His First Choice

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.