Chapter Twenty-Four
Brett couldn’t figure out what was the biggest shock. Finding out that he had an older brother or the fact that Trish had been willing to give up her share of the ranch to protect it from her mother and her ex.
Blake and Liam had both offered to do that at some point in the course of the will being contested. But then they had both felt a bit strange to be inheriting at all since they hadn’t worked at the ranch as long as he had. Trish, on the other hand…
He knew how much the ranch meant to her. That it was the place where she’d made her happiest memories and it was the place where she wanted to raise her children. She wanted to give them the childhood she’d wished she’d had. And she wanted to share that experience with other kids through her camps.
She didn’t just love the ranch; it was everything to her. Her safe space from her mother, from criticism and pain. And she’d been willing to give it up to keep it safe.
“Are you okay?” she whispered to him.
He shook his head. He wasn’t okay. He was so in love with her that he could barely breathe, let alone think. She was the kindest, most generous person he’d ever met. And he didn’t want to lose her.
So he just kept hanging on to her, their fingers entwined. She kept him anchored and calm as the revelations kept coming. He was more worried about his dad than he was himself. It was clear Bob had had no idea he’d fathered a child with his prom date all those years ago.
And then, after dropping that bomb on all of them, Nolan Stokes just turned around and walked out of the room. Someone rushed out after him. Maybe Frankie.
Sadie and Lem might have, too.
He couldn’t see them, though. He saw only Trish as she turned toward him and rose on her tiptoes. With her free hand, she touched his jaw that he hadn’t even realized he was clenching.
“Are you okay?” she asked again. “I am so sorry. I had no idea…”
Neither had he. He’d never been in love before, but he was now. And he finally understood why his brothers had risked their hearts like they had. It wasn’t as if he had a choice, though.
Trish, and her babies, had stolen his heart without him even realizing he was losing it.
And now he had to make sure that he didn’t lose her, too.
He didn’t want her to sign off her share and leave the Four Corners, because then there would never be the chance of her falling in love with him, too.
Of her trusting him with not just her heart but with her children as well.
But Nolan had offered his assurances, and Brett had a feeling that the man spoke the truth. It might not be pretty, that truth, but he wasn’t going to lie.
So Trish’s share of the ranch should be safe.
And Nolan Stokes was Brett’s older brother.
* * *
Trish was used to Brett supporting her, but now she was the one trying to support him. He looked like his legs had been kicked out from under him. All the Lemmons and even the Havens looked that way: totally shocked.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized to all of them like she just had to Brett. “I had no idea what Nolan’s connection was to all of you.”
But now it made sense why he’d sought her out and warned her about the Lemmons.
He was holding a grudge against them. He must have thought that they’d rejected him when he was a baby.
But it was clear that they had had no idea he even existed.
Sue was the only one who’d known. Not Bob and certainly none of his family.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Brett said. “Of course you didn’t know…” And there he was again, her white knight rushing to her rescue, defending her even from herself.
Was it any wonder that she’d fallen for him?
But she couldn’t tell him that, not now when he had to be reeling, as everyone clearly was, over Nolan Stokes’s shocking revelation. All she could do was be here for him as he’d been for her since she’d shown up at the Four Corners late that night so many weeks ago.
Had she fallen for him then? At first sight?
Or had she fallen for him when he’d caught her on the stairs in the bunkhouse? Or when he’d carried her to his truck and into the ER when she’d thought she was in labor? Or had it been when he wrapped his arms around her on the wagon?
She didn’t know the exact moment that she’d fallen, but she knew that she was definitely in love. Real love. The kind she’d never felt before.
The kind that might actually last…if she could take that risk. Would Brett be willing to take it, too? Or was he already overwhelmed with everything that was going on?
And how determined was he to stick to his original vow of putting the ranch first, before himself, before marriage and children?
Could he come to love not just her but her babies as well? She couldn’t be with someone who wouldn’t be able to love them as much as she did. She knew all too well how much it hurt to have a parent who didn’t unconditionally care about you.
As hard as she’d fallen for Brett, she had to keep her feelings to herself if he was still determined to stay single and childless. She couldn’t make things any more awkward than they already were at the moment.
* * *
Bob probably should have raced after Nolan Stokes, the son he hadn’t known he had, as Nolan rushed out of the house.
But he hadn’t been able to move yet then.
He’d been utterly frozen with shock. But now, as Sue started to push through the people on her way out the door, he could move. And he chased after her.
“Where are you going?” he asked her as he caught up to her on the front porch.
She shook her head, tears flowing freely down her face. “I can’t…”
“Sue, I didn’t know,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shook her head again.
“Please,” he said. “You owe me an explanation.”
She turned on him then, her pale eyes ice cold. “I owe you?”
“You didn’t tell me you were pregnant.”
“Yes, I did,” she said.
He shook his head, but she didn’t seem to notice as she continued, “And that was hard to do with the way that you avoided me after the prom. You got what you wanted and then just never called again. You left for college without so much as a goodbye.” She stared at him, fury written all over her features.
Heat rushed to his face. “I acted that way because I was embarrassed,” he admitted. “I didn’t know the punch was spiked at prom. I got so drunk that I don’t remember anything about that night.”
She narrowed her eyes and studied his face as if she didn’t believe him.
And now, knowing what he’d forgotten, he could understand her skepticism. “Really,” he vowed. “It’s all a blank. And I felt so bad about that that I was too embarrassed to try to talk to you again. I knew I blew it with you. And I didn’t know how to undo it.”
“You could have called me,” she said. “Or at least called me back when I tried to get ahold of you at college. I had to get your number from your dad.”
Guilt washed over him now. He’d been mad at his dad for giving her his number because he’d figured that Lem was trying to set him up with a Willow Creek girl so that Bob would come home. And by that time, he’d met his wife-to-be, too. So he hadn’t called Sue back.
Things had felt safer with his wife. His feelings hadn’t been as overwhelming as they’d been with Sue.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back,” he said. “I didn’t know why you were calling. And since we never talked, how did you think I knew that you were pregnant?”
“I sent you a letter,” she said. “It was never returned to me, so I figured you read it.”
He shook his head. “No…” But now something from those days came back to him. The day that the girl he’d been dating had suddenly asked about Sue Lancaster. He’d wondered how she knew about his first crush, the beautiful blue-eyed girl he’d fallen for in high school.
Had she seen the letter? Had she seen it before he had and never showed it to him? They’d been in and out of each other’s dorms then.
“You never saw the letter?”
He shook his head. “No. I had no idea, Sue. I swear I would have come back if I’d known. I would have been there for you.”
She shuddered. “Nobody was. I was already away at college when I realized I was pregnant, and my parents wouldn’t let me come home. They told me that the best thing I could do for the baby I was carrying was to give him up, so a mature, established, happy couple could raise him.”
“Did they?” he wondered aloud.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nolan won’t answer any of my questions about himself. He just seems so angry.” Her voice cracked with sobs.
Bob closed his arms around her, holding her trembling body. “I am so sorry, Sue.” He hated that she’d had to go through her pregnancy alone, with no support from her parents and especially with no support from him.
If only he’d known…
“Me, too,” she murmured as her arms closed around him. “Me, too.”
He’d messed everything up so badly, and apparently not just with her but with the son he hadn’t known he had.
Now he understood why Nolan had hired his assistant to spy on him.
He’d wanted to know if his dad was the deadbeat he’d thought he was.
And he’d wanted to know for certain if Bob was his dad.
Getting that confirmation hadn’t brought the man any peace, though. He was still so angry with him.
Rightfully so.
Bob would have to figure out a way to fix this.
“So you really don’t remember anything from that night?” she asked as she stepped back from him again.
His arms fell to his sides, and he shook his head. Then he clarified, “Except how beautiful you looked. I remember picking you up at your house and the blue dress you wore and the corsage I found had a flower that exactly matched the color of your eyes.”
Those eyes stared at him now with such shock—and something else, something he used to see in them all those years ago.