What she wouldn’t give to hear his voice one more time…
“Who’s out there?”
The voice was deep, gruff and very male. A man was standing on the porch, the front door open behind him. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, but with the light behind him, his face was in shadows.
“Who are you?” she asked. Goose bumps rose on the skin of her bare arms, making her shiver. She had truly expected that only Frankie would be living inside the house.
“Brett Lemmon,” he replied.
She sucked in a breath. This was one of the brothers who’d worked for her father and had somehow convinced Frank to put them in his will.
“And you’re Patricia Dempsey-Trent?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Trish Dempsey,” she corrected him. She’d worked hard to dropTrent. The divorce had dragged on for far too long. But it had finally been settled, leaving her free to come home at last. And she didn’t have to worry about her ex getting any part of the ranch. She just had to worry about Brett Lemmon and his brothers getting it.
Her lawyer had been fighting that, too, just as he’d fought her ex for her freedom. But after Trish had talked to Maci and her cousin Frankie, she wasn’t sure that contesting the will was the right thing to do anymore. Maci and Frankie were upset with her for not honoring her father’s final wishes.
But what if her lawyer’s suspicions were founded, and the Lemmon brothers had conned her father and her friends?
She had to be careful. She couldn’t make the mistake of trusting the wrong people again. If only she’d listened to her dad instead of her mother…
She pressed her hand over her belly. Everything she’d done had led her to where she was now—about to have the family she’d wanted for so long. These babies were justherbabies, not her ex’s. Harold Trent had lied to her about wanting kids, just as he’d lied about so much else. But after a couple of years of denying herself what she wanted, she’d realized their marriage would never last. They didn’t really love each other. She wasn’t sure they’d even liked each other.
And so, she’d started the divorce proceedings and the IVF treatments because she’d realized that the smartest and safest thing for her was to be a single parent. Then she would never have to share custody if things didn’t work out. Her kids would never be shuffled back and forth between two homes, fought over and poisoned against another parent. They could just be kids, confident in the love of the one parent they had, and happy.
She knew they would be happy here at the Four Corners Ranch. But she hadn’t considered that she might not be happy here now, without her dad, and with these Lemmon men living on the ranch, too. She’d figured that if they stayed at the Four Corners, they would be living in the bunkhouse, not the main house, and she would have some distance from them. And if her lawyer was right about them, they wouldn’t necessarily be here for long. But what if Nolan Stokes was wrong?
“You were in the den?” she asked. “When I saw the light…” For a moment she’d imagined her dad was still here, waiting up for her like he used to when she and Maci and Frankie had gone into town on one of those long-ago summer nights.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you live in the house?” she asked. She really didn’t want to share it or the ranch with anyone but her family. But if it was truly what her father had wanted, which was what Maci and Frankie claimed, then she might have to share.
“Yes,” he said. “My brothers and I live here.”
“What happened to the bunkhouse?” she asked. That was where the ranch hands used to stay back when she spent her summers with her father. One of those ranch hands had once dated her but had really just wanted to get closer to her father and, behind her back, to Frankie. After that experience, she never should have dated—let alone married—a man who’d worked for her mother’s new husband. She should have known thatshewasn’t what he’d really wanted.
“The bunkhouse needs plumbing and electrical updates, and Frank wanted us in the house with him,” Brett Lemmon said, his voice suddenly as chilly as the late spring wind that swirled around her. “He was lonely.”
She wasn’t sure if there was recrimination in his tone, but she flinched as if he was blaming her for that loneliness. She already blamed herself, and that guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders, which were physically aching from the long drive. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and guilt, she closed her eyes to hold back tears that threatened to fall, and as she closed her eyes, she swayed on her feet from a sudden rush of dizziness.
Before she could steady herself, strong hands gripped her arms, holding her. “Are you all right?” That deep voice was tinged now with concern.
She nodded and, keeping her eyes closed, drew in a deep breath that smelled faintly of hay and horses and leather and a trace of sweet smoke. These were the scents she’d always associated with home. But when she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see the house or the ranch; she could only see the man who stood in front of her, holding her.
He could not behometo her; he was a stranger, albeit a very good-looking one. The glow from the yard lights illuminated his dark eyes and his square jaw that was highlighted with dark auburn stubble.
“You must have been driving for hours,” he said.
Nearly too exhausted to speak, she nodded again.
“You should get some sleep,” he said. “Let me help you into the house, and then I’ll come back and grab whatever you need from your vehicle.”
The quad cab truck was full of her stuff, as was the trailer that she’d pulled behind it. She’d packed everything she owned to come home, because that was what the Four Corners had always felt like to her even though she’d spent more time at her mother and stepfather’s estate in the city. Her father had always made certain that she’d felt that way, too, that the ranch was hers and would always be hers.
But was this really her home anymore or had the Lemmon brothers completely taken it over?
“Do I…is anyone using my room?” she asked.
