The Protectors. Beverly Barton

was a Green Beret for ten years and joined, what I am told, is the best private security agency in the South. If you won’t agree to his staying here for any other reason, do it for me. For my peace of mind.”

      “Mother, really. You’re asking a great deal of me, aren’t you? And you’re putting Allen at risk. What if Ashe were to suspect the truth? Do we dare take that kind of chance? How do you think Allen would react if he found out that everything we’ve told him is a lie?”

      Tears gathered in the corners of Deborah’s eyes. She blinked them away. No tears. Not now. She cried only when she was alone, where no one could see her. Where no one would know that the strong, dependable, always reliable Deborah Luellen Vaughn succumbed to the weakness of tears. Since her father died, she had learned to be strong—for her mother, for Allen, for those depending upon Vaughn & Posey for their livelihoods.

      “Even if Ashe learns the truth, he would never tell Allen.”

      “How can you be so sure?”

      “Intuition.”

      Deborah groaned. Sometimes her mother could be incredibly naive for a fifty-five-year-old woman. “I don’t want Ashe McLaughlin to become a part of our lives.”

      “He’s always been a part of our lives.” Carol glanced up at the oil painting of Allen at the age of three, hung over the fireplace beside the portrait of a three-year-old Deborah. “All I ask is that you allow him to stay on as your bodyguard until after Lon Sparks’s trial. If you feel nothing for Ashe except hatred, then his being here should do nothing more than annoy you. Surely you can put up with a little annoyance to make your dying mother happy.”

      “You aren’t dying!”

      “Please, dear, just talk to Ashe.”

      Sighing deeply, Deborah closed her eyes and shook her head. How could she say no to her mother? How could she explain what the very sight of Ashe McLaughlin had done to her? Wasn’t she already going through enough, having to deal with testifying against a murderer, having to endure constant threats on her life, without having to put up with Ashe McLaughlin, too?

      “Oh, all right, Mother. I’ll talk to Ashe. But I’m not promising anything.”

      “Fine. That’s all I ask.” Gripping the arm of the sofa for support, Carol stood. “I’ll go in the kitchen and see how Ashe and Allen are getting along, then I’ll send Ashe out to you.”

      Standing, Deborah paced the floor. Waiting. Waiting to face the man who haunted her dreams to this very day. The only man she had ever loved. The only man she had ever hated. Stopping in front of the fireplace, she glanced up at Allen’s portrait. He looked so much like her. Their strong resemblance had made it easy to pass him off as her brother. But where others might not see any of Ashe in Allen’s features, she could. His coloring was hers, but his nose was long and straight like Ashe’s, not short and rounded like hers. His jaw tapered into a square chin unlike her gently rounded face.

      Now that Allen was ten, it was apparent from his size that he would eventually become a large man, perhaps as big as Ashe, who stood six foot three.

      But would Ashe see any resemblance? Would he look at Allen and wonder? Over the years had he, even once, asked himself whether he might have fathered a child the night he had taken her virginity?

      “Deborah?”

      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.”