Protecting His Pregnant Lover - Leslie North Page 0,8

lock on the door was broken. Something in Levon told him that even now, years later, that issue still wouldn’t be remedied... and his instincts were proven right.

By the time he arrived at the shed, he had noticed two shadowy figures detach themselves from underneath the football bleachers in the distance, and a third on its way from the student parking lot. It’s starting. He needed to hide. And fast.

Levon twitched the shed door open, careful not to creak so much as a floorboard as he slipped inside.

What he didn’t expect to find was another person waiting for him on the other side of the door.

His instincts took over. Levon thrust his palm up to smother the other individual’s mouth even as he backed them both soundlessly to the wall; he only managed to narrowly avoid colliding with a hanging net of basketballs, which could have been a catastrophic giveaway of his location. Their location. It was pitch black inside the shed so he had no idea who this person was, or what their intentions could possibly be hiding in the equipment shed—all that he knew in that moment was that the other person was alone, adult-sized, and possibly armed. Nothing more needed to register to prompt him to go for his gun.

Then the fragrance hit him—or more accurately, the perfume. He was so close that even the conservative dabbing of it was enough to overwhelm his senses: she smelled like fresh flowers, spring rain, and a dark, rich hint of something like coffee or cinnamon (or both).

Yeah. She.

“Olive?” Levon croaked in disbelief.

“Levon?” Olive’s own whisper was less guttural, but no less harsh or demanding as he withdrew his hand. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The equipment shed back behind the high school was the last place she had ever expected to encounter Levon Asher, yet here the man was: coiled to spring, big enough to fill the tiny structure with his formidable presence alone. She heard a tiny click and the rustle of clothes and a cold chill ran down her spine as she realized he was putting the safety back on his gun and tucking it away. That meant that before that moment, she’d had a gun pointed right at…well. Right at the part of her that he noticed at the same moment, as his hand accidentally brushed her recently swollen belly.

“You’re…” His palm settled heavily on the baby bump, as if confirming, and then he staggered back as if struck. His right shoulder collided with the net of basketballs beside them, and Olive leapt forward to stabilize them before they got loose and cascaded to the floor.

“Yeah. Surprise,” Olive said weakly.

She was seven months pregnant.

She was seven months pregnant with his child, to be precise.

But she had questions of her own. “You didn’t answer me,” she pointed out. “What are you doing back in town, Levon? What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same.” His hand brushed against her stomach again, tentative and quick, as if he thought he could sneak it in without her noticing. She guessed he needed the extra proof. Not that Olive could blame him. It still took her by surprise sometimes when she caught her own reflection in the mirror.

“You could,” she agreed. “But I asked first.”

“I’m here undercover. I took that job in Arlington, and this is my first assignment. I’m staking out a gang here in town.”

“Undercover? A ‘gang’? What?” Olive shook her head in disbelief. This was all too extraordinary… but then again…

Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution was most likely the correct one. And in this instance, under these circumstances, Levon Asher had already supplied the solution for her. In the heat of their night together all those months ago, she recalled he’d mentioned interviewing for a job with some sort of security firm. If he was on assignment, that would explain why he was here. But gang activity? At her high school? There must have been some mistake.

“It’s a long story.” Levon peered past her toward the door, but he had shut it effectively behind him. “But the short version is we’ve teamed up with local law enforcement to investigate some gang-related activity reported in the area. We think that activity is tied to a group calling themselves the Reapers.”

“Well, I’m staking out this shed because I was out on a walk,” Olive said. “Minding my own business. But I saw some people heading out here, looking like they were going to make trouble.