“You got up and took care of Trish last night,” he reminded her. “I owed you.”
“She’s my cousin,” Frankie said and uttered a heavy sigh.
“That doesn’t make you responsible for her,” Brett said.
She snorted. “Like you don’t take responsibility for every member of your family?” she asked.
Heat climbed into his face over sounding like a martyr. That really wasn’t what he was; he just wanted to make sure that they were happy and felt secure at the ranch. “I don’t know what you mean. Liam and Blake and Livvy all take care of themselves.” His sister, a doctor in the emergency department at Willow Creek Memorial Hospital, had never seemed to need him that much. But maybe if he’d been there for her more, Livvy wouldn’t have gotten engaged to that narcissist.
Frankie snorted again. “And you don’t worry about them? You don’t wish you could help them, protect them?”
She knew him too well, so he groaned and admitted, “Okay…”
“I wasn’t there for Trish,” Frankie said.
“She didn’t let you be there for her,” Brett reminded her again.
“But still…” She sighed. “I don’t know. The whole situation is just so frustrating. We spent all these months thinking she was just being vindictive or greedy…”
“And all along she may have just been protecting the ranch, and us,” Brett finished for her. Another emotion moved through him, and he wasn’t sure that it was just respect for Trish.
“May have been?” Frankie asked. “You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Brett said. “I don’t know her. What about you? Do you believe her?”
Frankie sighed yet again, and this was a very ragged sigh. “Her mother really is awful,” Frankie said. “But I think part of the reason she and Uncle Frank got divorced was because of me. Even before my parents died, they left me here a lot when they were on the road with their band. Aunt Belinda made it clear that she didn’t want to raise anyone else’s kid. She didn’t seem to like her own very much. She constantly criticized poor Trish.”
Sympathy shot through Brett. “That must have been tough for her.”
Frankie nodded. “I wish Uncle Frank had had full custody of her, but despite fighting for it, he couldn’t convince the judge that a young girl would be happier with her father than her mother. So he lost, meaning Trish spent so much time with that woman.”
“You once accused her of being like her,” Brett remembered.
Frankie grunted. “I know. That was a low blow.”
“But you wondered if she was,” he said. “Did you have some other reason to think that? Like all the time she spent with her?”
Frankie shrugged. “I don’t know. Trish and I haven’t seen each other for years, and we’ve haven’t even spoken on the phone that often in all that time either. I really don’t know her anymore.”
“So you don’t know what she’ll decide? If she really will honor her father’s wishes?”
Frankie shrugged. “No idea. I would hope that she would, but that lawyer seems to have as much influence over her as her mother used to.”
“And for some reason he really doesn’t seem to like us Lemmons.” Brett couldn’t help but wonder why. Why did he mistrust them so much?
“He’s an idiot,” Frankie said.
Brett laughed. “You’re not a fan of Stokes? I couldn’t tell.”
Frankie laughed, too. Then her smile slid back into a frown. “I just hope she doesn’t let him manipulate her.”
“Man, I really do need to stop eavesdropping,” a female voice remarked.
Now Brett was the one who was startled. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Trish had walked into the barn.
“My mother was right,” she said. “You don’t hear anything good about yourself when you do.”
“I was trashing Stokes, not you,” Frankie assured her. She climbed to her feet, then rubbed her lower back. The calf headbutted the side of her leg. “I have to go get a bottle made for this one. Now she’s hungry. I’ll be right back.” She brushed past Brett and then Trish and hurried out of the barn.
