His First Choice (11 page)

“I don't believe you.” He'd stopped at a light and was looking directly at her. Kind of like Kacey did when her sister was telling her something without words.

She'd given him the perfect opening to ask about what he really wanted to know—her sister's love life.

“It's...true.” She stared back at him.

The light turned green. He pushed the accelerator.

And her heart sped up.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

B
Y
F
RIDAY
J
EM
had a building permit in hand and was looking forward to the project at Lacey's like he used to look forward to working on his boat. He'd be doing the work mostly by himself. He hadn't put labor in the bid.

Which meant he was going to have to work after hours.

It also meant that Lacey would be home while he was there. He'd like things just to have worked out that way, but couldn't kid himself. He'd planned the entire venture, down to starting while Lacey's sister was still in town. Kacey seemed hell-bent on spending time with Levi.

That left Lacey to Jem. It was only going to take him a couple of weeks to get the work on her room done. Which gave him that long to get her to go out with him.

For some reason the goal—which generally took him seconds to accomplish when he met someone he wanted to date—seemed out of reach.

He showed up unannounced Friday night, just to tape the clear plastic envelope containing the permit to the front of the house.

Levi stood beside him as he stuck the envelope to the front window, where he was required to leave it displayed from before the job began until after it was complete and inspected by the city.

Before Jem could stop him, Levi reached up on tiptoe and pushed the doorbell. He didn't even know the kid could reach that high.

“Levi!” he said. “We aren't here for a visit.”

“I wanna see Kacey and Lacey. And they want to see me.” He stood there, arms folded against his chest, staring at the door.

It didn't open.

“They're not home.” He stated the obvious, his mind filling with an immediate picture of the two beauties walking side by side on the beach just blocks away. That gave him an almost undeniable need to get his ass down there before any of the hundreds of summer visitors—of the male beach-bum variety—hit on them.

“But I wanna see them!” Levi's wobbly voice gave warning to a brewing storm.

“They aren't home, son. There's nothing we can do about that.”

“Why did we come now?” Instead of when the sisters were home, Jem filled in the blank.

“Because we had to drop off this permit so I can start work tomorrow morning...”

He knew as soon as he said the words that they were a mistake. He walked down one of the two steps from Lacey's small porch to the paved walkway leading up to her house from the tree-lined street. Arms still firmly crossed, Levi stood his ground.

“I wanna come with you.”

He'd known what was coming as soon as he'd mentioned the next day's work. And was now picturing two beautiful blondes coming home to a helpless construction worker on their front porch being worked over by an unhappy four-year-old in the throes of a tantrum.

Not a pretty sight.

Or something he needed his ex-caseworker to witness.

“Let's go get some hamburgers for dinner and talk about that.” He cringed as he heard the bribe come out of his mouth. Levi loved burgers. And was allowed only one a week. He'd already had two, counting the one he'd had the previous Saturday at Uncle Bob's.

“No.” Levi didn't yell. He just shook his head and stood firm.

Jem considered picking him up at the waist like a sack of potatoes and carrying him kicking to the truck. Anything to get him out of that neighborhood before he caused a scene.

“Look, Levi. You know there are some things that I can't change. No matter how much you want me to. Like having to go to the doctor once in a while for checkups.”

“He gave me a shot.” The boy's opinion of that move was clear in both the tone of his voice and the way his nose scrunched and his chin got hard.

“And going to school is another one. You have to go even if we both want to stay home.”

“You have to go to work,” Levi said. Jem fell in love with the boy all over again. Levi was repeating the lesson Jem had given him when they'd had the tantrum about going to school. Everyone, no matter what their age, had to do their jobs. Either work or school. No one was allowed to just stay home, because then there would be people who needed help and no one to help them. And there would be no money to buy food for families.

“That's right.”

“'Cause people die if they don't eat.”

Close enough. “Right.”

“But Kacey and Lacey have food.”

“Kacey and Lacey aren't home, Levi. That's what I can't change right now.”

“But I wanna see them.”

“They don't know that. And they're busy somewhere else.” He took Levi's noncasted hand and gave it a gentle tug, breathing a silent but very big sigh of relief when the boy didn't snatch it back.

“Where?” Levi joined him on his step.

“I don't know.” He and his son took the next step together.

“We can find them.”

“Can we discuss this in the truck?”

“I want a hamburger.”

Of course.

“Then we'll discuss it over hamburgers.”

Walking with purpose the rest of the way to the truck, Levi climbed into his seat as soon as Jem had the back door open.

“Dad?” he said as Jem climbed into the front seat, dreading the possibility of Kacey's car coming around a corner. It hadn't been parked in the drive. He'd known when he'd stopped that the women weren't home.

“Yeah?” Jem asked, not sure he was going to like whatever had put the serious look on his son's baby face again.

“Can you tell them not to put the pickles?”

He always did. Every single time.

“Yep.”

“'Cause I don't like the pickles,” Levi stated emphatically, as though Jem didn't already know, in great detail, every single one of Levi's likes and dislikes.

Jem knew, which was why he could also expect—when Levi found out this was his weekend with his mother and that he was going there after dinner—the full-blown tantrum he'd just avoided.

* * *

“A
RE
YOU
SURE
?” Lacey walked beside her sister on the beach, staring at the sand their bare toes were kicking up. Her sandals hung from the fingers of her right hand. Her left hand was clenched.

“He said exactly those words.” Kacey's tone was as subdued as it ever got. “‘Mommy shook me up and I throwed up.'”

Feeling the heat rising to her face, Lacey moved to the left and let the water wash over her feet as she walked. “Why didn't you tell me this last night?”

“Remember that time on our birthday when Dad was whirling us around in the yard by our feet and you threw up?”

She did. Of course she did. Her stomach settled.

“And then right after Jem left last night, he called, remember? Because he'd had a message from the permit people and they needed an exact color match for the siding before they could approve the permit...”

And they'd talked for an hour. She'd felt bad about the fact that he was planning to work through his weekend. He'd told her he'd have been working, anyway. Then she'd felt bad for taking him from someone else's job and he'd told her about the boat in his garage.

She'd wanted to know if it was a ski boat. He'd said it was a catamaran—so he could take it on the ocean—but told her that his family had had a ski boat when he was growing up.

Which had led to where he was from, and from there to the fact that he had a close-knit family back in Georgia. It painted a picture of him that she liked. But was way too much information.

“You were asleep when I got off the phone,” she said now, remembering. Kacey had had a headache the day before. Lacey hadn't been surprised to see her sister in bed early.

“Then today, I remembered something he'd been talking about earlier in the week and it's clear that the two go together.”

Lacey made a mental reach to find her professional self. “What did he say earlier in the week?”

“He asked me if I'm mean when I wake people up. I said no, of course not! He'd been talking about that show he's so into. We really need to see that at some point, by the way. He's got me curious. Anyway, I thought that was why he was asking. Then he says that Mommy shakes him awake when he has bad dreams. But Whyatt on
Super Why!
didn't do that when someone had a bad dream...”

Levi thought his mother's actions were mean? And he'd been looking to Kacey for confirmation?

“You think he had a bad dream and she shook him until he threw up?” She had to call Jem.

She couldn't call Jem.

There was conflict of interest written all over that one.

She had to call Sydney, the social worker she shared cases with most often. They had the same philosophy, and Sydney was a newly added member of the High Risk Team started by the Lemonade Stand and would have access to immediate high-risk assistance from all professionals who could possibly be needed. Doctors, psychiatrists, police, hospital records.

If Lacey had screwed up and put that little boy at risk...

She'd called Ella Ackerman, the High Risk representative from the children's hospital, too.

But Tressa could have taken Levi to other hospitals.

Or Jem could have.

She'd met Tressa.

There was no way that kind, gentle, self-deprecating woman would hurt her son. She'd given him up so her penchant for drama didn't negatively affect his emotional stability...

People prone to drama were also prone to overreaction. Tressa had said she overreacted. To everything. Which made Jem crazy. Or something to that effect...

“We have to get back,” she said now, spinning around so quickly she almost lost her balance in the sand. “I have to make some calls.”

“I could just be overreacting here. This isn't my business and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But it's been bothering me all day and Jem said Levi's spending the weekend with his mother.”

She hadn't heard that. “When did he say that?”

“A couple of nights ago. You were in the bathroom and he and I were talking about timing for the project in relation to when I have to leave.”

Lacey didn't have time to deal with completely inappropriate jealousy.

She might be overreacting. And Levi might be in danger.

She'd risk one to prevent the other.

Pulling her phone off the clip on her shorts, she dialed Sydney's private cell.

* * *

F
UNNY
HOW
LIFE
could turn on a dime. In twelve hours' time, Jem had gone from looking forward to the weekend with great anticipation, to dreading the job he had ahead of him.

He could call one of his teams to build the room, but he'd take a loss for all labor costs if he did so. Just to save himself some discomfort.

His comfort wasn't worth that amount of money to him.

“I love you, Dad.”

Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw the far too serious expression on his son's face and said, “I love you, too, Levi.”

He'd never been comfortable saying the words, not with anyone, until his son was born.
I love you
were some of the first words he'd taught the boy.

If there was some good out of the events of the night before, Levi back at home with him would be it.

All of it.

“Are we going to see Kacey and Lacey now?”

“Yep.”

“Can I play with them while you work?”

“We'll see.” If they didn't want to watch his son, he wouldn't be working that day. Even if he'd been able to find a sitter at the last minute, he hadn't felt inclined to do so.

He was working for free. The least the traitor could do was provide free child care.

As soon as he'd had the thought, Jem gave himself a mental admonishment. Lacey was doing her job, because she cared about Levi.

He knew her well enough to know the truth about that statement. Even if there did exist a social worker who was hooked on his or her own power and got some kind of adrenaline rush out of lording it over a dysfunctional family, she sure didn't exist in Lacey Hamilton.

The woman was true blue.

She was also dead wrong about Tressa.

As he was going to tell her, the first opportunity he got.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“H
E
'
S
GOT
L
EVI
with him.” Kacey turned from the front window to look at Lacey, her expression filled with worry.

“That's good.” Truth be known, she was relieved.

“It's good that he's here, too, huh?” Kacey asked, coming closer. In a sundress with ballet slipper flats, she was as dressed down as she got. But she needn't have bothered.

Any hope Lacey might have secretly held that there could possibly be a chance for her and Jem to explore whatever she might have been feeling between them had just been quashed.

“He's been around all week, Kace.” Before she'd ratted him out.

Well, technically, she'd ratted out his ex-wife, but Tressa and Jem seemed to be pretty close. Closer than any divorced couple she'd ever known. And in her course of business, she'd known a lot of them.

Lacey had dressed down, too. In her newest pair of six-inch navy shorts and a white tank top. Kacey had tried to get her to put on one of her sundresses. She just hadn't wanted to do so.

It wasn't her.

And if nothing else, she was honest with herself and others about who and what she was.

And wasn't.

Kacey was the “movie star.” Lacey was her shadow. And a damned good social worker.

He was on his way up the walk, with Levi, in jeans and a white T-shirt just like his father, skipping along beside him.

“A whole week and he doesn't even see me most of the time,” Kacey said. “He's been too busy looking at you.”

She wanted to tell Kacey she was dreaming. Or lying. But she'd noticed, too. She'd been afraid that she'd been fooling herself.

In a week's time, with her sister right there every single day they'd seen each other, Jem still looked at Lacey first. And most often. He smiled at her, directed his conversation to her. Of course, it
was
her house.

But Kacey was paying the bill...

“Looks like I get to babysit today.” Kacey was smiling—and heading toward the front door. “See, it all worked out fine.”

Her sister never had been one to see the trouble in her path.

Which could be why she was still living alone and dating losers.

Not that Lacey was doing any better.

* * *

A
S
SOON
AS
it became obvious that Jem planned to put in a full day of work as long as he could count on the sisters to take care of his unexpected charge that day, Kacey offered to take Levi to the beach. Jem gave his permission.

Without hesitation.

First, because he knew how much his son would enjoy the outing and Levi's emotional health was his first concern at the moment.

And second, because he knew he needed to have a word with Lacey Hamilton without Levi anywhere near enough to hear.

“His suit's in that bag,” he said, indicating the backpack he'd carried in with him. He'd loaded it that morning with snacks, a swimsuit, change of clothes, juice boxes and a
Super Why!
video. All with Levi's input as the boy stood there supervising.

“I'll show you,” Levi said, taking Kacey's hand. He turned back before he got to the bag, though, grabbing Lacey's hand, too. “Come on, aren't you going with us?” he asked, looking between the sisters.

“Lacey needs to stay here, Levi,” Jem said. “She's the homeowner and I may have some questions as I get started.” Levi wouldn't know what he meant, but he wouldn't question the tone of voice, either. The words were for Lacey, letting her know that if she wanted the work done, she best stay put.

Right or wrong, he was angry with her and needed to let her know before he started work on her house. It wasn't too late for her to change her mind.

Or for him to change his.

He didn't miss the long glance the sisters exchanged, and that silent communication, like they were speaking a foreign language right in front of him, purposely, so he wouldn't understand, pissed him off, too.

Deathly silence fell as soon as Kacey and his son vacated the house.

Jem waited for Lacey to apologize. To explain. To say anything at all. He got angrier every second that she just stood there.

To her credit, she didn't attempt inane conversation, talk about getting started or leave him to his work.

“You could say something.” After he bit back what he really wanted to say, he got the words out.

“No, I can't.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ethically, I can't.”

“Oh, no, lady, you aren't going to play that card with me. No way. You think it's fine to pretend to be a personal friend to my son and me and then turn on us and not be personally accountable for having done so?”

That hadn't come out right. He was beyond caring at the moment.

“Sounds to me like you have a pretty skewed sense of ethics.”

He hadn't meant to say that, either.

“I can, personally, discuss with a friend anything a friend wants to discuss with me, personally. I cannot bring up or speak to state matters that involve my employment with social services.”

He wanted to ask her how long she'd worked on that one, or if it was rote. Maybe she'd done this before—befriend someone just to spy on them because she couldn't find proof of wrongdoing in the usual way.

The thought shamed him. And hung around, too.

She hadn't negated his “friend” claim. She'd kind of supported it.

The realization calmed him. Not much, but some.

“You're waiting for me to bring it up.”

“I can speak to you as a friend if you have something you want to discuss.”

He held his tongue and called it a victory.

“Do you have any idea what happened at my ex-wife's house last night?”

“Literally, none at all. I can guess, though, based on what I do for a living.”

“They didn't rescind his mother's visitation rights, if that's what you're thinking.”

“I didn't know.”

“But you were thinking it.”

“I knew a temporary request for supervised visits was a possibility.”

They were standing in her kitchen a few yards apart. He wondered if they should sit. But she didn't offer.

Maybe he should just get his tool belt and get to work. Have the conversation later. Or never.

“There was no evidence to substantiate another look at her. Tressa's a good mom. And an incredibly protective one.”

“Then why is he with you, and not with her for the weekend as planned?” He'd have thought the question a challenge, if not for the fact that she could only be asking as a friend.

He'd never had a friend feel less like one at the moment.

He'd never cared more.

“Tressa lost it when Sydney Gardner showed up at her door last night, asking questions about nightmares, shaking and throwing up.”

“Did Levi have any nightmares recently that you know of?”

“That sounds, Ms. Hamilton, like a professional question, not a friend one.”

She sat with her hands clasped together on her cute little oak kitchen table—a set for two, which was all that would fit in the small space.

When she didn't say anything, he pulled out the seat opposite her. Far enough that he could scoot down, lean back and look as though he didn't have a care in the world, without bumping his knees against the table leg.

“Let me explain something,” she said when he'd assumed his position and grown still, staring at her. It occurred to him, as he waited for her to continue, that he could be mirroring his son from the night before with his jutting chin and arms crossed against his chest. When Levi had found out that he had to go to his mother's for the weekend.

“I made a call, as any concerned citizen should do, when my sister told me something that made me afraid for Levi's safety. After relaying only what I'd been told, and nothing more, I hung up.”

“Obviously you told whoever you called that you'd had Levi's case, but closed the investigation.”

“I did not.”

He wasn't sure what to do with that.

“The minute I became personally involved with you, I ceased being a social worker,” she continued after he'd grown greatly uncomfortable with the silence.

“So you didn't tell your coworker about Levi's case.”

“I did not.”

Okay, then, maybe he'd been wrong.

“I knew she'd find it, though. And know exactly why I called. That's why I called Sydney at home. We've worked together a lot over the past eighteen months.”

If she was trying to tell him something good, he missed it.

She'd set him up and was playing semantics.

Now he was more than just pissed. He was...disappointed. To the point of...he didn't know what.

“Sydney's a professional through and through. She's as dedicated to these kids as I am.”

Her hole was getting deeper.

“She won't speak to me of this case ever again. And I won't mention it, either. I can't. That's what happened when I called her.”

She was looking him in the eye, and he saw a sunset again. The kind that brought you to your knees.

Calmed you. And invigorated you at the same time.

Which pissed him off all over again.

“You're telling me you can't speak on my behalf.”

“I'm telling you I have no power whatsoever. Either way.”

She couldn't speak
against
him, either.

And she hadn't. She'd simply called in a private citizen concern.

“Tressa's a mess.”

And that was Lacey's fault.

“Did Levi have a nightmare at her house recently?”

“The weekend after his meeting in your office. It was because of you. Not Tressa.”

Well, not her, Lacey their friend, but Lacey the social worker who took him from his father to play games he really didn't want to play.

Still, Lacey was a woman. Tressa was a woman, and Levi's mother. She was the one who'd experienced the nightmare firsthand and knew what it was about. She was the only one who'd talked to him about it.

“Is it possible she ‘lost it' then, too, and shook him to make him stop screaming out?”

“She couldn't wake him up. She called me and I talked her through it. She did not shake him. He was flailing around with that cast on his arm and she was afraid he was going to hurt himself.”

“Maybe he accidentally hit her with the cast and that made her angry. Maybe...”

He shook his head. “No way.”

“He told Kacey she shook him until he threw up.”

Jem didn't move. Not even so much as to allow his expression to change.

“You didn't know, did you? That he threw up?”

He scrambled to make sense of what was going on quickly enough to hold his own and protect his family. “I know that he threw up when he was over there for Easter. He ate an entire chocolate bunny.”

“Was Tressa playing with him at the time?”

“I don't know. I know he threw up on her.” Tressa had called him then, too. Because she was a drama queen.

“He was upset and she thought he'd be happier if I came to get him.”

“Did you?”

“Of course.”

And Levi had come home weepy because he didn't feel well.

He'd been fine the next day, though. His usual self.

“Did you go get him the night of the bad dream, too?”

“No. Tressa called back and said it was all under control. I talked to him. They were having a late-night snack and he sounded happy.”

He'd been weepy, though, once he'd come home. Because home reminded him of Lacey's visit?

But then why did his son welcome the woman's return to their lives, to the point of not wanting to go to his mom's so he could see Lacey and Kacey?

Because of Kacey?

“Did Levi ever tell you about the nightmare?”

“No.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“No. I didn't want to make it into some big deal if he was past it. Didn't want to make it more of a big deal than it was.” He heard the defensiveness in his tone. Damn her.

And her job.

“Yet he told my sister about it.”

He didn't like that part. Didn't really understand it. But he couldn't see how he could work out such an omission with a four-year-old.

“Tressa's a good mom.” He heard himself sounding repetitious, but didn't know any other way to help her understand,
make
her understand, for God's sake.

This was his life she was messing with.

And she was making any possibility of something between them more remote. Didn't she get that?

“She called me last night as soon as she knew why Sydney was there. She was upset and didn't want to upset Levi. She asked me to come get him immediately and asked Sydney to sit with them, and not ask her any more questions, until I arrived. That's how conscientious she is of our son's welfare. Sydney called me after speaking with Tressa. She wanted to speak with Levi.”

“I'm assuming you let her.”

“Of course.”

She didn't ask the outcome, but he told her, anyway. “She said that she's going to keep an eye on Tressa, stopping in now and then during her weekends, but that she wasn't overly concerned. Just being careful. I'm assuming because you were the one who'd made the call.”

She'd overreacted. It was obvious to him. And while one part applauded her level of conscientiousness, another part of him resented the fact that she hadn't just called him, as a friend, and asked him about it. “We could have had this conversation last night, you know. Without involving social services.”

He could swear a look of pain crossed over her face. Or remorse?

“I'm a social worker, Jem. You have no idea the things I see—day in and day out, over and over—with different kids, different families. I will always err on the side of better safe than sorry.”