The Protectors: Defending His Own / Guarding Jeannie

There was a strength in Ashe that went beyond the normal male quality. It had been there, of course, years ago, but she recognized it now for what it was. Primitive strength that came from the core of his masculinity, the ancient need to beat his chest and cry out a warning to all other males.

Deborah shivered. Everything male in Ashe called to all that was female within her. If he claimed her, as he once had done, would she be able to reject him? A need to be possessed, protected and cherished coursed through her veins like liquid fire, heating her thoughts, warming her femininity.

When he opened the passenger door of his rental car and assisted her inside, she glanced up at him. Her heartbeat roared in her ears. Ashe hesitated just a fraction of a second. He looked at her lips. She resisted the urge to lick them.

“Where’s a good place to get take-out close by?” He shut the door, walked around the hood of the car and got in on the driver’s side.

“Stephano’s on Sixth Street has good food.” She clutched her leather bag to her stomach. “It’s on the left side of the street, so you may want to turn off on Fifth and make the block.”

When she returned home this evening, she’d tell her mother that this wasn’t going to work, having Ashe as her bodyguard. Even if he kept her safe from Buck Stansell, another few weeks of being near Ashe would drive her insane.

Ashe picked up a couple of meatball subs, colas and slices of sinfully rich cheesecake. Gazing down into the bag, Deborah shook her head.

“This is too much food. I can’t eat all of this. I have to watch my…” She left the sentence unfinished. She’d been about to tell Ashe McLaughlin that she had to watch her weight. Of course she had no need to tell him; he could well remember what a plump teenager she’d been.

“Splurging one day won’t spoil that knockout figure of yours.” Ashe kept his gaze focused on the road as he turned the car downward, off Sixth Street, and into the park area beneath the hill.

He thought she had a knockout figure? Was that the reason he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her all morning? Why he watched every move she made at the office? The thought of Ashe approving of her figure sent pinpricks of excitement rushing through her. Idiot! She chastised herself. You shouldn’t care what he thinks. You shouldn’t care what any man thinks, least of all Ashe. He didn’t want you when you were a plump teenager, and you don’t want him now. So there.

Liar! Good or bad. Right or wrong. You still want Ashe McLaughlin. You’ve never wanted anyone else.

“Is there a woman in your life back in Atlanta?” She heard herself ask, then damned herself for being such a fool. How could she have asked him such a question?

Ashe parked the car in the shade, opened his door and turned to take their lunch bag from Deborah. “No one special,” Ashe said. “Women come and go, but there’s been no one special in my life since I left Sheffield eleven years ago.”

Whitney, Deborah thought. Her cousin had been the only special woman in Ashe’s life. Jealousy and pity combined to create a rather disturbing emotion within Deborah. Both feelings constituted an admission that she still cared about Ashe.

And she didn’t want to care. God in heaven, she didn’t dare care. He had taken her innocence, broken her heart and left her pregnant. What woman in her right mind would give a man like that a second chance?

But then, Ashe hadn’t said or done anything to indicate he wanted a second chance.

“This place hasn’t changed much, has it?” Ashe looked around Spring Park, a small area of trees, playground equipment and picnic tables surrounding a small lake fed by an ancient underground spring.

“It’s a bit lonely this time of day and this late in the season. Most of the activity takes place over there—” Deborah pointed to the south of the park “—at the golf course.”

Ashe chose a secluded table on the west side of the park, near a cove of hedge apple trees, their bare branches dotted with mistletoe. The spring’s flow meandered around behind them on a leisurely journey toward Spring Creek. Laying down the paper sack, Ashe removed the white napkins and spread out their lunch. He handed Deborah a cup and straw. She avoided touching his hand when she accepted the offering.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, swinging his long legs under the picnic table.

Deborah sat across from him, gripping the plastic container of food as she placed the cola on the concrete table. “Why should I be afraid of you? You’re here to protect me, aren’t you?”

“I wasn’t asking if you were afraid that I might physically harm you. We both know that’s ridiculous. I’m asking why your hands tremble whenever you think I might touch you. And why you have a difficult time looking directly at me. Your eyes give you away, honey.”

She undid the plastic covering her meatball sandwich. “I feel awkward around you, Ashe. I guess I’m just not as sophisticated as the women you’re accustomed to these days. Maybe what happened between us in the past didn’t affect your life the way it did mine.”

No, Ashe didn’t suppose what had happened between them had affected his life the way it had hers. She had gone on as if nothing had happened, secure in her family’s love and support and Wallace Vaughn’s money. Maybe she’d suffered a broken heart for a while until she’d found another boyfriend. But he had paid a high price for their night of passion. He had lost his dream. His big plans of becoming one of the area’s movers and shakers had turned sour.

“You don’t look like you’ve fared too badly.” Ashe surveyed her from the top of her golden blond hair, all neatly secured in a fashionable bun at the nape of her neck, to the length of shapely legs partially hidden beneath the picnic table. “You’re successful, beautiful and rich.”

Did he actually have no idea what he’d done to her? Of course he didn’t know about the child they had created together, but how could he have forgotten his adamant rejection, his cruel words of regret, his deliberate avoidance of her in the days and weeks following their lovemaking?

“Whenever we’re together, I can’t seem to stop thinking about…I suppose it’s true what they say about a woman never forgetting her first lover.”

Her words hit him like a hard blow to the stomach. He sucked in air. Why did she sound so innocent, so vulnerable? After all this time, why did the memories of that night haunt him? Why did the thought of a young girl’s passionate cries still echo in his mind? “And a guy never forgets what its like to take a virgin, to be her first. I never meant for it to happen. One minute you were comforting me and the next minute—”

“You don’t have to tell me again that you wished it hadn’t happened, that you regretted making love to me the minute it was over. You made that perfectly clear eleven years ago! Do you think I don’t know that you were pretending I was Whitney all the while you were…”

Deborah lifted her legs, swung them around and off the concrete bench and jumped up, turning her back to Ashe. The quivering inside her stomach escalated so quickly it turned to nausea.

Dammit! Is that what she actually thought? That he had pretended she was Whitney? Yes, he’d thought he was in love with Whitney, but the minute she announced her engagement to George Jamison III, there at the country club where he worked, he’d begun to doubt his love. And when she had laughed in his face and told him he’d been a fool to think she’d ever marry a loser like him, all the love inside him had died. Murdered by her cruelty.

Ashe got up and walked over to Deborah. He wanted to touch her, to put his arms around her and draw her close. She stood there, her shoulders trembling, her neck arched, her head tilted upward. Was she crying? He couldn’t bear it if she was crying.

“Deborah?”

She couldn’t speak; unshed tears clogged her throat. Shaking her head, she waved her hands at her sides, telling him to leave her alone.

“I did not pretend you were Whitney.” He reached out to touch her, but didn’t. He dropped his hand to his side. “I might’ve had a few drinks to dull the pain that night, but I knew who you were and I knew what I was doing.”

“You were—” she gasped for air “—using me.”

How could he deny the truth? He had used her. Used her to forget another woman’s heartless rejection. Used her to salve his bruised male ego. Used her because she’d been there at his side, offering her comfort, her love, her adoration.

“Yeah, you’re right. I used you. And that’s what I regretted. I regretted taking advantage of you, of stealing your innocence. But I didn’t regret the loving.”

The unshed tears nearly choked her. The pain of remembrance clutched her heart. He didn’t regret the loving? Was that what he’d just said?

He grabbed her shoulders in a gentle but firm hold. She tensed, every nerve in her body coming to full alert. She couldn’t bear for him to touch her, yet couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

“I told you I was sorry for what happened, that I regretted what I’d done.” Ashe couldn’t see Deborah’s face; she kept her back to him. But in his mind’s eye he could see plainly her face eleven years ago. There in the moonlight by the river, her face aglow with the discovery of sexual pleasure and girlish love, she had crumpled before his very eyes when he’d begged her to forgive him, told her that what happened had been a mistake. She had cried, but when he’d tried to comfort her, she had lashed out at him like a wildcat. He’d found himself wanting her all over again, and hating himself for his feelings.

“I’ve never felt so worthless in my life as I did that night.” Deborah balled her hands into fists. She wanted to hit Ashe, to vent all the old bitterness and frustration. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him that he’d left her pregnant and she hated him for not caring, for never being concerned about her welfare or the child he had given her.

He turned her around slowly, the stiffness in her body unyielding. She faced him, her chin lifted high, her eyes bright and glazed with a fine sheen of moisture.

“When I took you, I knew it was you. Do you understand? I wanted you. Not Whitney. Not any other woman.”

“But you said…you said—”

“I said it shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have. I didn’t love you, not like I should have. I couldn’t offer you marriage. What I did was wrong.”

She quivered from head to toe, clinching her jaws tightly, trying desperately not to cry. She glared at him, her blue eyes accusing him.

Dear God, he had hurt her more than he’d ever known. After all these years, she hadn’t let go of the pain. Was that why she’d gone to her father? Is that why she’d accused him of raping her? Or had she accused him? Was it possible that the rape charges had been Wallace’s idea? The thought had crossed his mind more than once in the past eleven years.

“Neither of us can change the past,” he said. “We can’t go back and make things right. But I want you to know how it really was with me. With us.”

“It doesn’t matter. Not any more.” She tried to pull away from him; he held her tight.