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Nicole pressed her lips together and looked away. “It works because Tricia wrote up a will stating that our parents get custody and now she’s…now she’s dead.”
Kip took a step back, the news hitting him like a blow.
“What? When?” His poor nephews. How was he going to tell them?
Nicole didn’t answer right away, and Kip saw the silvery track of a tear on her cheek. She swiped it away with the cuff of her tailored jacket.
“Tricia died about three years ago. We found out a only few weeks ago.” Her voice sounded strangled, and for a moment Kip sympathized with her. The first few weeks after his brother Scott died, he could barely function. He went through the motions of work, hoping, praying, he could find his balance again. Hoping, praying the pain in his heart would someday ease. Hoping the guilt that tormented him over his brother’s death would someday be gone as well.
His brother had died only six months ago, and they had only recently found out about Tricia. Her pain must be so raw yet…
He pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand. “Why did it take so long for you to find out about Tricia’s death?” he asked, steeling his own emotions to her sorrow.
“She hadn’t told anyone about her family. Apparently she had just come out of a drug-rehab program. Then she was going to find her boys.”
“Drug rehab?” Kip’s anger returned. “No wonder Scott came back with the boys.”
Nicole shot him an angry glance. “According to Tricia’s diary and letters, he took them away without her knowledge or permission. Tricia had moved out of the apartment she shared with Scott and had taken the boys with her. She had brought the boys to a friend’s place so she could go into rehab. She was in for two weeks, and when she came back to see the boys, Scott had taken them and was gone.”
Kip laughed. “Really.”
Nicole shot him a frown. “Yes. Really.”
“And you believe a drug user?”
Nicole’s frown deepened. “I truly believe that after the boys were born, Tricia had changed. I also believe my sister would not willingly abandon her children.”
“But she did.”
“Scott took them away from a home she had placed them in so she could get her life together.” Nicole drew in a quick breath. “Something he had no right to do.”
“How do you figure that?” Kip’s anger grew. “He was their father.”
“According to what Tricia wrote, the boys were born before she moved in with Scott. He wasn’t their father.”
Disbelief and anger battled with each other. “That I refuse to believe,” he barked. “My brother loved those boys. They are his. You can’t prove otherwise. Your sister is a liar.”
Nicole’s eyes narrowed, and Kip knew he had stepped over a line. He didn’t care. This woman waltzes into their lives with this complicated lie and he’s supposed to be polite and swallow it all? And then let her take the boys away?
Over his dead body.
“So how do you want to proceed on this?” Nicole asked, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction.
Kip mentally heaved a sigh. For a small moment he’d thought this woman was the solution to part of his problems.
Not only was he was back to where he started, even if she was lying, he now had a whole new legal tangle to deal with.
Dear Lord, I don’t need anything else right now. I don’t have the strength.
He held her steady gaze, determined not to be swayed by the sparkling in her eyes that he suspected were tears. “The boys were left with me as per my brother’s verbal request,” he said. “I’m their guardian, and until I am notified otherwise, they’re not going anywhere and you’re not to come back here.”
He turned and walked away from the corral. The corral that brought back too many painful memories.
Well, add one more to the list. Somehow he had to tell his nephews that their mother, who had always been a shadowy figure in their lives, was officially dead. If he could believe what this Nicole woman had told him then he had to tell his mother that the woman they had thought was their salvation was anything but.
He shot a quick glance behind him.
Nicole stood by the corral fences, her head bent and her arms crossed over her midsection. Dusty fragments of sunlight gilded her hair and in the silence he heard a muffled sob.
Sympathy for her knotted his chest. Regardless of what he felt, she’d found out about her sister’s death only a few weeks ago. Not long enough for the pain to lose that jagged edge. Not near long enough to finish shedding the tears that needed to spill.
For a moment he thought he should go over to her side and offer her what comfort he could. Then he stopped himself.
She wants to take the boys away, he reminded himself. She claimed they weren’t his nephews. And that reminder effectively doused his sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Nicole, but I’d like you to leave,” he said, hoping his voice projected a tiny bit of sympathy.
She drew in a shuddering breath and looked up, a streak of mascara marring her ethereal features.
“I have pictures,” she said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can prove who I am.” Nicole wiped at her cheeks with the tips of her fingers, a delicate motion belying the strength of conviction in her voice. “I also have a signed letter from my sister along with a copy of her last will and testament.” Nicole took a few steps toward him, wrapping her arms around her waist. “So I’m not without ammunition myself.”
“I’d like to see all that.”
“Fine.” She walked past him, the scent of lilacs trailing behind her.
Kip followed her as regret lingered a moment.
She was a beautiful woman. When he still thought of her as his future housekeeper, he had thought having her around every day might have been a distraction. He was lonely, she was beautiful. Maybe not the best mix.
But now?
Right now she was a complication he didn’t know how to work his way around.
She yanked a key ring out of her coat pocket, pointed it at the car and unlocked the door. Ducking inside, she pulled out a briefcase, which she set on the trunk of the car.
Kip came closer as she drew an envelope out of the case, opened it and took out a picture.
“This is my sister, the boys and your brother. I think the boys are about six months old there.”
Kip took the laminated photo, and as he glanced at it he felt as if spiders scuttled across his gut.
The picture was identical to one he’d had blown up, then framed and hung in the boy’s room. The only picture the boys had of their mother.
As he handed the picture back, sorrow mixed with his anger. Two of the people in the picture were dead. The boys were officially orphans.
Nicole tucked her hair behind her ears, tugged on her jacket and looked him in the eye. “I’m leaving your ranch like you asked me, but I’m not going far. I have a room in a motel in Millarville and I intend on coming here every day to see my nephews.”
“I’m not discussing anything to do with the boys without my lawyer present. So until then, as I said before, I’d like you to stay away.”
She looked like she was about to protest, then gave a delicate shrug. “Fine. When do you want to see your lawyer?”
Never. He had cows to move to other pastures. A tractor to fix, a stock waterer to repair and a sister who would be peeved when she discovered they didn’t have a housekeeper after all.
“Tomorrow,” he said, mentally cringing. He’d just have to work later in the evening to make up for lost time. Hopefully he could get in with Ron, his lawyer. If not, well, she’d have to wait.
“What’s his name and number?” She pulled out a phone, then punched in the information he gave her. “And what time?” she asked, looking up.
“I’ll give you a call.” He wondered what Ron would have to say about the situation.
Nicole put the phone away, then reached into a side pocket of the briefcase she had taken the papers from.
She pulled out a business card and handed it to him.
He glanced down at the name embossed on the card.
Nicole Williams. Director, Williams Foundation. The information was followed by several numbers—home, office, fax, cell—and an email address and a website.
Very official and a bit intimidating.
“Director of the Williams Foundation?” he asked, flicking the card between his fingers.
“My adoptive parents started it.”
“Adoptive?”
“Brent and Norah Williams adopted me when I was eight,” Nicole said, her voice matter of fact. “My father started the nonprofit in memory of my adoptive mother.”
“Admirable.” He tucked the card in the back pocket of his worn jeans, hoping this wasn’t the pair with the hole in the pocket. “I’ll let you know what’s up.”
“Can I come tomorrow to see the boys?”
“Let’s wait to see what my lawyer says.”
Nicole squeezed the top of her briefcase, averting her eyes. “They’re my nephews too,” she said quietly. “My sister’s boys.”
“Boys she abandoned, that no one bothered to find.”
Nicole’s eyes grew hard. “They were taken away from her. The lack of communication is hardly my fault considering we found out about these boys only a few weeks ago.”
Kip was about to say something more when a truck turning onto the yard caught his attention. Isabelle.
His younger sister pulled up beside Nicole’s car, putting it between her and her brother. A strategic move he thought, fighting his anger and frustration with her.
“Hey, Nicole. How’d things go today?” Isabelle called out as she jumped out of the truck. “Had to get groceries,” she said to Kip holding up a solitary plastic bag as if to underline her defense.
“Dressed like that?” Kip asked, eyeing her bright red lipstick, snug T-shirt that sparkled in the sunlight and her too-tight blue jeans.
Isabelle’s face grew mutinous. “I didn’t think I had to stick around here. Especially since Nicole showed up.” She pulled another bag out of the truck and flounced up the walk to the house, her dark hair bouncing with every step.
Kip bit back whatever he wanted to say to his little sister, fully aware of his audience.
Too many things going on, he thought, fighting his frustration with his sister and this new, huge complication.
“I’m going now,” Nicole said, her voice quiet, well modulated. She gave him a tight smile, then pulled her briefcase off the trunk of the car. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Without a second glance, she got in, started the engine and roared away from him in a cloud of dust.
Kip pushed back his hat as he watched her leave, frustration clawing at him.
Please Lord, don’t let my family be broken up, he prayed. Don’t let her take my boys away from me.
And please don’t let me lose it with my sister.
He stepped into the house just as his mother wheeled herself into the kitchen. Her long, graying hair was brushed and neatly swept up into a ponytail, her brown eyes sparkled, and the smile on her face was a welcome respite from the resignation that had been his mother’s default expression since her surgery.
“Where did Nicole go?” his mother asked, sounding happier than she had in a while. “She seems like a lovely girl. I’m looking forward to having her around to help out.”
Kip glanced at the clean countertop and shining sink. When he first saw how clean the house was he couldn’t believe that businesslike woman had done all this. Now he knew she was simply trying to weasel her way into his mother’s good graces.
“Where’s Isabelle?”
“In her room.”
“When did she leave the ranch?”
Mary Cosgrove tapped her finger against her lips. “About one.”
Three hours to pick up one bag of groceries. He was so going to talk to his little sister. Leaving his mother alone with a stranger, even if she had come here because of an advertisement, was irresponsible.
Not only a stranger, a woman who had come to completely disrupt their lives.
“I’m so glad you decided to take on a housekeeper,” his mother continued, sounding hopeful. “She seems so capable and organized.”
Kip hated to burst her bubble. “I still think Isabelle should learn to pull her share of the housework.”
His mother sighed. “I know, and I agree, but it’s so much work to get her motivated and Nicole seems so capable.” Mary looked past Kip. “Where is Nicole now?”
“She left.” Kip blew out his breath and dropped into a chair across from her mother. “Truth is, she didn’t come for the housekeeping job. She came…” he hesitated, glancing up at his mother, who seemed more relaxed than she had in months. Scott’s death had been devastating for her. This new piece of information wouldn’t help. “Nicole, apparently, is Tricia’s sister.”
His mother frowned. “Tricia? Scott’s girlfriend?”
“Yep. The mother of the boys.”
Mary’s fingers fluttered over her heart, her eyes wide in a suddenly pale face. “What did she want?”
