His First Choice (9 page)

“He's a client, Kace,” she said, words pouring out of her without forethought. “Or rather, was a client. Very briefly. He doesn't even like me. I swear, I'm not seeing anyone. I just...think about him. No clue why. And I'm going to make sure I stop.”

“He wasn't hurting a kid, was he?” Kacey knew what she did for a living, in every detail Lacey was at liberty to give.

“Of course not.” Jeremiah Bridges doted on Levi, who obviously not only adored his dad, but felt secure with him, too. It hadn't taken Lacey long to assess that one.

“So...he's...”

“Nothing.” Lacey started walking again back the way they'd come, toward the car. They could go shopping again, or something. “He's nothing. So nothing he wasn't worth mentioning except that I couldn't have you thinking I don't trust you.”

“It's not a matter of trusting me,” Kacey said. “You know I'd never date a guy you even thought you liked.”

Yeah, she did know that. Kacey was right. She wasn't the problem.

Guys were.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

J
EM
COULDN
'
T
BELIEVE
his eyes when he pulled into Uncle Bob's on Saturday, glanced toward the beach and saw Lacey Hamilton in double. In both forms his fantasies had taken. One was drably overdressed, and the other rather undressed. He skipped over the version with long, tanned legs exposed, and stared at the one with loose black cotton shorts that hung to her knees.

He much preferred taking his time to unwrap his own package, not have it arrive out of the wrapping. He'd always been weird that way.

But her hair... It was the first time he'd seen those blond locks down in real life. It fell almost to her waist and he...

“Come on, Dad!” Levi's little feet kicked the back of his seat and he heard his son unfasten the belt in his car seat. “We haveta eat.”

They were a little late for lunch. He'd taken Levi to work with him as he always did on Saturday morning and had been occupied much longer than planned getting through the list of problems his foremen had handed him during their weekly meeting. Nothing he couldn't handle, though. A straight driveway that was now going to be curved. Some wiring that had blown when a drywall screw had missed a stud. Windows that didn't fit. And roof tiles that had been delivered in black rather than the rust brown the customer had ordered.

Keys in hand he got out of the truck, opened the backseat door to help Levi down and watched as the two women made their way slowly toward the beach parking lot that was adjacent to Uncle Bob's.

He wasn't going to call out to her. He didn't ever want to see her again.

“It's her and her twin, Dad! See?” Levi said, loudly enough for anyone in the parking lot to hear. Uncle Bob's parking lot, not the adjacent one.

So much for thinking that the woman had given his son nightmares.

“Yeah, I see.” Jem, giving a small tug on Levi's hand, turned toward the restaurant. “And her name is Lacey.”

“Lacey!” Levi called out immediately. Not at all what he'd intended. Should have kept his mouth shut...

He thought about telling his son they absolutely did not want to see the other woman. Telling him that for their own safety they had to stay away from her. But he couldn't figure out how to do so when Levi had been told she was a friend. He'd let her take Levi alone to a playroom. He'd let her in their home, to see Levi's room and most prized possessions.

The women were almost at the first row of cars. He didn't see the one that had been parked outside his home on one of the worst nights of his life.

“La-a-a-a-a-ceeeeey!” Levi called again, turning around to watch her as Jem pulled him toward Uncle Bob's.

“She stopped!” Levi said, digging his feet into the graveled pavement. Deciding that dragging his son in front of his ex–social worker wouldn't be a smart move—he'd never drag him, period—Jem stopped, too.

“Come on, Dad! She sees us!” Levi was pulling him now, away from Uncle Bob's front door.

Coming up with no other options, Jem looked toward his son's goal. “I want to see a twin.” Levi's voice was not getting any softer.

“You've seen twins before,” he told the boy. If he'd been able to remember when, he'd have pointed the instance out to him. There weren't any in preschool, that he could think of. None of Jem's buddies had twins... Surely...

“Hi, Lacey!” Levi called as they got close to the women. Short-shorts was coming toward them now. Jem knew an uncanny disappointment that the big, welcoming smile on the unknown woman's face didn't also appear on the identical face next to hers.

Clearly Lacey was no happier about this meeting than he was.

Or than he wanted to be.

But, damn, she looked good.

“You still got my car?” Levi asked as they all met at the guardrail separating the two lots. “The green one with the turbos?”

Lacey's grin lit up the sunshiny day as she knelt down. “Why, yes, I do, Levi. I just saw it when I was in the playroom yesterday and I thought of you.”

She'd had another child in that room. Someone else she was investigating. Possibly ripping from his or her home.

A child in danger whom she could be saving from serious harm.

Her job couldn't be easy.

“I wanted to see a twin,” Levi told her, his hands on the guardrail that came up almost to his chin.

“Hi, I'm Kacey.” Jem saw the perfectly manicured fingers reaching toward him, noticed the shiny polish and looked into eyes that weren't Lacey's. Instead of seeing a sunset, he was blinded by the light.

“I'm Jem,” he said, taking the hand, shaking it. He was curious, but not moved at all. Which was crazy, since he couldn't get Lacey Hamilton out of his mind and the only difference between the two was the fact that Lacey had threatened to take his son away from him.

Sort of.

“Dad, Lacey says that her sister's visiting her. We're having a sister visit, too, huh?”

Levi had overheard his phone conversation with his sister. It had been brief.
Mom and Dad said you were coming. You're welcome to stay with us.
She accepted the invitation. Told him she'd let him know the exact date of her arrival—sometime in August. And they'd hung up.

“Yes, we are,” he said now, embarrassed as hell as he looked at the two identically gorgeous women. He thanked God they couldn't read his mind as he tried to wipe it clean of every fantasy he'd ever had. About them, or anyone else.

“We're going at Uncle Bob's,” Levi said next. “Do you like Uncle Bob's?” The question was directed at Kacey.

“I've never been there,” Lacey's look-alike said, kneeling down as Lacey rose. “I'm visiting, remember?”

“Does Aunt JoAnne know Uncle Bob's?” Levi was frowning as he peered up at Jem.

“No, son.” JoAnne had been at his home only once, and hamburgers at the beach weren't her thing. At least not if Jem thought it was a good idea. Maybe if Levi made the suggestion...

“Well, you should bring her here if you like them so much,” Kacey was saying while Jem stared at Lacey. With her hair down she looked more...approachable.

He smiled at her.

And then grinned like an idiot when she smiled back.

“We could bring you, couldn't we, Dad?” Levi turned to look at Jem, who felt like he'd been caught with his pants down.

“Well...”

“No, we were just heading home,” Lacey said. “We've got...”

“I'd love to have an Uncle Bob's sandwich,” Kacey blurted just a little too loud. “I'm starving. We haven't had lunch yet, either.”

“We had a late breakfast,” Lacey said, looking at her sister.

“I'm starving,” Kacey said again.

And then the strangest thing happened. Lacey Hamilton stared at her sister. Her shoulders straightened. And she agreed to have lunch with them.

If they weren't intruding, of course.

Of course he had to say they weren't.

And tried not to feel like he should be adding a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit to his son's college account.

* * *

S
HE
'
D
HAVE
TO
have lunch. Kacey had figured out that Jeremiah Bridges was the client Lacey had mentioned. She knew it the second she'd met her twin's gaze. Probably based on some unconscious reaction Lacey had made. She never had been able to hide anything from Kacey.

Which was both good and bad.

“I apologize,” Jem, as he'd told Kacey to call him, said as he walked behind Kacey, who was being led by Levi, and next to Lacey toward a table out on the patio that overlooked the beach. “If you had plans...”

“We really didn't,” Lacey told him. The only way she was going to prove to her sister that Jem Bridges meant nothing to her was to make it so.

Clearly she wasn't going to be able to hide.

“Your sister seems nice.”

“She is. She's my best friend.”

They were through the restaurant and almost outside. Another few feet and she could grab a chair next to Kacey and across from...

“I want to sit next to Lacey and you can sit there,” Levi said to Kacey, pointing to the seat directly across from him. “We can play the peg game.”

There was a triangular board with holes in it that held golf tees, and the object was to jump tees until there was only one left. It was harder than it looked.

“Have you ever been here before?” Jem asked as he took the seat across from Lacey.

“No.”

“Lacey's only been here a year and a half and she works all the time,” Kacey said. Lacey would have kicked her under the table if she hadn't been afraid of catching Jem's ankle in the process.

Pulling her hair back, she took the elastic she'd slipped around her wrist as they'd headed out and used it to secure a ponytail. There. At least she could be somewhat business-minded.

“Where did you live before you came here?” Jem asked, looking like he might grin again as he watched her secure her hair.

“With me,” Kacey piped in. And then, with a pointed look at Lacey, proceeded to become absorbed by the golf tees Levi was putting in and out of holes with no rule following whatsoever.

“You lived with your sister?”

“While I was in college,” Lacey said. “And then I just stayed.”

“I'd rather see my sister...never,” Jem told her with an unapologetic air that she kind of liked. “A phone call every few years would do me fine.”

She looked over at her sister, sure that Jem really just wanted to hear about her. And knowing she could comply.

Knowing, too, that the surest way for her to convince Kacey that she had no interest in Jem Bridges was to see him go gaga over her sister. It worked every time. If her goal was to never have a boyfriend.

Which, this time, it was.

“Kacey really is my best friend,” she said now. “I don't know what I'd do without her.”

“Where is she visiting from?”

“She owns a condo in Beverly Hills.”

That was a sure head turner.

“Really.” Jem nodded, glancing at Levi and then back at Lacey. “I like the city, but I'd never want to live there.”

“You've never been to Kacey's place. The pool alone is on half an acre of paradise.”

“So why didn't you stay there?”

“I wanted...”

To be out from underneath my sister's shadow.

“A home.”
Lame, Lacey. Really lame.
“A house, I mean.”

“So you have a house here in town?”

“A couple of blocks over.”

“You walked here?”

“I do most nights. Even in the winter. It's one of the reasons I bought the house. It was close to the beach.”

He wondered where
she
lived. He wanted to know about Kacey—that internal reminder put a stop to her wondering.

“Kacey's a movie star, Dad! On TV like Whyatt Beanstalk!” Levi's voice boomed over several tables as he named the star of
Super Why!
, one of his current favorite videos.

“Inside voice, son,” Jem said while people all around them turned to stare.

“Don't worry, they won't know me. Not without my wig and pounds of makeup,” Kacey told Jem. She didn't lean over, didn't make eye contact. But it wouldn't matter.

He'd be leaning in her direction any second now.

“Tell him,” Levi said. “You said you're on TV...”

“I said Lacey and I both were on TV.”

Lacey could feel the heat creeping up her skin. Kacey knew she hated to be outed.

“But you aren't anymore.” Jem's half question was aimed at her.

“Kacey is. She's Doria Endlin from
The Rich and Loyal
.”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry, I don't watch daytime television.” He smiled at Kacey.

That was that. Lacey glanced at Levi, then prepared to relax and enjoy lunch with the little boy.

“What show were
you
on?”

It took her a second, and a miraculously well-placed kick from under the table, for Lacey to know that Jem had been directing the question at her.

“Me? I wasn't ever on a show.”

“We did commercials mostly,” Kacey said. “From the time we were two. Mom cashed in on the whole blonde twin thing.”

“She never pushed us, though,” Lacey quickly pointed out.

“Nope, we loved it and wanted to do it,” Kacey said.

Jem was studying her. “I find it hard to picture you loving being in front of a camera.”

“I loved playing make-believe with Kacey,” she said, shocked that she'd been quite that open. “I loved the different places we got to go and the things we got to do...”

“Lacey got to be on a race car one time, Dad,” Levi said.

While Jem cocked his eyebrow at her, Lacey noted that Levi had remembered a minor detail from weeks before. Not normal developmental stage for a four-year-old. Usually their memories didn't stretch back much beyond a week or so, if that. They were too busy moving forward to hang on to what was behind them. And...

“Lacey,” Kacey said, laughing. “Tell him about that commercial...”

They'd burned their fannies on the hot metal, sitting on the hood of that car. Lacey had quickly figured out that if they took the labels off the cans of motor oil they were there to sell, they could sit on them. Only problem had been when the prompt came to hold up the cans in front of the camera and all they had to sell was blank tin cans.

“You're the one who got to ride in the car,” she said quickly and turned to the child at her side. “Remember, Levi? I told you my twin sister got to ride in the car...”

Because Kacey had asked; Lacey hadn't wanted to be a bother.

“What happened at the shoot?” Jem was half grinning as he watched her across the table while Kacey told Levi all about her trip around the track in a real race car when she wasn't much older than him.