The Protectors: Defending His Own / Guarding Jeannie. BEVERLY BARTON

could have, and would have, explained to her that as my bodyguard, you’d have to accompany me.” Deborah dropped her hands to her sides. “That doesn’t explain your manhandling me in front of Whitney or your reason for saying what you did.”

      “I put my arm around you because I wanted Whitney to think that there’s more than a business arrangement between the two of us.”

      “But there isn’t.”

      “Of course there is. Do you honestly think I came back to Sheffield, to a town I swore had seen the last of me, to lay my life on the line for a woman who pretends she hates me, simply as a favor to a woman who was once kind to me and my grandmother?”

      “Yes. That’s what you told me.”

      “Doing a favor for Miss Carol was only part of my reason for accepting this job.” Ashe realized that he’d been lying to himself as well as Deborah about his reasons for accepting Carol Vaughn’s dare. “I wasn’t lying when I told Whitney that you were the one I never forgot.”

      Deborah’s vision blurred. Her ears rang with the pounding of her heart. “Don’t—” she threw up her hands in front of her as if to ward him off “—please, don’t. Whitney was the one. You loved her. Don’t you dare lie to me!”

      “You and I need to have a long talk and get a few things straight, but I doubt this is the time or the place.” Ashe heard the phones in the outer office ringing and the buzz of voices. “Whitney doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. You, on the other hand, do. I’m here to protect you. And you’ll be a lot safer if everyone thinks you’re—”

      A loud knock on the outer office door interrupted Ashe midsentence. Opening the door, Annie Laurie walked in with a package in her hands.

      “This just came for Deborah. There’s no return address.” Annie Laurie held the square box out in front of her. “Something inside there is ticking!”

      Deborah stood deadly still staring at the box. Ashe took the package out of Annie Laurie’s hands. Listening, he heard the steady tick, tick, tick coming from inside the cardboard container.

      “Don’t panic, and don’t scare the others in the office,” Ashe said. “Go back to your desk and call the Sheffield police. Talk to Chief Burton. Tell him to send whatever kind of bomb squad he has over here, pronto.”

      “You think it’s a bomb?” Annie Laurie gulped, then started backing out of the office. “What do we do?”

      “You and Deborah get everyone outside. Tell them you’ll explain once you’re out. Walk them across the street. And make sure everyone stays there.”

      “What about you?” Deborah asked.

      “I’m going to set this box down on your desk and follow you all outside.”

      Deborah shoved a stricken Annie Laurie out of the office, then rounded all her employees together and ushered them outside, while Annie Laurie phoned the police. Deborah started into Neil’s office, but Annie Laurie reminded her that Neil was in Florence at a realtor’s brunch.

      Ashe set the ticking box down on Deborah’s desk. His gut instincts told him that this wasn’t a bomb, but his instincts had been wrong a few times and it had nearly cost him his life. He didn’t take chances anymore. Not with other people’s lives. Certainly not with Deborah’s life.

      Within five minutes Chief Burton and his bomb squad arrived. The employees of Vaughn & Posey stood across the street in front of the bank, their evacuation and the presence of several police vehicles garnering attention from passersby. A small crowd of spectators gathered on the corner.

      Ashe stayed beside Deborah, who stood ramrod straight, her vision focused on her office building. She gripped Ashe’s hand tightly, but he was certain she had no idea what she was doing.

      A member of the bomb squad walked through the front door, holding the open box in his hands. “Somebody’s got a real warped sense of humor, Chief. Take a look at this.”

      Ashe held on to Deborah’s hand as she dashed across the street.

      “Everybody can go back to work,” Chief Burton said. “There’s no bomb.”

      “What was ticking?” Deborah asked.

      The chief held out the box. “Take a look, Ms. Vaughn.”

      Inside the hand-delivered package lay an ordinary alarm clock, tightly wound. Positioned on all four sides of the box, surrounding the ticking clock, were unlit sticks of dynamite. A small white card was stuck to the face of the clock, the message typed. “Next time, boom!”

      Ashe could almost hear a man’s insidious laughter. Buck Stansell’s crazy, sharp laugh. Ashe remembered the man’s diabolical sense of humor. Buck had not meant to harm Deborah, only to frighten her. If Buck had wanted Deborah dead, he would have killed her before Ashe had come into the picture.

      But what would happen if Deborah couldn’t be scared off, if she showed up in court to testify against Lon Sparks? With a man like Buck Stansell, anything was possible. All Ashe knew was that whatever happened, he was going to take care of Deborah.

      “A clock!” Deborah balled her hands into fists. “A stupid alarm clock!”

      “Looks like another warning,” Chief Burton said. “I’ll see that Charlie’s people get a look at this. I doubt we’ll be able to trace it to anybody, but we’ll see what we can do. Maybe somebody at the messenger service will remember who sent it, but I’ve got my doubts. Anybody could’ve paid a kid off the street to run a package by the office.”

      “It’s not going to stop, is it?” Deborah looked to Ashe for an answer. He grasped her by the shoulders. She trembled.

      “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “The phone calls and letters aren’t going to stop. But I’m screening them. You don’t have to deal with them at all. And from now on, any UPS deliveries will come directly to me, too. You don’t even have to know about them.”

      “Unless you think it’s another bomb and we have to evacuate the office again.” Deborah wanted to walk into Ashe’s arms, to lay her head on his chest and cry. Instead she pulled away from him, turning to her employees, still standing around outside on the sidewalk. “Let’s get back to work.” Then she held out her hand to Chief Burton, thanked him for arriving so promptly and took one last look at the gag gift she’d been sent.

      She walked back into the building, her head held high. At that moment Ashe didn’t think he’d ever been as enthralled by a woman’s show of strength. He knew she’d been scared to death, had felt her trembling beneath his hands, but despite her anger and uncertainty, she was not defeated.

      Ashe waited around outside for a few minutes until the police left and the crowd cleared. He found Deborah in her office, alone, her elbows propped up on her desk, her hands covering her face.

      He closed the door behind him. Dropping her hands, she stared up at him, her eyes damp but without any real tears.

      He walked over, knelt down beside her swivel chair and took her hands into his. “It’s all right if you want to cry or scream or hit something. Nobody can be strong all the time.”

      “I have to be,” she said, her voice flat and even, masking her emotions. She looked down at her lap where he held her hands. “Mother and Allen have no one else but me. If I fall apart…if I…” Pausing, she swallowed. “I have to keep Vaughn & Posey going. So many people depend on this business. And since Mother’s illness, she’s become very fragile emotionally.”

      “Then put up a brave front for Miss Carol and Allen. Even let your employees go on thinking you’re superwoman. But I’ve got some broad shoulders, Deborah. And they’re here for you to lean on any time you feel the need.”

      She looked at him, her blue eyes softening just a fraction. “Part of the job, Mr. McLaughlin? I thought you were supposed