The Protectors: Defending His Own / Guarding Jeannie

“No. I just want to make sure Allen finishes his homework.”

“I’ll make sure he does. Go wash out your lingerie or something. Read a good book. Call your boyfriend.” Ashe’s expression didn’t alter as he named off a list of alternatives to standing guard over her brother.

“I told you Deborah doesn’t have a boyfriend. She won’t give any guy the time of day.” Allen never looked up from his paper.

Ashe glanced down at the puzzle. “What’s another word for old maid?”

Allen smothered his laughter behind his hand, sneaking a peek at Deborah out of the corner of his eye.

“Try the word smart,” Deborah said. “As in any smart woman dies an old maid, without having to put up with a man trying to run her life.”

“Spinster.” Ashe acted as if he hadn’t heard Deborah’s outburst. Jerking the pencil from behind his ear, he printed the letters into the appropriate boxes.

“Hey, you’re left-handed just like me,” Allen said, his face bursting into a smile.

Deborah’s heart sank. No. She mustn’t panic. A lot of people were left-handed. There was no reason for Ashe to make the connection.

“We seem to have a lot in common.” Ashe couldn’t explain the rush of emotion that hit him. Like a surge of adrenaline warning him against something he couldn’t see or hear, touch, taste or feel. Something he should know, but didn’t. And that sense of the unknown centered around Allen Vaughn. Ashe found himself drawn to the boy, in a way similar yet different from the way he’d been drawn to Deborah when they’d been growing up together.

“Ashe, I…We need to talk,” Deborah said.

He glanced up at her. Her face was pale. “Can’t it wait until later? Allen and I are looking forward to our game.”

“This won’t take long.” She nodded toward the hallway.

He laid down the puzzle book and pencil, stood up and patted Allen on the back. “You finish your homework while I see what Deborah wants that’s so important it can’t wait.”

“Hurry,” Allen said. “I’m almost through.”

Deborah led Ashe out into the hallway, closing Allen’s bedroom door behind him. “Please don’t let Allen become too fond of you. He’s at an age where he wants a man around, and he seems to idolize you. He thinks you’re something special.”

“So what’s the problem?” Ashe asked. “I like Allen. I enjoy spending time with him. Do you think I’m a bad influence on him?”

“No, that isn’t it.”

“Then what is it?”

“If you two become close—too close—it’ll break his heart when you leave Sheffield. He’s just a little boy. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

Ashe pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her downcast eyes upward, making her look directly at him. “Who are you afraid will get too close to me? Who are you afraid will be brokenhearted when I leave? Who, Deborah? You or Allen?”

She hardened her stare, defying him, standing her ground against the overwhelming emotions fighting inside her. “You won’t ever break my heart again, Ashe McLaughlin. I know you aren’t here to stay, that you’re in Sheffield on an assignment, just doing your job. But Allen is already forming a strong attachment to you. Don’t encourage him to see you as a…a…big brother.”

“A father figure, you mean, don’t you? Allen needs a father. Why hasn’t Carol ever remarried and given him a father? Or why haven’t you married and given him a brother-in-law?”

“I don’t think my personal affairs or my mother’s are any of your business.”

“You’re right.” He released her chin.

“Please don’t spend so much time with Allen. Don’t let him start depending on you. You aren’t going to be around for very long.”

“What should I do to entertain myself at night?” he asked. “Should I play bridge with your mother and her friends? Should I watch the Discovery channel on TV downstairs in the library? Should I invite a lady friend over for drinks and some hanky-panky in the pool house? Or should I come to your bedroom and watch you undress and see your hair turn to gold in the moonlight? Would you entertain me to keep me away from Allen?”

Her hand itched to slap his face. She knotted her palm into a fist, released it, knotted it again, then repeated the process several times.

“If you hurt my…my brother, I’ll—”

He jerked her into his arms, loving the way she fought him, aroused by the passion of her anger, the heat of her indignation. “I’m not going to hurt Allen. You have my word.”

Ceasing her struggles, she searched his face for the truth. “And I don’t want to hurt you, Deborah. Not ever again. No matter what we’ve done to each other in the past, we don’t have to repeat our mistakes.”

“You’re right,” she said breathlessly. “Do your job. Act as my bodyguard until the trial is over and the threats stop. There’s no need for you to become a temporary member of the family. None of us need a temporary man in our lives.”

Was that what he was? Ashe wondered. A temporary man. Never a permanent part of anything. Just there to do a job. It hadn’t mattered before, that he didn’t have a wife or children. That his life held so little love, so little commitment. Why had being back in Sheffield changed all that? Being around families again, his family and Deborah’s, brought to mind all his former hopes and dreams. Dreams of living in one of the big old houses in Sheffield, of becoming a successful businessman, of showing this town how far he’d come—from the depths of white trash, from the McLaughlins of Leighton. And the biggest part of his dream had been the society wife and the children she’d give him. Children who would never know the shame he’d felt, would never face the prejudice he’d fought, would never be looked at as if they were nothing.

“I’ll do my job. I’ll be careful not to let Allen become too attached to me. And I won’t come into your bedroom and make slow, sweet love to you. Not unless you ask.”

He didn’t give her a chance to say a word. Turning, he marched down the hall, opened Allen’s door and walked in, never once looking back at Deborah.

“Hell will freeze over, Ashe McLaughlin, before I ever ask you to make love to me again!” she muttered under her breath.

Chapter Five

Apassel of hounds lay in the dirt yard surrounding the double-wide trailer. A brand-new cherry red Camaro, parked beside an old Ford truck, glistened in the morning sun. A long-legged, large-breasted brunette with a cigarette dangling from her lips flung open the front door and ushered three stair-step-size children onto the porch. Her voice rang out loud and clear.

“Get your rear ends in the car. I ain’t got all morning to get you heathens to school.”

The children scurried toward the Camaro. The woman turned around, surveyed Ashe from head to toe and grinned an I’d-like-to-see-what-you’ve-got-in-your-pants-honey kind of grin.

Ashe leaned against the hood of the rented car he had parked several feet off the gravel drive leading to Lee Roy Brennan’s home. He eyed the smiling woman.

“Well, hello.” She gave the youngest child a shove inside the car, never taking her eyes off Ashe. “You here to see Lee Roy?”

“Yeah. Is he around?”

“Could be.” She ran her hand down her hip, over the tight-fitting jeans that outlined her shapely curves. “Who wants to know?”

“How about you go tell Lee Roy that Ashe McLaughlin wants to see him?”

“Well, Mr. Ashe McLaughlin, you sure do look like you’re everything I ever heard you were.” She stared directly at his crotch, then moved her gaze up to his face. “Lee Roy says you been in the army. One of them Green Berets. A real tough guy.”

Ashe glanced at the three children in the Camaro. People like this didn’t care what they said or did in front of their kids. He had vague memories of his old man cursing a blue streak, slapping his mother around and passing out drunk. Yeah, Ashe knew all about the low-class people he’d come from and had spent a lifetime trying to escape.

“Go tell Lee Roy his cousin wants to see him,” Ashe said.

The woman’s smile wavered, her eyes darting nervously from Ashe to the trailer. “Yeah, sure. He heard you was back in these parts.”

Ashe didn’t move from his propped position against the hood of his car while Lee Roy’s wife went inside the trailer. Three pairs of big brown eyes peered out the back window of the Ca-maro. Ashe waved at the children. Three wide, toothy smiles appeared on their faces.