Protecting His Pregnant Lover - Leslie North Page 0,43

Levon could see the damage. He muttered to himself as he disinfected the wound and bandaged it for her. “Might make grading papers hard, but you won’t need stitches,” he said.

“Levon.” She wanted his attention drawn back to her original question, and she wasn’t going to repeat herself.

“Did they leave a note?”

Olive withdrew the folded piece of paper and passed it to him. She watched him study it. “I’ll have to turn this in as evidence down at the station,” he said. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

Olive shook her head. If there was a twinge of familiarity to the letters, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. Not now. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to.

But she knew something would have to be done. She dreaded what came next. As she focused on Levon’s hardening expression, she saw her white knight transform into a dragon who would sooner raze a village than let what he protected be threatened again.

On the ride home, she came clean with him. “Levon, there’s something I have to tell you.” She glanced sidelong at his fists, clenched over the steering wheel for the entirety of their drive, and wished she had the courage to reach out and take one of them in her own hand. “I told some of the parents about the gang activity in town. I... may have mentioned that the activity could be filtering into the school.”

Levon did not reply. His breathing did not change. But the hands on the steering wheel didn’t loosen, and Olive still didn’t reach for them. “Why did you do that?” When he finally formed the question, he asked it quietly. To Olive, it felt like the calm before the storm.

They pulled up outside Levon’s house—or rather, the rental they had come to share. Levon cut the engine, but didn’t move. Neither did she. Eventually, she settled her hand on her stomach, and summoned the truth. “Because those are people’s babies, Levon. I get it now—the sense of responsibility that comes with being a parent. I see it more clearly than I ever did when I was just a teacher living a simple, single life. And now that I get it, how can I ever go back? How can I ever see anyone’s child endangered ever again?”

“You can because you have to,” Levon ground out. “Olive, I don’t like this any more than you do, but there are protocols we have to follow. And if you’re worried about child endangerment, then I’m begging you...”

The hand nearest to her lifted off the steering wheel and reached out to her. He wanted to touch her stomach, she realized, but something held him back. She took his hand and pulled it the rest of the way to her. Levon released a shuddering breath.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt the need to reassure him. She wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to say.

“It will be,” he promised. “But not yet.” He withdrew his hand, and Olive was certain she wasn’t the only one who felt the loss of his touch. She knew the baby did, too, with a deep instinct she couldn’t put a name to. “And your good intentions may have set us back. I need to know exactly who you spoke to and what was said. And I’d like you to call in for a sub tomorrow.”

Olive’s eyebrows pulled together at this last request. She wanted to protest, but maybe she needed to pick and choose her battles here... at the very least she would wait until they got out of the car.

The realization that they might not agree on how to handle this didn’t sit well.

15

“Are you going to be all right here alone for a while?” He couldn’t ever remember a more hateful question coming out of his mouth, but there was no help for it. As he held the door for Olive to come inside, Levon knew he wouldn’t be able to stay long.

No matter how much he might want to.

His responsibilities pulled him in every direction, but nothing mattered more than keeping Olive safe. Unfortunately, the best way to ensure that right now wasn’t to stay by her side, but to get to the bottom of who was behind that threatening note. He wasn’t willing to wait around now to find out what they were really capable of.

“Okay.” Olive’s face pulled together in a miserable expression, and Levon knew he had disappointed her. Damn it. Could he