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And he had On one of their city’s dinner cruises They’d had steak and lobster by candlelight, seated outdoors at a balcony table with livefor honeythe bread She probably would have a hundred little iht But as they drove from the harbor back to her house, all Lacey could think about was Jem

The way she’d caught his eye in the candlelight The sound of his laughter when she’d been telling hin in a subway station and had taken turns popping their heads out froh time for a person to have moved from one side to the other

He’d put a tie on with dark pants and a white shirt and she just couldn’t stop consuh working-man hands that held her hand or touched her cheek so tenderly The intense way he looked at her

She ate dinner and left the boat hungry

For him

Life wasn’t perfect And ht not be easy But there was no doubt in her es was more to her than just a man she’d met More to her than any man she’d ever met

They hadn’t talked any further about Tressa, other than for Je the weekend at the beach with a couple of Amelia’s friends

Lacey also hadn’t talked to hi Tressa as a perpetrator of doainst Levi And Jem, too She wasn’t his counselor and couldn’t be objective She didn’t want to say soood

But she hadn’t forgotten She knew that so weekend, she was going to have to let Sydney know about the scene she’d overheard between Jem and his ex-wife The verbal abuse she’d witnessed After she told Je to call Sydney

She just kept hoping that he’d co that had happened with Levi—social services bursting into his life, the talks they’d had

He was a thinker, sos head-on rather than avoided them A doer He didn’t run away from problems

She wanted to give him time

In the ive hih she wanted that, toobut

They reached his truck and he held the door open for her, pulling out the stepstool he’d surprised her with earlier so she didn’t have to step up so high in her dress

Always the gentleman A man’s man who’d protect those he cared about with his life And yetone who also seemed to respect a woness to look at his ex-wife as a whole person, to see her good, her value, had shown her how he respected wo else could have done