Done packing, she sighed and turned off the lights in her bedroom, the handle of her suitcase in one hand and her briefcase in the other, before heading back down the hall to the living room. She stopped at the end of the hall and stared across the room to where he stood, studying her wall of family pictures from when she was growing up. It felt weirdly intimate to have him here in her house. Way more intimate even than the night they’d shared together months earlier.
When he didn’t turn around right away, she cleared her throat, suddenly anxious to get him out of her place. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Levon turned slightly to look at her over his shoulder. “Your parents still around Harper’s Forge?”
She swallowed hard and wheeled her suitcase over to leave it by the door, then set her briefcase down beside it before joining him in front of the pictures. He was looking at one from when she was around ten, taken in the backyard of the very house they were standing in now, her and her parents, all smiling and happy on Easter Sunday. “No. They travel the world now, working for a charity organization. I think they’re in Africa somewhere right now. Zimbabwe maybe?”
“Huh.” He moved on to the next photo, this one of just Olive, the day she and her other nerd friends had won the Mathlete competition in eighth grade. “You were always smart, weren’t you?”
Olive shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, it’s just how my brain works. I never really thought about it.” She glanced at his profile, aquiline nose, strong jaw, long lashes most women would kill for, and couldn’t help wondering if their baby would take after him and win in the gorgeousness lottery. “Kind of like how your brain works around your dyslexia, right? It’s just a part of you, who you are. You probably don’t think about that either.”
“Hmm.” The corners of his full lips turned down slightly. “Maybe. I’m used to it, I guess, but I still think about my dyslexia pretty much every day. Whenever I have to do something involving a lot of numbers or heavy reading. That’s why I’m such a slow reader. I have to be careful that I don’t skip words or sentences because then nothing makes sense. And transposing numbers in math will always be an issue for me.” He took a deep breath and faced her. “Thanks, though.”
“For what?” Her brows knit.
“For helping me, back when we were in school. If it wasn’t for you tutoring me and helping me find ways to learn better, I would’ve probably gone my whole life thinking I was dumb. You made me believe I could be more, do more. It’s because of you that I got into the Navy.”
His words made her heart ache and dance for joy at the same time. The drive to help people was why she’d gone into teaching, but to hear she’d made that much of a difference in his life early on meant more to Olive than she could say. “I’m glad I could help.”
Levon’s gaze flickered to her lips, and her mouth tingled from the contact like a physical caress. Soon those butterflies inside her were fluttering for a whole different reason than joy. Then he looked away and she let out her pent-up breath. Lord help her, they’d only been back in each other’s lives for a few days and already she was back to drooling over him again. She’d even dreamed about him last night—the way he looked, the way he smelled like soap and fabric softener and warm clean male, the way he tasted when he kissed her.
She had it bad for Levon Asher and that wasn’t good.
Rather than give in to her nearly overwhelming urge to burrow into his strong, muscled chest and stay there a good long time, she turned back toward the kitchen again. “Sure you don’t want that tea before we go?” She checked her watch. “Last chance before I need to get to school.”
“No, I’m good, thanks.” Instead of following her, he walked over to the other side of the living room and began going through the pile of parts that she still needed to assemble into a crib. “But if we have a little time before we need to go, I could help you get some of these things together.”
“Uh, sure,” she said, filling the kettle and putting it on the stove, more to have something to do than because she wanted tea. Having him in her space was strange, but she was in no hurry to leave and have him drive her to work. People were bound to notice it if Levon Asher was suddenly giving her rides to the school. It probably would have been better if they’d kept their distance from one another during the day, but he’d refused to let her drive over here by herself this morning and she’d been too flustered to say no. Now, she couldn’t help wondering if it hadn’t been a mistake.
While she waited for the water to boil, she checked her appearance in the shiny reflection on her stainless-steel toaster again. Maybe she should have tried harder this morning. Then the baby somersaulted inside her, jamming what must have been a tiny foot or elbow straight into her stomach, and she feared she might toss her cookies in the sink. She leaned away and rubbed her belly. No. Whatever she looked like today, as long as she was clean and dressed, was fine. Besides, she didn’t think her first student would mind seeing her in a state of slight disarray. They met three out of five mornings before class during the week, and he had seen her looking far worse: her hair unbrushed, her brain under-caffeinated. Hell, he had even held her hair
