His First Choice

“We talk about hard things and we might not like them and we always tell the...”

“Truth.” Levi emphasized the word with a nod of his head.

“Right.”

He didn’t feel good about this. Would have given up his savings account if he could have bought a way out of the conversation.

But Lacey wasn’t going to let Levi go back to Tressa’s without making Sydney aware of the incident she’d witnessed. She hadn’t said so. But, like he’d been telling her, he knew her.

Knew her conscience. Knew how seriously she took her work and how much she cared. Even after all of his introspection over the past days he remained fairly certain Lacey was wrong to worry about Levi, too. There was no way on earth Tressa would hurt Levi, or that the boy wouldn’t tell him if she had.

If the hospital hadn’t called—due to red tape because of the number of hospital visits, he remained certain of that, too—there’d be no one even looking into their lives.

“Am I in trouble?”

Four-year-olds didn’t have much of an attention span. Or patience, either.

“Of course not.”

He was off on the wrong foot already. No way could he get through Levi’s defenses if he thought he’d done something wrong. And he had to get through to him.

To assure himself once and for all that Lacey Hamilton was wrong and no one was hurting Levi.

Because she’d managed to instill that one bit of doubt.

“I want to talk to you about your mom.” One parent should not berate another in front of the children. He knew the rule.

“Did she get in trouble?” Levi sounded mildly curious. And nothing more.

“I don’t know.” He took the opening. “Do you think she should be?”

He shrugged and Jem’s stomach knotted into physical pain. Not mere discomfort, like that caused by Tressa’s shenanigans, but bend-over physical pain.

“What about Kacey?” he asked, the words coming to him slowly. “Should she be in trouble?

“’Course not!” Levi said. “Kacey’s fun.”

The knot tightened another notch.

“How about Lacey?”

“No...” The word was accompanied by a vigorous shake of the head. “She’s nice, Dad, huh?”

“Yes, she is. I like her a lot.”

“I like her, too.” He took another sip of milk. Jem sipped his coffee.

“So how come you don’t know about Mommy?”

Levi shrugged again.

Jem’s certainty dissipated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

HE WAS IN over his head. Had no training in dealing with possible victims of abuse. But he knew how to be a dad.

“Son, remember, this is a man-to-man. Rules are you have to talk,” he said. He didn’t want to be like Tressa and create drama where there wasn’t any. Didn’t want his son overreacting like his mother every time something didn’t go exactly as he wanted it to.