“My neighbor Tom and his wife are taking me shopping to get some stuff for the baby in Norfolk,” Olive said, her tone chilly.
A twinge of remorse pinched his chest. If he’d handled things differently the other day, it might have been him going with her to buy stuff for their baby, but now he’d pretty much blown any chance she’d let him be involved. He tried to tell himself it was fine. Up until a few weeks ago he’d not even known he’d fathered a kid and his life had been all good.
Hadn’t it?
He frowned down at his computer screen without seeing it, uncertainty churning inside him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how good it had been. Honestly, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except his continuing responsibility to protect Olive and the baby. And speaking of that, “Before you go, I need you to contact Franklin. He’s our key to getting the Reapers gang leadership on the record about their level of involvement.”
“No.” Olive met his gaze with a flat look. “I’m not doing that.”
Levon rocked back in his chair, frowning. “Why?”
“Because I’m done with this. You said you made a mistake getting me involved in the case, so I’m rectifying that for you.” She crossed her arms and raised a brow at him. “Ask Principal James to do it, since he seems to be the one you trust to help you now.”
Shit. He’d known she’d been pissed at him after the other day, but he didn’t think Olive would let that anger override her sense of justice. Apparently he’d been wrong. And it was his own fault, because she was right. He was the one who had pushed her out of the case. “Right. Will do.” He got up to grab his phone off the counter and when he turned around again, Olive was gone.
* * *
“Franklin, what Mr. Asher and I are offering you is a way out,” Principal James said to his student a few hours later. The kid and Levon sat across from him. Based on Franklin’s dour expression, Levon couldn’t help thinking things would have gone a lot smoother if Olive had been there. As it was, there was no denying the feeling of being in the hot seat when you were in the principal’s office. Hell, Levon felt it himself as he shifted, an uncomfortable knot in his stomach.
Of course, having two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle and ex-SEAL next to you probably didn’t help either. For once, his impressive physique felt like a hindrance to getting the job done. He felt too big for his chair, and didn’t know what to do with his arms. He kept them crossed over his chest mainly because it was his default posture, but from the kid’s nervous glances in his direction, it was telegraphing intimidation instead. At first, Levon figured that was how he wanted it. There was a part of him that had been willing to pursue strong-arm tactics... until he saw Franklin up close. The gangster that had trashed Olive’s classroom was just a scared boy.
Principal James leaned in, his tone coaxing, “So you’ll help us, won’t you, Franklin? You’ll make it up to Miss Owen.” They’d been hammering that particular nail for a while now. It was the one that seemed to get the best results.
“Yes.” Franklin kept his gaze lowered, fiddling with the zipper on his hoodie. The kid was anxious, that much was obvious, and that was okay. He should be scared, considering the company he’d been keeping lately. But it was also obvious to Levon that Franklin wanted to make amends to Olive, a teacher he loved and respected, which bought him some bonus points with Levon.
He wished he could make his own amends, but there wasn’t time now, with the mission on the line.
“I’ll make it up to her... and you’ll take care of her, right?” Franklin turned to Levon then, his gaze pleading. “Make sure she’s safe? And tell her I’m sorry?”
“You can tell her yourself.” Levon uncrossed his arms and patted the kid on the shoulder. “Once this is over. Okay?”
Franklin nodded eventually and a silent understanding passed between them, an agreement that had nothing to do with Principal James, or the Reapers, or even their own personal futures.
It had everything to do with Olive.
* * *
Levon returned to an empty house. Completely empty. Fuck.
Nerves jangling, he called Olive on his cell phone. “Where are you? I thought you were just shopping for baby stuff.”
“I am.” Olive’s voice sounded sullen, maybe even a little annoyed, and Levon’s unease grew. “I’m shopping for stuff for the baby, to put into my house.”
“I don’t follow,” he said.
“I’m starting fresh,” Olive said, a bit too quickly.
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, unsure how to respond to that. First of all, what the hell was he supposed to do with all that baby stuff? And second, he didn’t want it. It was for Olive, for their baby. He was missing something here, but for the life of him couldn’t figure out what it was. Damned dyslexia. Flustered, he began to pace the small living room, searching for those instincts that had always helped him in the past, but finding them oddly lacking when it came to this situation.
Olive filled in the gaps in his silence. “I’m sure once you wrap up this mission you’ll go back to Arlington and find some other woman to date. Maybe get married and have another baby. You can use that stuff then.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of this as much as him. “We were never meant to be forever, right?”
Stunned, Levon sank onto the couch and dropped his forehead into his hand. Forever? Hell, he was lucky to plan ahead to the next month in his life. He didn’t think about the future, because honestly, he was never guaranteed to have one. But even so, since he’d come back to Harper’s Forge, back to Olive, he’d kind of imagined she’d always be there, in his life. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he’d pictured her—wanted her—there. Maybe he’d been wrong.
“Levon? Are you there?”
“I’m here.” The words sounded hoarse to his own ears, but his throat seemed to be clogged with a lump of something—not sadness, really, more like… yearning. The realization took him back a bit. Guys didn’t yearn. He wasn’t lonely.
Am I?
The question was harder to ask than he’d imagined. “So you’re not coming back? Ever?”
“No.” Olive bit out the word like it hurt to say. “This is for the best. Really. I have to start making my home. I thought... well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
His response slipped out before he could stop it. “It matters to me.”
Several seconds ticked by before she answered. “Listen, you were right, Levon. It’s time I stopped overthinking things. I’ll be safe, I promise. Tom and his wife will take turns staying with me until I know this is over. And he’s installing the new security system as we speak, and…” She hesitated and he lived and died in those few seconds. “And I... I’m prepared to be a single mother.” Any argument he had been forming dried up and turned to dust in his throat. “I just wanted to say…” She cleared her throat and he’d have sworn he heard a sniffle too. Damn. Was she crying? His hands fisted at his sides with the need to hold her, comfort her. Except that wouldn’t be happening anymore because Olive was gone. “I enjoyed the time we did spend together these past few weeks. And before, at the reunion. All of it. I won’t forget it.”
“Jesus, Olive.” His voice cracked, and he didn’t know why he was whispering. He had never felt so alone, hanging on her every word and praying she wouldn’t end their call. “Please, can’t we talk about this? You’re acting like we’ll never see each other again.”
“I’ll see you,” she promised. “In our baby. Goodbye, Levon.”
Then she hung up. Almost as if she had cut herself off before she could say anything else.
Levon let the phone dangle limply in his hand. Now he had every reason to get this mission done and get out. He would make sure Olive and their child were safe—that was what was most important. And then he’d figure out what to do with his future. A future alone, without Olive.
God, knowing he’d had a chance with her, a chance at a family of his own, at happiness, and h
e’d let it slip through his fingers, was like a swift kick in the balls. His breath caught and the darkness threatened to take him under…
Then his phone buzzed and up popped a text from his team in Arlington.
Right. Work. The mission. That was all he had left now.
He scrolled through the message, trying to take it in past the buzz of regret in his brain.
The Reapers, the present danger, was all that he could grasp.
He just hoped he didn’t destroy everything else in the process.
18
“Go! Go! Go!”
Levon heard himself give the order as the Harper’s Forge PD—operating under his command for this operation—spilled into the building. He took the lead and, once they were inside, directed his men to fan out with a few sweeps and chops of his hand. They had planned extensively for this bust; Levon hadn’t given his go-ahead until he had been certain every last one of the operatives could do it blindfolded. Even then, they had to wait for the SSoF’s approval for the raid before they made any definitive moves.
Approval came today.
They secured the location and took down the Reapers they found with remarkable quickness. His men were under strict orders to treat any teenagers they discovered with kid gloves—scare the hell out of them, but go easy. Charges would be pressed if necessary, but given what they’d learned from Franklin, Levon knew that a lot of the students involved had been motivated mostly by fear, due to threats from the established gang members. They’d get leniency in exchange for their testimony.
The hardened gangsters—the ones who had brought this trouble to his hometown—were going down hard.
“We’re lucky you were here.” The police chief shook his hand when they met between squad cars. “We owe you guys at the SSoF a debt of gratitude.”
“Don’t mention it.” He meant it. He wasn’t trying to play it stoic; it really was that simple. Wherever the Southern Soldiers of Fortune were needed, they would go.
“Hey!” Brandon Fischer, another one of the guys on his team who was in town for the bust, approached him and clapped him on the back. “Come out and get a drink to celebrate!”
“I have paperwork—”
“Like hell you do! It can wait!”
Levon smiled gratefully at the invitation but declined again. The closest bar in town was the Rusty Spike, and he worried about running into Olive—before realizing it was idiotic to expect to see a pregnant woman in a bar. But the memory of her would be everywhere, just as it had been no matter where he went in this town, permeating every corner, swimming in every drink delivered to the bar top.
The same problem would dog him home, too. He didn’t want to go back to his empty house and sit in the presence of a ghost. Instead, Levon dropped by long enough to pick up his laptop and a few mission notebooks, and left for the tiny office space the SSoF had been renting out in town.
He had barely used it, preferring instead to take notes and provide dispatches as he went; but the tiny little rented box provided a reprieve from having to go home.
But he couldn’t stop thinking of Olive. And with every handwritten report he read over—slowly and laboriously—and every word he typed, Levon realized there was no escaping her. She was a part of every memory he had built over his past weeks here, and a frequent factor in his mission report. She made appearances in every paragraph as he detailed her assisting where needed, and lending help that had ultimately proved invaluable. He couldn’t have done this without her.
He was in love with her.
But they weren’t right together. She’d said so herself. It was unfortunate, but it was a thing that happened. Right? They were incompatible in all the ways that mattered most, and Olive had been smart enough to see that. No wonder she had left.
“Knock, knock.” Brandon poked his head in and discovered Levon squinting at his screen. “Jesus, dude, you’ll strain your eyes! Turn a light on! Better yet, take a load off!”
Brandon was young. He considered himself everyone’s friend and his behavior bordered on insubordinate at times, but Levon let it slide; while they hadn’t worked together long, he had seen that the kid never defied an order, and his good-natured approach to everything was great for morale. Still, he wasn’t sure how he felt about Brandon invading his Fortress of Solitude now... not until he noticed the two frosty, unopened beers in the operative’s hands.
“Thought I’d bring the party to you,” Brandon explained as he dropped down onto the office’s couch.
“I appreciate it more than you can imagine.” And he really did. Levon rolled his desk chair over and they popped the caps off.
“Well, I think I can imagine.” Brandon took a long sip off the neck of his beer and shrugged when Levon raised an eyebrow. “It’s Olive, right? At first, she was half of what you talked about at every check-in. But then, it was like she dropped out of the picture. You guys separated?”
“We were never officially together,” Levon said. Though you could have fooled me.
“That’s rough, man. I’m sorry.”
“It’s for the best.” Levon sat back and crossed his arms, staring out the window at the lighted street below. “In fact, it might be the one smart decision I ever made. I don’t struggle doing the right thing, but… sometimes I struggle with being smart.” He took another pull of his beer and sighed. “I’m not a smart man. Not the sort of man an educated woman like her needs. Olive must have realized that—it must be why she left, why she keeps telling me she’ll be fine raising our baby alone. That baby deserves a father as smart as its mom.” His throat constricted at the thought, and no amount of beer chugged could clear away the awful obstruction that suddenly stopped him from speaking.
“Pardon me for saying it, Asher, but that’s got to be the biggest load of horse shit I’ve ever heard,” Brandon replied, evidently without fear of being pardoned or not. “You’re the smartest dude I’ve ever met! Jesus, I can’t believe that’s even a doubt in your mind. I guess we all have our struggles, and we all have our demons to overcome... but that’s definitely not one of yours. You better believe you’ve got the brains to be with a girl like your Olive. But come to think of it, I guess you’re proving me wrong right now by sitting here. If you were really smart, you wouldn’t let her and your baby go. Not when anyone with eyes can see that you want to be with them.”
The impact of every word resonated within Levon. Was it really so obvious how he felt? If so, how had he managed to miss it all along?
Maybe he had just been too much of a coward to acknowledge it until now.
To accept that he was worthy of Olive—and of their child—meant setting aside everything he thought he had always understood about himself. It meant throwing out his image of who he was and starting over. Starting fresh. Maybe he wasn’t the big lug; the slow learner; the secret illiterate. He could do all of it at his own pace, and damn it, he could do it reliably. He could do it well. He could excel.
And maybe that was what Olive had always seen in him.
“I’ve got to go.” Levon rose and pulled on his jacket. He didn’t even bother shutting down his laptop or filing away his notes. Unless the building burned down, they weren’t going anywhere.
But damn it if he wasn’t.
“Yeah, you do.” Brandon gave him a thumbs-up, then had the audacity to wonder: “You gonna finish that beer?”
19
The incoming call from ‘Jill and Bill’ couldn’t have interrupted her at a better time.
Olive set aside the cloud-soft baby blankets she had been browsing at a baby store with a sigh of relief. She had been agonizing over what color to buy, and what that might mean for her daughter’s early self-image and future career decisions. The over-involved customer service she was getting was only bringing her that much closer to the brink of panic. She answered her parents’ call and signaled to the approaching employee that she definitely needed to take this.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey!” her mo
ther’s enthusiastic voice greeted her from halfway across the world. Skype was usually the accepted means of communication with her parents; today’s call proved a pleasant surprise. “I was just thinking about you.” It was often her mother’s only explanation for calling, and the only one needed in their family.
“Hi, sweetie. How’s the baby?” Her father’s voice sounded even more faraway, which meant Olive’s mother was hogging the phone. He could often only be half-seen in their Skype calls. Though Olive’s mother was slight, she all but demanded the lion’s share of attention when reconnecting with her daughter.
“The baby’s good, Dad. Thanks for asking.” Olive noticed that the too-helpful employee appeared to be eavesdropping, and she made a break for the exit, heading to a seating section nearby in the mall. The baby bedding wasn’t going anywhere, and besides, she had no better idea of what she wanted than when she had started almost an hour ago. “Dad, do you mind if I... speak to Mom a minute?”
“You heard her! Shoo!” Jill laughed as Bill’s grumble receded into the background. “What is it, Olive?” her mother asked her once they were evidently alone. “Is something wrong? It’s not the baby, is it?”
“It’s not the baby, Mom.” There were tears in her eyes that she hadn’t invited, but just hearing her mother’s voice had opened the floodgates. “It’s Levon.”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother was almost able to wrap her in her arms with her voice alone. “I thought things were going well with Levon.”
“They were,” Olive choked. “Until my big, stupid head got in the way!”
Protecting His Pregnant Lover: Southern Soldiers of Fortune Book One Page 13
