His First Choice

CHAPTER SIX

THRUMMING HIS FINGERS on the arm of the chair, Jem stared at the magazines on the table beside him. He stared at his phone, too, scrolling through his favorite news site, but seeing nothing. He reholstered his phone.

What in the hell was taking so long?

Was it possible that someone really was hurting his son?

Impossible.

He’d know.

But one thing he’d learned since Levi had come into the world, turning his life upside down—kids had incredible imaginations.

They were apt to say anything that came into their heads. Fabrication or not. To a kid Levi’s age, everything seemed real. From cartoons, dreams he’d had and stories he’d imagined.

Jem had always encouraged his son’s free thinking. And when Levi came up with outlandish stories, he’d asked questions to play along. Because to Levi, in those moments, they were real.

He’d also taught his son never to lie. He could imagine. He could make up. But he could not change facts that he knew to be true.

But Lacey Hamilton, her crew at social services, whatever other professionals she might have involved in their lives—none of them knew that.

Shooting up out of the scarred wooden chair, he strode to the door, opened it and caught a woman’s questioning look as she passed by the room on her way down the hall. She probably knew who he was. Why he was there.

Obviously she’d know in whose office he’d been waiting.

Back inside, he closed the door and sat down. What was taking them so long?

Pulling his phone back off the holster at his waist, Jem started making calls to his site bosses. He fielded problems and offered solutions, helping those who worked for him to do their best work.

All the while trying to ignore the fact that he’d never felt so helpless in his life.

* * *

“SO THE NEXT part of this game is, I tell you my worst memory.” Lacey felt like a creep as she sat there in the small playroom with a little boy who had no good reason to trust her. Pumping him for information that could make a drastic change in his life. If his life needed a drastic change.

Fully knowing that for most kids, even when the change was needed, it wasn’t welcome. The devil you knew was much better than facing the fear of the unknown. And being ripped away from those you loved—even if they weren’t good to you—was the worst.

“It was when I was little and had to be in the hospital and I was really scared.”

She had to make it bad enough that he wouldn’t feel intimidated talking about his, no matter how bad it was.

And yet not so bad as to give him nightmares.

It also had to be true. Her rule. The kids in her life generally had major trust issues. She was not going to add to them by lying.

He looked up at her. “Were you sick?”

“I had to stay overnight,” she said. “I thought I’d done something really bad and that I was being punished.”

Levi shifted, sitting on one foot, with his chin resting on his upraised knee. He grabbed a new car—a pickup truck—and ran it around the track, crashing it into the smaller white car he’d left there.

“What’s your worst memory?” she asked, knowing full well that a child his age would most likely access only the past couple of weeks.

“I dunno.”

Not an atypical response, even from a well-adjusted, happy four-year-old.

“Levi, I’m going to ask you something. And I need you to be completely honest with me. Do you understand?”

He backed the truck up.

“Levi? Look at me a second.”

Without lifting his chin, he glanced in her direction.

“Will you be honest with me and answer my question?”

“I don’t tell lies.”

A prevarication. At four. She almost smiled.

“Has anyone ever told you not to tell something?” A leading question if ever there was one.

She was counting on the fact that he wouldn’t be savvy enough, at four, even four going on forty, to see that.

He didn’t answer. His hand stilled on the truck, but he didn’t let go of it.

“You don’t lie, remember?” she said.

He sat there.

“Has someone told you that?”

The next time he glanced up, there were tears in his eyes. She had her answer.

“Levi...”

“Do I gotta tell?” His lower lip trembled.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “But you don’t have to tell me what you can’t tell. Just who told you not to.”

He didn’t say anything more. So she tried to make it easier on him.

“Was it your daddy?”

Chin on his knee, he shook his head.

“Was it Mara at school?”

Another shake of his head.

“Someone else at school?”

He shook his head again.

She thought about that broken arm. About where he’d been when it had happened. About a mother who never dropped her son off or picked him up from school.

“Was it your mommy?”

He didn’t respond. Not even a shake of the head.

Lacey had her answer.

* * *

THERE WERE SOME days a guy just needed a burger. The biggest, juiciest patty of beef he could find. And when a guy had a pint-size sidekick, it had to be at a place that served pint-size versions of the same.

Instead of taking Levi straight to preschool after their meeting at social services, Jem turned their truck in the opposite direction and drove until they landed at the beach. At Uncle Bob’s—one of his and Levi’s favorite spots.

Lacey Hamilton had told him basically nothing when she’d come into her office alone less than twenty minutes before. He’d been about to say a whole lot, until she’d explained that Levi was with a coworker of hers, looking at her goldfish, and would be along in a second.

“Can I play in the sand?” the boy asked as he unhooked his seat belt.

“Yep.”

Levi climbed out of his car seat in the back and made his way to the front of the truck to get out with Jem.

Jem had been thinking about making the little guy wait until he opened the back door to get him out, but figured Levi would be opening doors on his own—exiting them without wanting his father close—soon enough. He swung the boy up on his hip and carried him toward the entrance.

It was a testimony to their dual state of mind when Levi put his arms around Jem’s neck and rode the whole way in. Most days he’d have been pushing his feet against Jem’s thighs, eager to be down and on his own.

“I don’t have school today, do I?” Levi asked as they waited to be shown to their table. He’d requested one by the big sandbox play area. Tuesday before noon and the place was already crowded.

“Yeah, you do,” he said. He wouldn’t have if Jem wasn’t feeling overly paranoid about having his every move watched. He didn’t want someone thinking that he was suddenly changing his schedule, afraid to take his son to day care, for fear of what someone might report.

Not that he thought, for one second, that Mara or any of the ladies at the day care would report him for abuse. No, he’d pretty much figured out it was either the hospital, because they had to report frequent hospital visits, as he’d learned last night during his reading—Levi had been to the emergency room six times—or Tressa.

She’d wanted to have sex the previous weekend. He hadn’t been interested enough to pull off the pretense, but had thought he’d made a pretty good excuse. She’d seemed to roll with it at the time.

But his ex-wife had a tendency to be vindictive where he was concerned. Someone had to take the blame for the things that hadn’t gone right in her life. Might as well be him.

* * *

LEVI CHATTERED ABOUT building a sand castle while they waited for the burgers and fries Jem had ordered. Not only were they by the big sandbox, the hostess had seated them at a table with a view of the beach.

Jem would have loved to spend the day out there. Playing in the sand with his son. Building castles. Or surfing the waves like he used to do. Before he’d met Tressa, become a husband—and then a father.

“What’s a twin?” Levi’s foot, swinging beneath the table, caught Jem on the knee. The boy’s chin barely reached the top of the table, but he’d been pretty particular about not wanting a booster seat.

He was a big boy and not a baby, at least that day.

“A twin?” he asked, giving his son his full focus.

“Mmm-hmm.” Levi’s chin lifted. “Lacey said she has a twin. What’s a twin?”

An immediate vision sprang to mind. Not one but two of the beautiful blondes, hair down, of course...

What in the hell was it with him? He was bordering on disrespectful the way he kept picturing the woman.

The next second he was shrugging off his propensity for doing so. He was a guy. It was what guys did.

Not that he could remember the last time he’d mentally undressed a woman he’d just met...

“A twin is someone who has a brother or sister who was born at the same time they were,” he said.

“With a different mommy and daddy?” the boy asked, screwing up his nose like he did when he wasn’t understanding something.

“Nope. With the same mommy and daddy.”

“You said I came out of Mommy’s tummy.” Technically, he hadn’t offered up that technical tidbit to a four-year-old child. Tressa had, one night when she’d been explaining to Levi why he was hers and why he should want to spend more time with her. Jem had been left to explain, as best he could, what she’d meant.

“That’s right,” he said now.

“Does everyone come out of a mommy’s tummy?”

Obviously his lesson had lacked some pertinent details. “Yes.” He waited. The last time they’d dealt with this topic, he’d answered Levi’s questions and left the rest for when the boy wanted to know more.

Thanks to Lacey Hamilton needing to tell his son about her birth situation, now was apparently the time for more. As if the day wasn’t already challenging enough.

Both little feet beneath the table were swinging now and softly kicking him. Jem thought about reaching down to stop them, but chose to take the blows instead. If Levi didn’t expunge his energy one way, he’d find another.

Levi’s gaze followed a waiter with a tray full of ice cream sundaes and Jem was pretty sure they were done with the topic. He was ready to ask his son if he wanted a sundae for dessert, in spite of the fact that they didn’t do dessert at lunchtime, when Levi turned back to him.

“Lacey’s mom had two babies in her tummy at one time?”

“Yep.”

“How come my mommy didn’t have two babies at one time?”

Levi had talked a time or two about having a baby brother or sister. So far Jem had avoided the hows and why that couldn’t happen, saying only that mommies and daddies had to be married to have babies. A weak excuse if ever there was one.

“Because you took up so much room, silly,” he said now and grinned for real when he saw their waitress heading toward them with two burgers. One big and one small.

As expected, Levi moved on from the whole twin thing as he ate. Talking about playing in the sand again. And about cars. He wanted a blue one with turbo twin spoilers like the one he’d played with that morning.

“It was really cool, Dad.”

Jem promised him the car. Knowing that on any other day he’d have given Levi some task to complete to earn the toy that he wanted.

Levi seemed to have shaken any of the trepidation he’d had after his encounter in Lacey’s playroom.

But Jem couldn’t shake his awareness of Lacey Hamilton from his mind quite as easily.

And wondered what it had been like for her, growing up with a built-in best friend. Wondered if her twin was a brother or a sister.

Wondered, too, why he gave a damn.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LACEY’S LIFE WAS her work. She didn’t try to hide the fact or apologize for it. She’d made choices and was at peace with them. She liked her life.

She hadn’t grown up thinking she’d be a career woman. She’d gone to college more because it was expected of her than because she had career goals to pursue. But time, experience, clarified things.

As she drove through the streets of Santa Raquel on Tuesday, mingling with rush-hour traffic, Lacey followed the instructions from her GPS.

She hadn’t known, until the summer before her sophomore year in college, when she’d had to declare a major, that she was even going into social work. She’d always had a way with children. And her aptitude test had scored measurably higher for a career that involved working primarily with children. Science and math weren’t her thing, so that had ruled out anything in medicine.

“In zero point two miles you will be arriving at your destination. On the right.” The slightly accented female voice came through her sound system.

When she’d been little, Lacey had assumed she’d just grow up and be a mom someday. That thought had never really changed. It, like so much in her life, had just slowly drifted apart from her. There’d been nothing that stood out as a conscious realization of what her life would be. She’d just become what she was.

A woman married to her career.

One who was fulfilled, satisfied. One who contributed to society in a positive way.

And who was financially secure, too.

Really, if one had a choice, who wouldn’t want to be her?

Pulling up in front of the little cottage that would have looked more in place on the beach than on the nondescript street in an older neighborhood on the outskirts of town, Lacey picked up her tablet, turned it on and opened the file she’d created the day before. And then opened the document that was, as of yet, mostly blank.

The next half hour would be critical. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes as she met the woman who quite possibly was abusing Levi Bridges.

* * *

“SOMEONE’S HERE, JEM, I gotta go.”

Heart trying to thump blood through a gut of rock, Jem stood at his kitchen window, looking out over the backyard, listening to the fountain through the window he’d opened when he’d come in to prepare the vegetables he’d be grilling with chicken for dinner that night.

“At least I think they’re here. Someone just pulled up in front of my house. Hold on, let me look. I don’t recognize the car, but...”

Tressa’s voice sounded expectant. Which was better than mistrustful. This was good, considering the drama-ridden world in which his ex-wife lived. And he, thankfully, did not.

Chewing on his lower lip, he waited, deliberating over his options. He’d called to see if she’d tell him anything. Give him any clue as to whether or not she was behind the call to social services. To the fact that his world had once again been turned completely upside down.

It had been why he’d left her. Or rather, taken her up on one of her oft-repeated “offers” to leave him. He couldn’t have his son growing up with the drama-based tension that Tressa brought into every room she occupied.

If she stayed there long enough, that was.

“Who is it?” he asked now, trepidation knotting his insides to the point of decimating his appetite. A feeling he’d grown used to during his years with the woman who’d captivated him and then slowly instilled pity within him. Heart-wrenching pity. For her.

She’d given no indication, in the five minutes they’d been talking, that she’d had a visit from social services. Or any indication that anything was wrong, either.

Other than her job, but that was another story...

“I don’t know. No one’s getting out. But I can see her there. It’s a woman. Her hair’s in a twist.”

Lacey. But if she’d been there to report back to Tressa, as in, his ex-wife being the one who’d called to report him, Tressa would surely have recognized her and made a quick excuse to ditch him. Unless she had concerns...

“She’s blonde. Looks about our age...” There was curiosity in Tressa’s tone now. But the tone was still soft. Still the calm and therefore quite likable side of the woman he’d married. “She’s wearing some kind of jacket, sky blue. Who wears sky blue jackets anymore?”

So Tressa.

And also, so Lacey. He knew exactly what the outdated jacket looked like. She’d had it on that morning when she’d escorted his son down the hall and away from him. To play with cars, according to Levi.

Jem reached for a beer. If Tressa had not called social services, this was not going to be good.

Lacey hadn’t said a word about visiting Levi’s mother that evening when she’d called just as he was basting the chicken that was already on the grill.

She’d called to check on Levi, she’d said.

Like a storm chaser, he could predict what was coming. He also knew that he wasn’t going to say anything to Tressa about it—a decision made right that second. After all the years he’d spent defending his wife’s actions, her words when she went off inappropriately, so many years of smoothing feathers she hadn’t meant to ruffle, he didn’t want anyone associating him with her anymore.

Not in a partner sense.

And most particularly not when a decision maker from social services was involved.

“She’s getting out now,” Tressa was saying. “Probably just selling something. I hope it’s not clothes.” His ex-wife chuckled, still at ease.

Jem gripped the back of his neck.

“If it’s jewelry, I’ll buy some. Poor thing, having to go door-to-door to make a living. I can always give it for Christmas presents. Nice car she’s driving. I wonder if she just lost her job. Or maybe her ex dumped her for someone a little more fashion conscious...”

Sounding truly compassionate now, Tressa’s voice was fading.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Jem said, reminding her that he was still there.

“Yeah, fine, Jem. Call me.”

She’d disconnected before he heard the doorbell ring. Call me. That was Tressa. I only want people in my life who prove they want to be there.

It was always about meeting her expectations. As long as you could do that...

Jem looked down at the bundle resting on the counter beside him. He’d been about to carry it out to the grill, but had decided to check in with Tressa first—right after Lacey had called him, butting into his evening, bothering him all over again...

He picked up the bundle—broccoli and corn with a little bit of butter, wrapped in foil. Weird way to prepare them, maybe, but Levi liked them that way.

And only broccoli and corn. Not carrots. Not beets. And certainly not the Brussels sprouts Jem tried on him one time.

He’d eat raw cucumbers, too. But only if they were peeled...

Not once, in the entire five minutes they’d been on the phone, had Tressa asked him how Levi was doing with his cast. She’d asked about his day in school, asked if he’d missed her. But not a word about the broken arm their son was carrying around, learning how to adjust to. Not a word about the T-ball he’d missed.

In that aspect, she was a bit like their son—able to let go of regrets. Except Levi’s disruptions were truly gone once he let them go. Tressa just swept hers under the rug.

Lacey Hamilton didn’t seem like the type of woman you swept away.

* * *

HAVING TAKEN A moment to prepare herself, to erase her morning with Levi and focus only on the woman she was about to meet, Lacey felt ready as she climbed the step up to the small, neat porch.

She liked the wicker bench and table, the red geraniums blooming in a pot in the corner. Geraniums took care to maintain, she knew.

The only way to help Levi was to open her mind up to whatever facts might present themselves. No matter how hard or bad they could turn out to be.

The flowers were a nice touch. And based on the pale pink discoloration of the white picket rail behind them, the blooms had been there awhile.

She knocked, expecting to wait a minute while the resident checked her out through the peephole. Or the nearby window, she revised, as she saw the curtain move.

Would the woman answer the door? Or slip out the back?

Pretend she wasn’t home?

She’d once had a parent climb out of a second-story window with the endangered child in her arms.

There was no second story here. And she knew for a fact that the child wasn’t in residence. She’d called Jeremiah Bridges before she’d left her office to see how Levi was doing after his meeting with her that morning. She’d wanted to know if he had any questions that needed answering. She’d told him that he was to refer all such questions to her. According to him, there hadn’t been any.

Could be true. Considering the fact that Levi was only four. It could also be that his father was very calmly and politely telling her to go to hell.

The front door opened.

“Hi. Can I help you?” The first thing Lacey noticed, besides the warm and welcoming tone, was the woman’s smile. Had she not been working, it might have put her immediately at ease.

“My name is Lacey Hamilton. I’m from social services. May I come in?”

The model-beautiful blonde frowned. “Social services? Is there a problem? Someone in trouble?”

The questions came faster than she could answer them. The woman’s bewilderment seemed completely genuine.

“Is it my brother? I told him not to come to me if he got himself into trouble again. I just can’t help him. I promised Jem... Sorry.” The woman shook her head. “That’s my husband...ex-husband, really...but if you’re here about Kenton, you probably already know that.”

Wow. Could someone put on an act that good if they were really feeling tense inside?

Records showed that Tressa Bridges was working as a manager of a small local branch of a major bank. She’d had the job for a little over a year. Before that she’d been an account manager for a well-respected investment firm. People who worked with large amounts of money had to first pass rigorous background and character checks.

People who did poorly in one financial institution, or left under negative terms, were not generally hired by another. Not in the same town, nor in a close time frame.

Tressa had paused long enough to ask her in. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know about Kenton. I’ll do anything I can to help him. But he needs to know he has to stay completely away from Jem. I mean, he’s lucky Jem didn’t press charges. And he can’t live with me, and I can’t give him any money.”