Guarding Jeannie
( The Protectors - 5 )
Beverly Barton
Guarding Jeannie
For six years, Jeannie Alverson had thought about Sam Dundee's haunting blue eyes, his warm touch. His was the face she saw in her dreams. He was the man she never expected to see again. But now he had returned…to protect her.
Sam couldn't turn his back on Jeannie. Once she had saved his life, and now she needed him. He vowed to guard her against all danger, but who would protect him from the innocence and love shining in her eyes?
To my husband, the father of my children, the love of my life, Billy Ray Beaver, and to every woman who has ever wished she possessed the ability to take away a loved one's pain and willingly suffer it for them—a child, a husband, a parent, a lover, a friend.
Prologue
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The man lay facedown in the sand, the water lapping at his feet. From where Jeannie stood on the knoll above the beach, she could make out very little in the moonlight, only that he was quite large and he wasn't moving.
Who was he? From where had he come? A boat hadn't docked at Le Bijou Bleu in over a week. Had the man fallen overboard out there somewhere in the Gulf and his body washed ashore?
Leaning heavily on the simple wooden cane she relied on in order to walk, Jeannie made her way down the hill, slowly, carefully. If the man was dead, there was no hurry; if he was alive, she would be of little help to him if she fell and injured herself.
Maneuvering on the sand wasn't easy for Jeannie. Her heavy limp hampered her movements. As she neared the prone figure, her hands trembled. If he was alive, what would she do? Did she dare touch him, a stranger whose injuries she might not be able to discern?
Sticking her cane in the sand, she lowered herself onto her knees, all the while saying a silent prayer for assistance. Help me do the right thing.
Reaching out, she held her hand over the man's head. The moonlight revealed the width of his huge shoulders. His wet white shirt stuck to his muscular back. His thick blond hair lay plastered to his head and neck. With every ounce of willpower she possessed, Jeannie forced herself to touch him. The heat from his body seared her. She moaned softly. Threading her fingers through his damp hair, she closed her eyes and allowed the energy from his body to begin its journey into hers.
He was alive! Dear Lord, he was alive—but just barely. She could save him. She knew in her heart that she could.
He groaned, the sound a deep growl in his throat. When he moved his head to one side, Jeannie caressed his face, her hand cradling his cheek and jaw. For one incredible moment, she couldn't breathe, so intense was the power emanating from his big body.
She jerked her hand away, but could not stop looking at his face. Pale, haggard, and yet devastatingly handsome. Fresh blood dripped from a wound at his temple.
Did she have the strength to save him? Could she keep him alive until they got him to the mainland, to a hospital? Was he too powerful, his pain too great? She had learned from past experiences that her body and mind could accept only so much pain before the transference endangered her own life.
But she couldn't let him die, could she? Jeannie had no idea who he was, but one thing she knew—fate had ordained that he wash up on her beach, placing him in her care. This man had been sent to her. She believed that as surely as she believed the sun would rise in the morning.
With her heart beating rapidly and her stomach twisted into knots, Jeannie released her cane, which she had been holding on to with one hand, and sat down in the sand.
The man groaned again, louder, harsher, and moved his body slightly, as if he were trying to turn over. Jeannie ran her hand down his arms, soothing him, comforting him. He rolled over onto his side, opened his eyes for a split second, then passed out again.
"You're going to be all right," she told him as she lifted his head onto her lap and took his face in her hands.
She felt the first faint trickling of energy again leaving his body, the pain a delicate fluttering. Now, before the pain overwhelmed her, Jeannie surveyed what she could see of his body, searching for any other injures besides the gash on his forehead. An enormous scarlet blot stained his shirt from armpit to waist. Had he been shot? Stabbed?
"Oh!" Jeannie cried out when the pain increased. Hot, searing pain, doubling her over. She clutched at the man's shirt, holding on, trying to make her hands lie flat against the surface of his chest.
He groaned loudly, opened his eyes and cried out, rending the night air with the sound of his agony.
Help me, Jeannie pleaded. His pain was so great. She screamed when the fullness of his torment filled her. Sweat broke out on her face. Rivulets of perspiration trickled down her neck, dripping inside her blouse, leaving a moist trail between her breasts.
He manacled her wrist with his big hand, but she did not feel the pressure of his grip. All she felt was the pain she had taken from him, the torturous physical agony.
"Where … am … I?" His deep, husky voice huffed out the words, each syllable a strained effort. "Who … are … you? An angel…?"
Although she heard his questions, Jeannie could not answer him, could respond only with a wild look of helplessness in her eyes.
Now his mental and emotional pain entered her, and she screamed from the sheer misery of his thoughts. He blamed himself for someone's death. All my fault. I was a fool. I should have been the one to die. Oh, dear Lord, the guilt, the sad, bitter guilt. And the anger. The anger could destroy her quicker than the pain. She had to hold on, absorb it and release it. Negative energy was so destructive. It could kill her.
"What … what are you … doing?" He tried to lift his head, but the effort was too great. "I feel… I don't hurt…"
Releasing him, she fell down beside him, her face only inches from his. She was weak, so very, very weak. But she always was afterward—after she had absorbed another's pain, taken it into herself and shared an agony too great to be borne alone.
But this man would still die if they didn't get him to the hospital soon. She would have to go with him. When the pain returned, he would need to share it with her.
She had to summon Manton. The stranger was a big man, but Manton was far bigger. He would be able to carry the man to the boat, and if they hurried, they could get him to the mainland before he died.
With the remnants of the stranger's pain still radiating through her, Jeannie focused her mind on the task of summoning Manton. He was one of the few people with whom she was able to connect mentally.
Lying there in the sand, waiting for Manton to respond, Jeannie lifted her hand, then reached out and took the stranger's hand into hers. She looked into his eyes. They were a steely blue-gray in the moonlight.
"You're going to live," she said. "I won't let you die."
He didn't seem to have the strength to respond. He gazed at her for endless moments, then closed his eyes.
Jeannie didn't know how long she lay there. She, too, had closed her eyes and slept. But now Manton stood towering above her, his round bronze face and bald head shining in the faint glow of the moon.
He helped her to her feet, then glanced down at the man still lying on the beach.
"We have to get him to the hospital in Biloxi as quickly as possible." Jeannie spoke slowly, so that Manton could read her lips. She was too exhausted to speak to him telepathically, having used so much of her energy in saving the stranger. "Do you think you can carry him to the dock?"
Manton nodded, then bent down on one knee and lifted the big, unconscious man. Grasping her cane, Jeannie jerked it out of the sand and followed Manton up the beach and toward the dock where their boat was anchored.
She cradled the man's head in her lap on the
journey from the island of Le Bijou Bleu to Biloxi. Each time he started to bleed again, she stopped it. Each time his pain returned, she removed it, taking it into herself, suffering it for him.
Chapter 1
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Whipping her tan Lexus around the corner, Jeannie raced up the driveway and came to a screeching halt at the side entrance of the antebellum home she shared with her foster father. She hoped Julian was still at the hospital board meeting. If he saw how upset she was, he would worry. Not that he wasn't already worried enough to give himself another heart attack.
Checking in the rearview mirror, she sighed with relief. Somehow she had lost the reporter who'd been following her since she left the Howell School. Tory Gaines had been waiting for her when she walked out the door. The aggravating man was bound to show up on her doorstep anytime now. After all, he knew where she lived. It seemed everyone in Biloxi, Gulfport and the surrounding towns knew where Jeannie Alverson lived, thanks to Gaines's eavesdropping and subsequent snooping into her past.
Jeannie opened the door, set the tip of her wooden walking cane down on the paved drive and eased out of the car. Leaning on her cane, she retrieved her briefcase from the front seat, then shoved the door closed with her hip. Oh, what she'd give for a cup of tea and a few moments of utter quiet.
For the past five days, ever since the story about her performing a miracle and saving a student's life had hit the newsstands, and Tory Gaines had revealed the ugly truth about her past, Jeannie's world had been turned upside down. Newspaper and magazine reporters from coast to coast called, wanting interviews. Television reporters from every network offered her the chance to tell her story to the world. And letters from across the country were pouring in, from people pleading with her to heal them from a thousand and one different ailments.
This couldn't be happening. Not again. Not after all these years of being so careful to use her extraordinary talents selectively and to keep her past life as a child healer on the revival circuit a secret.
Jeannie made her way around the hood of the Lexus, her briefcase tucked under her arm. A thin, sallow-faced middle-aged man walked out from behind the row of six-foot-high, neatly trimmed shrubbery that separated the Howell property from that of their next-door neighbor. Jeannie gasped. Who was this man? What did he want? He certainly didn't look like a reporter.
"Jeannie." His high-pitched voice sounded shrill to her ears.
"What do you want?" Remain calm, she told herself. He isn't going to harm you.
"I'm dying." He held out both hands to her, gesturing for her to come to him. "I—I have an inoperable brain tumor. You're my only hope."
"I'm sorry," Jeannie said. "I'm so very sorry. What's your name?"
"Jeremy Thornton." He grabbed Jeannie's free hand. "Please heal me. I'll give you everything I own, if you'll heal me."
Jeannie clutched her walking cane tightly. Her briefcase slipped down to her hip. She tried to catch it with her elbow, but Jeremy Thornton tugged her forward, and the briefcase fell to the ground.
"Mr. Thornton, if I could heal you, I would, but I can't. I'm not God. I don't have the power to do what you're asking."
The wild, deranged look of disbelief in Jeremy's eyes said he thought she was lying.
Jeannie squeezed his hand. "I can ease your pain … temporarily." She looked into his gaunt face, and her heart ached for him.
"I don't want you to just ease the pain," he said. "I want you to heal me. Make the tumor disappear."
"I can't do that."
"But you must." Tears welled up in his eyes. He gripped her by the shoulders, shaking her. "I don't want to die."
She focused her attention on the man's face for a brief moment, then closed her eyes. She felt the humming inside her head, the tingling current passing through her body. It would be so simple to ease his pain. All she had to do was accept it into her own body, drain it slowly away from him and experience the pain herself. So simple, and yet so devastating for her.
He shook her again, harder this time. "Help me! Everyone claims you're a healer, a miracle worker. Heal me, damn you, heal me!"
His hands tightened painfully on her shoulders, his bony fingers biting into her flesh. What could she say to reason with him? How could she make him understand the limits of her abilities?
"Ollie!" Jeannie cried the housekeeper's name at the top of her lungs, praying Ollie could hear her.
"No, don't call out for help. They're not going to take you away from me until you've healed me."
Just as Jeremy placed his hands around Jeannie's throat, she saw a lanky, sandy-haired man walking up her driveway. She didn't know or care who he was. She didn't even care if he was another reporter.
"Please, whoever you are, help me make this man understand that I can't heal him."
Jeremy's grasp around her neck loosened slowly as he turned around to face the man, who carried a white Bible under his arm.
"Brother," the man said, "you do not wish to harm this woman, do you? Her fate should be in the Lord's hands."
Jeremy slowly released Jeannie. Taking a deep breath, she stepped away. Her hands trembled. Her heart pounded.
"I want her to heal me," Jeremy said. "I can't—can't go until she heals me."
"I'm afraid you must leave. You heard her say that she cannot heal you. If you do not leave, we will have to call the police. You don't want that, do you?"
The sandy-haired man placed his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "The Lord will heal you, if it is his will." He then turned to Jeannie, "I'm the Reverend Maynard Reeves, pastor of the Righteous Light Church. I have important business to discuss with you, Miss Alverson—the Lord's business."
The Reverend Reeves knelt down, picked up Jeannie's briefcase, then extended his arm to her. "May I escort you inside your home?"
Relief washed over Jeannie. Jeremy Thornton seemed to have calmed somewhat. Now was her chance to escape into the safety of her house, with the Reverend Reeves as an escort.
"Thank you, Reverend." She took her briefcase, accepted his arm and allowed him to lead her away from Jeremy, who stood in the driveway, dazed and unmoving, until they entered the house. "Please come down the hall and into the library with me. I'll have Ollie fix us some tea."
"Tea isn't necessary," Reeves said. "All I require is a few moments of your time."
"I suppose that's the least I can do to repay you for your assistance." Jeannie shuddered at the thought of poor, pitiful Jeremy Thornton's wild-eyed anger.
The inadequacy of her healing gave her the greatest grief. If only she could truly heal. If only she had the power to annihilate pain and suffering permanently, to put an end to all illnesses. People like Jeremy would not believe the truth, preferring to believe that she could heal them and was withholding that precious gift from them.
Jeannie laid her briefcase on the enormous oak desk that sat directly in front of the two floor-to-ceiling windows. "Please, sit down."
She relaxed in a tufted leather chair beside the empty fireplace. Reverend Reeves took the matching chair to her left.
"What is this important business you have to discuss with me?" Jeannie asked.
"I've driven in from New Orleans. That's where our church's headquarters are. But the Righteous Light Church has a faithful following here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast." Maynard Reeves smiled, showing a set of perfect white teeth—sparkling purity against a golden-tanned face covered with freckles. "We are greatly concerned about the gambling curse that has invaded this state."
"I don't understand." Jeannie slid her body forward, sitting on the edge of her chair. "What possible connection can I have to legalized gambling in Biloxi?"
Reeves laughed; the sound was hearty and jubilant. "I digressed. Forgive me. I simply wanted you to know that I am a man doing the Lord's work."
Where had she heard that before? All the years her stepfather dragged her from one revival meeting to another, forcing her to use her empathic abilities, he had told her they were
doing the Lord's work.
"How does your work involve me?" Balling her hands into fists, she clutched them at the sides of her hips.
"I am here to offer you the opportunity to prove to me and to the world that you derive your powers from the Almighty and not from Satan." Reeves jumped to his feet. The loose jacket of his black suit swung open, revealing the gleaming silver cross hanging from his neck. "If your powers are from God, join me in my ministry, and together we will heal the sick and spread the holy message to the world."
Maynard Reeves was offering her the life she'd once known, the life that had destroyed her childhood and kept her in continual pain from the age of six until she was thirteen, when her mother's and stepfather's deaths had freed her.
"Am I to understand that you are inviting me to become a part of your ministry, to use my abilities to further the cause of your Righteous Light Church?"
"Indeed I am." Kneeling in front of her, Reeves stared at Jeannie, his eyes glowing, his face flushed with zealous eagerness. "Powers such as yours, psychic powers, empathic powers, have a supernatural source. Those who possess power from Satan must be destroyed, and those who possess power from God must use it in his service."
"I was born with my special talent, Reverend Reeves. I have been an empath since childhood." Being able to draw the pain from others and experience it herself had seldom been a blessing to Jeannie. In fact, most often it had been a curse. But she knew her talents had no sinister, evil source, and she did not need to join forces with some hellfire-and-brimstone fanatic to prove the goodness of her heart.
"Join me, sister. I offer you the chance to acquire glory and fame and wealth, all in the name of God."
When he reached out to touch her, Jeannie leaned back in her chair, not wanting any physical contact with this man. He rose to his feet, then held out his hand to her. She shook her head.
"I don't want fame and glory," she said. "And I am already a wealthy woman. All I want is to be left alone, to continue the life I've chosen for myself."
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