His First Choice (14 page)

Because something told her that losing him in the end would hurt far worse than any pain she'd ever known before.

“You're wrong about that.” How a voice could sound so sexy she had no idea. But just listening to him talk was making her want to go to bed with the man. Which was not a good thing. At all.

Maybe in the secret recesses of her mind. But nowhere else.

Of course, these days, people had sex without even dating. Or dating exclusively. They had sex without love. Or even a great deal of affection.

People. Not her.

But he didn't know that...

“We might not have known each other long,” he continued, “but the way you came into my life was pretty intense.”

Sure was. She'd told him he was under suspicion because there were reports his son was being abused. “I suppose.”

“I had the hots for you the second I saw you standing on my doorstep.”

If that had been a confession, he'd sounded way too proud of himself to be seeking forgiveness.

And she was too busy accepting the fact that he'd had the hots for her when she'd been all Lacey. On the job. Completely herself. Her heart fluttered.

And then slowed.

He'd had the hots for her before Kacey came to town.

Other guys had chosen her, too, before they'd met Kacey. Before they'd known a larger-than-life rendition of her, one who was equally nice, existed.

He wouldn't be the first guy to settle for her when Kacey made it clear she didn't want him.

Her high school prom date had that distinction. The one who'd taken her home early because her skin was breaking out in glittery welts.

“I've spent a few evenings with you, getting to know your tastes.”

She'd purposely kept things completely business. For both their sakes. “I...guess.”

“I've just spent the entire past weekend in your home. I know what kind of housekeeper you are. What kind of cook. I know you put the toilet paper on the roll with the end on top instead of on the bottom, which makes it easier to find when one needs to pull...”

“Okay, now you're embarrassing me.”

“I noticed because I do it the same way.”

She was even more embarrassed.

“I know that you have a genuine fondness for my son, that you're a natural around him and that he likes you.”

“He adores Kacey.” She wasn't going to pretend otherwise. Fantasy or no.

“When he asks for one of you, he always asks for the other, too.”

“And do you, too?” Growing up in Hollywood, they'd had their share of come-ons from men who wanted to take them both home.

They'd even had an offer for a B-rated movie deal once. Kacey had fired the agent who'd passed that one on to them.

“A guy might fantasize,” Jem said, his tone sobering, “but I like to focus on one woman when I'm making love. There's only one of me.”

Were they really having this conversation?

She needed to stop it, but didn't want to. She was kind of enjoying herself. Because it didn't really mean anything.

And because it was better than pissing him off, which was what she was about to do.

“So...if I agree to this dinner thing...does it mean I have to have sex with you?” The line was more Kacey than her, but she pulled it off.

She hoped he'd say yes. She knew that if he did, she was going to end things right there.

“Sex is not a requisite for a dinner date.”

“You're sure.”

“Absolutely.”

Wow. What man gave up sex, even in jest?

“Okay, then.” She called his bluff. Because the conversation was beginning to matter.

“Did you just agree to have dinner with me? Alone? As in a man and a woman on a date?” He showed no signs of distress. Or humor, either. He sounded like he really and truly wanted to have dinner with her.

She wasn't sure why he was pursuing her like this, but she would not let herself get in so deep she'd get hurt. But...

“I think so. Yes. And I'm not having sex afterward.” She needed him to understand that right up front. It couldn't get that far. She couldn't have sex without falling for him. And she absolutely could not fall for him.

She had no idea what made him different from any other guy she'd ever dated. A couple of whom she'd had enjoyable sex with, without heartache when the relationships ended. Regret, sure. Who liked to share an intimate relationship and not have it work out? But heartbreak? Not since college, when she'd brought her boyfriend home for Christmas and he'd dumped her for Kacey.

Jem was discussing nights for their proposed date. Lacey was scaring herself to the point of wondering if she should back out.

“Is Wednesday okay?”

“Yes. Kacey and I don't have any plans.”

“Do you think we could talk her into watching Levi?”

“I don't think we'll have to twist her arm.” If her sister had still been up, she'd be sitting there eavesdropping and nodding her head emphatically.

He suggested a couple of places they could go. She told him to surprise her, because she truly didn't care where they went. And if she knew, she'd start looking forward to it, picturing the evening in detail, building it into more than it could be.

But she couldn't let him hang up. Not yet.

Because he might be canceling that date before he'd ever made a reservation.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

G
LAD
THAT
HE
'
D
changed his mind and taken a beer back outside rather than going to bed on a Tressa low, Jem stretched out in his seat, bantering back and forth with the woman on the other end of the line.

He'd forgotten what a natural high that could be. He'd been into Tressa. Really into her. But he couldn't remember the sound of her voice ever wiping away everything bad in his world.

He'd been into other women, too. A few of them.

Nothing compared.

He'd asked Lacey Hamilton out on a date. And she'd actually said yes.

She said yes!
He felt like his junior high self, ready to race his bike to the top of the mountain that stood just outside his hometown and scream at the top of his lungs.

Instead, he sat there sipping beer, unable to wipe the goofy grin off his face.

“Jem?”

“Yeah?” Had she changed her mind about going to bed with him after dinner? Okay, it might be a little premature, but...he was ready. More than ready.

If she was...

“On another note, I still haven't told you the reason for my call.”

Thinking back, he figured she was right about that. He'd hijacked the conversation to talk about dating.

She said yes!

Maybe she'd changed her mind about the tile or paint color in the room he was building for her—a common phone call in his line of work.

“It's about Levi.”

His feet came back down to the ground with a flop as he reminded himself that she was off the case. She couldn't take his boy away from him.

And then he realized that she wouldn't take his boy away from him. He'd just talked about how well he'd gotten to know her.

It seemed he really had. If he were abusing Levi, she'd take him in a heartbeat. And he'd expect her to. Otherwise, they were on the exact same side.

“What's up?” His tone was even when he finally spoke. Coming from a place of confidence, knowing Lacey was his partner on this one. Not his adversary.

“Has he ever talked to you about learning to swim?”

“Yeah, of course. He loves the water,” he answered and then tried to remember specifically what Levi had told him. “There's a pool at Tressa's place and she was adamant about making sure he knew how to swim so there wouldn't be any danger of accidental drowning. I told you how she overdramatizes everything. But she handled it. She taught him to swim all by herself.”

He'd been proud of her. She'd taken control of herself, been positively productive and done something good for their son without Jem's help.

Lacey's silence left him room to say more and he added, “He's not ready to join a swim team or anything, but he's proficient. He can get from one side of the pool to the other without taking in any water. It's only seven feet across, but the point was to know that wherever he fell in, he could get to the side.”

Again, Tressa's plan had been good, well thought out.

“But you weren't there to see the actual lessons?”

“No.” He remembered that with a little regret. He'd have liked to have been included. But he got so much of Levi to himself, he certainly couldn't begrudge his ex-wife her share of big moments alone with him. “I was in San Francisco for a California contractors' convention and also to meet with a potential client and work up a bid for me to send one of my crews up to work on a complex of condominiums.”

“You were gone awhile, then.”

“Yeah.” He leaned back, put his feet up again and took another sip of beer. “A little over a week. It's the longest I've ever been away since Levi was born, and I gotta tell you, it wasn't easy. I called him every day. Twice. Morning and night. I think he handled the separation a lot better than I did.”

Wow. Talking to someone about his personal stuff, one-on-one, felt good. Damned good. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed that part of having a companion.

“And by the time you got back, he knew how to swim?”

“Yep. But that's kind of been the story of Levi's life. He masters new skills as soon as he puts his mind to them. Like walking. When he was ten months old, he took one step, holding on to the chair he'd pulled himself up on, and within two days, he was walking from the chair to the couch.”

Suddenly he was back to doubting again. Kacey and Lacey had been alone with Levi that afternoon. And the boy had been subdued at dinner. Because he was exhausted, Jem knew, but...

“Why the questions about him learning to swim?” he asked now. “Was there a situation with him when Kacey took him to the beach? Did she tell you something I should know?”

Levi could have run off toward the water—though if he had, it would surprise Jem. Levi knew the consequences—no beach for the rest of the summer—if he didn't respect the dangers inherent in being near the water alone.

He started to sweat until Lacey said, “He was perfect at the beach. Kacey didn't tell me something you should know, Levi did.”

Everything inside Jem slowed down. Feet firmly on the ground, he sat forward, staring in the dark toward the pavers he'd laid himself.

“What did he tell you?”

“He asked Kacey and me how our mother held us both underwater at the same time when she taught us to swim.”

That could mean any number of things.

“He demonstrated to us how his mom held his ribs and squeezed as she held him under the water.”

Four-year-olds exaggerated. Levi told him impossibly outrageous stories all the time. And Tressa did have a tendency to panic. She could have had too tight a grip on him, but only to keep him safe.

Was everything they did going to be under scrutiny now? And for how long? What in the hell had that anonymous phone call gotten them into?

“He said that he cried.”

“He told you that?”

In the version he got, Levi had had great lessons. He'd excelled as usual. When he'd made it across the pool by himself, Tressa had bought a little plastic basketball hoop and basketball for the pool and they'd played with it and had a blast.

Levi had taken him by the hand out to her pool to show the little plastic basketball hoop to him as soon as he'd gotten back to town.

“He also told me that he didn't tell you, which is why I'm telling you. It seems significant that he not only didn't tell you, but that its magnitude is such that it's still in his data bank.”

He didn't disagree with her.

She was telling
him
. Talking to him like a friend would. Or someone who also cared for his son.

The immediate defensive traffic in his brain slowed. Allowing Jem to process information calmly.

“When did this happen?” Her question broke into his thoughts.

“March. We had those few warm days and Tressa keeps her pool heated.”

“Here's the thing, Jem...” He waited through her pause, wanting to know her thoughts. “I don't want you upset with me, but this is what I do for a living, and I can't just turn it off because I'm not working.”

“I want to hear what you have to say.” As she said, she dealt with kids every day. He'd value her input.

“You remember I told you about a report of bruising? And you were adamant that if there'd been any, you'd have noticed?”

His blood ran cold.

“After I interviewed you—and Levi—I knew you were right. There was no way you'd have missed the bruises, and I believed you hadn't seen them. It's partially why I closed the investigation. There was no evidence to substantiate the claim, so I had to believe someone had simply been overzealous.”

He wondered if she should be telling him all of this.

“But now... The timing's right, Jem. I think that Levi's torso
was
covered in bruises. And that they'd faded before you saw him.”

Tressa wouldn't hold Levi so tight, for so long, that his torso would be covered in bruises. She'd... No, she just wouldn't. She was his mother.

A drama queen, yes. Unpredictable and self-absorbed a lot of the time. But not when it came to Levi. She always put him first.

His almost-full-time custody of their son was a case in point. Tressa was missing so much, and she knew it. Innumerable tearful late-night phone conversations were testimony to that fact.

She planned everything else around her weekends with him—never canceling or going out when it was her turn to care for their son—unless she absolutely couldn't help it. She was agreeable anytime Jem asked her to keep Levi for an hour or two if he had a business dinner or association meeting to attend.

“Say something.”

He didn't know what to say. “I'll talk to her.”

“You think she'll be honest with you? If she was going to admit to hurting him, don't you think she'd already have told you?”

He had to remind himself that Lacey didn't know Tressa. Or how her mind worked. If she'd done something she wasn't proud of, she wouldn't come out and tell him. That served her no benefit and could cause her discomfort. But lying to him when he asked a direct question could cost her more.

Bottom line was, she needed him. And the divorce—the fact that he'd gone through with it—had shown her that there were some things he just was not going to put up with. No matter how much he understood her inner workings.

And sympathized with her very tough past.

“I think she'll be honest,” he told her. “I'd like to give her that chance. Are you agreeable to that?”

“What do you mean? It's not up to me if you talk to your ex-wife.”

“I assume that since you made one report as a private citizen, you can make another.” He'd figured that out shortly after he'd breathed a sigh of relief that she was off his case. And thought there was nothing more to fear from her.

Truth was, he
had
nothing to fear from her. Not because she was off the case, but because she cared about the exact same things he did.

“And it also stands to reason that with your position, a report you might make would carry more weight than one another, unknown citizen might make.”

“So what are you asking?”

She didn't deny the fact that she might call her coworker.

“I guess I'm asking you to be my partner in this,” he said. “Let me talk to Tressa. I'll get back with you and let you know what she says as soon as I do. And then, if you feel that you need to make your call, you let me know that, and you make your call. Nothing behind your back and nothing behind mine. Does that work for you?”

This was bigger than asking her out for a date. Way bigger. And yet, in some ways, it seemed to have the same implications.

“Levi's not going to be spending any time with his mother in the next couple of days, is he?”

“Nope.”

“Then it works fine for me.”

“All of it?”

“You talking to Tressa, you mean?”

“That. And the not going behind each other's backs part. I tell you everything Tressa says or does. You tell me before you make any calls you feel you need to make.”

“Yes. That works for me.”

“No matter what you think, or what, professionally, your instincts are telling you, you'll let me know before you report any concerns.”

“Yes, as long as Levi isn't in immediate danger. But you have to know, Jem, I will report concerns even if you don't want me to.”

“Good.” His feet were back up on the rock. The goofy grin was gone, but something more substantial, and just as good, seemed to be taking its place. “Because rest assured, Lace, if you ever think my son is danger, I want you to move hell and high water to help him.”

She didn't say anything. He wasn't sure why.

“You called me ‘Lace.'”

He hadn't realized. But...

“You'd rather I didn't?”

“No, I kind of liked it. It's just...only Kacey and my parents have ever called me that.”

“She says it all the time. I guess it just stuck with me.”

A ridiculous conversation, but he liked it, anyway.

Almost as much as he liked her.