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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.
    â€œI’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.”
    â€œAs a favor to my mother?”
    â€œPartly, yes.”
    She wouldn’t face him; she couldn’t. “Why else would you come back to Sheffield?”
    â€œYour mother asked me if I was afraid to face the past. She dared me to come home.”
    â€œAnd were you afraid to face the past?”
    â€œI’m here, aren’t I? What does that tell you?”
    â€œIt 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.”
    â€œIf 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?
    â€œLet’s understand something up front,” Deborah said, facing him, steeling herself not to show any emotion. “I don’t want you here. I had hoped I’d never see you again as long as I lived. If I agree to your acting as my bodyguard until the end of the the trial, to please Mother, you must promise me, here and now,that once I am no longer in any danger, you’ll leave Sheffield and never return.”
    â€œDo you honestly think I’d want to stay?”
    â€œPromise me.”
    â€œI don’t have to promise you anything. I don’t owe you anything.” He glared at her, into those bright, still innocent-looking blue eyes and wanted to grab her and shake her until her