His First Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Levi took the pencil Lacey had pulled out of her purse and was pressing it to the napkin she’d put in front of him.

  “So we’re agreed?” Kacey said in the same breath as “Bye, Dad.”

  “Fine.”

  “So.” Kacey turned to him. “I’m giving my sister a sunroom and a garden for her birthday...”

  “Only a sunroom.”

  Kacey stared for a minute. And then said, “Fine, only a sunroom.” She turned back to Jem. “Would you like the job?”

  “His company,” Lacey said. “Jem’s the boss of foremen. Who are the bosses of the men who actually do the work.”

  He didn’t see any point in arguing the point. He hadn’t always been the boss. He was fully licensed and proficient in every aspect of the framing, drywall and electrical work his men did. And occasionally, he kept a smaller job for himself. To keep himself sharp. Or because he wanted the excuse to spend more time with the first woman who’d captivated him in a very long time.

  “I’m happy to come take a look,” Jem said, using his professional voice. “I’ll give you a quote and see what you think.”

  “Good!” Kacey smiled.

  Lacey’s face was completely straight.

  Levi burped.

  “On one condition,” Jem said, prolonging the high he was on for another second or two.

  “What’s that?” Kacey didn’t look bothered. In spite of the hopeful rise of Lacey’s brow.

  “Tell me why Lacey didn’t want you calling your dad.”

  “Oh,” Lacey said, her tone dry. “I can answer that. Dad fancies himself a self-made do-it-yourselfer. He gets the jobs done, but there’s always something a little off about things. Like a floor that’s not quite level...”

  “A door that doesn’t close right.”

  “Trim with a bit of a gap in the corner.”

  “Electrical outlets that aren’t live.”

  “Switches that you have to turn up to turn off and down to turn on.”

  Both girls were chuckling. Jem was grinning.

  “Remember the time he put that sink out in the shed, and when Mom mentioned that it was dripping, he said he knew and it wasn’t a problem—they’d just keep a bucket under it?”

  “And your mother’s okay with all of this?”

  “Heck, no!” the women answered in unison. Same words. Same intonation. And he still heard Lacey’s voice. “Anytime Mom needs something done, she calls a professional before she tells Dad,” Lacey told him.

  “He doesn’t take offense?”

  “Probably. But he still putters, has his projects. He’s building a shed, complete with electric and plumbing, at their beach cottage in San Diego...”

  Her parents had a beach cottage. So did his. A place for family to gather.

  For some reason the thought bothered him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IF LACEY DIDN’T love her sister so much, she’d strangle her.

  “Face it, Lacey, you’re glad I did what I did.”

  She wanted to argue, but knew it was pointless. “Part of me is still angry with you.”

  “I know, but that part of you needs an attitude adjustment.”

  “Offering to take Levi to the park while Jem and I go over the plans was overkill.”

  “To the contrary, it gets me out of here.”

  “I don’t need you out of here, Kace. It’s okay. I’m not twenty anymore. You and I are connected at the hip, which means that any guy who likes me is going to see you, too. If I can’t trust him in that situation, then what’s the point in liking him?”

  “So you admit it. You do like him?”

  “No! I’m telling you that the things I said when Ramsey dumped me for you as soon as he met you...they were wrong. It wasn’t about you. Or me, either. It was him. That was more than ten years ago, and I can’t believe I brought it up last year. I am disgusted by and so sorry for the horrible and stupid and childish things I said.”

  She’d hoped, at least, that the memory had faded with time. She wasn’t proud of herself for going off on her sister, her soul mate, when it was herself and the world’s reaction to her that had really had her upset.

  “But you were right, too,” Kacey said. Her eyes clouded over as she tucked her heels up to her butt on the side of the hot tub, where they were ending their Saturday night with a glass of wine. They’d walked back to the beach. Watched a movie. And still hadn’t been ready to turn in.

  Lacey’s next-door neighbor was out of town for the summer and, in exchange for her watching the house, she’d been granted unlimited use of the hot tub.

  “I was the one who got to ride in the race car. Every single time we went on a job where they could only take one of us, I was the one who was chosen. There wasn’t one boy in high school who asked you out first. And when you brought your college boyfriend home to spend Christmas with the family, he met me and dumped you. It all happened, Lacey, just as you’d said. There were things that you left out, too. We walk into a room, people reach out to shake my hand. Not yours. I feel guilty as hell. I hate it. But I don’t know how to change it.”

  “You aren’t going to change it,” Lacey told her. “You aren’t meant to. Your personality is just different from mine. More bold. You’re outgoing. I’d rather stand in a corner. You always know the right thing to say. I tell the truth even when it’s best to keep my mouth shut. You shine, Kace. I don’t.”

  Silence fell for a time. They both sipped their wine. And then Lacey chuckled. “Remember the time you insisted that I put glitter all over my skin so that I’d stand out more than you would?”

  “That was a disaster,” Kacey said. Lacey’s skin had had a reaction to the spray; she’d itched like crazy and had welts all over by the end of the evening.

  “But it made senior prom memorable!” Lacey really could laugh about it now. She hadn’t liked the guy she’d been with any more than Kacey had liked her date. But they’d loved the chocolate ice cream their dad had gone out to get for them as a consolation prize. It had been waiting for them when Mom had finished rubbing the topical antibiotic all over Lacey’s welts after the twenty-minute shower she’d insisted Lacey take.

  “Mom and Dad were going to ground me for that one,” Kacey said now.

  “Which wasn’t fair. You were only trying to help.”

  “And you ended up coming to my rescue. Like usual.”

  Funny that Kacey would say that. Lacey had always felt like Kacey was the sister who solved their problems. But maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe Kacey’s bright light, her always coming in first to Lacey’s second, had blinded Lacey to a truth or two.

  And maybe this new sunroom, this attempt of her sister’s to do something big for Lacey, was as important for Kacey as it could be for her.

  “Anyway, it seemed like the decent thing to do, offering to take the little guy to the park, since Jem’s coming out on a Sunday to look at the project. It’s not like there’s a day care open or anything.”

  It was all highly unusual. A contractor making a nonemergency house call on a Sunday. A woman buying her sister a room for her birthday.

  Lacey being so obsessed with Jeremiah Bridges.

  “Just make sure you don’t stay gone too long,” she said. And hoped she hadn’t just given her sister any more bad ideas.

  * * *

  JEM HAD NEVER been more energized giving a quote in his life. Nor had he cut his costs quite so much. He had one goal in mind—to make damned sure he got the bid. And he couldn’t even explain that.

  He hardly knew the woman, had spent less than one full working day with her all told.

  But she had a hold of him.

  And he wasn’t fighting it.

  It felt too damned good.

  So good that
his mood didn’t sour when Tressa called to tell him that she really wanted to quit her job. Even after he’d stuck his neck out for her. She didn’t think it was right that she’d had to apologize when she was the one who’d been slandered.

  It also wasn’t right, according to the thirty-minute tirade he listened to, that she had to smile and be gracious when people were rude to her. It wasn’t fair. She’d been hired to make the bank money while keeping customer interests in mind. She was doing that. Brilliantly.

  She felt underappreciated and that was no way for a person to have to feel every single day.

  Plus Mick was watching over her too much now. She felt like she was on trial and the stress was getting to her.

  He asked her what Amelia had to say about it all.

  She said Amelia was her rock.

  And then told him, again, that she wanted to quit her job.

  He told her she needed to stick it out, reminded her that he’d put his reputation on the line at her request and added that her alimony was ending. It had to end, he told her.

  At which point she surmised that he was having financial difficulties and rang off before he could tell her about them.

  Or tell her she was wrong. Which he wouldn’t have done, even though she was wrong. The defensive tongue-lashing that would ensue wasn’t worth the satisfaction of pointing out the obvious.

  Good news was, she no longer had the right to view any of his financial data.

  Tressa could drain blood from a turnip.

  But not from him. Not anymore.

  * * *

  FOR THE FIRST time in...ever...Lacey had to fight an urge to leave work right on time that next week. She did her job as well as always. She took time for casual conversation with her coworkers—keeping connected to what mattered most—and volunteered for extra duties.

  But while she gave her all to these activities, as usual, she struggled with the idea that she had a sister at home who had to be kept under control. Now that Jem was in the picture.

  He was there three nights that week when she got home, as she’d known he was going to be—Kacey’s arrangements, not hers.

  Her sister was paying for the job Jem had been hired to do. Technically he was working for her, and she wanted things well under way before she had to get back to Beverly Hills and the taping of the next season of The Rich and Loyal. Hard to believe that they were already well into Kacey’s second week in Santa Raquel.

  Lacey’s driving need to be home had nothing to do with keeping her sister from being alone with Jem. She swore that fact to herself every single day as she refused to give in to the drive to get home before Jem arrived. She only wanted to make certain that she was a part of the choices being made for the home she owned and would be living in.

  A couple of times she acknowledged to herself that while Jem’s guaranteed eventual response to Kacey didn’t matter to her, she didn’t trust Kacey not to tell Jem more about her than Lacey wanted him to know.

  That her sister was on a mission to get Lacey hooked up with a man she was truly hot for went without question. Kacey openly admitted to the plan to Lacey.

  That didn’t mean she was going to be successful. She wasn’t. Kacey had no control over men’s reactions to her. Or to Lacey.

  Which was why there was no need for Lacey to try to minimize Jem’s alone time with her dazzling sister. Nothing was going to change the fact that Lacey just didn’t measure up in the exuding department.

  At least not practically speaking.

  What the week did do was show Lacey how much her sister loved her. She knew, anyway, but, still, it filled her heart, and broke it, too, to see Kacey trying so hard to be invisible. Didn’t matter what she wore in the makeup or clothes department, didn’t matter what she did with her hair, Kacey entered a room with her eyes open and people were drawn to her.

  It wasn’t her fault. There was nothing either of them could do about it.

  Maturity had brought that knowledge to Lacey’s heart.

  Moving away, having a life of her own where the two of them weren’t being compared, where she wasn’t always seen side by side with her sister, had been her way of dealing with reality. Of finding her own peace. Her sense of self and a chance to be truly happy.

  And a chance to let Kacey be happy, too. Feeling guilt for something you couldn’t help was excruciating. Hurting the one who was a part of you from the womb wasn’t something you could ever be at peace with.

  Jem measured and brought computerized drawings. Lacey signed city permit forms. Twice that week Kacey had pushed the two of them—Lacey and Jem—out the door to go look at flooring, screens, paint swatches, while Kacey entertained Levi at Lacey’s house.

  She’d chattered about the house. Asking questions about the framing process. Pouring the floor, leveling it. Running electric. Keeping her mind focused so it didn’t run away with her.

  He cooperated nicely. Answering questions. Explaining in detail—with utmost patience with her ignorance. Making suggestions, based on what she said she wanted, not on his own tastes.

  She didn’t even know his own tastes.

  Or anything new about him. Other than that he was a very patient man. And clearly very knowledgeable about his business.

  And that was as it should be.

  They didn’t mention Levi. She couldn’t. Not for any ethical reason, but because it didn’t feel right to her, discussing a former investigation. He didn’t mention his son, either, which she found a bit odd. Parents generally went on and on about their youngsters, finding every normal developmental advancement a miracle and oftentimes accomplished better than anyone had ever done it before.

  She put his reticence down to the fact that she’d represented a chance that Levi could be taken away from him. But in his shoes, she’d have been glad for a chance to mention the boy in the nonthreatening setting, conveying the sense of normalcy that Jem wanted her to know existed within the walls of his home.

  “How long is your sister staying?” He broke protocol—asking a personal question—as they left the home repair superstore he’d taken her to just before closing Thursday night, after she’d been more than an hour late getting home. He’d wanted her to take a look at retractable shades, and to consider windows, as well, for the two screened sides of the new room, so that she could use the space year-round.

  He’d already talked her into including a heating duct. She’d have to have heat and air to include the square footage in her home’s value assessment.

  It also meant raised taxes, but not enough to make the trade-off a bad idea.

  “I’m not sure,” she said now, feeling suddenly deflated in spite of the fact that she’d been expecting questions about Kacey. It had only been a matter of time. “She’s got another couple of weeks until she has to go back to work. I’m hoping she’ll be with me that long.”

  “You two really lived together until you were thirty?”

  “Yep.”

  “What about relationships?”

  What about them? Defensiveness sprang forth, but she wasn’t susceptible to it anymore. “We had them,” she said, assuming, she hoped, a Kacey smile as she answered lightly.

  “But neither of you married.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?” She could be Kacey when she needed to be. Like a lot of identicals, they’d done their share of switching places and fooling people as they’d been growing up. She just had to make sure she didn’t make eye contact.

  It was the eyes that gave them away.

  “It’s just... You’re both so beautiful and...”

  Lacey actually got hot from the inside out. Which brought to mind the complaints her mother had made a year or two ago as she’d gone through middle-age flashes.


  “Why this sudden interest in our love lives?” Her tone held authority, not come-hitherness. She was Lacey again. Because there was no point in trying to be anyone else.

  “My interest isn’t sudden.”

  Head whipping to the side, pins pulling against her scalp as the twist she’d put in her hair that morning moved, Lacey looked at him.

  Her question had clearly not been an invitation. If he was making fun of her...

  He wasn’t smiling. Not even close.

  What was going on here?

  “I don’t have a love life,” she said slowly. Was he seriously interested in her love life?

  No. It was Kacey’s he wanted to know about. Wow. Crazy that it took her a second to figure that out. The year and a half living apart from Kacey had softened her brain.

  And...Jem was a nice guy. A truly nice guy. He’d pay attention to Lacey out of genuine interest. There were a lot of nice guys out there. They couldn’t help gravitating toward Kacey...

  “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

  BY FRIDAY JEM 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.