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NATE FOUND THE WOMAN he wanted in the back of the ER, treating a fair-haired child, long past the time she should have clocked out and headed home. He took one look at the patient chart and winced.
It was a child they had seen far too many times before. Nate would be consulting with the physician on duty about her impressions. He suspected abuse but wanted a corroborating physician’s report.
Then he’d be calling the next stage in the process. He stood in the exam bay and watched Perci comfort the little girl as best she could.
The mother wasn’t anywhere to be seen. And the father most likely hadn’t even made an appearance.
Nate suspected the father was the one responsible for the girl’s bruises in the first place. Perci looked up when he entered. The little girl, Ivy, stared at him out of fearful green eyes. Her little hand rose and she stuck her thumb in her mouth as her other hand tightened on Perci’s scrub top. Perci wore scrubs with Cookie Monster printed all over the cotton. The blue of the puppet matched her eyes perfectly.
And the character no doubt helped soothe the children who came through the ER.
Perci somehow always got the child patients.
Perci was singing. Rocking. Holding the little one like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He could see her rocking her own child in just that way some day. Rocking her child as that child’s father stared at them, thinking just how damned lucky he was.
That thought had him jolting.
Some other man would give her that child one day. Build a family, build a life with her. Change everything.
Nate scowled. The idea of some other man touching her pissed him off.
Nate wanted it to be his hands on her.
Hell, he wanted it to be his child she held just like that. And no other man’s.
He was such a damned caveman where Persephone Tyler was concerned. She’d figure that out one day.
“Dr. Masterson, how can Ivy-bear and I help you this evening?” There was strain on her face. Her eyes kept flickering between him and the child. And the door. As if she expected the parents to walk in at any moment.
He somehow doubted that would happen. The mother wasn’t exactly a prize. The father didn’t even come close to being Father of the Year.
“Documentation.” He kept his words low, not wanting to frighten the child. She was already seriously frightened of men in general. “I’m calling Joel’s office and child protective services in five minutes. I need to speak with Dr. Hayes. And I need someone to take photographs.”
She nodded. “I’ll grab the camera.”
“No, I’ll get it. You just keep holding her.” Keep doing what she was doing. It was working. The little girl was calming.
It was a long process, to document every mark and bruise on the little girl’s body. They called in both the attending physician and the charge nurse to sign and witness. When it was finished, he excused himself to make the calls.
His brother Joel was far more helpful than the child protective services.
They gave a host of excuses. It was too late, the roads were too flooded, and unless an approved bed became available, Ivy was going to an institution first thing in the morning. An institution with troubled kids more than four times the not-quite-three-year-old’s age.
It took some arguing on his part, some threats from Joel, and a whole lot of traded IOUs before a solution more in Ivy’s favor was suggested and agreed on.
Nate and his brothers had been approved as emergency foster parents for teenage boys two years ago when one of their after-school hands had run into some family trouble. Edward had stayed with them for a full year before he’d graduated and left for college. The brothers’ licensing was still current. With a few modifications and negotiations, it was agreed that Ivy would be coming home with Nate.
To Levi and Pan’s official custody.
Nate winced. He should probably have at least mentioned it to the two first.
But his younger brother and sister-in-law would just have to make do.
He wasn’t about to let that little girl—the little girl he had delivered—disappear into a world that would destroy her.
When he made it back to the exam room, it was to find Perci holding the little girl tightly, while the mother paced around the room, demanding answers about when she could take her daughter home. Never once did the mother move to touch her frightened daughter. Her entire focus was on Perci—her current enemy.
The words that woman was spewing at Perci were the kind no child should ever have to hear.
Perci was silent, for once. But when she looked up and her Tyler blue eyes met his, he saw the relief. “Mrs. North, Ivy will be going to an approved foster home when she’s discharged.”
He braced himself for the barrage that the child’s mother threw at him.
It didn’t end until Joel arrived and took the woman away in handcuffs. On assault charges. And charges of child abuse—her husband had left her two months earlier and died in a car accident in Montana a week after that. He’d plowed his truck into a semi-trailer after a night of excessive partying. At the time, his blood alcohol limit had been more than twice the legal amount.
It had been the mother who had hurt little Ivy this time.
No more. Nate was prepared to call in every favor he could to see that this little one stayed safe from now on.
***
PERCI WAITED UNTIL her brother-in-law led Mrs. North away from the exam room in cuffs before finally letting go of Ivy. The little girl had become nearly hysterical the instant her mother had raised her voice. Perci probably had child-sized claw marks in her shoulders. Ivy hadn’t wanted to let Perci go.
And the mother had come at them both. With claws extended.
All Perci had been able to do was wrap her arms around the little girl and twist away from the much larger woman. She’d protected as much as she had been able to.
Nate had been there. Nate and Joel. They’d jumped in front of her and Ivy without hesitation. Protecting her. And the child who had had no one else.
She looked up at Nate, gaze landing on the red scratch on his cheek. She tucked a blanket around the little girl, then grabbed a package of gauze off the counter. And antiseptic. Human nails held a variety of bacteria. He couldn’t afford for it to get infected.
The red mark on Nate’s cheek ticked her off more than she ever would have thought possible.
She pressed the gauze against his cheek gently. “What happens now?”
His face tightened even more. “Get her things together.”
Perci looked at the child. She was so alone. Perci had always had her family to count on. Little Ivy didn’t even have that. “Where is she going, though?”
“With me.”
“What?”
“Levi and I are licensed by the state. For teenagers. It was the best anyone could do with the floods—and the shortage of foster parents in this part of the state. The other option was a group home.”
Perci shook her head immediately. The very idea horrified her. “No. She can’t...she’ll be alone.”
“So she’s coming home with me. Well, to your sister, anyway. Pan will be the primary caregiver during the days.”
“Pan’s not there. Neither is Levi. Pan called. Rowland needed her in Hollywood to reshoot a half-dozen scenes. She and Levi flew out four hours ago. I spoke with her on my break.”
“Then I guess Ivy’s coming home with me.” He winced, whether from the antiseptic on his cheek or the idea of what was happening to Ivy. “I’m not sure how she’ll handle that.”
The little girl was so frightened of men in general—it would be literal hell for Ivy to wake up with only a strange man around. Especially one who had just argued with her mother. Afraid, hurting, alone. The little girl would just not understand.
But Ivy knew Perci. She’d been the nurse on duty the last three times the little girl had been brought in. And she had stayed with the little girl all three times. Perci wasn’t her mother or her family, but it would be better for Ivy. “I’ll come with you. She’ll...need me.”
That little girl needed her, and Perci wasn’t going to abandon her now. Not with Ivy already being so alone.