Southern Soldiers of Fortune
Protecting His Pregnant Lover
Protecting His Kidnapped Family
Protecting His Beautiful Lover
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, OCTOBER 2020
Copyright © 2020 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Leslie North is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Romance projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.
Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations.
www.relaypub.com
Blurb
Self-proclaimed nerd Olive Owen can’t believe it when Levon Asher, sexy, nothing-but-muscle Navy SEAL admits to having had a crush on her in high school. She hasn’t seen him in ten years, and reconnecting with him at their high school reunion is a bit of a surprise. A bigger surprise is that after one night of passionate love-making, Olive is pregnant, and Levon has long since left town on a final SEAL mission. When he returns seven months later, he’s a member of the private security group Southern Soldiers of Fortune, who are in town for a joint operation with the local police to stop a gang from infiltrating the school where Olive works. When Olive accidentally stumbles onto a gang meeting, the threats on her doorstep leave no doubt—she’s being targeted. And when she agrees to move in with Levon for her own safety, it soon becomes clear her heart is in danger too.
Knowing Olive’s at risk is driving Levon crazy. He realizes he’s being overbearing, but he just can’t stop himself. The thought of anything happening to her or his unborn child is enough to make him more than a little controlling. But what’s safer—keeping her close, where he can protect her, or pushing her back, out of harm’s way? He needs Olive to be okay, but his impulses are giving him mixed signals even as the clock starts counting down to a confrontation with the gang. A shocking reveal of a gang member’s identity could drive Olive away from Levon for good, leaving him wondering if solving the crime will come too late to resolve the mystery that matters most to him—how to hold on to Olive’s heart.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
End of Protecting His Pregnant Lover
Thank You!
About Leslie
Sneak Peek: Protecting His Kidnapped Family
Also by Leslie
1
Levon Asher stood alone in his high school’s gymnasium, took a sip of spiked punch, and winced. Every muscle in his mouth came together in a pucker that would have spat the concoction back out if his willpower didn’t dictate otherwise. Had the rum-punch combo always been this God-awful, or was he just getting old?
Admittedly, he was a little old to be standing inside the gym at Harper’s Forge High, breathing in the familiar dust and lingering perfume of souring sports socks. He had never planned on attending any of his school’s reunions. Not that he hadn’t been popular in school.
That was turning out to be the problem.
“Asher! Get your dyslexic ass over here and drink with the men!” one of his old football teammates hollered across the other conversations in the room. Every head turned toward the old guard clustered in one corner of the bleachers, which Levon was sure had been the intended effect; then every head turned toward him. Levon froze, then lifted his Solo cup in acknowledgement, then set it aside and moved through the crowd toward them. He could withstand what was sure to be torturous conversation if it meant they’d offer him a beer.
The shout had been jarring; almost as jarring as seeing how fantastically out of shape his old teammates were. They had no way of knowing he was diagnosed dyslexic; hell, he hadn’t known it himself until he joined the naval academy. All they knew was that he had struggled academically, same as the rest of them, and excelled on the field—and with the cheerleaders.
“Damn, son! What they been feeding you down in Florida?” One of his balding classmates, evidently the designated leader and the one who had yelled over to him, grabbed hold of Levon’s rock-solid bicep and tried to jostle it. Levon endured this; he was too busy studying the other man and trying to decide who he was. Finally he gave up and let his gaze fall to the stick-on name tag.
“How are you... Randy?” Randy. Christ, the guy had been stud in school. What the hell had happened to all of them? Levon knew he wasn’t the only one from their class to enter the armed forces—so why did these men all look like carting six-packs back to their car was the only heavy lifting they did anymore?
“Never better. Seen better, that’s for sure.” Randy jerked his head toward the crowd milling about on the floor, and the other guys guffawed. They were nearing rank with the smell of booze, but Levon didn’t decline when one of them passed him his first beer of the evening. One and done, he told himself. There was nothing worth sticking around here for as far as he could tell; Randy confirmed this for him by continuing: “Am I right? Can you believe the butterfaces we went to school with? Yeesh.”
“How can it be that every single cheerleader let herself go?” another aging jock chimed in.
