His First Choice (23 page)

Authors: Tara Taylor Quinn

BOOK: His First Choice

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Sometime in the few seconds it had taken him to get from hall to front door, he'd realized that if Lacey was pounding on his door, the news wouldn't be good.

More likely it was the cops....

The banging was still happening as he yanked the door open.

“Jem, let me in! Quick!” Tressa stood there, sweaty and disheveled, talking in a hushed tone.

But banging loudly on the door?

He looked for her car, but didn't see it.

“What's wrong? Where's your car? Were you in an accident?” Their history didn't matter. If she was in danger, he had to help her.

“No! Let me in!”

“Tell me what's wrong.”

“I just needed to see you. And Levi. Amelia's at church, and I only have a little bit of time. She's going to leave me if I contact you, but this is you and me. Nothing and no one keeps us apart, right?”

What the hell was she talking about? After all of this?

“No, Tressa. You aren't right. Do you get that? You are legally banned from seeing your own son.”

“You bastard! How dare you say such a thing to me?”

“Because it's true. And you know it's true. You also know that up until now I understood you enough to let it all go. But no more, Tressa. Get this very clearly. No. More.”

He didn't raise his voice. Didn't need to.

He just calmly closed the door, found his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.

* * *

T
HE
POLICE
DISPATCHER
took his call, holding him on the line until a cruiser made it to his residence. When they pulled up in two cars, one right after the other, Tressa, damn her, was still out there, alternating between begging him and cursing him. Demanding to be let in. Interspersed with threats of how she was going to make him pay.

An hour later, the police called back to let him know that she was going to be held in custody, at least overnight. By that time he and Levi were showered and dressed.

The officer wanted to know if he wanted to press charges. He didn't want to, but he did so. He trusted that with time, and the counseling Brett had recommended, his guilt over that would ease.

By lunchtime that same day, the day Lacey, hopefully, would be returning home, the day before she was due back at work, Jem put the finishing touches on her dream room. With his son's hand in his, he took a last look around, put a couple of toothbrushes in his tool bag, left a key on the table and walked out, locking the door behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

S
HE
'
D
THOUGHT
LEAVING
Kacey was going to be the hard part. It wasn't. Pulling up in front of her house, seeing Jem's truck gone, was horrible. But Lacey got past the moment. She pulled into her garage. Grabbed her suitcase and went into the house.

She was going to have to find someone to finish her dream room. Kacey had already told her she'd be home that next weekend and they'd find someone together. Her sister thought she was going to pay the second contractor, too, but she wasn't. Lacey had enough in savings to build a whole new house if she wanted to. And she was going to stand firm on this one.

No more lying down in the middle of the road for her.

She didn't kid herself into thinking she was suddenly going to be bright and bold and bitchy, or even anything close. She was who she was. She got mad and she got over it. But she was going to learn how to speak up for herself. To demand what she needed.

In a kind way, of course, because it wasn't fair to those who cared about her if she didn't. Kacey's pain, her sister's guilt, had been a real eye-opener to her. She'd set Kacey up for failure by not expressing her feelings until the one night they'd spilled over and ruined her sister's world.

They were past that now. Had been over and over and over it all over and over and over again during their week together.

Avoiding the unfinished dream room, she passed through the kitchen and grabbed the key off the kitchen table, shoving it in the first drawer she came to, blinking back tears.

She'd made her ultimatum. He'd made his choice.

Neither one of them could take either back.

She'd been unfair to him. He'd been unfair to her, too. Neither of them could help who they were.

And if they couldn't stand up for each other, they weren't good for each other, either.

Promising herself that if she got through the night, the morning would be easier, she rolled her suitcase down the hall. She and Kacey had already talked everything through. She was going to unpack. Take a hot bath. Go to bed. Get up in the morning and go to work.

If she couldn't get to sleep, she was going to call Kacey.

And on Friday, Kacey would be there, filling her home. Just as she'd filled Kacey's the past week.

She flipped on the bedroom light.

Something wasn't right.

Heart pounding, she froze, looking around. The room had been disturbed.

She didn't have a gun. Her cell phone was still in her purse on the kitchen counter.

Had her bed been slept in?

Nothing else was out of place. Just the stripes on the comforter weren't lined up along the edge of the mattress. And the pillows were wrong. Cases went on the bottom, shams on the top.

There were wrinkles, too. As though someone had climbed around after the bed was made.

She stepped farther into the room and peeked into the adjoining bathroom. A cartoon caricature bandage wrapper was in the trash.

A washcloth had been used, and there was a glob of toothpaste in the sink. She definitely did not leave globs behind.

But Levi did.

Curious now, shaking, she moved through the house.

The bed in Kacey's room was made. But equally disturbed. The spare bathroom didn't look as though it had been touched. Except for the raised toilet seat.

The pillows on the living room couch were there, but not how she arranged them. The remote was on the left side of the table, not the right.

There were used glasses in the dishwasher that she hadn't used. And paper plates in the trash.

Had Jem and Levi stayed at her house while she'd been gone? She supposed she should be mad about the intrusion. She wasn't.

But she wanted to know why.

Attempting not to glance around the corner and down the hall from the kitchen toward the wall that was going to have an archway into her dream room, Lacey failed. She did a double take. There was an archway where an outside wall had been when she'd left.

It was rounded, drywalled, textured and painted. Feeling like a zombie, she walked down the hall to the archway. Stood and stared.

The room was finished. The porcelain tile she'd picked out for the floor was laid and grouted exactly as she'd pictured it, only better. Her furniture had been delivered. It wasn't arranged exactly as she'd planned, but it looked good. Inviting.

For what she noticed. Because she couldn't really focus on flooring or furniture. She couldn't take her eyes off the far wall. It was supposed to have been painted a sand color. It was windows instead, looking out over a newly planted garden with a rock waterfall. She could see it all, in spite of the darkness outside, because of the landscape lighting that had been installed.

But even that didn't hold her attention. She couldn't stop staring at the portion of the wall above the windows.

It was a mural of an exquisite sunset. And in the rays of the setting sun there were three cloud-like formsâa tall, broad one, another that was a little shorter and more slender and then a tiny one. The tiny one seemed to be reaching toward the slender one. She knew she was just imagining the figures in the clouds. But every time she looked back, there they were.

She'd been standing there five minutes or more before she saw the envelope on the table. She recognized Jem's business logo where the return address should be.

A final bill?

It was so like him to finish the job he'd agreed to do. To finish his business, leave the key and go silently on his way. He also wasn't one to make waves. Unless you counted the ones painted beneath her sunset...

She wasn't going to open the envelope. Didn't want to spoil the moment with an accounting of cost owed. But she'd also never been one to avoid hard tasks. She was who she was. So she picked up the envelope and pulled out the pages inside.

And fell down to the couch.

The stop sheet was official all the way. A restraining order. Against Tressa Bridges. Protected persons were Jeremiah and Levi Bridges.

The second sheet was official, too. A police report delineating all threats against Lacey. As well as a timeline of how she'd come to be in the lives of Jem and Levi Bridges.

The third sheet... She could barely make it out through the tears blurring her vision.

It was a single piece of plain white paper, with childish scrawl in awkward, uneven letters. She made out the word
Levi
.

The fourth page was easier to read...if she could just quit crying long enough.

I am a victim of domestic violence. I have spent the past ten years being manipulated, attacked and humiliated by my ex-wife. I am not proud of that fact. I am told I will have residual effects of this circumstance. I am also told that recognition and acknowledgment is the biggest part of my battle. Apparently I managed to be a survivor before I knew I was a victim.

I credit my parents and my son, Levi, for that.

Recently I found the love of my life. I couldn't believe in my luck at first. I was truly happy for the first time in my adult life. I felt complete. Hopeful for the future. And weighted down by the albatross I carried around my neck.

The albatross has been captured. Restrained. And my love...it's overflowing, like the water over the rocks outside your window. I am the water. You are my rock.

If you have an interest in feeling my touch flowing across you for the rest of your life, please call. If not, know that I love you first. Last. Always.

Jem.

She was crying so hard she could hardly find her purse in the kitchen. Or find her phone in her purse. Stumbling back to her dream room, she tried to see enough to touch Jem's picture in her speed dial widget.

Blinking away tears, she sniffled, looked outside at the fountain...and blinked some more. She couldn't see his picture on her phone, but she could see him outside. Him and Levi, too, pressing against the window.

“Jem?” she yelled loudly and dropped her phone.

“Lacey's home!” Levi's voice was strong and sure. “She's back, Dad. Look!”

She was probably dreaming, but she ran for the new sliding glass door she'd never seen before that night and pulled on the handle.

It didn't budge.

“Flip the latch.” Jem's muffled voice came through the door.

She couldn't find the latch, so she pushed against the black metal frame, then pulled the door. She even pounded on it for a second.

Then her gaze met Jem's. She calmed. He stared at her, and a smile broke out all over his face. And hers, too. He pointed down, where she saw the thin piece of metal sticking out from the handle, and she pushed it down with one finger.

The door slid open and she fell forward. Jem's body broke her fall, his arms closing around her.

“We've been doing drive-bys all afternoon” were the first words he said. Followed immediately by “I love you and want to marry you.” There might have been more. She wasn't sure about anything but the feel of her man's body against hers. Her man's arms around her.

And then a smaller, but equally dear, version of her man was wrapping his arms around her knees. They had her in their grasp. Making her their world. As they were hers.

First, last and always.

In the room that they'd built for her.

The room where all of her dreams had just come true.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from PROTECTING THE QUARTERBACK by Kristina Knight.

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