Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

maybe the center wasn’t in the nicest of areas. Still, I’d never felt unsafe here.
    “It’s broad daylight. But if it makes you feel better, you can watch me cross the street.”
    A guttural laugh from the corner drew my glance over the hood of the car toward three guys staring in our direction. The way the one in the middle smirked at me sent a chill down my spine with enough force to reconsider A. J.’s offer. Except that’d mean letting him and those guys think they intimidated me. Not going to happen.
    I hunched over the open window. “Thanks again for the lift. I really appreciate it.”
    “No problem.” His gaze finally flicked to me. Yet even hidden behind his sunglasses, the hollow look in his eyes was too painful to miss. I almost preferred he didn’t look at me at all than to look straight through me.
    Clasping both elbows, I backed away from the car. “See you later.”
    A palpable glare from the guys on the corner followed me across the street until I skirted out of sight around the side of the building.
    A. J.’s tires didn’t screech away until I’d had ample time to make it safely inside. Figures. It was his nature to protect, despite whatever he might’ve felt toward me. That didn’t make the rift between us hurt any less.
    “’Sup, Miss E?”
    I jumped off the wall.
    Four of the center’s regular kids strode down the walkway toward the side door. “Was that guy in the car out front messin’ with you?” Brandon asked. “’Cause I can take him.” He tossed a basketball in the air, caught it, and flexed his bicep. “I been working out.”
    His little eleven-year-old self couldn’t get any cuter.
    The thought of our kids running into whoever those guys were turned my blood hot. I didn’t know what they were selling or what game they were hustling, but they were messing with the wrong place.
    I looked behind me, looped an arm around Brandon’s shoulders, and prodded him down the walkway. “Thanks for lookin’ out, but I think I’ve got it covered.”
    “A’ight, but you let me know. I watch out for my girl.”
    He strutted inside with his friends snickering behind us.
    At the door to the classroom, I caught his basketball midair. “How’s that book report coming?”
    Brandon swayed in place, head down. “Aw, Miss E, you can’t be calling me out like that. I gots a reputation to manage.”
    He held out his hands for his ball, and I placed a pen and paper in them instead. “How about a reputation for passing school?”
    He flipped up the bill of his hat. “That ain’t gonna win me the ladies.”
    Like a big brother, Trey pulled him into a headlock and lugged him into the classroom. “It might win you that one.” He winked in my direction.
    “If my heart wasn’t already taken,” I said with a wave of my engagement ring.
    The door closed a trail of grumbles and laughs behind it.
    I toyed with my ring. Alone, the emotions from the morning rushed in again. Don’t think about it . I rolled my chair up to my desk and scanned the piles of work waiting for me. Right. Brandon was closer to finishing his book report than I was to concentrating on anything except having only two nights left with Riley.
    A steady murmur of kids’ voices seeped underneath the door and filled the office like soft background music, urging me to focus. Grant requests. Focus on grant requests . I rifled through a stack of overdue bills cluttering my inbox until an envelope slipped out onto my desk.
    The sender hadn’t bothered to fill in the return address, but the Palmer Foundation was the only benefactor from the last batch that I hadn’t heard back from yet.
    Please be good news.
    Leaning on my elbows, I scanned the first two sentences of the form letter and dropped it. After seeing the word unfortunately on fifteen other rejection notices, I didn’t need to read any farther, but a comment toward the bottom of the page caught my eye.
    Not enough activities? Seriously? We weren’t the YMCA.