His First Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “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 par
t 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.”

  Everything inside of him slowed down and came to a halt.

  He was as bad as Tressa, making it all about him. Which wasn’t like him at all.

  “Fair enough.”

  “I can’t speak to anyone officially now,” she said. “I’m off the case. But I have to tell you...from where I’m sitting, I’m concerned about Levi. Are you absolutely certain that your ex-wife isn’t hurting him?”

  “Absolutely.” Tressa was a lot of things, but she loved Levi. “She’d die for him.”

  “That doesn’t mean that, in a fit of drama, she wouldn’t hurt him.” She was looking at him deeply. The thought was inane. And still there. She was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t getting it.

  “Tressa isn’t the violent type.”

  She didn’t look any more satisfied with his answer than he was with the entire conversation.

  But at least he knew one thing.

  She was, officially, completely, off the case. He had nothing more to fear from her.

  And for that, he was glad.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT ALL STARTED because he had to eat. Levi, that was. And, well, Jem, too. When Lacey and Kacey had returned home Friday from their walk on the beach, and she’d seen the permit taped to her front window—the moment when she faced the fact that she really was getting her new dream room—she’d insisted that Kacey show her how much the room would cost.

  She was going to contribute at least half of it. They settled on Lacey’s half being her birthday gift to her sister, because Lacey was getting truly upset, and that was when she’d seen how little Jem was making on the deal.

  Not because he’d broken out his labor costs, but because she’d done the math on the choices she’d made. And while they’d been in the home improvement store, she’d seen how much lumber cost.

  Kacey had pointed out that he’d have a pretty substantial contractor discount, but the wood wouldn’t be free.

  He was doing this as a favor to Kacey.

  So they were going to have to do favors for him—like watching Levi, and feeding them both.

  As soon as she and Jem had reached their somewhat tenuous truce Saturday morning, she’d left to make a grocery store run to get more tuna, chips, fresh fruit and peanut butter and jelly just in case.

  When Kacey and Levi returned from the beach, she served lunch in the dining area off the kitchen. She didn’t eat in there often, preferring her table for two in the little nook in her kitchen.

  But there were four of them.

  For dinner, too.

  On Sunday Jem showed up with a booster seat in hand. “I had an extra out in the garage,” he said as Lacey stared at the thing and Kacey took it from him.

  “It goes in my chair,” Levi said, walking straight up to the chair he’d knelt in the day before, his good elbow helping to prop him up on her dining room table.

  The booster chair move-in was unexpected, except that she figured she knew Jem’s real motivation. Kacey. She’d seen guys do some pretty crazy things over the years to get to her sister.

  Like walk a mile each way to get her the fish tacos she was craving. They’d been fifteen. The guy was their next-door neighbor at the time. Lacey had asked for regular tacos. He’d forgotten and brought fish for her, too. She hated fish tacos.

  There’d been the jeweler who’d designed a necklace just for Kacey. Of course, he’d also then used her name to sell a mass-produced version of the original. With her permission.

  She’d once had a man sail a yacht from Florida to San Diego just to pick her up for a two-hour date because she’d mentioned that she wanted to see his yacht.

  Lacey had been the first one to express an interest in seeing the seventy-foot yacht with a swimming pool on the deck. Mostly because she didn’t really believe there was one. He’d shown her a picture, and she’d introduced him to her sister. He was fascinating, had done a lot of things with his life and was still in his midthirties, but she hadn’t felt any sparks. She’d known Kacey would, though. Kace went for flashy guys, the ones who wore all the right clothes.

  And jewelry. She liked guys who wore rings.

  Jem had a class ring on his right hand. Even when he worked.

  Maybe none of the things Lacey could currently bring to mind were as crazy as building a room, but they were close.

  Kacey had fallen hard for the yacht guy. They’d been hot and heavy for more than a year. She’d wanted to get married, start a family. He’d had more pressing matters. Like sailing around the world, buying into a casino in Monte Carlo and looking for a summer home in Greece.

  Jem was the marrying kind, a family man.

  And gorgeous.

  He was also successful. He wore a tie to work when he wasn’t giving away his labor for free. His jeans were designer, even when wearing a tool belt, and his work shirts looked like they came straight out of a high-end men’s fashion magazine.

  He wore the glint of success well; it might be understated, but it was still there.

  Lacey almost felt sorry for him when Kacey wouldn’t give him a second look.

  And so, on Sunday, when her pager went off, a callout to any available case agent to see to an emergency, Lacey pushed the callback button immediately. Her coworkers wouldn’t be surprised. Lacey was most always the one who took after-hours calls. Unless she was already on one.

  Jem didn’t seem all that put out, either, when she stepped outside to tell him she’d been called into work. He’d been measuring and stopped. Looked up at her.

  “The child in danger is lucky to have you on the way,” he said and then smiled at her.

  She nodded and left him alone with her sister and his son. Let Jem and Kacey work out whatever would or would not be between them. Lacey had learned a long time ago she couldn’t fight nature.

  No matter how much she might like a guy.

  And there was another issue at hand, too. She wasn’t working Levi’s case anymore—couldn’t go anywhere near it professionally—but she cared every bit as much about his safety as she had when she had been his caseworker.

  Being a friend didn’t mean that she lost her work skills. Just like Jem building a room for her at slave labor wages didn’t mean she’d get a second-rate room.

  Sydney had Tressa covered. And Lacey had access to Levi. Easy, natural, uninstitutional access.

  The call she’d received involved two girls, aged six and seven, who’d been left alone for at least two days. A neighbor had called the police.

  Law enforcement was at the scene before she was. Lacey caught a hint of what they feared—that something had prevented two normally attentive parents from returning home to their girls—but her job wasn’t to solve the mystery.

  The neighbor who’d called the police had already fed the girls. She offered to keep them with her, but when neither girl seemed inclined to seek the woman out for comfort, Lacey decided to take them with her.

  Helping the girls pack a couple of days’ worth of their favorite clothes, pajamas and toys, she took them back to her office, where she set them up with a snack in the playroom, and then, leaving the door open and taking a monitor with her, she headed down the hall to her office to make some calls.

  The girls had an aunt in Santa Barbara. They’d both told her so on the way to the office, in between asking if she was taking them to their mom
my and daddy. The aunt was fairly easy to trace down, but didn’t answer the phone number listed for her on the internet.

  She didn’t answer her door, either, after Lacey made a call to local police to make a well-check run. There was no sign of disturbance at the home and neighbors said she’d gone on a trip up the coast for the weekend.

  They also said she had a brother in LA, an uncle to the girls who was married with a couple of kids of his own. He’d already heard from the police, was distraught to find out that his sister and brother-in-law were missing, and he and his family were on the way to Santa Raquel.

  The overall prognosis for the family didn’t look good—a sudden disappearance of seemingly conscientious and loving parents. The girls were in good hands, though. And for the night, at least, back in their own home as, after investigation, Lacey released them to their aunt and uncle.

  But Lacey couldn’t help thinking that their lives were going to change forever after that day. Just as she couldn’t stop thinking about the one thing the police had also wondered...

  If the parents were so loving and conscientious, why were both cars gone, and the girls left home alone?

  It wasn’t for her to figure that one out. All she could do was wonder, and wait. And worry, if she let herself get in too deep.

  That wasn’t her job, either.

  But the not knowing, and her inability to do more for the children in that moment, left her pensive.

  Missing lunch with her sister and Jem and Levi didn’t improve her mood, but she knew the day had transpired as it was meant to do.

  Her life was dedicated to helping children.

  Which was why, Sunday afternoon, while Jem was getting ready to pour cement in the trench he’d dug with a backhoe around the perimeter of the new room—not that she’d been paying attention earlier in the week when he’d explained the process to her—Lacey suggested that she and Kacey build a puzzle with Levi. She’d picked a couple of them up at the store on the way home, just to make certain that she didn’t walk in on the tail end of lunch. She’d chosen one-hundred-piece puzzles and was fairly certain that Levi would not only take an interest in them, he’d be able to do them without help.