Deborah raised her eyes, looking at Ashe with disbelief. Had she heard him correctly? Had he just confessed his love? Here, in front of his grandmother and cousin. In front of their son.
“A lot has happened tonight,” Ashe said. “Deborah and I haven’t had a chance to talk about the future, but I was wondering if I could have your permission to ask Deborah to marry me?”
“Wow-wee!” Allen jumped up off the sofa, threw himself against Ashe and hugged him, then turned to Deborah. “Are you going to say yes? It’d be neat to have Ashe for a brother-in-law.”
“Don’t I have any say in this matter?” Deborah asked, not sure she liked being bulldozed by her two men.
Ashe kept his hand on Allen’s shoulder when he spoke to Deborah. “Doesn’t look like you get a vote. Allen and I are a two-thirds majority.”
“Is that right?” The look on Allen’s face broke Deborah’s heart. She couldn’t remember a time when her son had been so happy. He adored Ashe. That was plain to see.
Ashe pulled Deborah up off the sofa and slipped his arm around her waist. Allen grinned from ear to ear.
“Once I was too big a fool to realize what I had,” Ashe said. “But now I know, and I’ll never let you go, Deborah. Never.”
“Isn’t this great!” Allen hugged Ashe and Deborah, then spun around to bring Mattie and Annie Laurie into the celebration. “Just think, when Deborah and Ashe get married, they’ll sort of be like parents to me. Deborah’s always been a second mother to me. Now, I’ll have a dad, won’t I?”
“Yes, son, you will.” Ashe could barely speak, the emotions erupting inside him overwhelming in their intensity.
“I like this just fine,” Allen said. “Everything is working out great. I sure am glad Mother hired Ashe to protect Deborah.”
“So am I,” Ashe said.
“Well, it’s time we go home, don’t you think?” Deborah patted Allen on the back.
“Could I stay here with Mama Mattie?” Allen asked. “We’ve already made plans for tomorrow. She said I didn’t have to go to school. We’re going to the hospital to see Mother and Roarke.”
“Roarke!” Ashe and Deborah said simultaneously.
“He’s going to be fine,” Mattie said. “We’ve called the hospital several times. He came through surgery with flying colors. Looks like he’ll be laid up for a spell, but he’s going to live.”
“Thank God.” Deborah leaned against Ashe. “What happened to him was my fault.”
“Can I stay with Mama Mattie?” Allen repeated his request. “She’s going to make biscuits and chocolate sauce for breakfast, then we’re going to bake tea cakes and take Mother and Roarke some. Please, Deborah, let me stay.”
“Allen, I don’t know. I—”
“Please. Besides, you and Ashe probably want to be alone anyway.”
“He’s right,” Ashe said. “Let him stay. We can pick him up tomorrow.”
Fighting her motherly reluctance, Deborah agreed. “Oh, all right.” She hugged Allen. “I love you, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Allen glanced over at Ashe. “You’d better always love her and be good to her or you’ll have to answer to me.”
Everyone in the room laughed, Deborah thinking how much like Ashe Allen was.
“You have my word, son,” Ashe vowed.
DEBORAH LAY IN Ashe’s arms as dawn spread its pink glow across the eastern horizon. They’d come home, showered together and fallen into bed, making love like two wild animals. They had fallen asleep without talking. They hadn’t discussed the kidnapping or the fact that Ashe had killed Randy Perry, nor had they mentioned Allen and their future.
Ashe stroked her naked hip. “What are you thinking about?”
“About how we need to talk.”
“Yeah, I guess we kind of got distracted by other things.” He grinned, then kissed her.
“I was too exhausted to think straight and I guess you were, too.” She laid her hand on his chest, directly over his heart. “What are you going to do about Allen?”
“I’m going to marry his mother—” Ashe pulled Deborah into his arms “—and be a father to him.”
“Are you going to tell him the truth?”
“Someday I think we should. In a few years, when he’s a little older and can understand.” Ashe nuzzled Deborah’s neck with his nose. “We need some time to become a family, for the three of us to bond.”
“What about your job? Are you willing to move back to Sheffield? I can’t leave Mother, and Allen wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. This is his home.”
“I can find a job around here. Who knows, ol’ Buck might offer me a position as his bodyguard.”
Deborah slapped Ashe on the chest. “That isn’t a joking matter.”
“Let it all go, honey. It’s over. Let’s don’t look back, let’s look forward. What’s done is done. We’ve all lived through a pretty rough time, but it is over.”
Deborah knew she had to face the truth and had to confront Ashe with her fears. She couldn’t marry him if he confirmed her doubts.
“I can’t marry you.” She pulled away from Ashe, but he jerked her up against him.
“What do you mean you can’t marry me?”
“I told you that I didn’t want you to marry me because of Allen. That was true eleven years ago and it’s true now.”
“I’m not marrying you because of Allen. Didn’t you hear me tell you and Allen and Mama Mattie and Annie Laurie that I’d been a fool to ever let you go, that I realize I’ve always loved you?” Ashe tilted her chin with one hand while he held her close with the other.
“There are all kinds of love, Ashe. As much as I love you, I can’t spend the rest of my life married to a man who doesn’t feel the same way about me.”
“You’re confusing me, honey. What the hell are we talking about here? I’ve said I love you.”
“Not the way I want to be loved.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that…” Pulling out of his arms, she got out of bed, picked up her robe off the floor and put it on.
“Deborah?” Ashe stood, totally naked, and followed her over to the windows.
“I came close to dying tonight,” she said, her back to him. “I realized how very much I want to live. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, but you didn’t feel the same way about me. You still don’t.”
He eased his arms around her, leaning her back against his chest, enfolding her in his embrace. “If a man ever loved a woman, I love you. Nothing and no one is more important to me.”
She trembled. He soothed her, caressing her arms, kissing the side of her face.
“You’ve been a part of me forever,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t have sense enough to know I loved you eleven years ago, but you’ve stayed alive inside me for all these years. I’ve never been able to forget you. Now I know why.”
She turned in his arms, her eyes filled with tears. “Why?”
“Because I’m in love with you, Deborah. Deeply, passionately, completely in love with you.”
“Oh, Ashe.”
Lifting her in his arms, he carried her back to bed. Laying her down, he eased off her robe, then braced himself above her. “Marry me. Let me spend the rest of my life proving to you how much I love you.”
“Yes. Yes.”
He buried himself within the welcoming folds of her body, telling her again and again that he loved her. She accepted him and his proclamations of love. Giving and taking, sharing in equal measure, they reached fulfillment together. Resting in the aftermath, they accepted the beautiful reality of their life, knowing in their hearts that love and happiness was truly theirs.
EPILOGUE
THE WHOLE FAMILY gathered around the shiny, new, black Mitsubishi 3000 GT. Mattie Trotter clicked snapshot after snapshot, while Carol Vaughn zoomed in on Allen’s beaming face with her camcorder.
“We couldn’t wait until after graduation tonight,” Deborah said. “We thoug
ht you might want to drive it to your class party afterward.”
“Wow! I hoped for something like this, but I wasn’t sure. Thanks, Mom!” Tall, lanky, handsome eighteen-year-old Allen hugged Deborah. “I’ll bet you picked her out for me, didn’t you, Dad?”
Ashe grinned. “Yeah. Your mother wanted to get you something a little more practical.”
“I helped, too,” seven-year-old Martha McLaughlin said, tugging on her big brother’s pants leg. “I wanted to get the red one, but Daddy said no, that you’d like the black one better.”
“He was right, squirt.” Allen lifted his little sister up in his arms. “I think I’ll take this baby for a spin around the block. Want to go with me, Martha?”
“You bet I do.”
“Don’t be gone too long,” Deborah said. “You’ll want time to go over your valedictory speech one more time. I know you want it to be perfect.”
Allen deposited his sister in the car, jumped in and revved the motor. “Listen to her purr.”
“Don’t drive too fast!” Deborah cautioned.
“Hey, if I get a speeding ticket, my dad will take care of it for me,” Allen said jokingly. “He’s the sheriff, you know.”
Ashe reached out and took two-year-old Jamie McLaughlin off his mother’s hip, then turned to watch his older son spin out of the driveway in his high school graduation present.
“Don’t worry, honey. They’ll be all right. Allen won’t take any chances with Martha in the car with him. Besides, he drives like I do.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
Everyone laughed. Ashe kissed his wife, saying a silent prayer of thanks to the powers that be for his many blessings.
All the dreams of his youth had come true. He had married his beautiful society wife and she’d given him three perfect children. Having been elected sheriff of Colbert County when Charlie Blaylock retired, Ashe had acquired the respect and admiration of the community, especially after he’d helped the Feds put Buck Stansell behind bars and break up the local crime ring.
Ashe didn’t know whether he deserved his wonderful life, his three great kids and a wife like Deborah, but he spent every day trying to be the best husband and father in the world. And not a day went by without him thanking God for giving him a second chance with the only woman he’d ever truly loved.
GUARDING JEANNIE
PROLOGUE
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 ONE
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.
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