The Protectors: Defending His Own / Guarding Jeannie

She spun around to face Ashe, who stood in the hallway. Had he noticed her staring at Allen’s portrait?

“Please come in and sit down.”

He walked into the living room, but remained standing. “I came back to Sheffield as a favor to your mother.” And because she dared me to face the past. “She sounded desperate when she called. My grandmother told me about Miss Carol’s bout with cancer. I—”

“Thank you for caring about my mother.”

“She was always good to Mama Mattie and to me. Despite what happened between the two of us, I never blamed your mother.”

What was he talking about? What reason did he have to blame anyone for anything? He’d been the one who had left Sheffield, left an innocent seventeen-year-old girl pregnant.

“Mother has gotten it into her head that I need protection, and I don’t disagree with her on that point. I’d be a fool to say I’m not afraid of Buck Stansell and his gang. I know what they’re capable of doing. I saw, firsthand, how they deal with people who go against them.”

“Then allowing me to stay as your bodyguard is the sensible thing to do.”

How was it, he wondered, that years ago he’d thought Whitney Vaughn was the most beautiful, desirable creature on earth, when all along her little cousin Deborah had been blossoming into perfection? Although Whitney had been the woman he’d wanted, Deborah was the woman he’d never been able to forget.

“I would prefer your agency send another representative. That would be possible, wouldn’t it? Surely, you’re no more eager than I am for the two of us to be thrown together this way.”

“Yes, it’s possible for the Dundee Agency to send another agent, but your mother wants me. And I intend to abide by her wishes.”

Deborah glared at him, then regretted it when he met her gaze head-on. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. As if…as if he found her attractive.

“You could speak to Mother, persuade her to agree to another agent.”

“Yes, I could speak to your mother, but I don’t think anything I say will dissuade her from having me act as your personal bodyguard.” Ashe took a tentative step toward Deborah. She backed away from him. “Why is it that I get the feeling Miss Carol would like to see something romantic happen between you and me?”

Deborah turned from him, cursing the blush she felt creeping into her cheeks. When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she jerked away from him, rushing toward the French doors that opened up onto a side patio. She grasped the brass handle.

“I’m not interested in forming any kind of relationship with you other than employer and employee,” Ashe said. “I agreed to act as your bodyguard because a fine, dear lady asked me to, as a personal favor to her. That’s the only reason I’m here. You don’t have to worry that I’ll harass you with any unwanted attention.”

Deborah opened the French doors, walked outside and gazed up at the clear blue sky. Autumn sky. Autumn breeze. A hint of autumn colors surrounded her, especially in her mother’s chrysanthemums and marigolds that lined the patio privacy wall.

Why should Ashe’s words hurt her so deeply? It wasn’t as if she still loved him. She had accepted the fact, long ago, that she had meant nothing to him, that Whitney had been the woman he’d wanted. Why would she think anything had changed?

Ashe followed her out onto the side patio. “It wasn’t easy for me to come back. I never wanted to see this place again as long as I lived. But I’m back and I intend to stay to protect you.”

“As a favor to my mother?”

“Partly, yes.”

She wouldn’t face him; she couldn’t. “Why else would you come back to Sheffield?”

“Your mother asked me if I was afraid to face the past. She dared me to come home.”

“And were you afraid to face the past?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? What does that tell you?”

“It tells me that you have a soft spot in your heart for my mother because she was kind to your grandmother and you and your cousin, Annie Laurie. And it tells me that you’re the type of man who can’t resist a dare.”

“If I’m willing to come back to Sheffield, to act as your personal bodyguard because it’s what Miss Carol wants, then it would seem to me that you should care enough about her to agree to her wishes. All things considered.” He moved over to where Deborah stood near the miniature waterfall built into the privacy wall.

Turning her head slightly, she glanced at him. He had changed and yet he remained the same. Still devastatingly handsome, a bit cocky and occasionally rude. The twenty-one-year-old boy who’d made love to her had not completely vanished. He was there in those gold-flecked, green eyes, in that wide, sensuous mouth, in those big, hard hands. She jerked her gaze away from his hands. Hands that had caressed her intimately. Hands that had taught her the meaning of being a sexual woman.

How could she allow him to stay in her home? How could she endure watching him with Allen, knowing they were father and son?

Was there some way she could respect her mother’s wishes and still keep the truth from Ashe?

“Let’s understand something up front,” Deborah said, facing him, steeling herself not to show any emotion. “I don’t want you here. I had hoped I’d never see you again as long as I lived. If I agree to your acting as my bodyguard until the end of the the trial, to please Mother, you must promise me, here and now, that once I am no longer in any danger, you’ll leave Sheffield and never return.”

“Do you honestly think I’d want to stay?”

“Promise me.”

“I don’t have to promise you anything. I don’t owe you anything.” He glared at her, into those bright, still innocent-looking blue eyes and wanted to grab her and shake her until her teeth rattled. Who the hell did she think she was, giving him orders, demanding promises from him?

“You’re still as stubborn, as bullheaded, as aggravating as you ever were,” she said.

“Guilty as charged.” He wanted to shout at her, to tell her she seemed to be the same little girl who wanted her own way. But this time she couldn’t go running to Daddy. This time Wallace Vaughn couldn’t force him to leave town. Nobody could. Most certainly not Deborah.

“We seem to be at an impasse.”

“No, we’re not. Once I settle in, pay a few visits on family and get the lay of the land, so to speak, you’re stuck with me for the duration.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “I won’t promise you anything, but I can tell you this, I don’t intend to stay in Alabama one day longer than necessary. And while I’m here, you don’t have anything to fear from me. My purpose is to protect you, not harm you.”

They stared at each other, face-to-face, two determined people, neither giving an inch. Finally Deborah nodded, then looked away.

“Dinner is at six-thirty, if you care to join us,” she said.

“Fine. I’ll be back from Mama Mattie’s before then.” Ashe hesitated momentarily, overwhelmed with a need to ask Deborah why. Why had she gone running to her daddy eleven years ago? Had his rejection made her hate him that much?

“I’ll have Mazie prepare you a room, if Mother hasn’t already seen to it.”

“Thanks.” There was no reason to wait, no reason to keep looking at her, to continue wondering exactly what it was about this woman that had made her so unforgettable. He tried to smile, but the effort failed, so he turned and walked back inside the house.

Deborah balled her hands into fists. Taking and releasing a deep breath, she said a silent prayer, asking God to keep them all safe and to protect Allen from the truth. A truth she had kept hidden in her heart since the day he was born, since the day she agreed to allow her son to be raised as her brother.

Chapter Two

As Ashe drove his rental car up Montgomery Avenue, into the downtown area of Sheffield, he noticed the new businesses, mostly restaurants—Louisiana, Milestones and New Orleans Transfer. Come what may, Southerners were going to eat well. Mama Mattie’s homespun philosophy had always been that if folks spent their money on good food, they wouldn’t need to spend it on a doctor.

Mama Mattie. How he loved that old woman. She was probably the only person he’d ever truly loved. The only person who had ever really loved him. He could barely remember a time during his growing up years when he hadn’t lived with her. He had faint memories of living in a trailer out in Leighton. Before he’d started school. Before his daddy had caught his mama in bed with another man and shot them both.

The courts had sentenced JoJo McLaughlin to life in prison, and that’s where he’d died, seven years later.

Mama Mattie had tried to protect Ashe from the ugly truth, from the snide remarks of unthinking adults and the vicious taunts of his schoolmates. But his grandmother had been powerless to protect him from the reality of class distinction, from the social snobbery and inbred attitudes of elite families, like the Vaughns, for whom she worked.

If he’d had a lick of sense, he would have stayed in his place and been content to work at the service station during the day and at the country club as a busboy on weekend nights. But no, Ashe McLaughlin, that bad boy who’d come from white trash outlaws, had wanted to better himself. It didn’t matter to anyone that he graduated salutatorian of his high school class or that he attended the University of North Alabama on an academic scholarship. He still wasn’t good enough to associate with the right people.