When my muse came up with the proposal for the first book in the Bodyguard series, The Secretary's Bodyguard, we had no idea it would turn into an eight-book series. Why did it happen? First, we created the main characters: the bodyguard Ethan Mahoney, who is as straight, reliable, and brave as a man in this job can be; his wife Jazmin, also known as Princess; and his soulmate, who is a former police officer. Second, we needed a sidekick with less pathos, so we created Ryan Griffith. He’s much younger than Ethan and tough when necessary, but otherwise acts like a kid.A kid with pranks in his mind. Lots of pranks.
We fell in love with the characters because of the dynamic between them and their growing friendship, and we knew we couldn’t stop after one book.
Third came the secondary characters who appear occasionally but are never central to the story. Then, there are characters created for each novel.
One such character is Marcus Kesczynski, whom Ethan describes as Ryan on crystal meth without the charm. Ethan doesn’t trust or like him and certainly wouldn't trust him with his wife's life. This is exactly what happens in A Bodyguard in Bolivia.
Marcus must take Jazmin away from a bombing site, but he gets shot on the way. They make it to a CIA safe house, which is the setting I want to introduce you to.
Jazmin came back, and Marcus realized he’d missed her getting out. She maneuvered the SUV expertly along the red-stoned pathway up to a garage made for two. She parked in the center.
“Impressive house.” She turned the key and pulled it out. “Yours?”
Marcus had no breath left to answer and shook his head once before he turned slowly and very carefully opened the door with his left hand. In the meantime, Jazmin had run to close the gate and was back to lend a hand when he put his feet on the concrete. He lifted his head. The garden was in good order, palms and bushes cut back, and the growth of the vines was exactly the way he had described it to the gardener months before. He had invested some money in workers from the local congregation. Some had come for free, and as far as he could tell, had done more than he had asked for. The house windows were clean, the small tables and chairs on the patio freed from dust, and the plants in their pots watered.
“Key?” Jazmin pointed toward the broad, dark wooden door.
He shook his head. “No.” Step by step, they made it toward the canopy-shaded entrance. His vision blurred, and he took a deep breath before flipping the flower pot at the wall to the side. Behind it, he pressed the buttons of the security panel, and the lock snapped back to leave the door open.
“Here we go.” Marcus failed to grin. The door closed behind them, and he hastened to push the buttons on the left wall to switch off the in-house alarm.
He led her through the hall with the white fountain in its center, then to the right to one of the three bathrooms. His legs felt like jelly, and he counted the steps across the threshold and toward the next tile on the floor.
“A nice house.”
“Yeah, neo-classic Bolivian style.” He sat heavily on a white bench with white cushions and leant against the wall to his left. He heard his heart beat in his ears and his shallow breathing. This time, he knew he wouldn’t get a chance to stay conscious. Whatever had hit the back of his head, the stinging pain added to his misery.
“First aid kit? Anything useful?”
Marcus wanted to ask her so many questions. First would be how she could be so composed while being abducted and faced with a stranger who was bleeding on the white furniture in the strictly white-and-gold bathroom while her colleagues were somewhere in the shattered building. But he had no breath for words, merely indicated with a nod where she would find the medical supplies.
“Okay.” She turned around, opened the double mirror doors, and whistled through her teeth.
He wanted to laugh and couldn’t. The pain was killing him, and he was so weary.
“Did you rob a hospital?” She quickly chose what she needed and spread it out on the cupboard in easy reach. “Or have you always been a careful guy? This is nearly the equipment for a surgery room. Hey, no! Don’t you dare faint!”
“Would never…” Marcus heard his voice from afar, but a quick slap on his cheek brought him back to his senses. “Hey, I already feel shitty enough! No need to—”
“I need your help to get you out of the jacket.” She was already opening buttons to pull his right arm out of the sleeve and did the same with the holster. Both pieces fell to the ground, and he realized he couldn’t feel his right arm anymore. “I have to cut off your shirt and… This looks awful. The bullet grazed you and left a rough laceration. It’s quite deep and—”
“Oh, great. An injury of academic value.” He failed to whistle. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“You’re in shock.” She used scissors to cut the shirt and pull it away. “I’ll do this as fast as I can. Stay with me, okay?”
Marcus groaned. He was cold and miserable, and his right shoulder down to his arm was a screaming mass of agony the moment he made a move. “Saved by the beautiful assistant. What a lucky bastard I am!”
“Are you a bastard?”
“I’m the proverbial bastard like those in the movies.” He looked up at her, and his voice was raspy. “I did some shitty being-hated-for-all-my-life things that are…no, I can’t tell. I won’t tell. So don’t ask.”
“I don’t ask.” She put away the scissors.
Marcus opened his eyes wide. “You don’t? What kind of woman are you?”
“The one stanching the bleeding so you keep some blood in your bastard body.” Jazmin reached for the syringe.
“Morphine?” His eyes widened when she nodded. “No. No morphine! I’m allergic.”
“Really? That’s rare. Or were you addicted once?”
He stared at her, trying and failing to curb his anger. “What are you? A fucking mind reader?”
“What are you? Some ungrateful asshole?” Jazmin kept him down when he tried to push her hand away. “Don’t move.” She put the syringe back, huffing. “If you don’t want relief from the pain, you need to bite on something before I start.”
“Now you’re a doctor, too?”
“If you don’t want to go to a hospital, I’m all you have at the moment. So quit swearing.” She handed him a washcloth. “Bite.”
“I’ve heard that said nicer.”
Jazmin looked at him as if trying to spear him with a spoon. A very blunt spoon. Marcus knew he should keep his mouth shut.
“This comes closer and closer to some BDSM movies I watched.”
“Make fun as much as you like. But the pain’s gonna be insane.” She raised her brows. “You sure you want it that way?”
Marcus wanted to sit with her at a beach and slurp martinis. “The ungrateful asshole doesn’t deserve better.”
“The asshole is also dumb as cattle.”
He wanted to see compassion in her eyes, but the moment was over and she was back to professional mode. She reached for gauze and tweezers. “I said bite.”
Marcus pressed the washcloth between his teeth and braced for the shocking revelation of how much pain his nerves could tolerate before his body shut off and called it a day. The freaky part of his mind wanted to know if Jazmin was smiling—at least to herself—about his jokes.
****
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