Chapter Twenty-Five
An uncomfortable few days had passed since Trish’s welcome-back-to-Willow-Creek party. Nobody knew what to think of having another sibling they hadn’t known about, so they mostly avoided the subject.
And so far they’d avoided Nolan, too.
Brett was tempted to reach out to him, but the man seemed so angry and bitter. And Brett didn’t understand why. It wasn’t as if his dad had made a choice to give him up; he hadn’t even known about him. His dad had come by the Four Corners to make that all clear to them.
Brett should try to point that out to Nolan. But he wasn’t a lawyer like him. He didn’t know how to effectively argue with a man like that, who was so well-known for his courtroom victories, to get through to him. Their father had even admitted to being too intimidated to try to talk to Nolan yet.
So Brett focused on what he could control.
The ranch. He worked with the cattle, getting orders ready for the new wholesaler.
And he worked on Trish’s camps. The bunkhouse was finally done and ready according to the contractor.
But Brett wanted to make sure that it was clean before he showed it to Trish.
He was mopping up the dust from the polished floor when he heard the door creak open.
“There you are,” Trish said with a smile.
“You should leave,” he told her, as he tried to step closer to her to block her view of the nearly finished space. There were things he wanted to do before she saw it, like clean it and maybe put up some streamers and balloons.
She gasped as her smile faltered. “Leave?”
“Just go away for a little bit,” he urged her. Just long enough for him to make the place look as special as it was to her and to him.
“You don’t want me here?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.
“Just let me clean up the dust and dirt the contractors left,” he said.
“I want you to see your dream come true without any distractions. Well, except maybe for some balloons and streamers.” And a cake.
Or cookies. Maybe he should have reached out to Grandma Sadie, so she could have thrown a party for the camp.
“Oh…” Tears glistened in her eyes.
The sight of the tears struck him like a blow, and he dropped the mop to reach out to her. “What did you think I meant?”
“For me to the leave the ranch,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, no, I never want that to happen,” he assured her.
“I never want you to leave…” Me. That was what he really wanted to say.
And that he loved her. But was that fair?
Wasn’t she still vulnerable from her divorce and her pregnancy?
The last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of her.
Or burden her with feelings that she couldn’t return. That wouldn’t be fair.
But he couldn’t help loving her. “I still can’t believe you were willing to give up your share of the inheritance,” he said. “That you, of all people, would have signed away your share of the ranch.”
“I didn’t want my mother or my ex to get their hands on it,” she said. “That would have destroyed my father.”
“It would have destroyed you, too,” he said.
“You love this place so much, Trish.” He touched her stomach through her overalls.
“And you want to raise your children here.” He could imagine them running around the place.
In his mind, they would look like her, with her wild curls and her pale brown eyes.
And the little girl would be leading the way, confident and brave, while her brother trailed behind her.
“It’s safe,” she said. “Nolan said the judge immediately dismissed the claim my mother and Harold tried to make.”
“So they carried through on their threat,” he said. “They really tried to get a piece of it.” She had been so right about them. She had also talked to his brother.
“Yes,” she replied. “But the judge said they had no valid argument to dispute ownership. My mother had signed off the deed years ago, and Harold had no right to my inheritance from my father even when we were married.”
He blew out a breath of relief, grateful to the judge for shutting them down and to his brother for helping her.
No matter how Nolan had handled things, he had had Trish’s best interests at heart.
He wasn’t the snake that Frankie believed he was.
“That’s good,” he said as he squeezed her shoulders.
“You’ve got everything you want, Trish.”
“No.”
He stepped back then and gestured around the bunkhouse with its pool table and ping-pong table and long dining table where the kids would eat and do crafts. She’d thought of everything. He just wished he’d had time to finish cleaning and staging it for her.
“No,” she repeated. “I don’t have everything.”
He peered around the space again. “I don’t see anything you missed. The hay wagon is good to go. And Liam has been working with the animals so that they’ll be good with all the kids. I can’t think of anything you don’t have.”
“You,” she said, her voice soft. “You, Brett, I don’t have you.”
His heart seemed to stop beating for a second before it resumed at a frantic pace. Was she saying that she wanted him? Was it possible that she’d fallen for him, too?
* * *
Brett looked as stunned as he had when he’d found out he had an older brother. His mouth was slightly open, and his dark eyes were wide with shock.
“You,” she repeated. “I want you, Brett. But I know we agreed that we wouldn’t make our partnership personal or messy.
And I know that you are determined to stay single and focus only on the ranch.
But I can’t keep it inside any longer. I can’t not tell you how I feel.
” Her love was just too big, too overwhelming for her not to express it.
“But I don’t expect you to return my feelings.
I know that you have no interest in marriage or children—”
He gasped as if he was just remembering to breathe.
“You have me, Trish,” he said. “You had me from the minute I met you after midnight in the driveway. And those babies had me from the minute I saw them on that ultrasound screen, moving around, the little girl kicking while the little boy sucked his thumb. I can’t wait for them to come into the world, into our world.
I can’t wait to hold them and love them and protect them. ”
“Really?” She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to so badly because this was the father she wanted for her children.
But she knew that he was telling the truth because Brett Lemmon didn’t lie.
And he couldn’t help himself from helping others.
He was such a white knight. Her white knight.
And he would be a fiercely protective, loving father for their babies.
“I love you,” he said, and he grinned slightly. “I didn’t want to…”
She smiled, too. “I know you really wanted to hate me.”
“You’re not possible to hate,” he said. “You’re too sweet, too genuine, too loving to resist. I couldn’t help but fall for you and for the babies that are so much a part of you, of that enormous heart of yours.”
“It’s not all too much?” she asked. “You were so determined to put the ranch first, before marriage and kids.”
He shook his head. “It’s just right, Trish. Between the two of us, working side by side, we can handle anything. Nothing will suffer. Not the ranch, and definitely not these babies.” He touched her stomach.
She trusted him. She knew Brett Lemmon was a man of his word. So she threw her arms around his shoulders to pull his head down for her kiss.
But he resisted. “Trish, I don’t want to rush you. You just got divorced. And you’re pregnant. And you were determined to raise your babies alone, to not share them with anyone.”
She snorted. “We both know you wouldn’t let me do anything alone.
None of my partners will.” Just as they all helped with Lucy, she knew they would all help her with the twins.
“But I don’t love you because I want your help,” she said.
“I love you because you give your help to me even when you don’t want what I want. ”
“I just want you to be happy,” he said.
“I know, and that’s why I love you so much,” she said. “It wouldn’t matter if I’d been divorced for three years or three months. That was never a real marriage anyway.”
“So it isn’t too soon?” he asked, his dark eyes brightening with hope.
She shook her head. “I love you now, and I will always love you,” she assured him.
“I love you,” he said, “and I will always love you.” Finally, he lowered his head and kissed her, gently and deeply, with all the love he’d just professed to her.
He felt the babies shift inside her stomach.
Chuckling, he touched her belly. “And I love them, too. I can’t wait to meet them.”
She felt a sudden rushing sensation and then a sharp pain.
“I don’t think you’re going to have to wait long.
They’re coming.” She knew this wasn’t false labor, because her water had just broken on his freshly mopped floor.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too soon now for them to come. It was actually perfect timing.
Because now they would come into the world with a mother and a father who both loved them very much.
* * *
For the first time in a long time, Lem Lemmon had been feeling his age.
Not so much physically—he and Feisty had just finished their morning walk—as mentally.
He just couldn’t wrap his mind around Nolan Stokes’s big revelation at the ranch a few days ago.
Sadie had invited the lawyer to the party to find out why he’d spied on their family, and his explanation had been a shock to say the least.
Lem had another grandson and apparently three more great-grandchildren. He couldn’t wait to meet them all and get to know them. To love them.
“He’ll come around,” Sadie promised when Lem’s call to Nolan once again went to voicemail. She reached across the patio table and squeezed his hand. “He’s just proud and stubborn.”
“He’s definitely a Lemmon then,” Lem said with a chuckle. Eventually, they did all come around.
Sadie chuckled, too. “Yes, he is. Good-looking just like his grandpa.”
He grinned at her. “Are you sweet-talking me, woman?”
“I know, not my style,” she admitted.
She was more likely to call him an old fool than good-looking, but insults had once been their love language, or at least that was how Lem chose to look at their past—when he bothered to look at it at all.
There was so much going on in their present, and despite their ages, they had so much to look forward to in the future.
His cell rang and he quickly swiped the screen, hoping that Nolan was finally returning his call.
“Grandpa, it’s Brett.”
He felt a faint stab of disappointment that it wasn’t Nolan. But Sadie was right; he would come around eventually. Sadie was always right.
“Hello, grandson,” Lem greeted him, his heart filling with love.
“Grandpa, Trish and I are on our way to the hospital,” Brett said, and he sounded breathless.
Then a low groan emanated from the speaker of Lem’s cell.
“The babies are coming,” Trish said.
“Our babies are coming!” Brett said.
Tears stung Lem’s eyes while Sadie clapped her hands in excitement. “We’re on our way!” she called out. “You two hang in there.”
“We’re going to be us four soon,” Brett said. “A family in every way.” He clicked off the call then.
Lem smiled at Sadie. “We didn’t have to do any scheming this time either. Those two fell in love on their own.”
Sadie cocked her head. “I think they had a little help.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not me. I was thinking about Trish’s father and the way he drew up that will. He treated your grandsons like they were his sons. He wanted them to be.”
Lem nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“Of course,” Sadie said as she kissed him. “Who wouldn’t want a Lemmon?”
Lem had a feeling that there was a Lemmon who didn’t necessarily want to be a Lemmon, let alone have one. But he would deal with Nolan later.
“Let me drive to the hospital,” he said. “I can’t wait to get there to hold those babies.” And he also wanted to be there for Brett and Trish and to celebrate them being a couple now. A family.
Because family was most important.
And hours later when the babies entered the world, it was clear that Brett understood that so very well.
He sat next to Trish in her hospital bed with a twin cradled in each of his arms. She leaned over to kiss the head of the baby boy who pressed his little mittened fist against his mouth.
And Brett leaned over to kiss her head. There was so much love in his dark eyes.
So much love for Trish and for their babies.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Rancher to Depend On by Alexis Morgan.