Bodyguard Lockdown by Donna Young

assumed, her underpants.
    Slowly, she turned her back to him.
    He hissed through his teeth.
    Bruises tattooed her body. Brown and blue. Dark and ugly.
    She stepped from the water. The sunlight hit her dark hair, caught the lighter strands, the auburn highlights, set them on fire. Small, supple curves were wrapped up in flesh-colored panties, topped with a small bow at the top of the elastic.
    Desire tightened his gut, fisted his hands withfrustration.
    Jaw clenched, he battled through the pain, forced down the desire.
    But he couldn’t force himself to close his eyes.
    Sandra stopped midstride when she saw him, then her features instantly became unreadable as she shuttered her thoughts from him. Slowly she emerged from the water.
    “You’re awake.” She stopped long enough to grab the pistol, clothes and, he noted,her medical bag before she joined him.
    Like he said before, smart woman.
    He started to nod, then decided against it when the pain morphed into a concert of jackhammers inside his skull.
    “Just.” He shifted from underneath the lean-to she’d built, then glanced up at the sky, noted the direction of the sun above them, felt the prick of late-afternoon heat on his skin.
    “I saw yourbruises.”
    Quickly she slipped into her semidry T-shirt and pants. “They look worse than they feel.”
    It took effort, but he stood, his legs shaking in protest. He cupped her cheek, ran a soft thumb over her jaw where the shadow of a bruise remained. “You gave better than you got, Doc.”
    The gentleness of his compliment nearly undid her after the worry she lived through the night before.Slowly, she turned her cheek away, watched his hand drop to his side, curl back into a fist.
    “You had a fever most of the night,” Sandra said, her voice even. She opened her medical bag and grabbed two pills. “Here, take these.” She handed him the pills and the water. “It will take the edge off the pain and ease the soreness. You’ll get your strength back quicker.”
    “Time is short, Doc.”Booker downed the medicine. “We need to get going. We can make Tourlay just after sunset.”
    “A day of rest is more important—”
    “Waseem told me that the Al Asheera are rising again. They have a leader. Minos. I can’t be sure whether Jarek knows about him. If this new leader has infiltrated Jarek’s people, I want to make sure you’re out of harm’s way before the war starts.”
    “I knowof Minos, Booker. He is a peaceful leader. He cares for his people.”
    “They aren’t working for Trygg. He’s a tool for them to get close to you. One of the men in Trygg’s camp has ties to the Al Asheera. He’s been feeding Intel back to Minos.”
    “The Al Asheera would not risk a relationship with Trygg. It would put them in direct opposition to the crown,” she argued. Sandra had gotten toknow these people. Some she even called friends. They would never follow a man like Trygg.
    “They want the cylinders,” Booker stated with derision. “They will destroy their enemies with one or two of the cylinders, then sell the rest to the highest bidder. The money will come in handy when they seize Taer.”
    “Destroy their enemies? You mean the royals?”
    “One tidy little package,”Booker scoffed. “Waseem had knowledge of your new weapon going on the black market. He didn’t know what that weapon was exactly.”
    “He could’ve been lying to you.”
    “He wasn’t lying,” Booker responded flatly. Waseem spent the last fifteen minutes of his life begging to stay alive. He would have betrayed his own mother to save his skin.
    “Minos and his followers have joined the game,”he said, not masking the truth this time. “Like I said, they might not know what you have, Doc, but they know you have something. And they know it’s a weapon.”
    “The Al Asheera are no longer vengeful.” A sadness stretched across her chest, a heavy band that tightened with each breath. “Waseem and some others must have broken away from