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

you shouldn’t hold it against her. My God, boy, you took her innocence and then told her you didn’t want her.”

      “It wasn’t like that and you damn well know it.” Ashe needed to hit something, smash anything into a zillion pieces. He hated remembering what he’d done and what his stupidity had cost him.

      “Don’t you swear at me, boy.” Mattie narrowed her eyes, giving her grandson a killing look.

      “I’m sorry, Mama Mattie, but I didn’t come by to see you so we could have that old argument about Deborah Vaughn.” Ashe headed toward the kitchen. “Where are those tea cakes?”

      Mattie followed him, busying herself with pouring coffee into brown ceramic mugs while Ashe devoured three tea cakes in quick succession. He pulled out a metal and vinyl chair and sat down at the table.

      “They taste just the same. As good as I remember.”

      He would never forget walking into the Vaughns’ kitchen after school every day, laying his books on the table and raiding Mama Mattie’s tea cake tray. More often than not, he and Annie Laurie rode home with Miss Carol when she picked up Deborah and Whitney from school.

      Whitney had ignored him as much as possible, often complaining to her aunt that she thought it disgraceful they had to be seen with those children. He supposed her haughty attitude had given him more reason to want to bring her down to his level, and eventually he’d done just that. He hadn’t been Whitney’s first, but he hadn’t cared. She’d been hot and eager and he’d thought she really loved him.

      All the while he’d been drooling over Whitney, he hadn’t missed the way Deborah stared at him, those big blue eyes of hers filled with undisguised adoration.

      “Thinking about those afternoons in the Vaughn kitchen?” Mattie asked.

      “What is it with you and Miss Carol? Both of you seem determined to resurrect some sort of romance between Deborah and me.” Ashe lifted the coffee mug to his lips, sipped the delicious brew and held his mug in his hand. “Deborah and I were never sweethearts. We weren’t in love. I liked her and she had a big teenage crush on me. That’s all there ever was to it. So tell me what’s going on?”

      “Neither one of you has ever gotten married.”

      “Are you saying you’d like to see me married to Deborah?” Ashe’s laughter combined a snicker, a chuckle and a groan. “It’s never going to happen. Not in a million years. Wherever did you get such a crazy idea?”

      “You came back home when Miss Carol called and told you that Deborah was in trouble, that her life was in danger,” Mattie said. “In eleven years nothing I’ve said or done could persuade you to return. And don’t try to tell me that you came back because of Miss Carol. You could have sent another man from that private security place where you work. You didn’t have to come yourself and we both know it.”

      “Miss Carol asked for me, personally. I knew how sick she’d been. You’ve told me again and again that you were afraid she might die.”

      “So knowing Buck Stansell is probably out to stop Deborah from testifying didn’t have anything to do with your coming home? You don’t care what happens to her?”

      “I didn’t say I don’t care. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.” When Miss Carol had first telephoned him and explained the situation, his blood had run cold at the thought of anyone harming Deborah. Despite what she’d done to him, he couldn’t help remembering the sweet, generous, loving girl he’d known since she was a small child. He had thought she didn’t matter to him, that he didn’t even hate her anymore. But he’d been wrong. He cared. He cared too damned much. Now that he’d seen Deborah again, he was worried that he couldn’t act as her bodyguard and keep their relationship on a purely business level. And that could be dangerous for both of them. If he was smart, he’d call Sam Dundee and tell him to put another agent on the first available flight out of Atlanta.

      But where Deborah Vaughn was concerned, he’d never been smart. Not when he had ignored her to pay court to her older cousin. Not when he’d accepted her comfort and love when Whitney had rejected him. And not when he’d been certain she would never betray him to anyone, least of all her father.

      Mattie poured herself a second cup of coffee, broke a tea cake in two and popped half into her mouth. Chewing slowly, she watched Ashe. When he turned around and caught her staring at him, he smiled.

      “All right. I admit it. Part of the reason I agreed to Miss Carol’s request was because I don’t want to see anything happen to Deborah. There. I said it. Are you satisfied?”

      Mattie grinned, showing her perfect, white dentures. “You ought to go have a talk with Lee Roy and Johnny Joe. They’re working for Buck Stansell, you know.”

      “Yeah, I figured as much, since their daddy and mine were both part of that gang years ago, along with Buck’s daddy.”

      “Well, I don’t trust Johnny Joe, but I always saw something in Lee Roy that made me think he was a mite better than that bunch of trash he came from.”

      “Hey, watch what you’re saying, Mama Mattie. You’re talking about my family.” Ashe grinned.

      “Your daddy’s family, not mine, and not yours. I think Johnny Joe took after his daddy and his Uncle JoJo, where Lee Roy reminds me a bit of your daddy’s sister. She wasn’t such a bad girl. She and your mama always got along.”

      “You think Lee Roy and Johnny Joe know something about the threats against Deborah?” Ashe asked.

      “Can’t nobody prove nothing, but folks know that Buck Stan-sell was behind that killing Deborah witnessed. Whoever’s been sending her those notes and making those phone calls, you can bet your bottom dollar that Buck’s behind it all.”

      “What do you know about this Lon Sparks? I don’t remember him.”

      “No reason you should. He showed up around these parts a few years back. I hear he come up from Corinth with a couple of other guys that Buck recruited when he expanded his drug dealings.”

      “How do you know so much, old woman?” Ashe laid his hand over his grandmother’s where it rested beside her coffee cup.

      “Everybody hears things. I hear things. At the beauty shop. At the grocery store. At church.”

      “After I’ve settled in and made my presence known, I’ll take a ride out to Leighton and see how my cousins are doing.”

      “You be careful, Ashe. Buck Stansell isn’t the kind of man to roll over and play dead just because Deborah’s got herself a bodyguard.”

      “Don’t you worry. I’m not stupid enough to underestimate Buck. I remember him and his old man. I’ve come up against their type all over the world.”

      “While you’re taking care of Deborah and Miss Carol and that precious little Allen, make sure you take care of yourself, too.” Mattie squeezed her grandson’s big hand.

      The back door swung open and a tall, thin young woman in a sedate gray pantsuit walked in and stopped dead still when she saw Ashe.”

      “Oh, my goodness, it’s really you!” Annie Laurie threw herself into Ashe’s arms. “Mama Mattie said you’d come home, but I wasn’t so sure. You’ve been away forever and ever.”

      Mr. Higgins sneaked into the kitchen, staring up at Annie Laurie, purring lightly.

      Ashe held his cousin at arm’s length, remembering the first time he’d seen her. She’d been a skinny eight-year-old whose parents had been killed in an automobile accident. Mama Mattie, Annie Laurie’s mother’s aunt, had been the child’s closest relative and hadn’t hesitated to open her home and heart to the girl, just as she had done for Ashe. “Here, let me have a good look at you. My, my. You sure have grown. And into a right pretty young lady.”

      Blushing, Annie Laurie shoved her slipping glasses back up her nose.