Defending His Own tp-4

by Beverly Barton

  "Allen, you musn't be rude." Carol shook her index finger at the boy, but she smiled as she scolded him.

  "I wasn't being rude. I was just hoping Mr. McLaughlin was here to ask Deborah for a date. She never goes out unless it's with Neil, and she told me that he isn't her boyfriend."

  "I must apologize for Allen, but you see, he is very concerned that Deborah doesn't have a boyfriend," Carol explained. "Especially since he's going steady himself. For what now, Allen, ten days?"

  "Ah, quit kidding me." Allen unlaced his shoes, then reached up on top of the tea table to retrieve a tiny cinnamon cake. He popped it into his mouth.

  Ashe watched the boy, noting again how much he looked like Deborah as a young girl. Except where she had been short and plump with small hands and feet, Allen was tall, slender and possessed large feet and big hands. But his hair was the same color, his eyes an almost identical blue.

  "Hey, what do we know about Mr. McLaughlin? We can't let Deborah date just anybody." Allen returned Ashe's penetrating stare. "If he gets serious about Deborah, is he the kind of man who'd make her a good husband?"

  The front door opened and closed again. A neatly attired young woman in a navy suit and white blouse walked into the entrance hall.

  "Now, Allen, you're being rude again," Carol said. "Besides, your sister's love life really isn't any of our business, even if we did find her the perfect man."

  "Now what?" Deborah called out from the hallway, not even looking their way. "Mother, you and Allen haven't found another prospect you want me to consider, have you? Just who have you two picked out as potential husband material this time?"

  Carrying an oxblood leather briefcase, Deborah came to an abrupt halt when she looked into the living room and saw Ashe sitting beside her mother on the sofa. She gasped aloud, visibly shaken.

  "Come in, dear. Allen and I were just entertaining Ashe McLaughlin. You remember Ashe, don't you, Deborah?"

  "Was he your old boyfriend?" Allen asked. "Mother won't tell me."

  Ashe stood and took a long, hard look at Deborah Vaughn … the girl who had proclaimed her undying love for him one night down by the river, eleven years ago. The girl who, when he gently rejected her, had run crying to her rich and powerful daddy.

  The district attorney and Wallace Vaughn had given Ashe two choices. Leave town and never come back, or face statutory rape charges.

  "Hello, Deborah."

  "What are you doing here?"

  She had changed, perhaps even more than her pale, weak mother. No longer plump but still as lovely as she'd been as a teenager, Deborah possessed a poise and elegance that had eluded the younger, rather awkward girl. She wore her long, dark blond hair tucked into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. A pair of small golden earrings matched the double gold chain around her neck.

  "Your mother sent for me." Ashe noted the astonished look on her face.

  Deborah, still standing in the entrance hall, gazed at her mother. "What does he mean, you sent for him?"

  "Now, dear, please come in and let's talk about this matter before you upset yourself."

  "Allen, please go out in the kitchen with Mazie while I speak with Mother and Mr. McLaughlin."

  "Ah, why do I have to leave? I'm a member of this family, aren't I? I shouldn't be excluded from important conversations." When his sister remained silent, Allen looked pleadingly at his mother, who shook her head.

  "Do what Deborah says." Carol motioned toward the hallway. "This is grown-up talk and although you're quite a young man, you're still not old enough to—"

  "Yeah, yeah. I know." Allen jumped up and ran out of the room, his eyes downcast and his lips puckered into a defiant pout.

  "What's going on?" Deborah marched into the living room, slamming her briefcase down atop Allen's books on the antique commode. She glared at Ashe. "What are you doing here?"

  "As Ashe said, I sent for him." Tilting her chin upward, Carol straightened her thin shoulders.

  "You what?"

  "Calm yourself," Carol said.

  "I am calm." Deborah spoke slowly, her teeth clenched tightly.

  "Ashe works for a private security firm out of Atlanta." Carol readjusted her hips on the sofa, placing her hand down on the cushion beside her. "I've hired him to act as your bodyguard until the trial is over and you're no longer in any danger."

  "I can't believe what I'm hearing." Deborah scowled at Ashe. "You've brought this man back into our lives. Good God, Mother, do you have any idea what you've done?"

  "Don't speak to me in that tone of voice, Deborah Luellen Vaughn! I've done what I think is best for everyone concerned."

  "And you?" Deborah looked directly at Ashe. "Why would you come back to Sheffield after all these years? How on earth did my mother persuade you to return?" Deborah's rosy cheeks turned pale, her lips quivered. "What—what did she tell you?"

  "I told him that your life had been threatened. I explained the basic facts." Carol turned to Ashe. "This is what he does for a living, and I'm paying him his usual fee, isn't that right, Ashe?"

  "This is strictly a business arrangement for me," Ashe replied. "My services are for hire to anyone with enough money to afford me."

  Where was the sweet girl he'd once known? The laughing, smiling girl who'd been his friend long before she'd become his lover one hot summer night down by the river. He had never regretted anything as much as he had regretted taking Deborah's virginity. He'd been filled with rage and half drunk. Deborah had been with him that night, trying to comfort him, and he had taken advantage of her loving nature. But she'd paid him back.

  "I don't want you here. Keep a week's salary for your trouble." Deborah nodded toward the door. "Now, please leave."

  "No!" Reaching out, Carol grabbed Ashe by the arm. "Please, don't leave. Go in the kitchen and have some cookies with Allen."

  "Mother! Think what you're saying."

  "Please, Ashe. Go out into the kitchen for a few minutes while I speak with Deborah."

  Ashe patted Carol on the hand, then pulled away from her. "I won't leave, Miss Carol. It would take an act of congress to get me out of Sheffield."

  He smiled at Deborah when he walked past her, halting briefly to inspect her from head to toe, then proceeding down the hallway and through the door leading to the kitchen.

  Heat and cold zigzagged through Deborah like red-hot and freezing blue shafts of pain. Ashe McLaughlin. Here in Sheffield. Here in her home. And he'd seen Allen!

  "He can't stay."

  "Come over here, dear." Carol patted the sofa seat. "You've needed him for such a long time, Deborah, but now more than ever. You know I disagreed with your father's assessment of Ashe, but I loved your father and never would have gone against his wishes. But once Wallace died, I begged you to let me contact Ashe. He's kept in touch with Mattie all these years. We could have asked him to come home at any time."

  "He kept in touch with his grandmother, not with us. He left this town and didn't look back. He never once called me or wrote me or…" Deborah crossed the room, slumped down on the sofa beside her mother and folded her hands in her lap. "I need to phone the office and let them know I won't be back in this afternoon. I had planned to just drop Allen off, but I saw the car in the drive and wondered who… I don't want Ashe McLaughlin here."

  "But I do." Carol's blue eyes met her daughter's blue eyes, stubborn, determined and equally strong. "We both know that I'm only in remission. The cancer could worsen at any time and I'll have to go in for more surgery. I could die without ever seeing you happy."

  "You honestly think Ashe McLaughlin can make me happy? Get real, Mother." Deborah lowered her voice to a snarling whisper. "The man seduced me when I was seventeen, dropped me like a hot potato and left town two months later, never bothering to find out whether or not he'd gotten me pregnant."

  "I think you should know that—"

  "If you're convinced I need a bodyguard then have the private security agency send someone else. Tell them we want someone o
lder or younger or… Hell! Tell them anything, but get rid of Ashe."

  "I believe he still cares about you." Carol smiled, deepening the faint lines in her face.

  "Mother!"

  "It's been eleven years, Deborah, and you haven't had one serious relationship in all that time. Doesn't that tell you anything about your own feelings?"

  "Yes. It tells me that I'm a smart girl. I learn from my mistakes."

  "It tells me that you've never gotten over Ashe McLaughlin, that somewhere deep down, in your heart of hearts, you're still in love with him."

  Deborah couldn't bear it. Her mother's words pierced the protective wall she had built around her heart. She didn't love Ashe McLaughlin. She hated him. But she knew only too well how fine a line there was between love and hate.

  "I've hardly had time to date, let alone find the man of my dreams. Have you forgotten that I was in my senior year of college when Daddy died and I had to complete my courses for my degree and step in at Vaughn & Posey?" Deborah paused, waiting for her mother to comment. Carol said nothing.

  "Then I had to earn my Realtors' license and work damn hard to fill Daddy's shoes at the firm," Deborah said. "Over the last few years while other firms have floundered, I've kept Vaughn & Posey in the black, making substantial gains each year. Over the last five years, we've been involved in two different subdivision developments."

  Carol held up her hand, signaling acquiescence. "I know what a busy young woman you've been. But other people lead busy lives and still find time for romance."

  "I don't need any romance in my life. Have you also forgotten how my foolishly romantic illusions about love nearly destroyed my life eleven years ago?"

  "Of course I haven't forgotten. But there's more at stake than my desire to see you and Ashe settle things between you. Your life is in danger—real danger. Charlie Blaylock can only do so much. You need twenty-four-hour-a-day protection, and Ashe is highly qualified to do the job I've hired him to do."

  "What makes him so highly qualified?"

  "He 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." He moved over to where Deborah stood near the miniature waterfall built into the privacy wall.

  Turning her head slightly, she glanced at him. He had changed and yet he remained the same. Still devastatingly handsome, a bit cocky and occasionally rude. The twenty-one-year-old boy who'd made love to her had not completely vanished. He was there in those gold-flecked, green eyes, in that wide, sensuous mouth, in those big, hard hands. She jerked her gaze away from his hands. Hands that had caressed her intimately. Hands that had taught her the meaning of being a sexual woman.

  How could she allow him to stay in her home? How could she endure watching him with Allen, knowing they were father and son?

  Was there some way she could respect her mother's wishes and still keep the truth from Ashe?