“So do I.”
“Try to workwiththem,” Maci urged. “It’s what your dad wanted.” But clearly it wasn’t what Trish wanted. She’d said she would honor his wishes, but would she when they weren’t the same as hers?
Tears shimmered in Trish’s eyes. “I know that’s what you’re saying…”
“But you don’t believe it’s really what he wanted?”
“I don’t know…”
“What are you going to do, Trish?” Maci asked, her heart heavy again with dread. She’d hoped this would all be settled soon, and she could keep the promise she’d made to Frank to make sure his will was carried out the way he’d wanted.
“I promised Nolan I wouldn’t make a final decision without talking to him first,” Trish said.
“You know he’ll tell you to keep fighting,” Maci said. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to fight anymore. That’s why I would just rather buy them out.”
“Well, that’s not happening,” Maci said. “You’re going to have to accept this is what your father wanted or…”
Go to court. But she couldn’t even bring herself to say those words. She’d been so hopeful that this would all be over once Trish showed up at the Four Corners. But it was clearly not going to be that easy.
CHAPTER FIVE
Brett backed awayfrom the door to the den hoping that neither of the women inside it had seen him. But he didn’t head back toward the living room where the others were still gathered. Instead, he slipped out the back door off the kitchen and started across the yard toward the barn.
Now Brett knew how Trish had felt when she’d heard him talking about her, because he’d just overheard what Maci had said about him.It’s really all he has.
She wasn’t wrong. The ranch was all he had. But for some reason it sounded sad when she’d said it. And Trish had looked sad when she’d heard it.
No. She’d looked disappointed. She didn’t want to work with him. She wanted to buy him out. Him and the others. She wanted the ranch all to herself and her babies, which he couldn’t even blame her for. If this had been his family ranch, he would have felt possessive of it. Heck, he felt possessive now.
And Frank hadn’t really been family at all, except in Brett’s heart. That was how he’d felt about the older man—like Frank could have been another father to him. Kind of like Sadie Haven March was now another grandmother to him.
He’d had two. Lem’s first wife, Mary, who’d been an incredibly sweet woman even when she’d suffered from dementia. And then there was his maternal grandmother, whom he hadn’t even been able to call Grandma. She’d preferred Mimi or Gigi or anything that didn’t make her sound too old. Not that they’d seen that much of her, even after his dad had moved them from Willow Creek to Chicago to be closer to them or maybe farther away from Grandpa Lem and his meddling.
Brett had hated living in the city and had counted the days until he graduated high school and could head back west again. He’d worked a few other ranches before accepting the foreman position from Frank Dempsey. And he’d known the moment he’d seen it that the Four Corners was home.
No. It was more than that for him. For him, it was his life, like Maci had said.
Did that mean that losing it would kill him? He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out, but even though Trish had explained her reason for holding off on settling the estate, it was also clear that she didn’t want to share it with them.
She wanted to buy them out.
But there was nothing that Brett needed that money for if he didn’t have the Four Corners. So if he refused the buyout, would she continue to contest the will? Her lawyer was obviously eager to fight for her to get everything he thought she deserved. And he thought that Trish, as Frank Dempsey’s next of kin, deserved it all.
* * *
Trish was alonein the den. At least physically, since Maci had left her. But she didn’t feel alone. She could feel and still smell her father’s presence in the sweet scent of cigars and leather and horses.
Maci had left the will with her. And for the first time, Trish read through it and noted the thick scrawl of his signature and his bold initials on every clause. This was what he wanted. Not for his family, she and Frankie, to split the estate, but for the two of them to share it equally with each of the three Lemmon brothers.
These were definitely his final wishes. She had no doubt about that now.
Maci had told her, and now he was telling her in the way that he’d signed the papers. It wasn’t a faint scrawl, but a thick one, purposeful and definitive. Her father had never asked for much from her; he’d known how hard it was for her to deal with her mother and the fallout she would face had she asked to live with him instead.
But she regretted now that she hadn’t done that. That she hadn’t been stronger, for herself and for him. She patted her belly, and one of the babies kicked in reaction. She would be stronger now for herself and for them.
And for her dad, too.
