Protecting His Pregnant Lover (Southern Soldiers of Fortune 1)

“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 mother’s enthusiastic voice greeted her from halfw

ay 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!”

“There is nothing big nor stupid about your head,” Jill soothed from half a world away.

“Well, maybe that’s the problem!” Olive burst out. “Mom, you know my history with men! I always wind up driving them away in the end! Because I just... open my mouth, or... try way too hard to insert logic and be helpful.” Olive shook her head, and her curls bounced wildly. The baby chose that moment to deliver a series of quick kicks, though Olive couldn’t tell if it was because all three generations of Owen girls were in agreement here or not. Olive explained everything to Jill, including their big fight and Olive’s decision to move out.

“Olive, listen to me very carefully,” her mother said. Olive pressed the phone to her ear and held her breath. Even though logic told her Jill couldn’t sort everything out for her in a single phone call, a part of her couldn’t help hoping for that outcome all the same. “I’ve told you your whole life how smart you are. What I never told you is that you didn’t just inherit your mother’s big brain, girlfriend.”

“What do you mean?” Olive was puzzled.

“You’ve got gorgeous looks in addition to your brain!” her mother exclaimed. Olive swore she could hear a grunt of agreement from her father in the background; evidently, he hadn’t walked far enough away. “You’re a knockout, and I should have told it to you sooner! I was so concerned with raising you up to be a young woman who didn’t emphasize looks that I’m afraid you went in the completely opposite direction and totally failed to realize how beautiful you are!” Jill Owen paused as if to come up for air, but carried on before the speechless Olive could think of anything to interject. “Honey, what you’ve struggled with your whole life isn’t your brain chasing men away. Everything about you is striking.”

Olive colored and looked around, hoping no other shoppers were overhearing this pep talk right now.

“And from what you said, it sounds to me like Levon is a man who won’t be intimidated. He may not have handled everything perfectly, but it sounds like he valued and appreciated you every step of the way, even if he didn’t always know how to show it. You need someone to call you on your shit, or, in your case—get you out of your head. You’ve got to live life, Olive; not spend all your time analyzing it.”

“You’re right,” Olive expelled a ragged breath. “But Mom, what if I already screwed it up?”

“According to my calculations, that’s impossible!” her father hollered in the background. “Your stars are in alignment, kiddo!”