His eyes narrowed ever so slightly and a lascivious grin touched the corners of his lips. It was the grin that was solely reserved for me.

“So that’s where it all started. You were partnered on a class project together and the rest is history.”

“Not quite,” Robert added, striding over to me, wrapping an arm around my waist, facing our progeny.

“There’s a lot more to our story than that.”

“But you’ll have to wait to hear the rest. The computers are being delivered and I need you all to help us set it up,” Robert told the boys.

I aided Michelle, Patience, and Kayla throwing out the now empty pizza boxes, while Destiny fed Annalise who’d gotten a little fussy.

“Hang on. I wanted to catch Aaron before they all left,” I told my daughters-in-law. I moved out of the conference room and down the hall to the classroom area where the guys were helping the technicians setup the computers. Truthfully, they all were mostly standing, watching over to ensure the technicians did their job. All of my boys, including my husband, were overly protective. Security had been the first thing that had been set up in what would become our non-profit women’s shelter. This place was wired directly to the police station as well as Townsend’s security offices.

“Hey,” I stated, tapping Aaron on his arm as I moved beside him. My second eldest peered down on me, the ever-present scowl on his face but his eyes were soft. While outsiders may not be able to see it, he’d softened over the past two years. His wife and now four children had filled the hole in his heart I was certain even he didn’t recognize had been there for years.

“Is something wrong? Patience—”

“Your wife is fine,” I responded, cutting him off. He’d begun looking as if he was about to bolt out the door to find his wife to make sure she was okay.

My words had put him at ease.

“I wanted to check on you to make sure you were okay. After hearing us talk about Jason.” I lifted an eyebrow, watching him curiously for a reaction. Jason, Robert’s younger brother, was a lousy son of a bitch who’d done a lot of harm in his life. He was also Aaron’s biological father.

But while Jason may’ve been Aaron’s father through DNA, he was my son, mine and Robert’s.

My heart lightened when an actual smile, or something akin to it—Aaron didn’t particularly smile—appeared on his face and he leaned down, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

“I’m fine, Mother. He’s dead and I’m not. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

I blinked, taking his hand in both of mine and squeezing it. I’d said those same words to Aaron not long before he’d gotten out of the hospital following the car accident that killed his parents, and we brought him home to raise as our own.

“Out of my four boys, you are always the one to make me tear up the most,” I told him, patting my eyes with the silk handkerchief I’d pulled from the back pocket of the jeans I wore. “I need to get back to the girls.”