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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.