Chapter Eleven
Alarm shot through Brett as he watched Trish’s face go from red with anger to deathly pale. He surged up from where he’d been sitting on the ground to kneel in front of her again. “Trish, are you okay?”
The last thing he’d wanted to do was upset her.
She just sat there on the hay bale, her hands on her belly. Maybe the babies were kicking again.
“You’ve misunderstood me,” he said. “I’m not trying to stop you from doing the petting zoo and kids’ camps. I’m telling you that you don’t need to do them alone.”
Her long lashes blinked as she stared at him.
“We all work together on this ranch,” he said. “No bosses. We’ll help you with the camps.”
She shook her head.
Maybe she didn’t want his help.
“Liam and Elise love the idea, too,” he said. “They’ll help…if you’d rather I not.”
She reached out then and grasped his arm. And the look on her face chilled him. She looked so afraid.
“Trish, I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said, and he was getting scared now. “I really didn’t mean to upset you like this. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to talk you out of doing what you want.”
Her nails dug into his skin a bit, and her beautiful face contorted with a grimace. Finally, he realized what was wrong. She was in pain.
Physically in pain.
“Oh, no…” he whispered. “It’s the babies…”
She bit her lip and nodded, and tears slipped down her face. “It’s too soon…”
He touched her face, wanting to brush all her tears away. But he understood her fear now. It coursed through him, too. She could not lose these babies; she’d already suffered too many losses.
She needed help.
He considered calling an ambulance, but they could take too long to get out to the ranch and that was if they could find it.
His brother-in-law-to-be was a paramedic, but Colton had never been out to the Four Corners.
Even his sister, Livvy, an ER doctor, hadn’t made the trip out yet.
She was usually too busy at the hospital.
He grabbed his cell from his pocket and tried calling her, but the call went straight to voicemail. Hopefully, she was at the hospital.
In order to get Trish there as soon as possible, he had to drive her. “We’ll get you to the ER,” he said. “We’ll get you help.”
But right now she just had him.
More tears slid down her face as she bent over her belly, and a cry slipped out.
He slid his arms around her and lifted her up from the hay bale. She wound one arm around his neck as if to hold on while her other was wrapped around herself, as if to hold on to her babies. To protect them.
He wanted to do that, too, so he carried her out of the barn to his truck.
Fortunately, he’d left the keys in it. He held her against him as he pulled open the passenger door.
Then he tried to ease her onto the seat, but she clung to him for a moment, her body trembling with fear and perhaps with pain.
He wanted to take that pain away from her. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.
She settled onto the seat, and he stretched the belt across her and clicked it in to secure it. He was going to drive fast, and he wanted to keep her safe. Her and them. He touched her belly and it felt so hard. “They’re going to be okay…”
But he had no way of knowing that for certain. He could only hope.
She covered his hand with hers and squeezed. “Thank you.”
She was so scared but still so sweet. She would be a great mother; she couldn’t lose her babies. And he had to do whatever he could to make sure that she didn’t.
* * *
The sharp pain receded to a dull ache in her side, but the panic remained, pressing down on Trish’s lungs, making it difficult for her to draw deep breaths.
She might have hyperventilated if not for Brett taking one of his hands off the steering wheel to hold her hand.
Something about the strength and the warmth of his grasp lent her strength, so that she was able to breathe evenly, deeply, again.
And the pressure eased on her chest and on her stomach.
She knew he had no way of keeping his promise, of making sure that she and the babies were okay. But somehow she believed that he would, maybe from how fast he drove the distance between the Four Corners and Willow Creek Memorial Hospital.
When he pulled up to the lobby doors, she didn’t want to let go of his hand. She didn’t want to let go of him. He was the only thing keeping her from all-out panic.
“We’re here,” he said. “Help is here.”
But he had been the help.
She was feeling better now.
“Let’s get you into the ER,” he said, and he pulled his hand free. Then he was out of the truck, rushing around the front of it and pulling open her door. He leaned in and unbuckled her seat belt. And then he moved his arms around her, lifting her out of the truck.
She could have walked, but her legs felt weak and she was afraid of the pain returning. So she wound her arm around his shoulders instead and held on.
Leaving the passenger door open, with the keys in the ignition, he rushed toward the glass doors of the lobby. “Help! We need help!” he called out.
“Brett!” a beautiful young woman exclaimed.
She wore scrubs with a stethoscope dangling around her neck.
Her strawberry blond hair was pulled up in a clip, and her green eyes were wide with surprise as she hurried over to the two of them.
A medical ID dangled from the pocket of her scrubs. Dr. Livvy Lemmon.
And for some reason Trish felt a rush of relief.
She wasn’t sure if it was just because this woman was a doctor or if because this woman, who knew Brett, was his sister and not someone he might have dated had he ever left the ranch.
But his brothers had already told her how he rarely left the ranch.
The Four Corners was his life.
“What’s going on?” Livvy asked.
“I think she’s in labor,” Brett answered for her. “She doubled over in pain back at the ranch.”
“You’re having contractions?” Livvy asked.
“I… I…thought so…”
“How far along are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-three weeks,” Trish replied. She saw how the doctor looked at her stomach. “With twins.”
Livvy nodded. “Okay. Sometimes twins want out early. They don’t like sharing that space. Let’s check you out.” She gestured behind her, and an older woman rushed forward pushing a gurney. “This is Nurse Sue,” she said. “We’re going to take care of you. And you are?”
“Trish,” she replied. “Trish Dempsey.”
Livvy sucked in a breath, and her green eyes widened even more. “Oh.”
So Livvy knew about her. Knew about the lawsuit over the will, no doubt.
“They’ll take care of you,” Brett said, as if he felt her fear. He helped to settle her onto the gurney.
But Trish grabbed the hand she’d held in the truck. “Don’t go,” she implored him.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’ll just get the truck out of the way. I’m staying.”
She believed him, just as she’d believed back in the barn that he would help her. So she released him.
“How long ago did the pain start?” Livvy asked as she and the nurse steered the gurney to the ER.
“A…less than an hour…”
“Wow, Brett must have broken every speed limit there is to get you here,” Livvy said, and her lips curved into a smile.
“He drove safely.” Trish defended him.
“He was probably afraid to jostle you for fear the babies would fall out,” Livvy said. She had her hand on Trish’s belly. “How long has it been since your last contraction?”
“I—I…don’t know if they were contractions,” she admitted. “My belly got so tight, and then I have this pain in my side.”
The nurse and doctor exchanged a glance over her gurney.
“What?”
“Hopefully just Braxton Hicks contractions,” Livvy replied.
“False labor,” the nurse said, and she smiled down at her. “Though it probably didn’t feel that way to you.”
The woman’s hair was such a silvery blond that it was almost white. And her eyes were nearly silver, as well, and vaguely familiar.
“We’re going to check you out and check out these babies, too,” Livvy said. “We’ll make sure everyone is doing well. Do you have an ob-gyn in Willow Creek?”
Trish shook her head. “I was supposed to get a referral from my doctor in Sheridan, but…” She hadn’t been entirely convinced that she should stay at the ranch—that she could stay if the Lemmons and Frankie didn’t want her there.
And while she’d agreed to settle the will, she still wasn’t sure that they wanted her there.
“We can get you a referral if you want,” Nurse Sue offered as she jerked aside a heavy vinyl curtain.
“Are you staying?” Livvy asked as she steered the gurney between the curtain and a concrete wall. “In Willow Creek?”
Trish nodded. “Yeah, your brothers didn’t tell you?”
Livvy’s face flushed. “I don’t talk to my brothers as much as I should.”
“You’re busy,” Sue said, defending her.
And they were both busy, hooking machines up to her. Checking her blood pressure, pulling over an ultrasound machine. But they talked as they moved around her.
“My brothers are busy, too,” Livvy said. “We’re getting better at communicating than we used to be.”
“I’ve not even been back a week,” Trish said. “Maybe they don’t think I’m going to stay.” She wouldn’t blame them since she hadn’t been entirely convinced herself. Then she sighed. “Or they don’t want me to stay.”
“Well…” Livvy looked uncomfortable. “I know it’s been a tough time for everyone after your dad died.”
Tears sprang to Trish’s eyes. And she nodded.
Sue pressed a tissue into her hand. “Let’s get you into a gown,” she said. She helped Trish change out of her maternity bib overalls and T-shirt into the gown. Then she lifted the gown and put a dab of gel on Trish’s belly.
“We’re going to check on these babies,” Livvy said. “Make sure they’re okay.” She pulled the ultrasound machine closer and moved the wand over the gel on Trish’s stomach. “There’s your little girl.”
Trish stared at the screen and the perfect little profile of her daughter. Then the wand moved, and another little face appeared, a thumb inserted in the mouth.