DEFENDING HIS OWN

by Beverly Barton

  "You mean we'll be there, don't you?" Ashe stepped to one side, placing himself beside Deborah's desk.

  Whitney spun around, a cascade of long black curls bouncing on her shoulders, settling against her pink silk blouse. "Ashe!"

  She stared at him, her eyes hungry, her mouth opening and then closing as she bit down on her bottom lip. Whitney Vaughn Jamison was still beautiful, erotically beautiful with her dark hair and eyes and slender, delicate body.

  Over the years there had been a few times when he'd wondered how he'd feel if he ever saw her again. Now he knew. He didn't feel a damned thing. Except maybe grateful she'd rejected him. Despite her beauty, there was a noticeable hardness in her face, a lack of depth in those big, brown eyes. He'd been too young and foolish to have seen past the surface eleven years ago.

  "Whitney, you haven't changed a bit." It was only a small lie, a partial lie. She'd grown older, harder, hungrier.

  "Well, darling, you've certainly changed. You've gotten bigger and broader and even better looking." Rushing over to him, she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him boldly on the mouth.

  She all but melted into him. Ashe did not return her kiss. He eased her arms from around his neck, held her hands in his for a brief moment, then released her and took a step over toward Deborah.

  "What's this big event you've invited Deborah and me to attend? Something special for ol' George's birthday?" Ashe took another step in Deborah's direction.

  "His fortieth birthday." Whitney pursed her lips into a frown. "And he's being a beast about getting older. I think it really bothers him that I'm so much younger."

  "Not that much younger," Ashe said. "If I recall, you're thirty-four."

  Whitney gasped, then smiled and puffed as she gave Ashe another hungry look. "Of course you'd remember. You probably remember a lot of things about me, don't you, Ashe?"

  "Not really, Whitney. To be honest, I haven't given you more than a passing thought over the years."

  Ashe slipped his arm around Deborah's waist. Glaring at him, she opened her mouth to protest. He tightened his hold on her. She wriggled, trying to free herself.

  "Deborah, on the other hand, I never forgot." He pulled her close to his side, smiled at her and barely kept himself from laughing out loud when he saw the stricken look on her face.

  "Well, don't tell me you were cheating on me with my little cousin behind my back." Whitney pasted a phony smile on her heavily made-up face.

  "Sort of like the way you cheated on me with George?" Ashe asked.

  "That was years ago. Surely you don't still hold that against me?" Whitney fidgeted with the shoulder strap on her beige leather purse.

  "Whitney, I appreciate your stopping by to invite me—" Deborah gasped when Ashe squeezed her around the waist "—us to George's birthday party." She glared at Ashe. "We'll be there."

  "I'll be looking forward to seeing you again, Ashe. The party's at the country club." Whitney's genuine smile returned with a vengeance.

  When she didn't receive the reaction from Ashe she'd hoped to evoke, she waved at him with her index finger. "Until next Saturday night."

  The moment Whitney exited the office, Deborah jerked out of Ashe's embrace, stormed across the room and slammed the door.

  "Just what was that all about?" Deborah anchored her hands on her hips.

  "I think your cousin was coming on to me. What do you think?"

  "Of course, she was coming on to you. My God, I expected her to drag you down on my desk and jump on top of you at any minute."

  Ashe chuckled, then coughed and covered his mouth when he noticed Deborah's face reddening and her eyes widening.

  "I was not referring to the way Whitney threw herself at you," Deborah said. "I was talking about your dragging me into your arms, accepting her invitation on our behalf and telling her that I was the one you never forgot."

  "Oh, that."

  "Yes, that!"

  "You had already accepted her invitation when I walked in, hadn't you? All I did was let Whitney know that you didn't go anywhere without me these days."

  "I 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.

&
nbsp; 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 to protect me. Giving comfort is extra, isn't it? How much more will that cost me?"

  He stood and jerked her up into his arms in one swift move. She gasped as she fell against him and he trapped her body, holding her securely in his arms. He lowered his head until their breaths mingled.

  She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of him, telling herself she was a fool to succumb to his easy charm.

  "The comfort is free, Ms. Vaughn." He whispered the words against her lips. "If you're woman enough to accept it."

  Sucking in a deep breath, she opened her eyes. He released his hold on her and gave her a slight push away from him. Turning his back on her, he headed for the door.

  "Ashe?"

  "I'm just going to get a cup of coffee. I'm not leaving you, even if right now I'd like nothing better than to walk out that door and not come back."

  "No one is stopping—"

  He pivoted around, glaring at her. "No, that's not true. I don't want to walk out on you and never come back. What I want, more than anything, is to shove all that stuff off your desk, lift you up on it and—"

  "I think you're confusing me with Whitney," Deborah said.

  "No, honey, that's something I've never done. It's your legs I'd like to slide between and your body I'd like to claim, not your cousin's."

  Ashe turned, walked out of the office and closed the door behind him.

  Deborah stood beside her desk, trembling. Visions of her lying on top of her desk flashed through her mind. She shook her head trying to dislodge the thoughts of Ashe McLaughlin leaning over her body, lifting her hips and burying himself inside her.

  She covered her mouth with her hand to still her cry, then bit down on the side of her finger as shivers of desire rippled through her.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  Deborah had thought about making a fire in her sitting room fireplace, but had neither the strength nor the determination. Although the October night was chilly, it wasn't really cool enough for a fire. She'd simply thought a cozy glowing fire would be soothing. Instead she had settled for a nice warm bath and a cup of cinnamon tea.

  She curled up on the huge padded window seat beneath the stained glass window in her sitting room alcove. Her room was her haven. Since early childhood, she had escaped into this luxurious old room with its high ceilings and aged wooden floors. Many days she had sat where she sat now, watching the way the sun turned the colors in the stained glass window to sparkling jewels.

  She had written silly, girlish poems about love and life and Ashe McLaughlin. She had long ago burned those poems. Even now she could feel the tears on her face, the tears she had shed the night she'd tossed those hopeless professions of love into the fireplace and watched her youthful dreams go up in smoke.

  She shouldn't be dwelling on the past, not with so many problems facing her in the present. Between the constant harassing threats and Ashe's presence, her nerves were raw. She wanted to scream, to cry, to break something—anything—into a thousand pieces.

  She wanted Ashe to go away; she wanted Ashe to never leave her. She fantasized about telling Ashe that Allen was his son; she lived in fear Ashe would discover the truth.

  Deborah set her teacup on the mahogany tea table beside the window bench, pulled the cream crocheted afghan over her legs and rested her head against the window frame. She should have been in bed an hour ago, but she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. The simple, orderly life she had worked out for herself had suddenly and irrevocably fallen apart. She had turned off on the wrong road, witnessed a murder and her life would never be the same again. Not only was her life being threatened by the most notorious hoodlums in the state, but the very man determined to protect her posed the greatest threat of all. How ironic, she thought, that she should fear Ashe McLaughlin even more than she feared Buck Stansell.

  She heard a soft rap on her door. Her mother? Had she taken ill? Or Allen, who usually slept soundly the whole night through? No. Not her mother. Not Allen.

  Ashe.

  Dropping the afghan to the floor, she walked across the room, her heart hammering away in her chest. Just before opening the door, she readjusted her silk robe, tightening the belt around her waist.

  Ashe McLaughlin stood in the hallway, one big hand braced against the doorpost. He still wore his charcoal gray slacks and his dove gray linen shirt, but the shirt was completely unbuttoned and the hem hung loose below his hips.

  "May I come in? We need to talk."

  "It's late, Ashe. After midnight. I'm tired." She
didn't want him in her room, didn't want to be alone with him. "Can't this wait until morning?"

  "It could, but since we're both awake, I see no reason to postpone our conversation." He dropped his hand from the doorpost, leaned toward her and looked her over from head to toe. "Are you going to let me in?"

  If she said no, he would think she was afraid of him, that he still held some kind of power over her. She couldn't let him think she cared, that he… Oh, who was she kidding? Any fool could see that Ashe McLaughlin made her act like a silly, lovesick schoolgirl.

  "Come on in." She stepped back, allowing him entrance.

  He followed her into the sitting room, glancing around, taking note of the lush femininity of the room. All muted cobalt blues and faded rose colors with splashes of rich cream. Ruffles and lace and dainty crocheted items whispered "Lady."

  "Won't you sit down?" She indicated the antique rocker covered in a vibrant floral pattern.

  Ashe eyed the delicate chair, wondering if it would hold his weight. Deborah sat on the wide, plush window seat. Without asking permission, he walked over and sat down beside her. She jumped, then glared at him.

  "I was afraid I'd break that little rocker," he said, smiling.

  "You could have sat in the arm chair, there by the fireplace." She indicated the wing chair, a wide-brimmed, lace hat hanging from one wing.

  "I'd rather sit beside you." He knew he made her nervous, and he thought he knew why. No matter what had happened between them eleven years ago, no matter how betrayed either of them felt, the spark that had ignited a blazing fire between them that one night down by the river still burned inside both of them.

  "Fine, sit beside me." She glanced over at the tea service. "Would you care for some cinnamon tea?"

  "No, thanks."

  "What was so urgent that you couldn't wait until tomorrow to discuss it with me?" Feeling her robe slipping open across her thigh, she grabbed the blue silk and held it in place.