For a second, even that beautiful little girl stopped crying.
“All of you need to stop arguing,” she said. She turned back to her lawyer. “And you need to leave—”
“But they’re going to—”
“No!” she interjected. “Nobody’s going to take advantage of me or coerce me into anything I don’t want to do.”Ever again.She’d promised herself that when she’d started her divorce proceedings. It wasn’t just her marriage that had made her feel powerless; she’d felt that way her entire life because of her mother.
But after taking back her name, her life and her dreams, she was empowered and stronger now than she had ever been.
“You heard her,” Brett said to Stokes, and he glanced at her.
She wondered if that was a glimmer of respect she saw in his dark eyes. But then she remembered what she’d heard when she’d walked into the house, how he’d been talking about her. He obviously didn’t respect how she’d handled her relationship with her father. If she had the opportunity to make different decisions, to talk to him again, she would take it in a heartbeat. But it was too late to undo what had been done.
And tears stung her eyes again.
“Walk me out,” Stokes implored her.
“What? Aren’t youastuteenough to find that obnoxiously big vehicle of yours on your own?” Frankie said, her husky voice even huskier with sarcasm.
A smile tugged at Trish’s lips as she noticed the annoyance on Nolan’s face. He was used to being revered for his intelligence and his appearance. The man was very good-looking, so he probably wasn’t used to anyone, especially a young woman, talking to him like Frankie was, with so much disdain.
Then Trish remembered that Nolan had gone through a horrible divorce of his own before helping her with hers. So there had been another woman in his life who’d treated him badly, who’d actually walked out and abandoned not just him, but their children as well. Guilt jabbed her.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, relenting. She had to get him away from Frankie before her cousin was even meaner to him than she’d already been. But maybe it was easier for Frankie to blame him for the holdup with the estate than it was for her to blame Trish.
Desperate to get him out of there, Trish headed to the door and held it open. Nolan waited another long moment before he finally walked out onto the porch with her. When she pulled the door closed behind them, she caught the speculative look that Brett was giving them, as if he wondered if there was more than just a client-attorney relationship between them.
And maybe there was.
They had bonded over their mutual disillusionment with marriage and their commitment to stay single from now on; they had become friends and allies. They both felt that being a single parent would be much safer and healthier for their children.
Maybe Brett suspected there was something romantic between them, but romance was the last thing that either she or Nolan Stokes was interested in. The only thing they shared was their determination to give their children the best life possible…on their own, without having to depend on anyone else. Period.
* * *
Nolan Stokes draggedhis feet across the front porch of the Four Corners ranch house. “Trish, you really shouldn’t be here on your own. It’s not safe.”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Nobody is going to hurt me.”
After everything she’d been through, it was amazing that she could still be so trusting. That wasn’t a mistake that Nolan would ever make again. To trust…
It wasn’t worth the risk. It was much better to be safe than sorry.
And he was worried that if she stayed here, she would wind up being sorry that she had.
“We should just handle this in court,” he persisted.
She shook her head and smiled. “Frankie is my cousin. She won’t hurt me.”
“She might be the worst of them,” he said, his pride stung from all the insults the young woman had hurled at him. Nobody had spoken to him like that in…maybe ever. Not even his ex-wife. She hadn’t said anything at all; she’d just left him and their children in the middle of the night. She’d written a note, but even in that, she’d said very little.
Trish’s smile slid away. “She’s family. Like my sister, just like Maci is,” she said. “They won’t hurt me.”
“The Lemmons have fooled them—”
“Stop,” she said, like she had in the house moments ago. “I don’t think the Lemmons have done anything wrong.”
“I don’t trust them,” he insisted.
