“My mom is having a situation at the foster home she runs,” Elise said. “I need to help her—”
“And I don’t want her to go alone,” Liam interjected. “It’s a tricky situation. So we don’t want to bring Lucy either.”
“We can watch Lucy,” Brett offered. “Just let me get these animals put away.”
“There’s no time,” Elise said. “Someone’s on their way to help, but nobody’s here right now. And I really need to get to my mom.”
“Go,” Trish said. “I’ll take care of Lucy for you while Brett takes care of the animals.”
Elise released a breath. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, of course.” She had to learn, and Brett wouldn’t be far away. Besides, someone else was on their way. This was the perfect opportunity for her to get some hands-on experience with a baby.
When Elise and Liam had met them in the driveway, they’d had the baby monitor with them and no sound had emanated from it. “She’s down for her nap right now,” Elise said.
So Trish shouldn’t have had any problem. Except the minute Lucy’s parents drove off and Trish stepped inside the house, the baby started crying. Brett was already driving off, too, toward the petting zoo pastures on the other side of the big barn near the bunkhouse.
She didn’t want to have to call him for help. Not so quickly. She wanted to figure out herself what was bothering the baby.
But a diaper change didn’t calm her down. Or the bottle that Trish fixed per the directions left next to the can of formula in the kitchen. Lucy wouldn’t let her put the nipple of the bottle in her mouth, unlike the calf who greedily sucked her bottle down whenever Trish got the chance to feed her.
Lucy wanted nothing to do with her bottle. Or with Trish. She writhed in her arms as she cried. Obviously, she didn’t know her and was not comforted by a stranger holding her.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” she said. “I don’t know what to do…” She’d had no business taking on this responsibility when she had no idea. How was she going to raise her babies on her own?
“I want to help you, sweetheart,” she cooed. And then she began to sing to her, something soft and soothing, trying to calm her down.
The baby blinked, and the tears cleared from her eyes.
Brett had commented before that Trish sounded like Frankie, so maybe that was what was making the baby feel better, that Trish wasn’t a total stranger. She was a little familiar to her.
She kept singing and finally Lucy closed her lips around the bottle and began to suckle.
Trish breathed a sigh of relief.
And Lucy tensed up again and scrunched up her little face. So Trish started singing.
She didn’t dare stop.
* * *
Sometimes Lem’s newhearing aids were as much of a curse as a blessing. They picked up too many background noises and were hard to adjust to the TV volume, and both situations resulted in giving him a headache.
But he could also appreciate things like the sound of his wife’s voice. And the beauty of a bird’s song or the soft chirp of crickets. Then he was glad that he had upgraded his hearing aids.
He was especially glad when he and Sadie stepped out of his old Cadillac and walked up to the house at the Four Corners Ranch. He would have hated to have missed the singing that he heard so clearly, every note hitting perfectly.
“Wow…” Sadie murmured. “Frankie sure is talented.”
“Yes, she is,” Lem agreed. He hated to think of her leaving Willow Creek once the estate was settled, but it was clear that she was destined for greater things. He just wished that she’d been destined for Brett.
He hated that his oldest grandson was still single. And not just single but so alone, like his father, Bob. And he wondered if how devastated Bob was over the loss of his wife was why Brett chose to stay single.
Lem and Sadie had a perfect record with their matchmaking, but he suspected Brett might change that. Clearly he and Frankie wouldn’t work.
And this Trish…
He and Sadie hadn’t even met her yet. Not for lack of trying, though. She obviously didn’t want to meet them after what she’d put his family through.
