His First Choice

“Yep.”

“’Cause I don’t like the pickles,” Levi stated emphatically, as though Jem didn’t already know, in great detail, every single one of Levi’s likes and dislikes.

Jem knew, which was why he could also expect—when Levi found out this was his weekend with his mother and that he was going there after dinner—the full-blown tantrum he’d just avoided.

* * *

“ARE YOU SURE?” Lacey walked beside her sister on the beach, staring at the sand their bare toes were kicking up. Her sandals hung from the fingers of her right hand. Her left hand was clenched.

“He said exactly those words.” Kacey’s tone was as subdued as it ever got. “‘Mommy shook me up and I throwed up.’”

Feeling the heat rising to her face, Lacey moved to the left and let the water wash over her feet as she walked. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

“Remember that time on our birthday when Dad was whirling us around in the yard by our feet and you threw up?”

She did. Of course she did. Her stomach settled.

“And then right after Jem left last night, he called, remember? Because he’d had a message from the permit people and they needed an exact color match for the siding before they could approve the permit...”

And they’d talked for an hour. She’d felt bad about the fact that he was planning to work through his weekend. He’d told her he’d have been working, anyway. Then she’d felt bad for taking him from someone else’s job and he’d told her about the boat in his garage.

She’d wanted to know if it was a ski boat. He’d said it was a catamaran—so he could take it on the ocean—but told her that his family had had a ski boat when he was growing up.

Which had led to where he was from, and from there to the fact that he had a close-knit family back in Georgia. It painted a picture of him that she liked. But was way too much information.

“You were asleep when I got off the phone,” she said now, remembering. Kacey had had a headache the day before. Lacey hadn’t been surprised to see her sister in bed early.

“Then today, I remembered something he’d been talking about earlier in the week and it’s clear that the two go together.”

Lacey made a mental reach to find her professional self. “What did he say earlier in the week?”

“He asked me if I’m mean when I wake people up. I said no, of course not! He’d been talking about that show he’s so into. We really need to see that at some point, by the way. He’s got me curious. Anyway, I thought that was why he was asking. Then he says that Mommy shakes him awake when he has bad dreams. But Whyatt on Super Why! didn’t do that when someone had a bad dream...”

Levi thought his mother’s a

ctions were mean? And he’d been looking to Kacey for confirmation?

“You think he had a bad dream and she shook him until he threw up?” She had to call Jem.

She couldn’t call Jem.

There was conflict of interest written all over that one.

She had to call Sydney, the social worker she shared cases with most often. They had the same philosophy, and Sydney was a newly added member of the High Risk Team started by the Lemonade Stand and would have access to immediate high-risk assistance from all professionals who could possibly be needed. Doctors, psychiatrists, police, hospital records.

If Lacey had screwed up and put that little boy at risk...

She’d called Ella Ackerman, the High Risk representative from the children’s hospital, too.

But Tressa could have taken Levi to other hospitals.

Or Jem could have.

She’d met Tressa.

There was no way that kind, gentle, self-deprecating woman would hurt her son. She’d given him up so her penchant for drama didn’t negatively affect his emotional stability...

People prone to drama were also prone to overreaction. Tressa had said she overreacted. To everything. Which made Jem crazy. Or something to that effect...