Chapter Fourteen
Brett wasn’t sure what had happened: one moment Trish had been glowing with happiness and the next she was quiet and withdrawn. He’d had to talk her into the animals Darlene had said she’d wanted.
“What happened?” he asked once they were back on the road to the Four Corners.
“What?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you feeling all right?” Maybe she’d overdone it at the vet practice. He’d been trying to get her to spend less time on her feet, and it hadn’t worked. She’d walked every inch of that huge barn with Darlene.
Darlene had looked concerned about her, too.
“Do I need to bring you to the doctor?” he asked.
“I feel fine,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“I don’t believe you,” he admitted.
She sucked in a breath as if offended. Then she sighed and some of the tension drained from her. “Darlene just mentioned that her son and daughter-in-law have twins.”
“Yeah, Dusty Chaps, the former rodeo champ, is her son,” Brett said.
“Like Liam? Didn’t your brother used to be in the rodeo?”
“Billy the Kid,” Brett said with a flash of pride. “Liam got hurt not long into his career. He never made the championships like Dusty did.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s tough on Dusty’s wife with the twins,” Trish said softly. “She’s alone a lot.”
Brett shook his head. “Melanie is never alone at Ranch Haven. Her mom lives there, too, and Dusty retired from the rodeo—although he did buy the Cassidy Ranch to start breeding rodeo animals there. But they live at Ranch Haven, where they have all kinds of family helping them with the twins.”
Now he realized the reason she’d grown so quiet. She was alone. A single mother about to give birth to not just one baby but two. “You have support, too, Trish,” he assured her.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want support, though. I wanted to raise my babies alone. I wanted to do the camps and petting zoo on my own. And now I wonder how realistic I’m being. You all had to step in to help me, or I wouldn’t have gotten anything done yet.”
“You are very pregnant,” he reminded her. “You have to take it easy. And we’re all happy to help.”
She snorted with apparent disbelief. “All of you? Even you?”
“I’m helping,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about how happy I am.” But he was worried about her happiness; that—and Trish—were all he thought about lately.
“This isn’t fair to you,” she said. “Me making all this work for you and for everyone else. I don’t know if I made the right decision about anything right now.”
“Trish?” He was really worried. The last time she’d been this upset he’d had to take her to the hospital. “Because of your blood pressure, you need to stay calm. You shouldn’t be getting worked up about this.”
She drew in a deep breath, let it out and then drew in another. “Okay, okay…” she murmured. “I don’t know why I’m freaking out.”
“I don’t know either,” he said. “You were so certain that you’re doing what you want now for what might be one of the first times in your life. Don’t doubt yourself.”
She drew in another breath and lifted her chin. “You’re right. This is what I want. I just panicked for a moment. As much as I’ve always wanted kids, I haven’t had that much experience with them. I didn’t babysit. I didn’t have any younger siblings. Just Frankie, and she’s always been independent.”
He snorted. “She is certainly that.”
“That’s what I want to be, too,” she said. “I don’t want to have to depend on anyone else. I want to be capable of taking care of myself and my children.”
“You should talk to my dad, Trish,” he said. “He was determined to take care of my mom all by himself when she got sick. He pushed everyone away who cared about both of them. Me, my brothers and sister and my grandpa, too. And I know he regrets that now.”
She released a shaky breath. “You don’t understand, Brett. This isn’t about not wanting people to help me. It’s about knowing if I can do it without help, if I can handle all this on my own, and I’ll never know that if I don’t try to do it without help.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to take over. I was just trying to help because Livvy and the other doctor said that you shouldn’t be under stress right now, that it could raise your blood pressure too much.”
She reached across the console and squeezed his arm. “And I appreciate that so much,” she said. “I can’t believe, after everything that’s happened, that you would help me like you have. I thought you would hate me.”
He chuckled and admitted, “I thought I would, too.” And maybe it would have been easier if he had. But he liked her too much and that was why he wanted to help her.
“I’m glad you don’t,” she said, “though I would understand if you did.”
He shook his head. “No. You have your reasons for everything that you did, Trish.”
“And I have my reasons for wanting to take care of myself and these babies,” she said.
“I don’t want to put them through the childhood I had, split between two parents, missing one, getting manipulated by the other.
I want to be the only person they need, so that they don’t wind up losing and missing someone so much. ”
“So you’re never going to get married again?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
“Not that I’m proposing,” he assured her and tried to laugh it off as a joke. “I swore to myself long ago that I’d stay single.”
“Why?” she asked. “What’s your reason? Your parents sound like they had a great marriage.”
“They did,” he said. “And my dad is devastated without her. I wouldn’t want to go through that kind of pain and loss. Or what your dad went through. Not wanting to risk that, I decided long ago that it’s better to stay single.”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“I decided to put all my focus on the ranch, to make sure that the Four Corners prospers and that it takes care of the people who rely on it, like Liam and his family and Blake. I don’t want them to risk their relationships because the ranch takes so much of their time,” he explained. “Like it did your father.”
“My mother hates it still,” she murmured.
“Your father loved it,” Brett said. “And I love it.”
“I do, too,” she murmured.
And he believed her. “You have this…” He gestured toward her stomach. “The babies. Parenting. You’ll figure it all out on your own. But as for stuff on the ranch, you have four partners in it, five really, since Liam and Elise are partners in his share. So we’re all partners in the work, too.”
“But you’re all doing more work than I am,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, Trish. This is all you. You picked out the animals. You designed the bunkhouse remodel. That’s all been a lot of work, and I’m sure you’ll probably wind up doing the bulk of the work for it once it’s up and running.”
She sighed.
He was worried that he’d made matters worse instead of better. “Or you can hire someone to help you with the camps and with the babies. You don’t need to worry about all of this.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I will have to hire counselors for the camp. And I have time—more than a month yet—to learn more about kids.”
“Trust me, you learn quick when they get here,” he said. “None of us knew anything about babies when Lucy showed up in the barn. But we know what we’re doing now.”
“Yes, you do. She’s a very happy baby.”
* * *
Famous last words. A short time later, while Trish walked the floor with a screaming Lucy in her arms, she wondered if she’d jinxed herself. When she and Brett showed up at the ranch, Liam and Elise had rushed out to them in the driveway.
“My mom is having a situation at the foster home she runs,” Elise said. “I need to help her—”
“And I don’t want her to go alone,” Liam interjected. “It’s a tricky situation. So we don’t want to bring Lucy either.”
“We can watch Lucy,” Brett offered. “Just let me get these animals put away.”
“There’s no time,” Elise said. “Someone’s on their way to help, but nobody’s here right now. And I really need to get to my mom.”
“Go,” Trish said. “I’ll take care of Lucy for you while Brett takes care of the animals.”
Elise released a breath. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, of course.” She had to learn, and Brett wouldn’t be far away. Besides, someone else was on their way. This was the perfect opportunity for her to get some hands-on experience with a baby.
When Elise and Liam had met them in the driveway, they’d had the baby monitor with them and no sound had emanated from it. “She’s down for her nap right now,” Elise said.
So Trish shouldn’t have had any problem. Except the minute Lucy’s parents drove off and Trish stepped inside the house, the baby started crying. Brett was already driving off, too, toward the petting zoo pastures on the other side of the big barn near the bunkhouse.
She didn’t want to have to call him for help. Not so quickly. She wanted to figure out herself what was bothering the baby.
But a diaper change didn’t calm her down. Or the bottle that Trish fixed per the directions left next to the can of formula in the kitchen. Lucy wouldn’t let her put the nipple of the bottle in her mouth, unlike the calf who greedily sucked her bottle down whenever Trish got the chance to feed her.
Lucy wanted nothing to do with her bottle. Or with Trish. She writhed in her arms as she cried. Obviously, she didn’t know her and was not comforted by a stranger holding her.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” she said. “I don’t know what to do…” She’d had no business taking on this responsibility when she had no idea. How was she going to raise her babies on her own?
“I want to help you, sweetheart,” she cooed. And then she began to sing to her, something soft and soothing, trying to calm her down.
The baby blinked, and the tears cleared from her eyes.
Brett had commented before that Trish sounded like Frankie, so maybe that was what was making the baby feel better, that Trish wasn’t a total stranger. She was a little familiar to her.
She kept singing and finally Lucy closed her lips around the bottle and began to suckle.