His First Choice
He just sat there.
“Don’t you like me anymore?”
He nodded.
“Do you like Lacey?”
He nodded again.
“So what’s the problem?”
“If I tell you, she can make me not live with my dad.” He whispered the words, looking Kacey straight in the eye. His lower lip trembled, but he didn’t cry. Then he turned a fearful gaze on Lacey.
Had Tressa told him that Lacey was trying to take him away from his parents? Or was he asking Lacey for help?
Either way, she was going to get it for him.
Something was very, very wrong here and she wasn’t going to stop until she knew for certain that Levi Bridges was not being abused.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JEM WAS SITTING out back with the fountain on at the fish pond Sunday when his cell phone rang.
Levi was asleep, exhausted from the weekend at Lacey’s. The monitor sat on the table beside him. His ringer sounded again, and a third time.
His son was safe. He didn’t want to deal with Tressa. And there was no one else who’d be calling him on a Sunday night.
Bridges Construction did not work on Sundays. Ever. It had been part of the policy under which he’d gone into business for himself.
A throwback to his days growing up in the Bible Belt. The ringing stopped and then started again.
He glanced at the caller ID and picked up.
“What is it, Tressa?”
“Did you talk to her, Jem? Did you talk to that Sydney woman?”
“The office doesn’t open until tomorrow. I told you I’d call her then.”
“She came here on a Friday night. She could have come to your house.”
True. “I’d have called you if she had.”
“So where were you?”
Feet dropping from the boulder he’d had them resting on, Jem sat up. “What do you mean, where was I?”
“All weekend. I stopped by. It is my weekend to see Levi, remember?”
And Tressa had agreed never to come to his house. He’d needed space where he could be away from her drama. That was their agreement. If she needed him, she was to call and he’d come there. Not that he still didn’t half expect her to show up unannounced.
“You were here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know... Saturday.”