His First Choice

She hadn’t heard anything.

“It sounded like a car door.”

Tressa was in San Francisco. She hated that his ex-wife was her first thought. His anxiety was rubbing off on her.

It wasn’t healthy. Or right.

“Probably just a neighbor.”

She was talking to his back. And slowed her step behind him when she heard the doorbell ring.

She wanted to go out there. To stand next to him as he greeted whoever was dropping by after ten o’clock on a Saturday night. If someone needed help...

But she didn’t. She cowered in the hallway instead. Because she figured that was what he’d have asked her to do.

Just in case.

“You’re screwing someone!” She heard the words even before she heard the door open. Which meant Tressa was screaming at him through the door. “Amelia told me, so don’t you dare stand there and try to deny it, Jem Bridges. All this time, you and me and Levi, us being a family again, you having my back, and all the time going around behind my back and...”

Lacey started to shake and closed Levi’s

bedroom door, glad that the little boy could sleep through a drive home and being put back to bed. He’d probably make it through this, too, if they were lucky.

What was she thinking? He’d probably learned to sleep soundly because the first couple of years of his life had been spent living with episodes like the one going on out front.

Odd, though, that the last time Tressa had shown up, wanting to see Levi, Jem had put his ex-wife off with the excuse that if she went in Levi’s room, he’d wake up. As if Tressa didn’t know how soundly her son slept?

“Damn you!” Something slammed against the storm door Jem had yet to open. Glass shattered.

“Where’s Amelia?”

Lacey’s mouth fell open. That was all Jem had to say? Glass had just shattered and he asked after Tressa’s friend?

“I left her in San Francisco. She actually took me there to propose to me.” Tressa was screaming loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.

Would it be wrong to pray that one of them called the police?

“I’m sorry that wasn’t what you wanted, Tress.”

It was like being backstage for the filming of one of Kacey’s episodes. Only, you knew that was fake...and therefore safe.

“I mean, if a girl’s going to be proposed to, she at least needs some warning that the relationship is moving to an entirely different level.”

“I’m sure she thought she was doing something nice...”

“She knows me,” Tressa said. “She knows that I need to be wooed into anything new. And then when I told her that I couldn’t think about getting hooked up with someone else while you and I were... Well, she knows that you’re first for me. I’d told her that from the very beginning. But she acts all hurt and then tells me the truth. That she’s seen you around town with some blonde. And saw Levi at the beach with her, too...”

Another slam. Something against metal. “How could you, Jem? You let some whore take my son to the beach? Where other people could see them out together? I’m going to sue your ass. Both of your asses.”

“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...