The best decision they’ll ever make

Lacey Hamilton is used to living in the background. Overshadowed her entire life, she stepped out of the Hollywood limelight and into the role she’s meant to play: a counselor, part of the High Risk Team started by The Lemonade Stand women’s shelter in Santa Raquel.

Her caseload leads her to the doorstep of Jeremiah “Jem” Bridges to rescue a little boy. She’s not supposed to fall in love with the rugged construction worker and his adorable son. Love and duty, though, don’t always agree. Especially when a truth is uncovered that neither she nor Jem is prepared to face.

“I want to see you in a bad mood.”

That didn’t come out the way Jem meant it to...

“What? Why?”

The look Lacey was giving him could have made him feel awkward. Except that it seemed warm. Maybe he needed to slow down on the wine.

“They say you don’t truly know someone until you’ve seen them at their worst. I want to really know you.” Now, that had come out right.

“So...you show me your worst and I’ll show you mine.”

He grinned. “I don’t think I can find it right now.”

“Me, either.”

Leaning forward, he reached for her. Pulled her toward him. She stood. And so did he. And they were just standing there, looking at each other.

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

She shook her head. “You’ve seen...”

With a finger to her lips he tried to silence her.

“But it’s true, Jem,” she continued softly, her gaze imploring him to understand. “Life’s hard enough without hiding from the truth.”

Dear Reader,

This book is...not ordinary. I think it’s powerful. And emotionally compelling. And I hope so much you give it a chance. I can tell you why I think this, and hope this. I can describe Jem to you. He’s the hero of my heart. But I’m afraid if I say too much, you’ll move on without giving him a chance.

Jem’s a construction worker. Okay, yeah, he owns the business, and wears a shirt and tie to work every day. But he wears them with jeans. And he learned the business with his hands before he ever considered being the brains behind it all.

He’s alpha all the way. And he’s a single dad to a four-year-old I wish I could hug. He’s a good dad. Involved. Aware. And firm, too, when he needs to be.

And...Jem is...well... I hope you’ll give him a chance. I can’t imagine a romance reader not being glad they did.

Then there’s Lacey. Sometimes I wanted to just do her hair and makeup, force her into an attention-getting outfit and push her out the door. But she has Kacey for that. My job was to be patient. To listen. And tell her story. Her story touched me deeply. So here it is...

I love to hear from readers! You can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn. Or join my Friendship board, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship.

All the best,

Tara

www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com

His First Choice
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An author of more than seventy novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewer’s Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

This book is dedicated to Tim Barney, who is Jem to me in so many ways...

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“MS. HAMILTON? THIS is Mara Noble calling from Busy Little Minds preschool...”

“Yes, Mara.” As a social worker employed by California Social Services in the child welfare department, Lacey Hamilton had familiarized herself with the reputations and locations of all of the child care facilities and schools in her district of Santa Raquel. Busy Little Minds was one of the best rated for both intellectual and emotional development. “What can I do for you?” While there was kindness in her words, there was no smile attached. If Busy Little Minds was calling her, chances were a serious issue was at hand.

With her phone on speaker behind the closed door of her private office, she opened a new document on her word-processing program.

“I have a little boy,” Mara said. “He’s four, and I suspect abuse...”

The woman knew her stuff. Issuing silent points to Little Minds for employee training, Lacey asked, “Is he there with you now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is he in need of medical attention?”

“No. He’s already had medical attention. His father took him to the emergency room at the Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital over the weekend.”

Call the hospital. And Ella. Ella Ackerman was the hospital’s representative to the High Risk Team, a group comprised of professionals from various fields that fought to prevent domestic violence deaths. Lacey was the team’s child protective services member.

“So right now he’s not in any immediate danger.” She went back to the checklist she knew by heart. Determine the immediate safety and medical condition of the child first.

“Not at the moment.”

Could the child be in imminent danger?

“Do you suspect the abuse took place in or outside the home?”

“It’s not here,” Mara said, her voice solemn and low, as though making sure she wasn’t overheard. “And as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have babysitters and is not in any other activities outside of ours.”

Parents? Lacey typed onto the blank page. Many of her colleagues still took notes by hand. She always took them electronically, even if she had only her smartphone with her at the time. As if engaging with technology gave her a tiny bit of the distance she had to maintain to be emotionally capable of doing her job.

“What about siblings?” she asked. “Are you aware of anyone in the home other than his parents?”

She had to assess the situation to determine which course of action to take: an immediate trip to Little Minds to secure the child within her care while she investigated, or the more preferred, less harsh approach of a call to his parents.

“No. He’s an only child. And...his parents are divorced.”

She wrote that word with a capital D. Sadly it showed up in more than 50 percent of her reports.

“Who has custody?”

“Our records indicate that they have shared parenting. Dad is the one who always drops him off and picks him up.”

She typed Father controlling? and then a few notes to herself, to be used later when she made an official report.

Now for the hardest part.

“Why do you suspect abuse?” Thousands of kids went to emergency rooms every day, because kids were naturally inquisitive, adventurous, without the wherewithal to calculate danger, making them prone to accidents.

“This morning he showed up with a cast on his arm. He says he fell, but he mumbles and looks down when he says it. We asked him what he was doing when he fell. He shrugged. No matter what we ask, he shrugs.”

“What did his father have to say when he dropped him off?”

“That he fell down.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s it. Mr. Bridges isn’t the chatty sort.”

More typing, ending with Father evasive?

Still, kids and broken arms went hand in hand. This one could have fallen off a bike, or from a tree. Not that many four-year-olds were climbing trees or riding bikes. But some did. And some fell from bunk beds, too.

“Anything else?” she asked, wanting to know why the woman thought this broken arm was different from the norm. A kid not talking about the incident wasn’t all that unusual. He very likely could have been into some kind of mischief and knew he was in trouble. If he’d climbed on a cupboard to sneak a cookie, for instance, or...

“Yes, Ms. Hamilton, I’m sorry. This is very difficult for me. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to make a call like this and...”

“I understand,” Lacey filled in, softening her tone, when the woman paused. Abused children were her business. Sometimes she lost sight of the world outside of her small circle, where coming face-to-face with the monstrous fact that heinous people abused children was an anomaly.

“We’ve had Levi since he was three months old. He started out in day care and then moved to preschool when he was two, which is a year earlier than we usually move them. He’s a precocious little guy. What I’m trying to say is that we know him. And in the past six months, he’s changed. A lot.”

She needed to know if there were other signs of physical abuse. But listened patiently. She didn’t want to lead her caller into saying something she might not have mentioned, giving it more weight than it deserved.

Lacey had been at this awhile. Going on ten years. She knew her business. And had given up hoping it would ever get any easier.

“He’s withdrawn, to the point of not playing well with others. He cries easily, rarely smiles. I can’t remember the last time I heard him laugh. He seems fearful. And...a couple of other times, he’s had bruises. Once on his torso. It had fingertip marks on it.”

She was pounding the keys hard, her lips pressed together. It could be nothing. Kids went through phases...

“Do you know if there’s been any changes at home? You said his parents are divorced. Do you know for how long?”

She’d ask the question again—and more—of the mother and father. Separately. She already knew, just from the little she’d heard, that she was going to have to interview them.

“Levi was one when his folks split. I remember because we had his first birthday party here with both parents present, at the request of his mother.”

“So you have met her?”

“Of course. I know her. She’s just never been the one to drop him off or pick him up on a regular basis. And I haven’t seen or heard from her in at least six months. I could check our sign-in records to tell you the last time she dropped off or picked up.”

“I would appreciate that.” Lacey typed as she talked. Was Mom isolated from the boy? Had she been threatened? Was she afraid to get help?

She’d seen it enough to expect such an outcome, but had certainly had many, many calls that, upon investigation, had turned out to be false reports.

“Where do Mr. and Mrs. Bridges work?” She needed as much information as she could gather, as quickly as she could gather it.

“He owns a contracting company. It’s a small one, but they build houses. Last I knew she was working at an investment firm, but I don’t think she’s doing that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“A while back Levi made a comment about his mother being the boss of a money place. I meant to ask Mr. Bridges about it, but I’m not always out front when parents pick up. I guess I just forgot.”

“Don’t you need work numbers of all of your parents?”

“Yes, but Mr. and Mrs. Bridges...they both asked that we always call him. They said because she dealt with money and couldn’t always take calls, but being the boss, he could get away for a few if he had to. We have a cell number for her in case of emergency when we can’t reach him.”

Control. Control. Control. She typed on.

“Is there anything else you’d like me to know?” she asked, her fingers pausing over the keyboard.

“It’s just... I notice a pattern. Levi isn’t an accident-prone kind of kid. He used to be boisterous, like a miniature version of one of those guys who’s confident and goes through life getting it right, you know? He almost had a swagger about him. He’d try anything, usually master it, assuming it was age appropriate, but with a certain kind of...grace. He focuses more than most kids his age. But every couple of weeks or so now, he shows up with skinned knees, or a scab on his chin. All explained by play. But...why doesn’t he ever fall down here? And why is it only every couple of weeks?”

Lacey’s fingers pounded. If she’d been playing the piano she’d grown up mastering, she’d have been bellowing out a crescendo.

“Do you know his shared parenting schedule?” she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral. With a lifetime of hiding hurt feelings, it was a part of the job that came naturally to her.

“No.”

Did Dad pick the boy up and take him to his mother? And then pick him up from her, as well? Had he threatened to take her to court for full custody if she balked at his rules?

She wondered. Maybe even suspected. But she didn’t know.

Which meant there was room for another explanation. A better scenario.

“There’s another thing,” the woman said. “His schoolwork is faltering. He did better last year, as the baby of the class, than he’s doing this year...” She talked about numbers and letters, pre-reading and easy reading. Following directions. Shapes and colors that had been mastered the year before seemed to be giving Levi some difficulty now.

“I guess maybe I’m overreacting,” Mara Noble said next. “But in all my years working in child care, I’ve never had the feeling I get about Levi. There’s something odd about that broken arm of his. He can’t tell me any details. He’s a smart kid, Ms. Hamilton. He’d know what he was doing when he broke his arm.”

“Sometimes trauma can wipe out immediate memory,” she said slowly. She typed Smart little boy, suspicious break.

“So you think I’m overreacting?”

“I think you did exactly as you are supposed to do. You suspect, you report. It’s the law.” There could be no doubt about that. Second-guessing could cost a child’s life. “You don’t have to be right, Mara,” she said, softening her tone more. “You just need to have reasonable suspicion, which you do. You did the right thing here. Thank you.”

“So...what happens next? Is Mr. Bridges going to know that I called? Because if he is...”

“Does he frighten you?”

“He never has before.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m just... I love this kid, you know? We aren’t supposed to have favorites, and I care for all my kids. I don’t play favorites. But this little guy stole my heart the first day he was here.”

Lacey couldn’t afford to love her kids that way. Couldn’t let emotion cloud her judgment. Though to do her job she did have to care. Be aware. And sensitive...

“In answer to your question—no, Mr. Bridges will not know, at least not immediately, where the report came from. It could just as easily have come from the hospital.”

Which was the first call she was going to make, to find out why a report hadn’t been made and if there’d been any other trips to the ER for little Levi.

“So when he comes to pick up his son, I’m just to give him to him like usual?”

“Yes. If anything different needs to happen, you won’t be the one to police it. You just do your job and leave the rest up to me.”

“Will I hear from you again? I mean, if this turns out to be nothing, will you let me know?”

“Absolutely.” And the fact that the woman was asking told Lacey that Mara was on the up-and-up. Someone making a false report generally didn’t give consideration to the fact that it might be found to be false. Or want to be told if it was.

But she had to ask, “Other than seeing them through day-care-related activities, have you ever associated with either Mr. or Mrs. Bridges?”

“No, ma’am.” Straightforward sincerity—Lacey liked that.

“And will you have a problem handing Levi over to his father?”

“Not if you tell me it’s okay to do so.”

The buck stopped with her. She hadn’t understood, when she’d signed on to this career, that one wrong decision on her part could get a child killed. And still, there wasn’t any other job, any other life, she’d rather have.

“It’s okay,” she said now. But only because she knew she had enough time to intervene, to get to the day care and put other plans in motion, if upon further investigation she decided differently. The day was young yet.

And obviously, since he’d dropped his son off on schedule as usual, Bridges wasn’t currently posing a flight risk. She wanted time to do some searching before he was onto her. “Just one more thing,” she added. “For now, just until I tell you differently, please don’t say anything to anyone, other than possibly a coworker where appropriate, about your conversation with me.”

“Of course not. I don’t want anyone to know it was me.”

Lacey understood. And hung up filled with mother-bear determination, doing her best to ignore the heavy sadness lurking within her.

Chasing down abusive parents, stopping them, was her life.

And she was good at it.

CHAPTER TWO

JEM WASN’T IN a great mood. Levi’s cast was putting them a bit off their game, and while he was certainly up to the challenge, his son had not yet mastered the art of dealing with frustration. Or disappointment, either. May in Santa Raquel meant T-ball, and since they’d started a new five-game program for four-year-olds, Levi had been determined to play. Tryouts were happening that very night and his little boy was sitting at the table with a partial plate of spaghetti, wearing it and a frown.

“I wanna go,” Levi said, the sound that curious mixture of baby voice and male determination giving Jem’s heart a bite every time he heard it. Had he ever been that bent on anything when he’d been young? That unwavering? Or that damned cute? Sure didn’t feel like it.

But then his upbringing had been different from Levi’s. He’d been spoiled rotten, loved to distraction by both his parents and raised at home. Not at day care. He’d never had to fight for anything.

Not that Levi didn’t have everything he needed, as far as physical wants went. Difference between him and his son was the constancy of a mother’s love, and growing up at home. Tressa loved Levi every bit as much as Jem’s mother had loved him. She just wasn’t the constant type.

Still, none of that had to do with playing ball.

“You want to go watch other boys play when you know you can’t?” he asked, feeling cruel. But better say the words and stop the train before it crashed. Because taking that young man to a T-ball field and expecting him not to throw a tantrum when he was told he couldn’t play with a cast on his arm—something Jem had been telling him repeatedly since the night before when it had dawned on Levi that there were worse things than the pain in his arm—was definitely a train wreck in the making.

“I can try,” Levi said, his tongue still struggling over his r a little bit. The tiny bit of baby left in him. Jem would miss it when it left, but knew, too, that it had to do so.

“No, you can’t, son,” he said now, taking his son’s pint-size fork and turning it in the spaghetti left on Levi’s plate. If he’d had his way, the pasta would be cut in little pieces, like he’d been doing since he’d first introduced the boy to table food. But part of Levi’s new insistence that he wasn’t a baby anymore and could do everything like Daddy did was an adamant refusal to eat spaghetti cut up in little pieces. Hence the food on his clothes. “You know the rules. You can’t play because your cast puts other kids in danger. You could accidently hit one of them in the head with it.”

Not to mention the fact that he could trip over his feet and fall on his way to first base and do further damage to a very tiny arm that was already broken in two places below the elbow.

Handing the filled fork to his son, Jem clamped down on his own negative emotions where the whole thing was concerned. His weren’t as easy to deal with as his son’s were. Not in his shoes, at any rate. Anger didn’t sit well with him. He’d grown up in a home where talk was the way to resolve issues. Where an open forum of understanding took the stage when there were difficulties. Or time-outs did.

Aggression was for hard work. For athletics where appropriate. For protecting those you loved.

Not for circumstances beyond your control. Or the control of others. It wasn’t Tressa’s fault that Levi had climbed up her bookcase trying to get a video he wanted to watch, or that as she’d grabbed his arm to help him down, he’d slipped and she’d lost her grip.

Just because he’d expect a mother to know that you grabbed a child around his middle, not by the arm, to steady him didn’t meant that Tressa would automatically think to do so.

Taking the fork, Levi ate, but the sustenance didn’t relieve his frown any.

“I thought we’d go for ice cream for dessert,” Jem said, winging it now. “Like we were going to do after tryouts. You can still eat ice cream with a cast, can’t you, buddy?”

Levi shrugged.

“And as soon as the cast comes off, we’ll set up our own tee in the backyard and play every night if you want to.”

He’d been planning the tee and batting net as a present for Levi’s fifth birthday, if his son loved the sport as much as he’d thought he was going to after playing a few games.

“I don’t want to.” The succulent tone took away any validity Jem would have given to those words.

“You want to help me with the boat?” He was, very slowly now that he was a single dad, building a boat out in the second car portion of his garage. Nothing big or fancy. But one that would be seaworthy. If he ever got it done. “We can work on sanding the wood for the bow together.”

Normally he saved boat building for the times when Levi was with his mother. It could be dangerous business, depending on what he was doing. And it helped him pass the time that the boy was away, without pacing a path in his carpet.

“I don’t want to.”

Levi attempted to wrap spaghetti—clearly a work in progress—and raised the fork backward to his mouth, balancing a lone noodle until it nearly reached its goal before sliding off the fork onto his lap—leaving a bit of red sauce on the table as it bounced by.

The boy wrapped again, lowered his head to his plate and slurped up the pasta on his fork, creating a ring of red around his lips.

“Good job, sport,” Jem said, raising his hand in the air for the high five that Levi generally landed with a meaty slap when he accomplished a task. “That was a whole bite!”

The boy shrugged. He didn’t high five. He didn’t even look up.

Sliding from his seat to crouch on the floor by his son’s chair, Jem moved his head until he could look directly into his son’s downcast gaze. “You mad at me, son?”

Levi shook his head.

“You sure seem mad.”

Another shake of the head, and then those big blue eyes—so like his mother’s—filled with tears. “I wanna play T-ballllll,” he wailed and, throwing himself at Jem, started to sob. “You said I could and we been waiting and I wanna play balllll,” he said again, smearing red sauce all over both of them as he clutched Jem with his dinner-caked pudgy little hands, cast slung around the back of Jem’s neck.

“I know you do, son,” Jem said, standing with his son clutched to his chest, wishing he could make the world right for the little boy, and hating the fact that he couldn’t.

And knew that particular pang was probably only just beginning to be a force in his life. One that was going to follow him to the grave, no doubt.

There was a hurricane storm of tears, and then they dried up.

“Is it time for ice cream yet?” the boy asked, pulling away to play with the top button of the now-stained white dress shirt Jem had worn with his jeans to work that day—along with the tie he’d discarded the second he’d climbed into his truck afterward.

“Let’s see how much of this spaghetti you can eat first,” he said, setting the boy gently back in his booster seat and scooting him up to the table. “The more we eat, the less we have to put away for later.”

Levi twirled, slurped and chewed, wiping his dripping chin with the back of his hand as often as with the napkin Jem kept reminding him of.

When Jem burped, Levi laughed, mocked the sound deep in his chest and laughed again. T-ball tryouts, and the Great Disappointment, apparently a thing of the past.

Jem went with the flow. Oh, to be young again. Able to cry away the hurt in a blast of snot and tears, and then move on.

He’d do well to take a lesson from his son. Minus the snot and tears, of course.

* * *

ONE OF THE things that suited Lacey was that her lifestyle complemented her job. No family waiting for her to come home to, expecting dinner on the table and numerous other things. No, she was free to work the hours required of her—hours that also included time when most people weren’t at work, as that was when she could observe them at home—without taking flack for it like some of her coworkers had to do.

Ella Ackerman had officially stepped down from her position as Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital’s representative to the High Risk Team when she’d found out she was pregnant, but still two months away from delivery, she was filling in for her temporary replacement while the other woman was on vacation. She fully intended to take up the position again when she was back to work full-time after the baby’s birth.

A neonatal charge nurse, Ella, like Lacey, was another one who couldn’t walk away from the little ones who weren’t fortunate enough to be born to the safe and healthy life most assumed to be a given. Ella’s cause was more encompassing than the children, though. Married to the founder of the Lemonade Stand, a unique domestic violence shelter hidden within Santa Raquel boundaries, Ella seemed to live and breathe the fight against abuse. She and her husband, Brett, the Stand’s founder, dedicated much of their spare time to the women and children who’d been displaced from their homes due to the violence enacted upon them by family members.

She was always ready to help and never seemed to run out of energy or hope.

Yet even Ella had sounded a bit downhearted when she’d called back that afternoon to let Lacey know that Levi Bridges had been in the emergency room a total of six times in four years. He hadn’t been flagged as a potential victim of abuse because none of the incidents looked at individually had appeared as anything more than accidents that might befall a young child.

His parents were educated, employed and, from chart notes, were appropriately attentive, concerned, aware and loving with the little boy. There’d never been any noted substance abuse or smell of alcohol on anyone’s breath when the boy had been brought in.

The first time was for a cut on his head when he’d been six months old. He had scooted himself off his blanket on the floor and over to a wall, where he’d pulled on a cord plugged into a socket. He’d yanked a lamp off the table and down on himself, where the base had cut his forehead, leaving a wound that had required six stitches.

The second time he’d had a pea up his nose. Third had been a serious laceration to his foot. It hadn’t required stitches, but the father, who—it had been charted—was visibly distraught, had also requested an X-ray, wanting to make certain that the foot wasn’t broken. He’d had his son strapped into a seat on the back of his bike and the little boy’s foot had come loose and had been caught in the spokes. The fourth time he’d stepped on a hot coal that had fallen out of a backyard pig-roasting pit. And fifth had been for a high fever for which they’d never found an explanation. His temperature had come down quickly after medication; lab work showed a healthy toddler and a follow-up doctor’s appointment had been a well-child visit.

Possible scenarios of misconduct ran through Lacey’s mind as she turned her midclass black sedan into the neighborhood of the address she had for Jeremiah Bridges—Levi’s father.

Six hospital visits, followed by a call of suspected abuse. A home visit was going to happen. Immediately.

And would have whether she’d had a family to go home to or not.

* * *

THANKING THE FATES that had seen to it to deliver such a great kid to him, Jem lingered over dinner, giving Levi all the time he wanted to invest in mastering the art of spaghetti rolling. While tear streaks still showed in the tomato sauce smeared on the little guy’s cheeks, you’d never know that they’d just come through a major crisis.

Chances were it wouldn’t come up again, either. Levi didn’t generally revisit a storm that had passed. One of his better qualities, Jem thought. One that would serve him well into adulthood.

So would his lack of vanity where his looks were concerned. Jem didn’t expect that one to last much past kindergarten. He himself hadn’t started to care about his appearance until at least junior high, but kids grew up a lot quicker these days...

The peal of their doorbell stopped him in his thoughts. Not pleasantly. Dread hit the pit of his stomach, as it did anytime something unexpected happened. Would the sensation never dissipate? Fade away like Levi’s mourning of his T-ball season?

“Stay put, buddy,” he said with a serious look at his son.

“Okay.” The little boy’s answer was one Jem trusted implicitly. Levi had his less than stellar moments, but Jem had learned to discern when he could count on the boy to do as he was told. Which, thankfully, so far was most of the time.

If it was Tressa at the door—and who else would it be at dinnertime on a Monday night?—she was probably upset about something. Or pissed at someone. Neither of which were moods their son needed to see. She’d want Jem to take care of whatever or whoever it was. And if he could, he would. Tressa, for all her waywardness, was a good mother. And she adored her son.

Pulling open the door with what he hoped was an expression that would calm down his drama-ridden ex-wife, he was shocked to see a slender blonde standing on his front porch. Obviously she had the wrong house, but...he suddenly didn’t mind. She was a looker. More than a looker. That body... Those drab pants and shapeless jacket were hopefully hiding some sexy lingerie...

“Mr. Bridges?”

He blinked. What the hell?

Had he just been fantasizing about a stranger on his porch? In broad daylight? With his son just feet behind him?

Clearly time for him to get a little...in an appropriate place at an appropriate time. As soon as possible.

Tressa was generally accommodating... He just usually lost all desire anytime he thought about her in that way these days.

“Jeremiah Bridges?” The woman spoke for a second time. Her hair was pulled back tight in a twist thing on the back of her neck. He actually thought about reaching back there and pulling out the hairpins. He had to know how long it was.

“Yes,” he blurted, embarrassed that he was still standing there like an imbecile, thinking about sex. “I’m Jem Bridges. What can I do for you?”

Was one of his men in trouble? He didn’t know all their wives, but he’d met most of them at one time or another. And couldn’t remember any looking like this.

So maybe she was a girlfriend...attempting to catch someone out in a lie... He gave himself a mental shake. Most of the world was not like Tressa.

“I’m Lacey Hamilton, Mr. Bridges.” She handed him a card. “I’m from child protective services.”

Jem’s chin dropped. His gut knotted over the spaghetti he’d had for dinner.

Not a wife. Or a girlfriend. She was an agent from child protective services. And there could be only one reason she’d come to his house.

Only one child there. Only one child in his life. One child he knew well enough to answer for to any child agency.

With a mother who, on occasion, tried to make Jem’s life hell.

Which meant only one thing to him. The beautiful woman standing on his doorstep wasn’t there to feed his sexual fantasies. She was there to implode his life.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FIRST THING Lacey noticed from her spot on the front porch looking in was a clean home—at least what she could see of it. The father, not so much. He was clean-cut enough, but the red stains on the front of his white button-down shirt were a bit off-putting. His open blue gaze kind of captivated her—until she blinked, and broke the contact, and remembered that the man’s lean, cowboy-type good looks had nothing to do with her reason for being there.

Other than giving her a sign that she wasn’t dealing with someone currently drunk or obviously down on his luck.

Well-to-do, well-dressed, gorgeous fathers abused their kids. And cowboys with stained shirts could, too.

“May I come in?” she asked. If he refused, she’d get a warrant. Then there’d be a strike against him in her estimation.

“Of course.” He stepped back.

Once she was inside, she could see the living room and what looked like a smaller living area with books and a piano off to her right. The home was one of the older, antebellum-type houses that dotted the town of Santa Raquel. But where the big mansions on the beach, and across from the beach, carried seven-figure price tags, Bridges’s home was farther inland. And not quite as large.

“What can I do for you?”

The contractor stood directly in front of her. Arms crossed. Defensive and possibly aggressive posture. Daring her to come in any farther?

She’d followed protocol, had logged her intent to make the home visit and had her phone’s GPS location on. Her whereabouts could be traced. If he tried anything untoward, he’d get caught.

Still, she could have waited for another agent to accompany her. If she’d been so inclined. If she’d have been able to sleep without assuring herself that little Levi wasn’t in immediate danger.

She could also have called the police—they often partnered on child protective services cases that involved anything of a criminal nature.

Looking around, taking her time to answer the man still standing guard over his home, Lacey assimilated as she’d been trained to do.

She didn’t have definitive proof of illegal activity. But Mara had noticed finger-shaped bruising weeks ago.

A broken arm could indicate escalating injury. She wasn’t frightened, just cautious by nature.

“My office received a phone call,” she started slowly, softly, as she heard sounds coming from a room in the back of the house. A utensil dropping on a table or counter?

“Is your son here?”

“Of course he’s here. He lives here.”

“May I see him?”

Frowning, the man studied her. “I need to see some picture identification. Anyone can have cards printed up.”

Reaching into her black strapped leather satchel, she pulled out her badge and handed it to him.

Apparently he was cautious by nature, too.

Or stalling while he tried to figure out what to do?

Nodding, he handed the card back to her. “You said you had a phone call.”

Someone was tapping a rhythm—thump, thump, thump.

She nodded, taking a step toward the sound. “May I see your son?”

“Of course you can. But I’d like to know why first.”

“Clap along...nah nah nah nah das what you wanna do...” The faint sound of the childish voice interrupted them from the distance and Lacey stared in the direction her feet wanted her to go.

“Pharrell Williams,” she said. The song “Happy” was one she played full blast in her car on those days when her job seemed heavier than she was.

The tapping continued, not at all in rhythm with the words. The tune wasn’t bad, though.

“He’s a little off beat,” Jeremiah Bridges said. “And he’s supposed to be eating, so I need to get back to him before I have spaghetti sauce splattered on the walls in line with those beats.”

The sounds continued. And Lacey’s suspicious mind wondered if Mr. Bridges had somehow triggered his son’s impromptu performance for her benefit. Except that he’d have had no way to do so. He hadn’t known she was coming. No one outside the logbook in the office had.

Of course, the boy could be programmed to begin the performance anytime the doorbell rang...

A far-fetched thought even for her.

“Don’t let me stop you from getting back to him,” Lacey said. “I’m here to check on his well-being.”

“His being will be well until I return to him,” the man said with a confidence that could have been endearing if it didn’t make her wonder just what made a grown man so certain that a little boy would stay at the table. “It’s the walls I’m worried about.”

“He’s confined, then?” she asked. Strapped in a booster? Or...heaven forbid, did the man keep a four-year-old in a high chair?

She’d seen it before. A mother who’d lost a toddler, not letting her second baby grow up. One of the saddest situations she’d had to oversee. Because in the end, she’d had to take the woman’s second baby from her, too.

“No.”

“Then how do you know he’ll be okay?” She was being difficult. She knew it even before she said the words. But the man was...bothering her.

“Because he gave me his word he wouldn’t get down from the table.”

Impressive? Or oppressive?

“Now.” Mr. Bridges’s arms were crossed again. “I want to know why child protective services is in my home checking up on my son. What’s this phone call you mentioned?”

“Someone is concerned about Levi’s welfare.”

“Nuh nuh nuh...” came from the distance.

“Someone.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that, Mr. Bridges.”

“I’m his father. I have a right to know if someone thinks that another person is hurting my son.”

“Not while the investigation is ongoing.”

“The investigation...” His eyes narrowed and then widened. “Wait a minute. You think I hurt my son? I’m the one being investigated?” He sounded as shocked as any parent she’d ever heard.

And she’d heard some doozies—from the innocent and the guilty.

“Everyone in Levi’s life is being investigated,” Lacey said, softening her tone in spite of how much the man was knocking her off her mark.

It was as though she’d known him before...in another life, or something as absurd.

“Well, I can tell you right now, no one is hurting my son. I’m with him every day. I’d know if he was being mistreated. Wouldn’t I?”

The catch in the deep voice struck her as he uttered those last two words, lodging someplace in her chest.

“It’s still my duty to check.” Her visit wasn’t personal. Had nothing to do with her at all—other than as an agent for the state.

“By all means.” He stepped back. And then, when she made to move forward, stood in her way again. “If someone is hurting him, I want them stopped,” he said, his gaze flint sharp.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lacey nodded.

“That’s what I’m here for,” she told him.

And hoped to God the call was a false alarm.

* * *

HE WANTED TO grab his son out of his chair with both arms, shield him against his chest and run. But instead Jem led the drably dressed woman slowly down a hall to the old kitchen he’d remodeled himself in his spare time when Tressa had been pregnant with Levi.

He couldn’t panic. Not yet.

Not if someone was hurting his boy. Possible suspects ran through his mind. The only people he knew who had access to Levi besides himself were preschool workers and his mother. No one who would hurt him.

And who’d called?

Tressa sprang to mind again. But would she really go that far? She’d pulled some questionable shit a time or two, but only to lash out at him.

As far as he knew, she didn’t have any reason to be pissed with him right then. Things had been good. Better than they’d been in years...

And then something else dawned on him. Social services, child protective services, could take his son away from him if they felt the choice was warranted.

Surely Ms. Hamilton wasn’t there with that thought in mind. Levi was his son. His life. No one was going to take better care of the boy than he did.

Or love him like he did.

She had to have some kind of real proof...

Didn’t she?

Ready to grab the woman back, to haul her ass through his house and put her firmly but kindly outside his front door and then lock it behind her, Jem could only stand and watch as she rounded the corner, went through the archway to the kitchen and approached the table.

“Hi, Levi, I heard about you, and your dad said it was okay if I came to meet you.”

He’d heard of a devil in sheep’s clothing. Had quite possibly grown up with one, in the form of his older sister.

And hoped to hell he hadn’t just let one into his son’s world.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” Levi asked.

Lacey understood, the first second she heard that little voice, what Mara had been telling her about Levi’s precociousness. In a perfectly serious tone, he sounded as self-assured as his father had done. All mixed in with soft r’s and a spaghetti-sauce-smeared face.

It took her two seconds to put that sauce together with the stains on the front of Mr. Bridges’s shirt. Had there been some kind of physical tussle with the boy? Was that how Bridges could be so certain his son wouldn’t move out of his chair?

“I’m Lacey,” she said, taking a seat at the big butcher-block table with the little boy. His father’s place, empty dirty plate with silverware sitting neatly in the middle of it, was within easy reach of Levi. “Lacey Hamilton.”

The boy stared at her. “You have blond hair.”

She said, “Yep,” and smiled. She was good with kids. Always had been. Which was part of the reason she’d chosen to go into social work.

“I have a broken arm,” he said, holding up his cast as he pursed his lips.

He’d been crying. She could see the streaks left by his tears. And had to wonder...

As if just noticing the telltale streak marks himself, Jeremiah appeared from over by the sink. “Let’s get your face wiped up, buddy.” He had a wet paper towel in hand.

“I can do it.” Levi took it from his father, lifted his chin and scrubbed at his face. He then handed the cloth back to his father and held his hand up to him.

Jeremiah wiped each finger. “You through eating?” he asked. The plate in front of the boy was scattered with stray strands of spaghetti, but mostly empty.

“Is that enough bascetti for ice cream?”

“Yep.” The man didn’t miss a beat as he took the cloth, the plate, and moved back to the sink, which was on the boy’s side of the table.

Lacey had to give him points for letting her sit alone at the table with the boy, as though giving his consent to his son to be friendly with her and letting Levi know that she was friend, not threat.

But he’d been crying. Violently enough to leave stains down his face. Mara, who’d known him since he was three months old, who’d been caring for him all day most days ever since, said there’d been a drastic behavioral change in him.

An alarming change...

“How’d you break your arm?” Lacey asked. He’d brought it up, so it made the question natural enough.

The boy looked down. “I fell.” The words were barely discernible in the mumble that came out.

She leaned forward, wishing she could take that little body into her arms, lay his head on her shoulder and promise him that no one would ever hurt him again.

It was a reaction she hadn’t had since her first years on the job. At least not often. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about each and every child who crossed her path. She did. Enough to keep the distance mandatory for her to do her job and make the hard decisions that would keep them safe.

“Fell how?” she asked when Levi’s chin finally lifted off from his chest.

“Did the hospital call you?” Jeremiah Bridges, wiping his hands on a dish towel, came toward the table.

With a glance at the boy, back at him and then back to Levi, she ignored the question.

“How did you fall, Levi?”

“I dunno. I just fell,” Levi said, then looked to his dad. “Can I go play now?”

With a glance in Lacey’s direction, Jeremiah left the decision up to her. She nodded.

The boy was well kept—was obviously used to washing up after meals, too—and well fed, at least that night. And every day, as well, judging by the lean strength in his four-year-old body as Jeremiah turned the chair and assisted as Levi hopped down from his booster seat.

“No video games,” he said as the boy walked slowly toward the archway. “And don’t forget, no Batman or Superman for another day or two.”

“I know...” The boy’s head hung again. But as Levi passed his dad, Jeremiah held his hand up for a high five and Levi gave him one.

Not the actions of a frightened child.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jeremiah asked the boy. And then, with a nod of his head in her direction, he gave the boy a questioning look.

“Oh, yeah,” Levi said and turned to her. “It was nice to meet you, Lacey,” he said. He looked at his dad again. “Did I do it right?”

“Yes, sport, you did it just fine,” Jeremiah said, grinning at Levi. “Now go play for a few minutes.”

The little body was almost at the archway when Levi turned back. “Just until time for ice cream, right?”

“Right.”

Jeremiah’s grin was all for his son, but Lacey caught the tail end of it as he turned back to her. She started to respond before she caught herself.

He was looking at her full on by then. And he’d sobered completely. So had she.

“Tell me about that broken arm.” She kept her tone quiet. She itched for the tablet in her purse. She needed to type about the arm. And when they were done with that, about the cause of those tears.

Kids cried, sometimes daily. Most particularly the little ones. It was a part of life. The testing of boundaries, and the impromptu bursts of emotions that learning right from wrong elicited. Tears were no reason to suspect wrongdoing here.

Still, a vision of those particular streaks on those particular cheeks had burned itself in her mind.

“What’s to tell?” Bridges asked, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed in front of him again. “He fell. And if that’s what this is about, if someone is trying to make something out of the fact that a kid fell and broke his arm, I’d suggest they take a look at...well...” He shrugged. “Even I broke my arm when I was a kid. Boys do that. It’s not a crime.”

The way his eyebrows were drawn—as if he was confused, lost—sent a mixed message, combined with the defensiveness of the rest of his posture.

His dark hair wasn’t overly long. Or short, either. He reminded her of a citified cowboy, one who wore work boots instead of cowboy ones. He was a contractor, she knew, and owned his own business, which had rave reviews online: a Better Business Bureau endorsement, and a stellar record with the Registrar of Contractors.

She’d had a busy afternoon.

“Are you with me?” he asked now, switching from left foot crossed over right to the opposite, drawing her eyes to the jeans that fit those legs well enough to star in a commercial for...anything manly.

“I am,” she said. “I’m listening. Not just to what you’re saying, but for what you aren’t. It’s my job to be observant.” She was going to stop there, but for some reason added, “And to make sure that I take enough time that I don’t jump to conclusions.” The last was true. On every job. Just not something she generally shared with a parent under investigation.

“Do you fear you’re doing that here?” he asked, his glance changing from lost to piercing. “Because I can save you some time. I have not, ever, even had a split-second urge to lash out at my son. Not in any way that could be considered abusive. I’ve gotten impatient. Spoken more sharply than I’d have liked. I’ve raised my voice to him. But I have never, ever lifted a hand to him or in any way trampled his spirit.”

It was one of the better “I’d never do that” speeches she’d heard. Maybe that was why she so badly wanted to believe him. But she had to have more than a statement of innocence. A four-year-old child’s life could be at stake.

“How’d you break your arm?”

He blinked, stood up straight and uncrossed his arms. “What?” Then crossed his arms again in an arrogant expression of nonchalance.

She didn’t blame him his defensiveness. Nor could she let it keep her from finding out what she had to know.

“I fell off my bike,” he said.

“See, now, that’s a lie.” She probably shouldn’t have said the words aloud. But she’d known instantly that he was lying. For the first time since she’d entered his home, he avoided her glance.

Or he was a master manipulator who was playing with her.

“No, I did,” he said, meeting her gaze now. “I was eight years old. Racing my older sister. Went up a curb and flew over the handlebars. I landed on my arm.”

She believed him. And where did that leave her? She’d been so certain a second ago that he was lying.

“Boys break their arms,” he said softly, almost as though he felt sorry for her. A heat wave passed through her, leaving her unsure for the time it took her to draw one deep breath.

She wasn’t being paid to feel. Or sense. Or even “believe.” Certainly not at that stage. She was there to gather facts. As many as she could get. To look for inconsistencies along the way. And then to assimilate.

She was getting ahead of herself.

“You want to know what’s bothering me?” She looked up at him, needing to stand and face him head-on. His entire demeanor seemed to dare her to do so. But she stayed in her seat to show him—and maybe herself—that he couldn’t intimidate her.

“Yeah,” he said, surprising her as he suddenly pulled out a chair and sat with her. “If you want to know the truth, I really do want to know what’s bothering you. I’m sitting here having dinner with my son, helping him deal with the grave disappointment he’s experiencing for missing out on something he’s been looking forward to for six months, and suddenly here you are, disrupting our lives in a very unpleasant way. I think I deserve to know why.”

Wow. The man sure knew how to deliver his punches. Funny thing was, she didn’t feel like she’d been hit. At least not by anything that smacked of evil, or even foul play.

Stick to your known purpose. Don’t let him pull you off course. The words of a mentor from her early days in social services surfaced in her mind.

“What’s bothering me is that neither you nor your son have told me how he came to fall. When I asked you how you broke your arm, you didn’t just say you fell. You said you fell off your bike. And then when I challenged you, you provided detail that was aimed at convincing me you were telling me the truth.”

He was assessing her. But she had no idea what he was thinking.

“I can’t tell you the details about my son’s broken arm.”

Aha. Now they were getting somewhere. “Why not?” Because they would incriminate him? Half expecting to hear him say that he needed to call his lawyer, she waited.

“Because I don’t know them.”

Disappointed, not because there’d been no lawyering up, but because she’d thought he was being honest with her, Lacey figured she was wasting her time there. If she’d had her tablet on, she’d have shut it off.

“Levi was with his mother when it happened.”

No. Don’t lie to me. You’re going to force me to take a harsher stance if you lie...

“The emergency room report said that you were the one who brought him in.”

“She called me. I went and picked him up. She’s not good with medical stuff.”

“And neither one of them told you what happened?” Did he really expect her to believe this?

“I know my ex-wife’s version. And frankly, I didn’t explain more completely because I didn’t want you finding fault with her. She’s a good person and doesn’t react well to being hassled. She’s a bit of a drama queen. But she loves Levi and would never do anything to harm him.”

Lacey sat up straighter and clutched the strap of her bag. Ex-spouses throwing each other under the bus was a classic. Common.

And here she was, disappointed in him for playing the card. For being on a potential abusive parent investigation, she had far too high an expectation of this guy.

He’d soon be telling her that his ex-wife lashes out. That she responds physically to anger and then regrets her actions. Or some version thereof. She knew the ropes.

“Can you be more specific?” She led him down his trail, thinking only of Levi now, of what resources would best help the boy. Family counseling? A caseworker—her—stopping by on a regular basis?

The state of California was pretty firm on its stance to remove kids from their homes only as a last resort.

In rare circumstances, an in-home advocate could be placed on a temporary basis...

“Levi was climbing up her bookcase to get a video he wanted to watch. I’ve suggested to her that she keep his videos on the lower shelves where he can reach them, but she says that that makes them too accessible to him and he’d be watching them all the time.”

She waited, listening in between the lines. Clearly Bridges was experiencing a gap in parenting philosophy with his ex-wife, which could create stress and confusion for a child. But the gap alone didn’t break arms. Or bruise little bodies.

“When she saw him up there, she got scared that he might fall and grabbed him to help him down.”

Then what, she dropped him? The story was almost believable. Lacey waited for the fall.

“Unfortunately, instead of grabbing him around his middle, Tressa just grabbed his arm...” His voice fell off, as if that explained it all.

“You’re trying to tell me that your ex-wife’s grasp was so strong she broke your son’s arm in two places?”

“No. She didn’t have a firm enough grip to support his weight, and he fell off the shelf. It was an accident. Believe me, if Tressa had been rough with him, if I thought that she would in any way hurt him, I’d be in court to sue for full custody yesterday.”

It was hard not to believe him. But...

“So why won’t Levi talk about it?”

“Because he knew he wasn’t supposed to be climbing up on the shelves. He’s already been firmly spoken to about misbehaving and knows that he’s living with the consequences of having done so. I think at this point he just wants the whole thing to go away. He doesn’t want anyone else reading him the riot act. Levi’s usually a great kid. He takes it personally when he screws up.”

So maybe it was a great cover-up story. Maybe Bridges was a think-quick-on-the-fly kind of guy. She couldn’t afford not to consider the possibility.

But even if it was true, he’d failed to tell it the first and second times she’d asked him about what had happened. Because he’d thought the story could get someone in trouble?

It made her wonder what else he was covering up.

Or would cover up in the future.

“Are you aware that your son had finger-shaped bruises on his upper torso?”

“He absolutely does not.” Bridges stood. “We can prove that one right here, right now.” He made as if to move toward that archway through which his son had passed.

“I don’t mean now,” she said, keeping an even tone. He sank back to his seat, shaking his head.

“You’re telling me that someone reported bruises on him in the past? Why haven’t I heard about this before now?”

“What you heard isn’t important here, Mr. Bridges. What matters is the truth of the allegations. Are you, or have you ever been, aware of bruises on your son’s skin that were distinctly caused by fingertips?”

“No! Of course not!”

Lacey wished she’d brought a colleague with her. She needed another read on this guy.

“Who’s telling you this shit?”

She wouldn’t have chosen to swear at the social services worker at that moment, but it wasn’t a crime.

“I’m going to need to speak with Levi privately,” she told him. “Can you bring him to my office tomorrow?”

There wasn’t substantiated proof, nor any need as far as she could see, to remove the boy from his home that night. He’d exhibited no signs of fear of his father. There was nothing in the home to indicate anything other than loving care. Right down to the child-safe electrical plugs in all of the wall sockets. Even the one above the countertop in the kitchen.

“Of course I’ll bring him,” Bridges said. “I just...” His voice broke off.

She stood. “I’d like to see his room before I go,” she said, satchel back up on her shoulder. She wanted to see the father’s room, too, but didn’t ask to do so. Which bothered her, too. She didn’t normally have a problem making whole house assessments.

“It’s right this way.”

With a sure stride Bridges led her back the way they’d come, down a hall and into what was obviously a playroom. Levi, who was busy on the floor making “varoom” noises with a car he was pushing on a toy track, sat up as they entered. He stood, abandoned his cars, took her hand in his good one and proceeded to introduce her to every nook and cranny of a childhood dream. First his playroom, then the bathroom with a net of toys hanging from a decorative fish hook above a tub outfitted with colorful fish-shaped slip-free adhesive on the bottom. She saw no soap scum or dirt anywhere—with the exception of a glob of toothpaste in the sink.

Finally they ended up in the room adjoining the other side of the bathroom. A sleeping room with scenes beneath the ocean painted on the walls.

Dresser drawers were closed. There were no clothes or other clutter on the floor. The bed was made.

She could have suspected that Bridges had planned the whole thing. Cleaned up because he’d known she was coming. Except that he hadn’t known. No one had. Her colleagues also had no way of knowing—except by the log they’d read when they needed to.

Neither had he given any indication that there’d been any change in his son’s behavior in the past months.

Because he hadn’t noticed?

Because he was hiding something?

Or because, this time, she’d received a false report?

CHAPTER FIVE

JEM DIDN’T SLEEP. Not a wink. He’d start to doze off and every single time he’d jerk awake—his heart pounding with dread.

How could he prove that he wouldn’t hurt his son? Not ever? No matter what?

Who was saying that he had?

Or had that even been said? At three in the morning he made his third trip—he was allowing himself only one an hour, as if that small bit of self-control was going to prove something to someone—to his son’s room to look in on the sleeping boy.

Levi had always been a back sleeper. Open to the world had always been Jem’s estimation of his son’s slumber habit. And there he was, sprawled with abandon, arms and legs spread, covers tangled around his lower torso, giving his all to sleep just as he gave that same zest for life in whatever he approached while awake.

The thick white plaster on that tiny arm gave Jem pause. As it had every single time he’d laid eyes on it since the doctor had put it there. He wanted to take Levi’s pain, to slay every dragon that attempted to enter his son’s life.

He couldn’t even prevent a broken bone. The helplessness that came with that realization wasn’t welcome. Or to be tolerated.

Just as he’d told the Hamilton beauty, boys broke bones. Most by accident—the boy’s or someone else’s.

As a vision of the woman came to mind, her blue eyes beneath that tightly pulled-back blond hair, Jem quietly left his son’s room.

Taking thoughts of Lacey Hamilton with him. They’d been his constant companion since she’d left a short half hour after she’d arrived so unexpectedly on his doorstep.

He had his rights. He knew that now. Knew, too, after the reading he’d done as soon as Levi had been down for the night, that the state of California was pretty stringent about removing kids from homes. It was done as a last resort. Period. There were a lot of options between a home visit and removal—unless, of course, abuse was obvious at the outset.

And in that case, Jem would be the staunchest of supporters for removal.

Still, one caseworker had a lot of power. Even ones who made you feel like you wanted to make dinner for them every night. Especially those ones.

He thought about calling Tressa. He wanted the support of their bonding together as they protected their son. But didn’t want it to look like he was tipping her off. From what he’d read, they’d be visiting her, too.

Unless, of course, she’d been the one to file the complaint.

As much as he wanted to, he still wasn’t completely ruling out that option.

With the child monitor he kept with him whenever he was out of earshot of his son’s room, Jem popped the top on a beer and, opening the back patio door, sat outside by the stone fireplace he’d built next to the outdoor counter and grill. The sink and miniature refrigerator were flanked by a waterfall feature that lit up at night to show off the goldfish that Levi had picked out. Jem barely noticed any of it.

They hadn’t shown Lacey Hamilton the goldfish.

Still, he’d had a feeling that she’d softened a bit before she left. That she’d maybe even started to believe him.

He would not hurt his son. And would also not stand idly by if someone else did.

* * *

LACEY HAD ALREADY worked on nine other cases by the time Jeremiah Bridges showed up with Levi just before ten the next morning. He’d said he’d take his son with him on his morning rounds, which started at seven, and then bring him in to see her before dropping him at preschool for the afternoon.

Levi had his own hard hat, he’d proudly boasted.

“He’s never around a construction site while there’s dangerous work going on,” his father had quickly asserted. He’d started to explain the safety procedures he’d enacted before ever bringing the little boy to a work site.

At which time Levi had interrupted with “I can’t leave the trailer unless all the machines is off.”

“There’s a job secretary in the office trailer at all times,” his father had added.

If Lacey had had her tablet out, she’d have typed something about those striking blue eyes—both pairs—looking at her so solemnly.

She’d wanted to trust them.

She still felt that way as she led the duo back to her office, Levi’s strides as long as his little legs could make them, attempting to synchronize with his father’s.

“You want to see my playroom?” she asked the little boy just before they reached her office.

With a glance at his father, who nodded, Levi said, “Sure!” She held out her hand. He took it.

“You can wait in my office,” she told his father, pointing toward the door. All case files, including his, were locked in her file drawer. Her computer was off and couldn’t be accessed without her password, anyway. But there were magazines for him to read.

“We won’t be long.” Why she felt the need to reassure him, she didn’t know. Her concern was Levi. And the possibility that someone was abusing him.

At the moment, nothing else could matter to her.

* * *

JEM PLAYED A trivia game on his phone while he waited. It was either that or think about his insides eating him up. He probably should have had some breakfast. Levi had offered to share the scrambled eggs and toast he’d had waiting for him when he’d shown up in the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and hair tussled, early that morning.

Jem was a fix-it kind of guy.

Kind of hard to fix what you didn’t know was broken.

He had six trivia games going—all with guys on his crews. He generally won, but now answered six questions wrong in a row. When he missed one about the pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he closed the game. Having been on the farm team when the pitcher in question had been pitching, having had beers with him and some of the other guys during a road trip, he knew the guy’s name.

But he just wasn’t in the game, so no point in wasting turns.

Hands in his pockets, he walked around the small office. It was as neat as a pin. No personal pictures on the desk.

But he took note of a message scrawled on a little sheet stuck to the side of the computer monitor. She needed a hero and so she became one.

Something about that note eased his tension and made him feel kind of sorry for the social worker who’d interrupted his life so abruptly.

Reminding him, as it did, that everyone was human.

And no one’s life was perfect.

* * *

“DO I SCARE YOU, Levi?” The minute the little boy had realized that she was going to stay with him in the playroom—and that his father wasn’t going to be there—Levi had begun to shrink in on himself.

There was no other way for her to describe the reaction. His shoulders hunched slightly as he kept his cast close to his stomach. “No. ’Course not,” the little boy said, that softened r grabbing at her.

It was okay for her to care about the children. They could never have too much love. Or so she’d told herself on those times when the professional boundaries she had to keep didn’t quite diminish those occasional heart tugs.

“You want to put this together with me?” The twenty-five-piece teddy bear puzzle was probably too easy for him, judging not only by what Mara, his preschool teacher, had relayed about him, but by the activities she’d observed in his room the night before.

She sat on the floor with him while he worked silently on the puzzle by himself, putting each piece in place without hesitation.

When he’d finished, she handed him another equally easy puzzle. She wanted his concentration.

“I need the box,” he said.

“What box?”

“For the other puzzle.” That r again. He was pointing to the teddy bear puzzle he’d just completed. She’d expected him to leave that and do the second one. Instead, he cleaned up the first one before moving to the next. “Miss Mara says you have to pick up one before you can bring out a other,” he told her.

“You do a lot of puzzles at school?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head, not looking up from his task.

“Where’d you learn to do them so well, then?”

“Daddy and I got lots of ’em.”

“What about your mommy—does she do puzzles with you, too?”

“Uh-uh.”

Lacey had stopped to see Tressa Bridges on her way to work that morning, but there’d been no answer at the door. Such was sometimes the case when you made unannounced house calls.

He was turning a piece around the wrong way. She wanted to help him, but got the distinct feeling that he didn’t want her to.

“Where were you when you fell and broke your arm?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you know, silly,” she teased. “You were there at the time, weren’t you?”

She was grinning at him. And earned herself a confused frown as well as a quick glance from those striking blue eyes. Then a shrug.

“Well, your arm didn’t run away from your body, did it?” she asked, her tone playful.

“Noooo.” He giggled and put the piece he’d been struggling with in place.

“So why don’t you tell me what happened. You aren’t going to be in any trouble. I just want to know.”

“I fell.” Another piece slid into place. His upper torso was bent completely over the puzzle.

“From where?”

“Mommy’s bookshelf.”

Relief flooded her so thickly Lacey sat back. She grinned for real. Then it occurred to her that his father could have told him to say that, could even have rehearsed it with him this morning on their way to see her.

“Was she in the room?”

He shrugged again, and she realized her question could be confusing. In the room when he first misbehaved by climbing where he’d been told not to go? Or when he fell?

“Before you started to climb, I meant.”

He shrugged again. And rather than upset him, she let the matter drop.

Levi finished the puzzle. At her invitation he wandered around the room, touching things. A plastic tic-tac-toe board. A car track with little cars—not as elaborate as the one he had in his room at home, but still worth a little boy’s notice.

Lacey put the puzzles back on their shelf, washed her hands in the sink and sat at a pint-size plastic picnic table. “You want a snack?” she asked, holding out a shortbread cookie she’d just taken from the cupboard.

He looked at the cookie, shrugged and pushed a car on the track.

“What kind of ice cream did you get last night?” His father had told him that they’d have some.

“Chocolate. I get chocolate. Daddy gets ’nilla.”

Leaving the cookie on the table, she sat down on the floor with him. “In a cone or a bowl?”

He shrugged again.

“Do you ever eat so much it hurts your stomach?”

Another shrug.

There were games she could play with him, activities designed to give her insights into his psyche. She had hoped she wouldn’t have to resort to something that formal. But...

“Let’s play a little game,” she said, leaning back against the wall. He seemed happier when she gave him his space.

He didn’t seem to have heard her.

“Levi, will you play a game with me?”

“Then can I go back to my daddy?” Those blue eyes were wide and sad as he looked at her.

“Yes.” It was the only answer she could give him. Her purpose was not to make him unhappy. Or to make him dislike her, either. They needed to work together, Levi and she, to make certain that he was safe. Even if he didn’t know that.

“Okay.”

“So this is a talking game,” she started. “You can still play with your cars while we do it.”

Picking up another car, he had one in each hand and circled one around the track.

“So in this game, I tell you one of the best things that ever happened to me, one of my happiest times, and then you tell me yours. Okay?”

He nodded.

“So, one of my happiest times was when...” She’d been ready to give him the rote—the memory she’d chosen long ago for this exercise, the same one she used every time.

And then she stopped. He wasn’t exhibiting any need to confide in her, didn’t seem to need an excuse to open up, and he certainly wasn’t going to care about her and her identical twin sister playing a trick on their fourth-grade teacher.

Not at that moment, at any rate.

“When I was little, my twin sister and I were picked to do some television commercials,” she told him. “The best one was when we got to ride on the hood of a sports car for a little bit, right on the track.”

He looked at her then. “Did you go fast?”

“No. We were on the hood. But when we were done, my sister got to ride in it.”

“All the way around?”

“Yes.”

He pushed the car around the track again.

“It’s your turn now. What’s the best time you ever had?”

She waited.

“My fish.”

“Your fish is the best time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you do with your fish?”

“Daddy and me goed fishing on a boat and I got to pick out goldfish for my pond we builded.”

“You have a pond?” She’d missed that the night before.

He nodded and pushed the car in his left hand for the first time.

“Where?”

“With the stuff outside.”

“What stuff?”

“Chairs and cooking and stuff.”

Lacey would have picked up a little car, too, if she’d felt herself welcome. Instead, she watched the adorable little boy pushing his miniature vehicles with such precision while she leaned back against the wall.

“And you went fishing for goldfish?”

“No!” His giggle slipped inside her, lightening the weight she carried. “You buy them in the store, where they dunk that thing in for ’em.”

She smiled then, liking this child—a lot—and knowing that, regardless of what she found out, he was going to be one of those she never forgot.

CHAPTER SIX

THRUMMING HIS FINGERS on the arm of the chair, Jem stared at the magazines on the table beside him. He stared at his phone, too, scrolling through his favorite news site, but seeing nothing. He reholstered his phone.

What in the hell was taking so long?

Was it possible that someone really was hurting his son?

Impossible.

He’d know.

But one thing he’d learned since Levi had come into the world, turning his life upside down—kids had incredible imaginations.

They were apt to say anything that came into their heads. Fabrication or not. To a kid Levi’s age, everything seemed real. From cartoons, dreams he’d had and stories he’d imagined.

Jem had always encouraged his son’s free thinking. And when Levi came up with outlandish stories, he’d asked questions to play along. Because to Levi, in those moments, they were real.

He’d also taught his son never to lie. He could imagine. He could make up. But he could not change facts that he knew to be true.

But Lacey Hamilton, her crew at social services, whatever other professionals she might have involved in their lives—none of them knew that.

Shooting up out of the scarred wooden chair, he strode to the door, opened it and caught a woman’s questioning look as she passed by the room on her way down the hall. She probably knew who he was. Why he was there.

Obviously she’d know in whose office he’d been waiting.

Back inside, he closed the door and sat down. What was taking them so long?

Pulling his phone back off the holster at his waist, Jem started making calls to his site bosses. He fielded problems and offered solutions, helping those who worked for him to do their best work.

All the while trying to ignore the fact that he’d never felt so helpless in his life.

* * *

“SO THE NEXT part of this game is, I tell you my worst memory.” Lacey felt like a creep as she sat there in the small playroom with a little boy who had no good reason to trust her. Pumping him for information that could make a drastic change in his life. If his life needed a drastic change.

Fully knowing that for most kids, even when the change was needed, it wasn’t welcome. The devil you knew was much better than facing the fear of the unknown. And being ripped away from those you loved—even if they weren’t good to you—was the worst.

“It was when I was little and had to be in the hospital and I was really scared.”

She had to make it bad enough that he wouldn’t feel intimidated talking about his, no matter how bad it was.

And yet not so bad as to give him nightmares.

It also had to be true. Her rule. The kids in her life generally had major trust issues. She was not going to add to them by lying.

He looked up at her. “Were you sick?”

“I had to stay overnight,” she said. “I thought I’d done something really bad and that I was being punished.”

Levi shifted, sitting on one foot, with his chin resting on his upraised knee. He grabbed a new car—a pickup truck—and ran it around the track, crashing it into the smaller white car he’d left there.

“What’s your worst memory?” she asked, knowing full well that a child his age would most likely access only the past couple of weeks.

“I dunno.”

Not an atypical response, even from a well-adjusted, happy four-year-old.

“Levi, I’m going to ask you something. And I need you to be completely honest with me. Do you understand?”

He backed the truck up.

“Levi? Look at me a second.”

Without lifting his chin, he glanced in her direction.

“Will you be honest with me and answer my question?”

“I don’t tell lies.”

A prevarication. At four. She almost smiled.

“Has anyone ever told you not to tell something?” A leading question if ever there was one.

She was counting on the fact that he wouldn’t be savvy enough, at four, even four going on forty, to see that.

He didn’t answer. His hand stilled on the truck, but he didn’t let go of it.

“You don’t lie, remember?” she said.

He sat there.

“Has someone told you that?”

The next time he glanced up, there were tears in his eyes. She had her answer.

“Levi...”

“Do I gotta tell?” His lower lip trembled.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “But you don’t have to tell me what you can’t tell. Just who told you not to.”

He didn’t say anything more. So she tried to make it easier on him.

“Was it your daddy?”

Chin on his knee, he shook his head.

“Was it Mara at school?”

Another shake of his head.

“Someone else at school?”

He shook his head again.

She thought about that broken arm. About where he’d been when it had happened. About a mother who never dropped her son off or picked him up from school.

“Was it your mommy?”

He didn’t respond. Not even a shake of the head.

Lacey had her answer.

* * *

THERE WERE SOME days a guy just needed a burger. The biggest, juiciest patty of beef he could find. And when a guy had a pint-size sidekick, it had to be at a place that served pint-size versions of the same.

Instead of taking Levi straight to preschool after their meeting at social services, Jem turned their truck in the opposite direction and drove until they landed at the beach. At Uncle Bob’s—one of his and Levi’s favorite spots.

Lacey Hamilton had told him basically nothing when she’d come into her office alone less than twenty minutes before. He’d been about to say a whole lot, until she’d explained that Levi was with a coworker of hers, looking at her goldfish, and would be along in a second.

“Can I play in the sand?” the boy asked as he unhooked his seat belt.

“Yep.”

Levi climbed out of his car seat in the back and made his way to the front of the truck to get out with Jem.

Jem had been thinking about making the little guy wait until he opened the back door to get him out, but figured Levi would be opening doors on his own—exiting them without wanting his father close—soon enough. He swung the boy up on his hip and carried him toward the entrance.

It was a testimony to their dual state of mind when Levi put his arms around Jem’s neck and rode the whole way in. Most days he’d have been pushing his feet against Jem’s thighs, eager to be down and on his own.

“I don’t have school today, do I?” Levi asked as they waited to be shown to their table. He’d requested one by the big sandbox play area. Tuesday before noon and the place was already crowded.

“Yeah, you do,” he said. He wouldn’t have if Jem wasn’t feeling overly paranoid about having his every move watched. He didn’t want someone thinking that he was suddenly changing his schedule, afraid to take his son to day care, for fear of what someone might report.

Not that he thought, for one second, that Mara or any of the ladies at the day care would report him for abuse. No, he’d pretty much figured out it was either the hospital, because they had to report frequent hospital visits, as he’d learned last night during his reading—Levi had been to the emergency room six times—or Tressa.

She’d wanted to have sex the previous weekend. He hadn’t been interested enough to pull off the pretense, but had thought he’d made a pretty good excuse. She’d seemed to roll with it at the time.

But his ex-wife had a tendency to be vindictive where he was concerned. Someone had to take the blame for the things that hadn’t gone right in her life. Might as well be him.

* * *

LEVI CHATTERED ABOUT building a sand castle while they waited for the burgers and fries Jem had ordered. Not only were they by the big sandbox, the hostess had seated them at a table with a view of the beach.

Jem would have loved to spend the day out there. Playing in the sand with his son. Building castles. Or surfing the waves like he used to do. Before he’d met Tressa, become a husband—and then a father.

“What’s a twin?” Levi’s foot, swinging beneath the table, caught Jem on the knee. The boy’s chin barely reached the top of the table, but he’d been pretty particular about not wanting a booster seat.

He was a big boy and not a baby, at least that day.

“A twin?” he asked, giving his son his full focus.

“Mmm-hmm.” Levi’s chin lifted. “Lacey said she has a twin. What’s a twin?”

An immediate vision sprang to mind. Not one but two of the beautiful blondes, hair down, of course...

What in the hell was it with him? He was bordering on disrespectful the way he kept picturing the woman.

The next second he was shrugging off his propensity for doing so. He was a guy. It was what guys did.

Not that he could remember the last time he’d mentally undressed a woman he’d just met...

“A twin is someone who has a brother or sister who was born at the same time they were,” he said.

“With a different mommy and daddy?” the boy asked, screwing up his nose like he did when he wasn’t understanding something.

“Nope. With the same mommy and daddy.”

“You said I came out of Mommy’s tummy.” Technically, he hadn’t offered up that technical tidbit to a four-year-old child. Tressa had, one night when she’d been explaining to Levi why he was hers and why he should want to spend more time with her. Jem had been left to explain, as best he could, what she’d meant.

“That’s right,” he said now.

“Does everyone come out of a mommy’s tummy?”

Obviously his lesson had lacked some pertinent details. “Yes.” He waited. The last time they’d dealt with this topic, he’d answered Levi’s questions and left the rest for when the boy wanted to know more.

Thanks to Lacey Hamilton needing to tell his son about her birth situation, now was apparently the time for more. As if the day wasn’t already challenging enough.

Both little feet beneath the table were swinging now and softly kicking him. Jem thought about reaching down to stop them, but chose to take the blows instead. If Levi didn’t expunge his energy one way, he’d find another.

Levi’s gaze followed a waiter with a tray full of ice cream sundaes and Jem was pretty sure they were done with the topic. He was ready to ask his son if he wanted a sundae for dessert, in spite of the fact that they didn’t do dessert at lunchtime, when Levi turned back to him.

“Lacey’s mom had two babies in her tummy at one time?”

“Yep.”

“How come my mommy didn’t have two babies at one time?”

Levi had talked a time or two about having a baby brother or sister. So far Jem had avoided the hows and why that couldn’t happen, saying only that mommies and daddies had to be married to have babies. A weak excuse if ever there was one.

“Because you took up so much room, silly,” he said now and grinned for real when he saw their waitress heading toward them with two burgers. One big and one small.

As expected, Levi moved on from the whole twin thing as he ate. Talking about playing in the sand again. And about cars. He wanted a blue one with turbo twin spoilers like the one he’d played with that morning.

“It was really cool, Dad.”

Jem promised him the car. Knowing that on any other day he’d have given Levi some task to complete to earn the toy that he wanted.

Levi seemed to have shaken any of the trepidation he’d had after his encounter in Lacey’s playroom.

But Jem couldn’t shake his awareness of Lacey Hamilton from his mind quite as easily.

And wondered what it had been like for her, growing up with a built-in best friend. Wondered if her twin was a brother or a sister.

Wondered, too, why he gave a damn.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LACEY’S LIFE WAS her work. She didn’t try to hide the fact or apologize for it. She’d made choices and was at peace with them. She liked her life.

She hadn’t grown up thinking she’d be a career woman. She’d gone to college more because it was expected of her than because she had career goals to pursue. But time, experience, clarified things.

As she drove through the streets of Santa Raquel on Tuesday, mingling with rush-hour traffic, Lacey followed the instructions from her GPS.

She hadn’t known, until the summer before her sophomore year in college, when she’d had to declare a major, that she was even going into social work. She’d always had a way with children. And her aptitude test had scored measurably higher for a career that involved working primarily with children. Science and math weren’t her thing, so that had ruled out anything in medicine.

“In zero point two miles you will be arriving at your destination. On the right.” The slightly accented female voice came through her sound system.

When she’d been little, Lacey had assumed she’d just grow up and be a mom someday. That thought had never really changed. It, like so much in her life, had just slowly drifted apart from her. There’d been nothing that stood out as a conscious realization of what her life would be. She’d just become what she was.

A woman married to her career.

One who was fulfilled, satisfied. One who contributed to society in a positive way.

And who was financially secure, too.

Really, if one had a choice, who wouldn’t want to be her?

Pulling up in front of the little cottage that would have looked more in place on the beach than on the nondescript street in an older neighborhood on the outskirts of town, Lacey picked up her tablet, turned it on and opened the file she’d created the day before. And then opened the document that was, as of yet, mostly blank.

The next half hour would be critical. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes as she met the woman who quite possibly was abusing Levi Bridges.

* * *

“SOMEONE’S HERE, JEM, I gotta go.”

Heart trying to thump blood through a gut of rock, Jem stood at his kitchen window, looking out over the backyard, listening to the fountain through the window he’d opened when he’d come in to prepare the vegetables he’d be grilling with chicken for dinner that night.

“At least I think they’re here. Someone just pulled up in front of my house. Hold on, let me look. I don’t recognize the car, but...”

Tressa’s voice sounded expectant. Which was better than mistrustful. This was good, considering the drama-ridden world in which his ex-wife lived. And he, thankfully, did not.

Chewing on his lower lip, he waited, deliberating over his options. He’d called to see if she’d tell him anything. Give him any clue as to whether or not she was behind the call to social services. To the fact that his world had once again been turned completely upside down.

It had been why he’d left her. Or rather, taken her up on one of her oft-repeated “offers” to leave him. He couldn’t have his son growing up with the drama-based tension that Tressa brought into every room she occupied.

If she stayed there long enough, that was.

“Who is it?” he asked now, trepidation knotting his insides to the point of decimating his appetite. A feeling he’d grown used to during his years with the woman who’d captivated him and then slowly instilled pity within him. Heart-wrenching pity. For her.

She’d given no indication, in the five minutes they’d been talking, that she’d had a visit from social services. Or any indication that anything was wrong, either.

Other than her job, but that was another story...

“I don’t know. No one’s getting out. But I can see her there. It’s a woman. Her hair’s in a twist.”

Lacey. But if she’d been there to report back to Tressa, as in, his ex-wife being the one who’d called to report him, Tressa would surely have recognized her and made a quick excuse to ditch him. Unless she had concerns...

“She’s blonde. Looks about our age...” There was curiosity in Tressa’s tone now. But the tone was still soft. Still the calm and therefore quite likable side of the woman he’d married. “She’s wearing some kind of jacket, sky blue. Who wears sky blue jackets anymore?”

So Tressa.

And also, so Lacey. He knew exactly what the outdated jacket looked like. She’d had it on that morning when she’d escorted his son down the hall and away from him. To play with cars, according to Levi.

Jem reached for a beer. If Tressa had not called social services, this was not going to be good.

Lacey hadn’t said a word about visiting Levi’s mother that evening when she’d called just as he was basting the chicken that was already on the grill.

She’d called to check on Levi, she’d said.

Like a storm chaser, he could predict what was coming. He also knew that he wasn’t going to say anything to Tressa about it—a decision made right that second. After all the years he’d spent defending his wife’s actions, her words when she went off inappropriately, so many years of smoothing feathers she hadn’t meant to ruffle, he didn’t want anyone associating him with her anymore.

Not in a partner sense.

And most particularly not when a decision maker from social services was involved.

“She’s getting out now,” Tressa was saying. “Probably just selling something. I hope it’s not clothes.” His ex-wife chuckled, still at ease.

Jem gripped the back of his neck.

“If it’s jewelry, I’ll buy some. Poor thing, having to go door-to-door to make a living. I can always give it for Christmas presents. Nice car she’s driving. I wonder if she just lost her job. Or maybe her ex dumped her for someone a little more fashion conscious...”

Sounding truly compassionate now, Tressa’s voice was fading.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Jem said, reminding her that he was still there.

“Yeah, fine, Jem. Call me.”

She’d disconnected before he heard the doorbell ring. Call me. That was Tressa. I only want people in my life who prove they want to be there.

It was always about meeting her expectations. As long as you could do that...

Jem looked down at the bundle resting on the counter beside him. He’d been about to carry it out to the grill, but had decided to check in with Tressa first—right after Lacey had called him, butting into his evening, bothering him all over again...

He picked up the bundle—broccoli and corn with a little bit of butter, wrapped in foil. Weird way to prepare them, maybe, but Levi liked them that way.

And only broccoli and corn. Not carrots. Not beets. And certainly not the Brussels sprouts Jem tried on him one time.

He’d eat raw cucumbers, too. But only if they were peeled...

Not once, in the entire five minutes they’d been on the phone, had Tressa asked him how Levi was doing with his cast. She’d asked about his day in school, asked if he’d missed her. But not a word about the broken arm their son was carrying around, learning how to adjust to. Not a word about the T-ball he’d missed.

In that aspect, she was a bit like their son—able to let go of regrets. Except Levi’s disruptions were truly gone once he let them go. Tressa just swept hers under the rug.

Lacey Hamilton didn’t seem like the type of woman you swept away.

* * *

HAVING TAKEN A moment to prepare herself, to erase her morning with Levi and focus only on the woman she was about to meet, Lacey felt ready as she climbed the step up to the small, neat porch.

She liked the wicker bench and table, the red geraniums blooming in a pot in the corner. Geraniums took care to maintain, she knew.

The only way to help Levi was to open her mind up to whatever facts might present themselves. No matter how hard or bad they could turn out to be.

The flowers were a nice touch. And based on the pale pink discoloration of the white picket rail behind them, the blooms had been there awhile.

She knocked, expecting to wait a minute while the resident checked her out through the peephole. Or the nearby window, she revised, as she saw the curtain move.

Would the woman answer the door? Or slip out the back?

Pretend she wasn’t home?

She’d once had a parent climb out of a second-story window with the endangered child in her arms.

There was no second story here. And she knew for a fact that the child wasn’t in residence. She’d called Jeremiah Bridges before she’d left her office to see how Levi was doing after his meeting with her that morning. She’d wanted to know if he had any questions that needed answering. She’d told him that he was to refer all such questions to her. According to him, there hadn’t been any.

Could be true. Considering the fact that Levi was only four. It could also be that his father was very calmly and politely telling her to go to hell.

The front door opened.

“Hi. Can I help you?” The first thing Lacey noticed, besides the warm and welcoming tone, was the woman’s smile. Had she not been working, it might have put her immediately at ease.

“My name is Lacey Hamilton. I’m from social services. May I come in?”

The model-beautiful blonde frowned. “Social services? Is there a problem? Someone in trouble?”

The questions came faster than she could answer them. The woman’s bewilderment seemed completely genuine.

“Is it my brother? I told him not to come to me if he got himself into trouble again. I just can’t help him. I promised Jem... Sorry.” The woman shook her head. “That’s my husband...ex-husband, really...but if you’re here about Kenton, you probably already know that.”

Wow. Could someone put on an act that good if they were really feeling tense inside?

Records showed that Tressa Bridges was working as a manager of a small local branch of a major bank. She’d had the job for a little over a year. Before that she’d been an account manager for a well-respected investment firm. People who worked with large amounts of money had to first pass rigorous background and character checks.

People who did poorly in one financial institution, or left under negative terms, were not generally hired by another. Not in the same town, nor in a close time frame.

Tressa had paused long enough to ask her in. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know about Kenton. I’ll do anything I can to help him. But he needs to know he has to stay completely away from Jem. I mean, he’s lucky Jem didn’t press charges. And he can’t live with me, and I can’t give him any money.”

Wow, again. Lacey followed the vivacious woman to a small but meticulous living room with a camel-colored sectional that perfectly complemented the one camel-colored wall. The other walls were a peaceful cream color.

Lacey’s eye went straight to the built-in bookshelves on either side of the mounted flat-screen television set. In addition to books and DVDs, there were some trinkets. And a lot of photos of Levi.

Scanning the movies, she did indeed notice preschool titles on a higher shelf.

Wondering if the trunk-size wicker basket that served as a side table contained the preschooler’s toys, Lacey said, “I’m not here about your brother.”

“Oh.” The woman blinked and sat down. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “going on about my personal stuff like that. Jem says that I need to watch that. I tell him I will, and then off I go again, not even realizing. So, forgive me.” She stood up. “I was about to have some tea. I’ve just come in from work. Can I get you a glass?”

“I’d like that,” Lacey answered, more because she wanted to be able to follow the woman to the kitchen, to get as much of a look at the house as she could, to see how Levi’s mother lived when she wasn’t expecting company, than because she actually wanted a drink.

Tressa didn’t ask why she was there. Contrary to her previous behavior, she didn’t say anything at all, just pulled a couple of glasses out of the cupboard and filled them with ice. “Sweet or unsweetened?”

“Sweet.” She didn’t allow herself the indulgence often.

“Me, too.” Tressa crinkled her nose and then grinned. “I manage to make myself drink it unsweetened about half the time.”

Lacey was up to about three-quarters of the time. Most weeks.

Maybe not this one.

Walking around to the other side of the breakfast nook off the kitchen, Tressa pulled out one of four white wooden chairs at a block table similar to the one Lacey had seen at Jem’s house. “We might as well sit out here,” she said, indicating the chair directly across from her. Lacey sat.

The table had professionally embroidered, flowered linen placements. Bright and colorful. A matching print on the wall behind Tressa caught Lacey’s eye as she sat down.

“I love this room,” Lacey said, glancing out the sliding glass door to a small walled courtyard lined with flowers and a little birdbath-type above-the-ground fountain.

“Me, too,” Tressa told her. “I work at a bank, and while I love the challenge of making money work for you, some days I can’t wait to get home to my little oasis.”

What about her son? What did she think about not getting home to him every night? And on days when Levi was there, did he disturb the oasis?

Lacey looked from the woman, who was sitting perpendicular to her, to the wall Tressa was facing. She also had a view of the kitchen. For the first time she saw the side of the refrigerator facing the breakfast nook.

All available space was covered. Magnets held up drawings, scribblings, photographs. All done by, or taken of, Levi. It was a shrine to the boy. Which his mother faced every single time she sat down at the table.

Maybe Levi Bridges was just accident prone and was exhibiting changed behavior because of a developmental stage he was going through.

Maybe she had to be looking more closely at the day care.

“I’m afraid to ask why you’re here.” Tressa smiled. A tremulous, timid smile. No hint of defensiveness. Or authority, either.

Lacey smiled back, offering all she could offer at that moment—compassion.

If Tressa was hurting her son, she needed help. It would be Lacey’s job to connect her with resources...

If she was hurting her son.

Lacey liked the woman’s home.

And hated the case.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“WHATCHA’ DOIN’?”

Jem glanced down at the little boy staring so solemnly up at him. And swore to himself, then and there, that he’d take the boy and run if need be, to protect him. He knew he wasn’t hurting Levi. And he’d be damned if some stranger thought she could come into his life and proclaim that he was...

“Getting ready to put the veggies on the grill,” he said, picking up the foiled bundle that had been sitting on the counter for far longer than he’d originally intended.

He’d been waiting for Tressa to call him back. He’d wanted to deal with whatever drama was coming his way before he started cooking dinner, because once the food was cooked, he intended to sit outside with his son and enjoy the meal. Sans drama.

“That was before Whyatt.” Levi’s stare was no less piercing for his youth. When he’d headed to the kitchen to start dinner, Jem had told Levi that he could watch one episode of Super Why! Which meant he’d been in the kitchen a full twenty-five minutes. It took ten, at the most, to prepare veggies for the grill.

“Well, sometimes these things take a little longer,” Jem said, off his mark for having to be less than straight up with the boy.

“You was just standing here looking...”

“Were,” he corrected, and with veggies in one hand, he scooped Levi up with the other. “What do you say we go look over the boat while dinner’s cooking?” He swung Levi high and then landed him on his hip.

Parenting books said to distract as a form of behavior management.

“Can I help?” Levi was fascinated with the old schooner that took up most of their garage. Jem couldn’t wait until the day his son would be old enough to really participate.

And hoped that by then he’d still want to.

“I painted this weekend while you were at your mom’s. You can help me sand.” No tools. Nothing dangerous. Just in case they had a surprise visitor. Not because he didn’t trust himself to take perfectly good care of his son.

Purposely leaving his cell phone on the kitchen counter, Jem headed outdoors.

* * *

“I’M HERE TO ask you some questions about your son.” Lacey hated this part of her job, where she tried to instill confidence so she could determine whether or not she had to become the person’s worst nightmare.

In order to help. Always in order to help. Unfortunately, most parents in need of help didn’t see her as someone to turn to.

That night, for whatever reason, she wished she could just be having a glass of wine with the woman across from her, finding out what besides decorating styles, blond hair and a penchant for iced tea they had in common.

“You want to know about Levi? Social services wants to know?” Tressa sat up straight, mouth open and brow furrowed. “Something’s happened to him? That can’t be. I was just talking to Jem. He’d have told me if anything was wrong. As infuriating as that man can be, he’s great with Levi. That’s the only reason I can bear to be without my baby. Because I know that Jem’s such a great dad.”

“And you don’t think you’re a great mom?”

“Of course I do,” Tressa said. And then added, “Well, mostly. I’m not as goofy with Levi as Jem is. I don’t make him laugh as much. Those two, from the very beginning, they had this rapport. Everyone noticed it. I had a baby and it was like I became a third wheel. But I’m a good mom. I’ve been reading to Levi since he was born and I taught him to read. He’s only four, you know.”

Tressa took a sip of tea, as though confident that everything was going to be just fine.

Jeremiah’s energy had been more like that of a caged lion.

“My office received a report that someone’s been abusing him.”

Those big blue eyes opened wide in shock, and alarm. Lacey read no subterfuge there. Noticed no dropped glance or prevarication. Tressa was staring her straight in the eye.

“That’s a lie,” the woman said. “I just had him this weekend and he was perfectly fine. He’s always fine. Every single time I see him. He may not live with me full-time, but I’m his mother. He’s my only child. I’d have noticed if he wasn’t okay.”

Not an atypical response. Either way—if she was an abuser or if she wasn’t.

“So you don’t think your husband could be hurting him?”

“Jem? Are you nuts? He’s the most gentle man I know. Except maybe when people screw up at work, and only then because construction is a dangerous business and people could get hurt. He’s really protective of his crews. It’s not like anyone would think they could walk all over him or anything. But he’d never hurt Levi. Not ever.”

Curious, that an ex-wife defended the man so much.

“And what about you? Has there ever been a time when, not meaning to, you grabbed him too tightly?” Unless Mara Noble had lied, someone had left finger-shaped bruises on that little boy’s body. And someone besides a day care worker would have to have seen them.

“Of course I haven’t.” There was no indignation in Tressa’s voice. Because the woman found the idea so far-fetched it wasn’t even an issue? That was how it seemed to Lacey. But she’d been lied to by the best, and she knew better than to take the interview at face value.

Losing some of her conversational passiveness, she leaned forward. “How did Levi break his arm?”

Tressa’s lips pushed out as she held them together. Her chin dimpled. She blinked away a sudden flood of tears. “Is that what this is about?” she asked. “Did he tell you I hurt him?”

“No. He won’t tell anyone anything.”

Tressa’s expression didn’t clear—no sign of relief at finding out that she had not been accused of wrongdoing.

“He was climbing on the bookcase,” she said. “He’d asked if he could watch Whyatt, and I said yes, and then the phone rang. It was Amelia, and I was talking to her, and so he decided to help himself to his video. He knows he isn’t allowed to climb on that bookcase. He could...” She stopped. “Well, we all know what could happen, because it did.”

“You’re saying he fell?”

She shook her head. “He probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t panicked. I rushed over to save him from disaster, but I didn’t have a secure enough grasp on him...” Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “It’s just like Jem used to say, I overreact.”

“He blamed you, then?”

Tressa blinked. “What? Jem? For Levi’s arm? No.” She shook her head softly. “He said it was an accident. It was an accident. But I still feel horrible about it.”

Lacey believed her. About all of it. The story was the same, with minute differences, like the fact that she’d given her son permission to watch his video and then taken a phone call...

It didn’t sound rehearsed, and it explained Levi’s shame.

She didn’t like that Jem always told Tressa she overreacted. Though if it was true, if Tressa had out-of-control emotions, that could be a concern.

And if it wasn’t true, it pointed to an unhealthy behavior by the ex-husband—demeaning and belittling the mother of his child.

“Have you ever noticed bruising on Levi?” She was back to the bruises Mara had reported on Levi’s torso.

“No. But all little boys get bruises now and then. It’s not like I would have found it unusual or of particular concern. I might not have committed one to memory. Also, Jem has him most of the time. I just have him on weekends. And only every other one.”

“Why is that?”

Tressa shrugged. “I have a tendency to make issues where there are none. My whole family was that way. And probably why my brother got into drinking and drugs at such a young age. We’re drama queens, or king in Kenton’s case. Every one of us. And while it’s something I’m used to, Jem isn’t. I don’t want Levi ending up like my brother. Kenton was really sweet before he started drinking and taking drugs—to be able to survive under one roof with my mom and dad, he said.”

So it was true. Which meant the ex-husband wasn’t belittling the mother of his child. She made note.

“Can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?” Lacey hadn’t touched her tea.

“With Levi and Jem, or with my brother?”

“Let’s start with Levi.”

Nodding, Tressa continued to hold Lacey’s gaze openly. “Levi would get a runny nose and I’d be wanting to keep him home, just in case. I’d be listening to his chest and worrying about pneumonia. I take things to extremes in my mind. Maybe it’s so that I’m always prepared.”

She paused. Lacey nodded and waited.

“So...say someone looks at us in the park. I’m immediately carrying on like he might mug us or shoot us.”

The woman was so genuine Lacey couldn’t help but like her and want to help her. It’s what she did. Attempt to help families live healthy lives together.

“So if you know you have a tendency to do that, are you able to reel yourself in?”

“Yeah, but I’m still emotional, you know? I cry at commercials. Or when I see someone hurting an animal. I still worry about everything even when I know it’s not likely to happen.”

“And you think that was a result of growing up in a turbulent house.”

Tressa nodded. “It wasn’t good for my marriage, I can tell you that. And it’s not good for Levi to live like that all the time, either.”

“Jem told you that?” She used the shortened version of his name on purpose, to keep Tressa at ease.

The other woman shook her head. “No, I saw it. He’s happy, carefree and funny when Jem’s around. When it’s just me and Levi, he gets quiet, reserved.”

Exactly the behavior Mara had described.

“I make him nervous. Like he never knows if something he does is going to make me upset.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.