His First Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Calm down, Tress.” Jem’s tone was...normal sounding. “I’m sorry you found out about Lacey like that, but...”

  “Lacey? As in Levi’s caseworker? You’re seeing our son’s caseworker? I’m going to sue her, Jem. Oh, is she mine. She’ll be out of a job before I’m done with her...”

  Wanting to find a bathroom, afraid she might throw up, Lacey stood rooted to the wall, trembling. She hadn’t done anything wrong. But she had started out as a caseworker to this family.

  The investigation was closed when she ran into Jem and Levi again at the beach, and she hadn’t been anywhere near it since she’d been seeing Jem socially.

  But the woman could make things look bad for her. Really bad. She could have a mark on her reputation. And...

  She had to trust Jem. He’d take care of this. He’d see what Tressa was doing to her...

  “Let’s talk about this, Tress. You know you don’t want to do any of those things.”

  “Are you really seeing her, Jem?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “What?”

  “Amelia didn’t see Levi at the beach with Lacey. She saw him at the beach with her twin sister.”

  “There’s two of them?”

  He was siccing Tressa on Kacey, too?

  “Are you screwing them both?”

  “You don’t want to do this, Tress. Think of your classes. Of Levi.”

  Think of her classes? Of Levi? She needed to be thinking about what she was going to tell the police as soon as they were called.

  “I thought we were going to be a family again.”

  “We’ll always be family.” What? “You’re Levi’s mother.”

  Lacey’s heart fell, hard, even as she recognized what he was doing.

  “I broke your glass.”

  “You were going for the door handle and missed. Is your hand okay?” He was doing what any man would do when danger appeared at his front door, defusing the situation in the only way he knew how, in order to protect his family.

  Problem was, Jem’s way only enabled Tressa. Giving her more power, not taking it away.

  There’d been a pause. And then “Yeah. The cut’s not that deep.”

  “Let me take a look at it.” Another pause. “You’re right. You got lucky.”

  “I’m sorry.” She sounded it. She was calmer, too, because Jem was giving her what she needed.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll have a new piece in there by morning.” That was it? Don’t worry about breaking the glass in my front door with your hand when you came barging in after ten o’clock at night, uninvited, at a house you’ve been told to stay away from? Don’t worry about it?

  “So...this woman...Lacey... You’re not...like...”

  “I told you, Amelia misunderstood.”

  He was lying because it was the only way he knew how to get rid of her. Once she was gone, they’d call the police. And then, finally, this whole nightmare would end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  JEM CLEANED UP the glass as soon as Tressa’s car pulled slowly away down the street.

  He’d have to deal with her in the morning, like he’d promised. But for now, the storm was averted.

  He’d managed to put out another fire.

  And was damned tired of the life he’d been dealt.

  “What are you doing?” Lacey had appeared at the end of the hall. He’d hoped that she’d stayed in the bedroom. Maybe even had jumped in the shower, where she wouldn’t have heard a word of what had been said.

  Her face looked calm. She had to at least have missed the part about Tressa suing her. So there was a God.

  He’d had the thought before.

  Maybe it would serve him well to remember it more often.

  “Just cleaning up. Tressa reached for the door handle and put her hand through the glass.”

  “She pounded the glass, Jem.” Her words were calm. No emotion, or accusation. Yet they stopped him cold.

  “You don’t know how Tressa gets when she’s caught up in her drama. She’s clumsy. Believe me, I’ve seen it before. She just missed the door handle.”

  Lacey’s mouth fell open. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I believe it! I know it. I’ve been living with this kind of thing all my life.”

  “Right. First JoAnne and then Tressa.”

  But not Lacey. Thank God again. If ever there was a time that a woman would be pushed into losing control, it would be now. And she was standing there watching him. Not screaming.

  “You need to leave that as it is,” she said, coming closer and taking the broom and dustpan from him. “It’s evidence.”

  “Evidence? Of what?” Hadn’t she heard a thing he’d said? This was Tressa at her worst. When she was upset, she was careless. “Don’t you get it?” He looked at her. “She found out we’re seeing each other, and now she’s over it. I have to tell you, it went a lot better than I’d feared it might.”

  Her jaw dropped again. “You thought this went well?”

  “Are you kidding? She was out of here in five. I’ve had nights it took hours to talk her down. I have to tell you, those classes are really making a difference.”

  He wanted to believe they were. And wanted her to believe it, too. He wanted her to quit looking at him like that.

  To get over the past few minutes and get on to what really mattered. Her. Him. Together.

  They’d just crossed a major hurdle to making their lives together official. Give Tressa a few months to get used to the idea, and maybe accept Amelia’s proposal—he’d suspected for a long time now that they were lovers—and they’d be home free.

  “You have to call the police, Jem,” Lacey said. “If not for yourself, for me. Because if you think she’s going to leave this alone, you’re wrong. If it was just you, then yes, I would believe it. Because she has you where she wants you and she has to give you your way where she can to keep you there. But me... I’m a threat to it all. She has to get rid of me. Period. Or have her whole world come tumbling down.”

  “It’s just talk, Lace. I swear. You need to trust me on this.”

  “You’ve asked her repeatedly not to come to this house. Yet she continues to show up.”

  “Only when she’s beside herself upset...”

  “And isn’t it for just that reason that you don’t want her here? So that you don’t have to live under the constant threat of dealing with her drama?”

  Into each life a little rain must fall. He remembered the quotation from his childhood. His grandmother Lillie said it every time anything upset any of them.

  He was tired. Needed to lie down. Hold Lacey and sleep it off. “Please, Lace. I took care of it. She’s gone. Just let it go?”

  “You led her to believe that there’s nothing between us...”

  He was sorry as hell she’d heard that. “She knows I didn’t deny that there was. I’m just giving her time to adjust to the idea. It’s the way things work with her.”

  “You seriously aren’t going to call the police?”

  “Of course not. That would just set everything back. Way back.”

  “You need to get a restraining order, Jem. You’d be granted one immediately just for what happened here tonight.”

  “I’m telling you she didn’t mean to break the window. And even if she did, she’d say she was going for the door handle, and how are you going to prove she wasn’t?” He’d been through this so many times it was old hat to him. But he had to slow down and understand that it was all new to Lacey.

  Tressa could be...alarming...at first.

  “I’m not talking about the window. You’ve told her repeatedly to stay away from your house. She didn’t. That’s grounds for a restraini
ng order.”

  One thing he knew was how to be patient. “She wouldn’t abide by it, Lacey. The best way to deal with Tressa is to handle her exactly as I’m doing. You’ll see. She’ll get used to the idea of me and you just like she got used to the idea of the divorce. And Levi living with me.”

  “You went through this each time?”

  Now she was getting it. He almost smiled. “Yes.”

  “And you never even called the police?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, this is the last time, Jem. Or I’m out of your life.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. Lacey? Threatening him? She hadn’t even raised her voice.

  “You are a victim of domestic abuse, Jem. I’ve been waiting for you to see that, just like you finally did with Levi, but you don’t get it. The woman comes here, puts her fist through your door, screams loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, threatens to sue you and then to ruin my career—which she can do, you know, just by spouting her trash in the right places, or at least put doubt on my spotlessly clean record—and you plan to stand there and let her get away with it?”

  “You don’t understand...” The words just kept repeating themselves in his mind, overriding anything she might have to say. “You don’t understand...”

  “I’m not asking you to crucify her, Jem. I’m asking you to think of yourself. Of Levi. Of our future. You need to call the police. Even if you don’t want to file a restraining order, at least there’s evidence of what happened here tonight, of her threats, so that if she does try something, we’ve got protection.”

  “But...”

  “I need this, Jem,” she said. That look of hers...it sank into him. As deep as he went. “I need you to call the police. For me. That way if she does try to threaten my career, I’ll have the means to protect myself.”

  “She could go to jail...”

  “If she does, it would only be for one night.”

  And that one night would unleash a hurricane...

  “You don’t understand, Lacey.”

  “I do understand, Jem. And I’m telling you. This isn’t negotiable. I need you to call the police, or I have to end my association with you.”

  “You’re threatening me.” Tressa was a master at it.

  “No, I’m telling you you’ve put me in a position where I have to make a choice. If you can’t stand behind me, protect me, then I have to go.”

  One thing he’d learned, well, at the hands of his sister and Tressa, was that the minute he gave in to a threat, he gave up himself. He pulled his keys out of his pocket.

  “Take my truck. I’ll be by for it in the morning.”

  He expected her to pretend to go. Even to collect her purse and head out the door. When his truck started, he gave her marks for trying.

  It wasn’t until his truck had been gone for more than an hour that he realized the truth. She wasn’t coming back.

  * * *

  LACEY HAD THREE weeks of vacation coming to her. On Sunday, when she was already on her way to Beverly Hills, she made an emergency call to arrange to have the next week off. She’d had to get out of town and home to Kacey. Had to have some distance from the worst night of her life. To figure out where to find the rest of her life.

  She knew she was running and admitted it fully. To herself. To Kacey.

  Her sister, for once, didn’t tell Lacey to look on the bright side. Her words “He actually chose to put her first over you?” still rang in Lacey’s mind.

  She wasn’t overreacting, or feeling sorry for herself. Living in the past, or being paranoid. She was facing the truth.

  Jem had put Tressa’s needs over hers. And his own.

  “I know why,” she told Kacey later that night as the sisters sat on Kacey’s balcony with a bottle of wine on the table between them. “It’s because I don’t make waves. I get mad, but I get over it. And everyone who knows me knows that.”

  Kacey’s silence didn’t hit her at first. Until it hung there, between them, for more than five minutes. She glanced over to see tears sliding slowly down her twin’s face.

  “What? Oh, my gosh, Kacey, are you in pain? What’s going on?”

  Shaking her head, Kacey looked over at her. “You’re right.”

  “What? That you’re hurt?” Ready to call an ambulance, she knelt at Kacey’s feet. She couldn’t lose her. Kacey was her rock. Her foundation. Her...other self.

  “Don’t you dare kneel at my feet,” Kacey said, pulling Lacey up and directing her back to her chair. She knelt then, at Lacey’s feet. “You’re right that you’re easy to disappoint, Lacey. To take advantage of. Because your mad is so...not ugly. You get quiet. That’s it. And then you get over it and life goes on. That’s why you got passed over and I got chosen, don’t you see? Even with Mom and Dad. Because I made a stink. I made noise. I made it hard for people to pass me up.”

  “So what are you saying? That I should make more of a stink?”

  “No! I think you’re perfect.” Kacey ran a hand along Lacey’s cheek and Lacey turned her head, placing her lips in her sister’s palm. “Don’t ever change,” Kacey said. “The world needs more yous. More kindness. Understanding. More selflessness. And the rest of us...we need to protect you from our own selfishness.”

  She was talking nonsense, of course. And yet...her words struck a chord. Hadn’t she had a similar thought about Jem? About Tressa taking advantage of his goodness?

  Tressa the noisemaker, the one who would create hell if she didn’t get her way. While Lacey...she’d understand. Be steadfast in her kindness. Get quiet. And get over it.

  Except that she hadn’t.

  She’d gotten out. For the first time in her life.

  She walked out on the one person who truly loved her above all others. Forever. When he’d needed her most.

  * * *

  JEM DIDN’T CALL Tressa Sunday morning. He called Lacey. And when she didn’t answer, he went by her house. His truck was out front right where he’d told her to leave it. He’d told her he’d bring a second set of keys when he came to pick it up.

  He pretended that all was well. With Levi by his side, he mudded Lacey’s birthday-gift room. She’d be back. She was as steadfast as the sun that set each night. And when she showed up, he’d be there.

  He had a key to her home, just like she had a key to his.

  He cooked dinner from the leftovers in her fridge and put his son into her bed. And sometime after midnight, he joined him there.

  Tressa had left sixteen voice-mail messages and sent him eighty-two texts. He didn’t respond to any of them.

  On Monday morning, after dropping Levi at day care, but before going to work, he called Kacey. And almost dropped the phone in relief when she answered. She was still talking to him.

  Boy, was she talking to him.

  She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he didn’t deserve her sister. And that Lacey had taken a week’s vacation. He was told to leave her alone.

  He knew, in Lacey’s world, exactly what that meant. Leave her alone. Do not call her. Do not attempt to see her. Or to contact her in any way.

  To do otherwise could mean a restraining order.

  On Monday, Tressa left fourteen voice mails. And sent ninety texts. He spent Monday night in Lacey’s bed again. Levi slept in Kacey’s room.

  On Tuesday, Jem dropped Levi off at preschool and went to see Sydney. They talked for a long time. When he left her office, he had a name: Brett Ackerman, the founder of a local shelter for abused women. A man who’d been a victim of domestic violence himself.

  He and Levi had dinner with Brett and his wife, Ella, while their infant child slept in a bassinet nearby. In a few short hours his life changed forever.

  He saw himself, a young self, in some
of the childhood feelings Brett described. He heard Lacey in Ella’s words.

  He spent Tuesday night in Lacey’s bed, with Levi right there beside him.

  On Wednesday, right after he dropped Levi at day care—with a request to Mara, who’d always had a special affinity with Levi, to keep his son close to her that day—Jem called the police. He called victim witness—a public service that provided support for victims of domestic violence who needed to obtain restraining orders. And he went to court.

  By Wednesday night, he had a restraining order against Tressa Bridges, with Levi as a named victim. He spent Wednesday night at home in his own bed.

  He woke Sunday morning to banging on his front door. Gut instantly tight, he flew out of bed.

  It took him a second to realize that it couldn’t be his ex-wife. She’d had a visit from the police the day before, telling her she’d go to jail if she came within twenty-five feet of either Jem or Levi, their home or any of their property. The one thing Tressa feared, more than anything else, was going to jail.

  Hoping to God it was Lacey, breaking out of her shell and that eager to see him—maybe having heard from Sydney that he’d finally seen the light and done the right thing—he raced down the hall in his cotton pajama bottoms.

  Sometime in the few seconds it had taken him to get from hall to front door, he’d realized that if Lacey was pounding on his door, the news wouldn’t be good.

  More likely it was the cops....

  The banging was still happening as he yanked the door open.

  “Jem, let me in! Quick!” Tressa stood there, sweaty and disheveled, talking in a hushed tone.

  But banging loudly on the door?

  He looked for her car, but didn’t see it.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s your car? Were you in an accident?” Their history didn’t matter. If she was in danger, he had to help her.

  “No! Let me in!”

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I just needed to see you. And Levi. Amelia’s at church, and I only have a little bit of time. She’s going to leave me if I contact you, but this is you and me. Nothing and no one keeps us apart, right?”