Page 17 of Dangers of Love

We were in the street. An intersection, I realized as I focused in on the stoplights. No. That wasn’t entirely accurate. I wasn’t in the street. I was on the sidewalk. And so was the SUV. The moving van was on the actual street, and someone was directing traffic around it.

Fever. That’s who was standing out in the middle of the street. Pollard Fevrier was a large and scary man, which was probably why none of the passing drivers were honking or shouting as he showed them where to go.

Or it could’ve been the second man walking up next to the first. Desmond “Dez” Ambler was a terrifying son of a bitch too. Even from where I was sitting, I could see that both of them sported some blood, but it didn’t look like they were actually hurt. Then again, they were both marines, so they could’ve had a couple broken bones and were just ignoring them. They were almost as tough as an army.

“You look like shit.”

I didn’t have to see Bode Monroe – “Bruce” – to know he was grinning. He was always grinning.

Sure enough, when I looked up, the first thing I saw were those nearly blinding teeth. “Can’t see what you look like with the sun reflecting off that smile.”

The comment was automatic, out of my mouth before I thought about it.

“How bad does your head hurt?” He crouched in front of me, and now I could see that, despite the smile, he was worried.

I frowned. “My head?”

“Dude, your head broke your window.”

“Broke a window?” I looked over at the SUV, and my brain started working again.

Or, rather, it started realizing that itwasn’tworking correctly.

Because I just realized that I didn’t know what happened. I could put together from the visual clues that there’d been a car accident, and I’d been with the agency when the collision took place. And it was daytime.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Bruce asked.

I scowled. “My memory is fucked up.”

I hated admitting it, but if we were on our way to a job, I couldn’t compromise what we were hired to do because I didn’t want to look weak. A head injury could get a lot of people hurt or killed, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Not after Leo. I’d swallow my pride and do the right thing.

Eleven

Aline

He was gone.

I stared at the phone. He’d been there one minute and then gone. He hadn’t hung up. I was almost one hundred percent certain of that. I’d heard a curse, which could have been a valid reaction to what I’d just told him, but not the other curses that followed. Or the yelling. I’d heard it in other men’s voices, not just Eoin’s.

I might be pregnant.

My own words were ringing in my ears, and the news was still freaking me out, but all of that took a back seat to whatever had happened on the other end of the phone.

I called him back, and it went straight to voicemail. “Eoin, I need you to call me back because what I heard before the call ended scared me. Please.”

I barely got the last word out of my mouth before I went down on my knees and threw up. Fortunately, since I had already been in the bathroom to take the pregnancy test, I made it to the toilet and didn’t have a mess on the floor to clean up on top of everything else.

By the time I cleaned myself up and brushed my teeth, I felt like enough time had passed that I could call Eoin again without seeming like I was freaking out, even if that was what I was doing a bit.

Straight to voicemail again.

I left another message. “Eoin, I’m getting worried here. If everything’s okay, but you just don’t want to – or can’t –talk right now, please at least text me to let me know that you’re all right. Please.”

I paced, counting off two full minutes before sending a text that said pretty much the same thing. Eoin had it set up on his phone to show when he’d read a text, but the alert didn’t turn from ‘delivered’ to ‘read.’ Not after two minutes and not after four.

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