The Protectors. Beverly Barton

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. “You haven’t seen me since I was thirteen.”

      Hearing a car exit the driveway, Ashe glanced out the window in time to see a black Mercedes backing up, a familiar looking redheaded guy driving.

      “Your boyfriend bring you home from work?” Ashe asked.

      Annie Laurie’s pink cheeks flamed bright red. She cast her gaze down toward the floor, then bent over, picked up Mr. Higgins and held him in her arms.

      “Stop teasing the girl,” Mattie said.

      “He’s not your boyfriend?” Ashe lifted her chin.

      “He’s my boss.”

      “Your boss?”

      “That was Neil Posey,” Mattie said. “You remember him. He’s Archie Posey’s son. He’s partners with Deborah in their daddies’ real estate firm.”

      “You work for Vaughn & Posey Real Estate?” Ashe asked. “I guess Mama Mattie told me and I’d just forgotten.”

      “I’m Neil’s…that is Mr. Posey’s secretary. And he’s not my boyfriend. He’s Deborah’s…I mean, he likes her.”

      “What?” Ashe laughed aloud. Neil Posey was Deborah’s boyfriend? That short, stocky egghead with carrot red hair and trillions of freckles.

      “I’ve tried to tell Annie Laurie that Deborah isn’t interested in Neil just because he follows her around like a lovesick puppy dog.” Mattie shook her head, motioning for Ashe to let the subject drop. “Are you staying for supper? I’ve got some chicken all thawed out. It won’t take me long to fry it up.”

      “Sorry, Mama Mattie, I’m expected for dinner at the Vaughns’, but I’m looking forward to some of your fried chicken while I’m home.”

      “You be sure and tell Deborah and Miss Carol I asked about them,” Mattie said. “And, here, take Allen some of my tea cakes. He loves them as much as you used to when you were his age.”

      Ashe caught an odd look in his grandmother’s eyes. It was as if she knew something she wanted him to know, but for some reason didn’t see fit to tell him. He shook off the notion, picked up his coffee mug and relaxed, enjoying being home. Back in his grandmother’s house. Back with the only real family he’d ever known.

      Deborah checked her appearance in the cheval mirror, tightened the backs of her pearl earrings and lifted the edge of her neckline so that her pearl necklace lay precisely right. Ashe McLaughlin’s presence at their dinner table tonight had absolutely nothing to do with her concern about her appearance, she told herself, and knew it was a lie. Her undue concern was due to Ashe, and so was her nervousness.

      Didn’t she have enough problems without Ashe reappearing in her life after eleven years? How could her mother have thought that bringing that man back into their lives could actually help her? She’d almost rather face Buck Stansell alone than have to endure weeks with Ashe McLaughlin at her side twenty-four hours a day.

      Of course, her mother had been right in hiring a personal bodyguard for her. She had to admit that she’d considered the possibility herself. But not Ashe!

      Ever since she had inadvertently driven up on the scene of Corey Looney’s execution, she had been plagued by nightmares. Both awake and asleep. Time and again she saw the gun, the blood, the man’s body slump to the ground. Even in the quiet of her dark bedroom, alone at night, she could hear the sound of the gun firing.

      Shivers racked Deborah’s body. Chill bumps broke out on her arms. The letters and telephone calls had begun the day the sheriff arrested Lon Sparks. At first she had tried to dismiss them, but when they persisted, even the local authorities became concerned.

      Colbert County’s sheriff and an old family acquaintance, Charlie Blaylock, had assigned a deputy to her before and during the preliminary hearing, but couldn’t spare a man for twenty-four-hour-a-day protection on an indefinite basis. Charlie had spoken to the state people, the FBI and the DEA, hoping one or more of the agencies’ interest in Buck Stansell’s dealings might bring in assistance and protection for Deborah.

      But there was no proof Buck Stansell was involved, even though everyone knew Lon Sparks worked for Stansell. The federal boys wanted to step in, but murder in Colbert County was a local crime. They’d keep close tabs on the situation, but couldn’t become officially involved.

      Charlie had been the one to suggest hiring a private bodyguard. Deborah had agreed to consider the suggestion, never dreaming her mother would take matters into her own hands and hire Ashe McLaughlin.

      Closing the door behind her, Deborah stepped out into the upstairs hallway, took a deep breath and ventured down the stairs. When she entered the foyer, she heard voices coming from the library, a room that had once been her father’s private domain. Her mother had kept the masculine flavor of the room, but had turned it into a casual family retreat where she or Deborah often helped Allen with his homework. The old library was more a family room now.

      She stood in the open doorway, watching and listening, totally unnoticed at first. Her mother sat in a tan-and-rust floral print chair, her current needlepoint project in her hand. She smiled, her gaze focused on Allen and Ashe, who were both sitting on the Tabriz rug, video-game controls in their hands as they fought out a battle on the television screen before them.

      “You’re good at this,” Allen said. “Are you sure you don’t have a kid of your own you play with all the time?”

      Deborah sucked in a deep breath, the sting of her son’s words piercing her heart. She couldn’t bear the way Allen looked at Ashe, so in awe of the big, friendly man he must never know was his father.

      “I don’t have any kids of my own.” Ashe hadn’t thought much about having a family. His life didn’t include a place for a wife and children, although at one time, a family had been high on his list of priorities—eleven years ago when he’d thought he would marry Whitney Vaughn and carve a place for himself in local society. Hell, he’d been a fool in more ways than one.

      “You should be thinking about a family, Ashe,” Carol Vaughn said, laying aside her needlework. “You’re how old now, thirty-two? Surely you’ve sowed all the wild oats a man would need to sow.”

      Ashe turned his head, smiled at Carol, then frowned when he caught sight of Deborah standing in the doorway. “I haven’t really given marriage a thought since I left Sheffield. When a man puts his trust in the wrong woman, more than once, the way I did, it makes him a little gun-shy.”

      Deborah met his fierce gaze directly, not wavering the slightest when he glared at her with those striking hazel eyes…gold-flecked green eyes made even more dramatic since they were set in a hard, lean, darkly tanned face.

      Ashe realized that he could not win the game of staring her down. Deborah Vaughn had changed. She was no longer the shy, quiet girl who always seemed afraid to look him in the eye. Now she seemed determined to prove to him how tough she was, how totally immune she was to him.

      With that cold, determined stare she told him that he no longer had any power over her, that the lovesick girl she’d once been no longer existed. Her aversion to him came as no great surprise, but what did unsettle him was her accusatory attitude, as if she found him at fault.

      All right, he had taken her innocence when he’d had no right to touch her, but he’d told