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RHEA DIDN’T MEAN TO be intimidating with her new daughters-in-law. She didn’t think a one of them were pushovers. They couldn’t be and have captured her boys’ attention. This youngest one was a shrewd little bright-eyed cookie. Sharp as a tack, she’d heard. Very, very pretty, too.
All of her daughters-in-law—and her future daughter-in-law, once Nate got on the ball—were beyond beautiful girls. Beautiful, smart, loyal, and just wonderful. Rhea couldn’t have found a better crop of girls for her sons if she’d tried.
Which technically she had, at least with Nate. Which had no doubt precipitated it all.
Pandora stood at the window, watching her sister.
“They are really doing a fine job, taking care of that baby the way they have,” Rhea said. She knew what the plan was for Ivy. This girl, instead of the other. Rhea was fine with that, but any fool could see that Perci was the best mother for Ivy. Her sisters would just be second-best. Rhea stepped up next to her youngest daughter-in-law and put a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder. “They don’t even realize how they look.”
“Oh?” There was a wariness in the girl’s blue eyes. One Rhea didn’t understand until she recalled what Joel had told her had happened to these girls.
Damn that old rat Clive Gunderson for daring to torture those children the way he had. If she had any influence in this town at all, she’d make it clear that he wasn’t to go near her girls again. It would take some doing and some thinking and calling in a few favors, but Rhea would manage that while her boys did what they had to in order for their wives to feel safe in Masterson County again.
“How beautiful. They both really love that little girl. I’m glad they were there to help her.”
Pan nodded. “Perci will help anyone who needs it. No matter what. It’s why she became a nurse.”
Rhea nodded. She’d suspected as much. There was a gentleness underneath the fire. She’d noticed that right off.
Had Nate?
“Can I ask you a question?” Pan asked. “How long has she and Nate been like that?”
Rhea looked through the glass. All she could see was the side of her son on the swing. The front porch was a wraparound, and the swing was at a corner angle. But she knew what Pan meant. They looked like they’d been wrapped up in each other’s arms forever.
She knew something had happened between them last night. A mother wasn’t stupid, no matter that they claimed they’d been up all night cleaning broken glass out of Nate’s floor. “They’ve been circling each other for a few days, but they came home this morning like that. Eyes only for each other. And Ivy.”
Pan’s expression tightened. “Perci loves that little girl.”
“Very much so.”
“What’s going to happen to Ivy?”
“For now, Nate’s officially the foster parent on record. But the social workers could move her at any time if they find a different home for her. I’ve made a few calls. She should be secure here, but...at her age, they’ll want to get her into a permanent home as quickly as possible.” She suspected what was going to happen, of course, but how did this girl feel about almost instant mommyhood? “Levi’s also a registered foster parent. But to keep her here, you’d have to do the training as well.”
Her eyes widened, then she looked at her sister. There was a world of emotions in those blue eyes. Determination, love, hope. Resolution. Her shoulders stiffened. “If that’s what it takes, then of course.”
Rhea already had a pretty high opinion of her daughters-in-law, but felt it get higher for this one in that moment. Tylers took family very seriously. She smiled. “You are very much like your mother, aren’t you?”
“You knew her?”
“Sweetie, I delivered you and your sisters. Not your brothers, but each one of you girls. Perci and Pip were the most difficult. I also babysat your mother and aunt when they were girls. I loved them both quite a bit.”
“I didn’t know that. My aunt...she left with her husband almost fifteen years ago, when she was my age. We haven’t seen or heard from her since. We don’t even know if she knows about my mother.”
The pain was there, in the blue eyes, of a child missing a parent. It was a pain Rhea knew. It was a pain her sons all knew. And her daughters-in-law.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure Robin had her reasons.” She’d grown into a wild girl who looked very much like the one curled up with Nate on the swing, but Robin had had a good heart. “Maybe she’ll come back some day. Come, you and I will have a talk.”
“About?”
“What we can do for those three out there on the porch. I think you and I may have similar ideas about just what needs to happen for Ivy.”
Pan’s smile was practically blinding. “You really are just like your son, aren’t you?”
Rhea shot her a mild smile of her own. “Which one are you referring to? Nate is very much like his father, stubborn old goat.”
She had her suspicions. Her Levi was just as much a planner and schemer as his mother.
Pan just laughed. “You know exactly who I mean.”
“I most certainly do.” Levi’s pretty little wife knew exactly what her youngest son was like.
Yes, she couldn’t have picked a better love for Levi, even if she’d had the chance. Fate, or God above, however someone wanted to think about it, had done right by her youngest boy.
Now it was time for Rhea to see that it did right by her third son, too.