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Fifty-Seven
Nick wanted to grab the guy by his ridiculous suit and heave him out of the front door. Slam it in his face. Where the hell had this guy been when Nova and Noah had needed him most?
When they’d been living with a woman so addicted to drugs she hadn’t noticed her son’s shoes were two sizes too tight, his jeans four inches too short, and that her daughter had a damned iron deficiency from lack of proper nutrition, couldn’t see two feet in front of her through those years’ old glasses, and was bordering on failure to thrive?
Where was this uncle in the rich man’s suit when the social workers had split two innocent kids up and sent them to opposite corners of the damned state when their mother wasn’t even cold in the ground? When they’d been left alone in the system for a week before a chance phone conversation with Jude had revealed Nick was her husband’s uncle—the same Nick Tyler on Nova’s birth certificate. The social workers in Laramie hadn’t even fully been looking for Nick.
Jude had done the backtracking herself. Where had this guy been then?
He bit back his temper when Noah looked at him, clinging to Becky almost as tightly as the toddler was clinging to him.
The kids were watching. He couldn’t go off the deep end now.
Nova’s eyes were red and she was clinging to Robin. Both Nick’s little girls were upset now. His boys weren’t much calmer.
It was just a matter of time until the explosions started again.
“Ok, this circus has gone on long enough,” Robin said bluntly. Taking charge. Becoming Nick’s goddess once again. “Noah, Nick… you and Dr. Brown…to the table in the kitchen. Sit. All of you. Now. I think there’re some things you need to talk about.”
Dr. Brown looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a bit of a smirk.
The balding man, who had still not been introduced, bristled. He started to say something, probably to contradict Nick’s goddess. Nick almost laughed when Robin sent him a quelling look. “Who are you again?”
“This is Artie Stanopoulis,” Jude said, still looking green around the gills, practically collapsed in Robin’s chair. “He’s the social worker first assigned to the kids’ case. He is the one who…placed…Noah where he did.”
Nick fought glaring at the man. “I see.”
“We are just here to see to it that the best decision is made for the boy,” the man said in a nasal tone. He eyed Robin for a moment. “Who are you again? What part of this case are you involved in?”
“She’s going to be my new mommy!” Nova yelled. She kicked out at the man with one tiny pink tennis shoe. “You can’t take her away to the heaven place, either! You’re a bad man,and my daddy will make you go away forever!”
“Nova, no kicking unless you are playing soccer or kickball. No kicking when we are mad, that’s the rule,” Robin said firmly. But she lifted Nova onto her hip. And away from temptation. “We are going to talk. No one is going to heaven today, I promise. We’ll fix this, ok?”
Nova’s arms went around her neck and she clung. “Don’t let the mean man take my brother again. He took him from me last time!”
To Nick’s surprise, Selena’s brother stepped forward. Put a hand on Nova’s little back. “No one is going to take your brother anywhere. Not if he doesn’t want to go. I’m just here because I care about Noah and want to make sure he is ok. You, too. I promise. It’s what a good uncle is supposed to do.”
“You’re not our uncle. Uncle Phil is! Go away right now!”
