But it still didn’t quite feel right to Jude. She looked at the tall man beside her. “Dr. Masterson, as her legal foster parent, you get the first option. If you’d like to pursue adoption, you have a strong shot of winning, from what I’ve seen so far.”
He hesitated.
His attention shifted to the woman and child in the next room. He watched them for the longest time. When he looked back at Jude, there were conflicting emotions on his handsome face. “Ivy needs, deserves a mother. A father who can be there more than I can be. Levi and Pan, hell, any of my brothers and their wives, would be a better choice for her.”
“I’m not so sure of that. She loves you. And she’s bonded with you. You and Perci.”
“I know. But I’m not so sure we’re—I’m—in a position to be a good fit for her right now.”
“I think you’re in a great position. I’ll tell you what. I’ll hold off on filing my recommendation papers for a few weeks. I’m about to go on vacation. It can wait. In the meantime, will you consider it?”
Jude didn’t know why she was pushing for this so hard. It wasn’t like the girl would even have to move out of the house she was living in. She’d just call a different Masterson daddy.
Nate and Perci and that little girl were becoming a family, almost right in front of her eyes. A miracle.
Jude didn’t get to see many of those any more. It was one heck of an incentive to keep pushing.
Perci and Nate were what was best for Ivy.
And that was all Jude was truly after, after all.
What was best for Ivy.
40.
THE DISCUSSION WASN’T going the way Nate had wanted.
His brother was looking at him like he was crazy. Nate had always hated when Levi looked at him just like that. And no doubt his brother knew it.
“Let me get this straight. You want us to take Ivy?” Levi asked, slowly. “Permanently. Not just like for a week or so? Like you said originally—which was the perfect excuse for me to get Pan away from that idiot Bowles and Hunter L. Clark, himself.”
“That’s what I said,” Nate said, ignoring the references to the director and his top actor. “I don’t want to see her go into foster care permanently. The list of adoptive families in this area is slim. She needs a stable, loving home. One with people I can trust. That Perci can trust. The two are...bonded. I don’t want to break that. I think it should be you and Pan who take her.”
“I don’t know if you’ve missed it, since you’re the dumbest of us all—but you live here, too. How is that going to be a better change for her if we’re the legal guardians of the kid or not? To be honest, we just got married. I was kind of hoping to kick you out and have some naked-in-the-kitchen-with-the-housekeeper time. Not deal with snot faces. Not that Ivy isn’t a great kid, but I’d have to do some serious thinking about this. And talk to Pandora. She’d be the one responsible for the day-to-day care of Ivy. We were planning on kids. But in a few years, maybe.”
Nate nodded. He had expected as much. His brother might be a bit of a clown at times—Levi had constant good humor, it seemed—but his brother was an extremely responsible man.
He wouldn’t just keep a kid because she was there. Levi would make damned sure he was the best fit for that child.
Levi and Pan would make wonderful parents for Ivy.
The best he could imagine.
Other than Perci, that was.
She and Ivy just seemed to fit together.
At least if her sister adopted the little girl, Perci would still get to maintain that relationship. It wouldn’t be the most perfect relationship setup, but she’d still get to be a huge part of Ivy’s life. Nate wanted that for the both of them.
“Just think about it. The kid needs a good place to grow up. I can’t think of a better place than right here.”
“I can.” Levi’s own gaze was on the kid in the front yard, watched over by the two beautiful redheads.
“Oh?”
“It’s easy, bro. The kid belongs with you. You...and the woman she already calls mama. I think you need to go grab your girl and do what you got to do to make it a permanent thing. For her, you, and the kid. Can’t think of a better solution. Just do it, Nate. Fix this so you all three get what you want. We both know you’re capable of it.”
41.
LEVI’S WORDS RATTLED in Nate’s head long after he’d left the house he’d shared with his brother for the last few years. They had started there, in the home they’d grown up in, but Levi had expanded the original ranch to include four others, including their grandfather’s old place.
But Nate had wanted that house.
For the past year, he’d been fixing it up himself in his spare time. It relaxed him. And made it more his than any other place he had ever lived.
It was finally finished. Ready for him to move in and claim it.
For the first time, the idea of doing that didn’t sit well with him.
Not without her.
Or Ivy.
Levi’s words had struck something in him, and he knew it. Made it feel right.
Like it was meant to.
Gave him ideas he didn’t have any business having.
Nate sat next to Perci and Ivy at the dinner table. Perci kept an eye on the little girl constantly. She’d make a damned fine mother someday. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought that. She might breathe fire where he was concerned, but she had a streak of compassion three miles wide.
He wanted to see her holding his child someday. And someday real soon.
She must have felt him staring. She shot him a pointed look and smirked. “Hungry?”
Hell yes, he was. For her. For everything.
“I’m moving out.” He said it to her first. Her shock was almost immediate. Her...fear and mistrust. Nate leaned forward abruptly. He never wanted this woman to look at him like that ever again.
“I’m sorry? Where to?”
“The homestead’s finished, isn’t it?” Levi asked, sending him a far-too-knowing look. Damned calculating idiot.
“Yes. The new windows are installed. The last of the flooring is laid. I can move in at any time.” They could move in at any time.
He just had to get her there and get her to agree to say yes. Yes, to everything he had planned.
He looked at Ivy as she reached for Perci. Perci scooped her up automatically, and Nate got exactly what he’d wished for her.
The woman he loved, holding the child he was now considering his. It didn’t get more perfect than that.
“Not yet?” Perci’s eyes were wide. Soft. A little surprised. Nate’s gut tightened. “Not until Ivy’s settled?”
“I can wait. Been here this long.” He found himself nodding. He wasn’t ready to leave either one of them. “It just seems silly to leave the house empty over there when it’s ready.”
“But it’s not silly,” his mother said, pointedly. “It’s for Ivy.”
Perci’s eyes stared into his, and that’s when he knew.
He wasn’t leaving this house without her. Or the little girl right next to her. He stood abruptly.
He had some calls to make. “I need to take care of a few things. It’ll take maybe an hour in my office. After that, I’ll be out to help you get her ready for bed. It’s my turn to read to her tonight, sweetheart. Then you and I are going to...talk.”
Nate leaned down and brushed a kiss against her lips, deliberately. Perci’s eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away.
He deepened the kiss, just enough to make his point.
Staking his claim. No doubt it would go through the family grapevine like wildfire.
When he looked up, Levi’s eyes were laughing at him. But knowing. His younger brother just got it.
Nate smirked. He had some plans to make to keep Perci right where she was.
42.
PERCI TICKLED IVY’S belly, making the little girl laugh. Pan was in the chair next to the bed, telling her all about what had happened bet
ween Rowland Bowles and his assistant. Perci listened to her sister with half an ear while she finished dressing Ivy.
“So tell me, you and Nate. All the details.”
“Like you shared with you and Levi?” Perci sent her sister a mild look. She’d barely known Levi and Pan had gotten together until a jealous neighbor had nearly killed Pan. “There are some things we are not going to talk about.”
“Uh-huh. You told me about your first time.”
“No. I told Pip. You were listening through the vent in the attic. Perv.” She’d been eighteen and so sure he was the greatest thing since chocolate. That had lasted about six months until he went away on a baseball scholarship and she hit the community college’s nursing program eighty miles away. She’d already known what she was going to do, and his plans had taken him far from Masterson County. She barely remembered what he looked like now.
Or the other men she’d dated since then, even though she’d not been serious enough about any of them to go to bed with them.
All she could see in her mind was green eyes and warm brown hair and a man intent on loving her well into the night.
“Hey, how else was I going to learn? You, Pip, and Phoebe barely told me anything good back then.”
“I spent the night with him. You know that. Everyone knows that.”
“He lured you to his underworld and kept you all night. You know what that means, right?”
“That it is none of your business?” She pulled Cat in the Hat pajamas over small feet, then slipped the shirt over Ivy’s head. “Nate and I...I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll have a front-row seat when I figure it out.”
She had figured it out. She just wasn’t about to tell her younger sister that before she told the man in question.
Perci had to also face the fact that Nate could feel completely different, too. There was nothing written in stone after what they had done. To him, it could be far more casual than it was to her.
Someone knocked on the door lightly. She turned.
There Nate was, his brother at his shoulder.
“I’m looking for my wife.” Levi held out a hand to Pan and pulled her from the chair. He whispered something in her ear that had Pan’s cheeks flushing. Then he grinned at Perci. “I’m taking her for a moonlight...stroll...around the backyard.”
“It’s getting cold out.” Perci felt obligated to point out. Truth was, she wanted them both gone.
“I’ll keep her warm. Be back in a bit.”
Then they were gone.
Nate settled onto the bed next to Ivy. Perci adjusted the covers. Nate read softly and evenly, Ivy snuggled against him. Within fifteen minutes, Ivy was out. Then it was just the two of them.
43.
HE DIDN’T WASTE A MOMENT. The instant she had settled Ivy into the pillow and tucked the blankets back around the now sleeping child, Nate grabbed her by the hand.
His room was right next door. He dragged her there quickly. He closed the door and then had her up against it. His mouth covered hers. Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt.
Perci had clever little fingers. He’d learned that the night before. “Honey, I don’t want you to leave.”
She stilled against him. “What do you mean?”
He cursed himself inside his head. He should have kept his mouth shut. Until after. “I don’t want you to leave here. Correction. When I go to the new place, I want you to go with me. You and Ivy. Come with me.”
Tyler blue eyes widened. “For how long?”
Forever. “You know what I mean.”
Her fingers paused. “No, I don’t. I don’t know what any of this means. This changes everything.”
“Yes.” The way things were supposed to be. He should have been with her long before Joel and Phoebe had met. If he hadn’t fought so hard a year and a half ago everything would have happened so much faster. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe they had all had to go through what they had to find what they had now.
That thought didn’t even make sense to him.
“I...just can’t decide to move in with you. I have my family to think about. And...we’ve fought so much. What makes you think we won’t start doing that again once this newness wears off?”
“We’ll fight. But making up is going to be a hell of a lot more fun.” Nate brushed his lips against her neck, then scooped her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Nate carried her to his bed and put her right where he had wanted her for a very, very long time. “And your family will be fine. There will be a few changes. Maybe your dad has to get some help in during the evenings. But it’ll work out. You’ll be with me. Where you belong. Say yes, Persephone. Move in with me. We’ll figure everything else out later.”
44.
SHE’D KNOWN SHE LOVED him from the moment she had realized she trusted him in a way she hadn’t trusted a man before. Maybe as early as the night they’d treated Ivy. But the idea of changing everything about her life like this terrified her. She’d clung so tightly to her family over the last few years that she didn’t know if she could even think about letting go just yet. “I don’t know.”
Perci looked up at him, honestly expecting to see anger in his green eyes. There was none there. Just understanding. And hope. It was the hope that got to her.
“I want you here. However I can get you. But I’ll wait if I have to. I get why you’re afraid. I’m going to be here whenever you’re ready. No rush. We’ve waited this long. We can take our time—unlike the rest of our crazy siblings.”
Tears hit her eyes. She nodded. Perci wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer. “Thank you. My family—”
“Means everything to you. I know. I have since Joel walked in the ER carrying Phoebe in his arms. That night...I lay on your couch and dreamed of you. The idea that you were just down the hall had me...unable to sleep much at all. If you hadn’t been sharing with Pip...hell, I may have snuck in there and just carried you off. It wasn’t the first time I’d had that thought. Only...I knew what you slept in after that night. The things I imagined after that were a lot more...accurate.” Nate’s hand slipped down over the buttons on her flannel shirt. One by one, he opened the cotton until she was laying there in front of him with nothing but her bra showing. “I have dreamed of having you in here a thousand times.”
“We’ve only known each other a little over a year. You must have a very active sleep cycle.”
“You’re in and out of my dreams every hour all night long, it seems.” The shirt was gone, then the bra followed. Perci just let him. For a little while. Then it would be her turn to get him how she wanted him.
It didn’t matter that his brother and her sister would be in the room down the hall soon. None of it mattered.
Just being with him. Holding each other.
He wasn’t pushing her or pressuring her or trying to take charge. He was just there. Waiting.
The decision was hers.
But that was for tomorrow. Tonight was for them. Perci leaned closer and kissed him.
45.
NATE WAS CALLED IN to the hospital early the next day. They’d had the day off and were planning to spend it with Ivy, taking her shopping for some more child appropriate furniture. Pan had intended to go with her, but her sister had called off at the last minute, claiming one of her infrequent migraines.
Perci suspected Pan had never had migraines; her sister was smart enough to use the excuse when she was up to something.
Conniving little brat. Pan had always been one.
Perci took the credit card Nate had given her and drove into Masterson. There was a lovely little shop on Main Street that she’d never been able to shop at before. But Nate had told her to get the best for Ivy.
For his house.
She hadn’t missed the whimsical pink bedroom right across the hall from the master suite. It was the kind every little girl dreamed about.
“Mama Perci, me hungry. Again.”
She looked in the rearview mirror at the child
. Ivy had a hopeful look on her beautiful little face.
“Food first? We’ll go to the diner. Get a hamburger and French fries.”
“Yum. Ivy likes hamburgers.”
46.
RHEA HAD JUST PLACED her order—she really should not love those onion rings as much as she did—when the front doors opened and her sweet little almost grandbaby came in. It took Rhea a moment to figure out which twin it was, but chances were good the woman with Ivy was Perci.
She looked back at the diner’s second generation owner. “Theirs is on me, too.”
“Of course. That’s a pretty little thing there.”
She’d known the woman behind the counter since they were girls together. Florence should have long retired by now, but she was a stubborn one. Her business was her life—her business and the daughter and granddaughter who now helped her run it.
Rhea understood. The hospital had been her purpose, too.
That, and raising those boys of hers with Daniel.
“That’s my new grandbaby, Flo.” Rhea had already snapped half a dozen pictures of Ivy to share with her closest friends when she saw them.
“Heard that may be your new daughter-in-law soon, too.”
“Oh, I’m planning to make sure that happens. She’s a real sweetheart. Just like her sisters.” Perci might be a bit sassier than her sisters, but Rhea thought that was just the child’s way of hiding more insecurities than Perci wanted to admit to.
“They always were good girls. Shame what happened to their mama. And everything that’s happened since. They deserve a bit of a good break now. Saw the way that last boy of yours was eying her the other day. He’s a handful, I bet.”
“Perci can handle him. I have no doubt about that.”
She waited until Perci was closer. “Hi, honey. Ivy, come give Nana a hug and a kiss.”
“Nana, hug.” Ivy reached those little arms out to her, and Rhea took her. She smelled like clean baby and apple juice. A rush of love went through her. She’d spoken with Levi just that morning. He and Pan were ready and willing to do what they had to for this little one, too.
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