Page 2 of Protected By Him

Having grown up on the same street, I've known Leo for most of my life. He and my brother, Brandon, were life-long best friends, and as a result, Leo Dawson had been a regular fixture in the Anderson house for as long as I could remember.

At just over six feet, with broad shoulders and a thickly muscled torso, Leo could have passed more easily for a linebacker than an attorney. But one look at his intense dark eyes revealed a shrewd intelligence that had made Leo one of the most successful attorneys in the city. And that perceptive gaze was currently boring holes into me.

“I’m fine,” I said, surprised to realize it was the truth. Leo’s presence radiated a calm control that immediately put me at ease. I felt safe with him, as I always had. The only other person I’d ever felt as comfortable with was Brandon, but he was serving his country on the other side of the world, and Leo was right in front of me, offering the silent reassurance I needed.

“You don’t look fine,” Leo said. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Had much experience with ghosts, have you?” I snarked, mostly to distract him. Being the sole focus of that intense stare made me squirm, as it had since I’d been a child. Sure, his presence made me feel safe, but his gaze stripped me bare, like he could look inside me and see all of my secrets. Leo was the one person who could always tell when I was lying. Not that I lied often, but on the rare occasions I had, Leo had never failed to call me out on it, much to Brandon’s delight and my own frustration.

“Okay, brat. Don’t tell me what’s going on. But you know I’ll find out eventually,” Leo responded, dropping his hands from my elbows. I missed their warmth immediately.

I rolled my eyes. “Only because Brandon can't keep his mouth shut. He’s worse than a mother hen, and now that he’s too far away to be nosy, he’s roped you into babysitting. Never mind that I’m an adult.”

I understood I sounded like the petulant child I’d just claimed I wasn’t. The truth was, I was grateful for my older brother’s concern, but he often seemed to forget that I was a twenty-five-year-old, independent woman with a successful journalism career, not the grief-stricken, fifteen-year-old girl I had been when our parents had died in a car accident, leaving the then twenty-year-old Brandon to finish raising me.

Brandon had used our parents’ life insurance money to support us until I’d graduated college, then he’d finally pursued his own dream of joining the Army National Guard as a reservist. He was currently serving a yearlong deployment, and missing him was an almost physical ache inside me.

“Laura,” Leo began, and I bristled at his tone, the same one I’d heard him use to reprimand his four-year-old daughter, Ella. “Brandon only wants to make sure you’re safe. He has enough to worry about just keeping himself alive right now. I promised him I would keep an eye on you while he was gone, but you know I’d do that anyway. I care about you.”

His words soothed some of the irritation his admonishment had caused. “I know,” I said, “and I appreciate that. But you also have enough on your plate as a single father. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just tell me what’s bothering you, so I don’t have to wait for Brandon to pry it out of you the next time he calls.”

“Really, it’s nothing,” I insisted. “I had a late night, and I’m a little hungover, that’s all. I’ll grab some coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and I’ll be good as new.”

Leo’s posture stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. He took a small step closer, and I caught a whiff of his woodsy cologne, a scent he’d started wearing in college and one I’d always associated with him.

“A late night?" he asked curiously "Was it a date?”

“What?” I sputtered, surprised. Brandon might be nosy about all aspects of my life, but it was rare for Leo to show any interest in my love life. In fact, if I really thought about it, Leo went out of his way to avoid talking about my dating habits and had never once met any of my boyfriends. He’d always had some excuse or another to be absent on the rare occasion I’d brought someone home to meet Brandon.

"Were you on a date last night?” Leo asked again, more intent this time.

“N-no,” I replied, “I went out for drinks with some colleagues and drank more than I’d realized. You know what a light weight I am.”

Leo continued to stare at me for a moment, as if dissecting my thoughts. Then, he took a step back and ran a hand through his wavy, light brown hair—a clear sign that he was irritated, but by what, I couldn’t tell.

Glancing at his watch, Leo huffed. “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been meaning to check-in, but this lawsuit I’m dealing with has me swamped. It should wrap up today, though. Can you meet me for a drink later?”

Usually, when Leo would “check-in” with me—which was code for subtly interrogating me, so he could report back to Brandon—he would invite me over to have dinner with him and Ella. This was the first time he’d ever asked to meet me somewhere, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“What about Ella?”

“She’s spending the night at my parents’ house. Apparently, she and my mom will be having something called a dinosaur tea party.”

I giggled. Leo’s mom was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met. After our parents had died, she’d done her best to help Brandon and me through our grief. Ella couldn’t have asked for a better grandmother.

“Alright. I can meet you at the Dock House at seven. Does that work?”

Leo looked at his watch again and started to move away down the sidewalk as he answered. “Seven is great. I’ll meet you there. Be good.”

I rolled my eyes at his parting shot. Leo had started telling me to “be good” when I was a knobby kneed pre-teen. As my thoughts returned to the conversation I’d overheard that morning and my plans to find out what was going on, I figured I’d be taking Leo’s advice now about as well as I had then, which was not at all.

Chapter Two

Laura

Iturnedinmyarticle quite late and could tell that my chief editor was not impressed. But given everything that had happened that morning, it was a miracle I’d even finished at all.

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