might have been, too, with the way he was always the first one out of the house and the last one back at the end of a long day.
But he’d shown up at the bunkhouse. Fortunately.
Or she might have been seriously hurt when she’d fallen from the staircase.
But he’d caught her and held her in those strong arms. And for a moment, she’d been more afraid of how he’d made her feel than she had been of what might have happened had she struck the ground.
Nolan shrugged. “I don’t know that there would be a right way to handle anything with a woman like your cousin.”
“She’s really a very good person,” Trish insisted. “And I think the Lemmons are, too.”
“You’ve only been at the Four Corners for a few days,” Nolan said. “I wish you would take more time before making your decision. I got that last extension from the probate judge, so we don’t have to settle anything for a couple of weeks yet.”
She shook her head. “I had to live in limbo for months because of my ex fighting everything. I can’t keep doing that to Frankie, the Lemmons and Maci.”
“You are a good person, Trish Dempsey,” he said. “And I hope the other heirs aren’t taking advantage of that.”
“Nobody’s going to take advantage of me again,” she assured him.
“Then let me try to get you a bigger share of the estate,” he said.
She shook her head again. “No. I do believe that this is what my father wanted.” A pang struck her heart over that, over things having gotten so strained between them that he hadn’t told her what he wanted before he died. That she’d had to find out this way.
“That doesn’t mean he was right,” Nolan said with a faint smile. “The Four Corners was your home, not the Lemmons’.”
“After my parents divorced, it was only for the summers,” she reminded him. Those amazing summers that she’d longed for all the other months of the year. If she hadn’t had those, her life would have been so empty. “And Maci did a good job with that will. I doubt you could fight it.”
“I can fight anything,” he said.
“But would you win?”
He released a ragged sigh and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m tired of fighting.”
“Then you should let me do it for you,” he said. “Because I think running this ranch with that many other people is going to be another big fight for you. And you’re not going to get what you want done around the place.”
She’d had that fear, too, that she wouldn’t get what she wanted. The day and summer camp for kids. The petting zoo. Brett thought they would be too much liability and too much work for a working cattle ranch.
And maybe he was right.
But that wasn’t going to stop her. Just like raising her babies alone would be a lot of work, but she wanted them more than anything else. And she would fight to give them the life she wanted for them. To make sure that they were happy.
* * *
Nolan stood at his office window watching Trish Dempsey’s truck drive away. She was going back to the Four Corners, back to them.
And he couldn’t help but worry about her. Even though she was much stronger than she’d been when they’d first met, she was still vulnerable. And despite how people in her life had treated her, she was still too trusting.
That was something he would never be. Never again.
He’d learned his lesson, and he would make sure that nobody was ever able to hurt him again. But Trish…
She had too big a heart not to let more people into it. That was why she’d wanted children so badly. She wanted to love unconditionally and be loved unconditionally.
“Daddy!” Zoe shouted. “Daddy!”
Nolan ducked out of his office and ran back to the kitchen, to his baby, who’d called for him.
She sat in her booster seat, the plate in front of her piled high with broccoli. Tears pooled in her silvery blue eyes. “Daddy, they gave me all the veg-tub-alls.”
Hope’s and Xavier’s plates were curiously clean.
He sighed. “Not a real great job of hiding them, guys,” he said. Then he sighed again and pulled open the freezer. Ice cream was good for a person, had calcium and vitamin D. He wasn’t being a bad father by giving in.
He wasn’t a bad father anymore. But like Trish he regretted things he’d done or hadn’t done. Because of his career, he hadn’t always been there for his family like he should have been.
He was changing that now. He was going to be there for all of his family, whether they liked it or not.