Be On The Lookout: Bodyguard

The punch that landed squarely against his jaw almost knocked him out. Pain, bright and bold, exploded along the bone as the blow connected. It made him stagger to the side, and for a moment he struggled with fighting the urge to cradle the pain and seek refuge.

Or pass out. Blackness fringed the edges of his vision.

But Jonathan Carmichael wasn’t that easy to take down.

He dropped low into a crouch and swung his leg around. His attacker wasn’t fast enough to move out of the way. His legs were swept out from under him and he hit the ground hard. The wheeze of someone who had lost their breath escaped from his lips.

Jonathan wasn’t where he needed to be physically—the punch really had done a number on him—but he knew the hired thug wasn’t just going to lie down and take it. Plus, he still had someone to protect.

Out of his periphery, Jonathan saw the door behind him and to the left was still closed. Fleetingly, he wondered if Martin actually locked the door like he had been told.

“You—gonna—gonna pay,” the thug started to wheeze out, but Jonathan didn’t have time for a speech. He turned on his heel and leveled the man with his own knockout punch. The muscle-clad baddie didn’t wage an internal war of whether or not he was going to slip into unconsciousness. Or, if he did, he didn’t win the battle.

His head clunked against the hardwood while the rest of his body relaxed.

“I’m gonna have a tall beer tonight,” Jonathan said, tenderly touching his chin. He winced. “That’s what I’m gonna do, all right.”

He nudged the guy’s foot with his work boot before feeling comfortable enough to walk back to the door his client was behind. Trying the doorknob, he cursed beneath his breath.

“Martin, I told you to lock this.”

His client, an older man who was five feet three inches of scatterbrain, didn’t offer an apology for not listening to his bodyguard. Instead his eyes widened at Jonathan’s appearance.

“You’re bleeding,” Martin exclaimed. He pointed to his eyebrow and then his lip.

“Don’t worry,” he hedged, temporarily forgetting he had other injuries. “It’s the jaw that hurts the worst.”

“And the bad man?” Martin didn’t try to see out into the other room. To him the hired gun was his own personal hell. An evil man who had threatened him, stalked him and attacked him. All in an attempt to exact revenge for sending his boss to prison. Jonathan remembered when the man had come into Orion Security Group’s front doors begging for protection, for a bodyguard to keep him safe. The police hadn’t believed he was being targeted, but Jonathan’s boss had.

A call Jonathan was grateful for and so was Martin.

“He won’t hurt you anymore.”

Martin’s entire body sagged in relief.

“Thank you, son. Thank you.”

Jonathan nodded, ignoring how the endearment struck a sore chord. Before he could stop it, the invisible wall that he had built for thirty-three years sprang up. He cleared his throat.

“Tell me you at least called nine-one-one,” he deadpanned. Martin’s eyes widened again, guilt written clearly across his face.

Jonathan let out a long breath.

“Call them while I go tie up our friend,” he ordered, pulling the zip ties from one of his cargo pants’ pockets. Martin nodded and for once listened.

The thug, a man around the same age as Jonathan but who had obviously had a much harder life, stayed unconscious while Jonathan tied his wrists together in front of his stomach. Just to be safe, he patted him down, revealing a wicked pocketknife and a wad of cash. There was no ID, but Jonathan didn’t need it. He felt as if he knew the man on some level. Fiercely loyal to his boss.

Hardened by life from the streets with scars that bore testament to that theory.

Determination unwavering.

Was he that different?

Would this have been Jonathan’s life had he not run into his current boss all those years ago?

Jonathan shook his head. He’d learned at a young age that what-ifs did more harm than they ever did good.

“I called them—they’re on their way and a little confused,” Martin said from the doorway, eyes staying away from the man who had tormented him for months. “But then this man called?” He held Jonathan’s phone away from him with a shrug.

The bodyguard quickly took the phone, confused, as well.

“Carmichael here.”

“Why does the client have your phone?”

Jonathan cut a grin as the voice of one of Orion’s finest—and his closest friend—filled his ear.

“Well, look who it is! Mark Tranton, back from vacation.”

A chuckle came through the airwaves.

“Well, you couldn’t expect me to pass on a free weeklong stay at a beachside bungalow, could you?” Mark exclaimed.

“The old Mark would have,” Jonathan reminded his friend. “But the new Mark is a lot more fun, so I guess it’s understandable.”

“The new Mark also has two ladies who would never let him pass on a former client’s generosity like that,” the other man added with another laugh. Jonathan had known Mark for almost a decade and was glad to see his friend happy with his girlfriend and her young daughter. “Now, why did the client answer your phone?”

Jonathan gave his fellow bodyguard a rundown of the exchange from the moment the man picked the front door lock to the knockout minutes before Mark called. He could hear the concern in Mark’s voice as he questioned Jonathan’s injuries, but Jonathan’s walls were still up. He brushed the concerns off.

“The cops should be here soon, so I need to go,” he started. “Wait, did you need something?”

“Yeah, but it can wait. Give me a call when you land in Dallas and I’ll meet you at Orion.”

Jonathan agreed to that and they ended the call.

The bodyguard slid his phone back into his pocket and took another long look at the man on the ground.

I could have been you.

* * *

TWO DAYS LATER Jonathan was cruising through Dallas, Texas, in the familiar comfort of his old, worn Range Rover. It was raining, but not enough to spoil his homecoming or Mark’s insistence that he come straight to Orion’s office. He wondered what all the fuss was about but didn’t think on it too much as he puttered his way through afternoon traffic.

Before Orion he’d been an agent with Redstone Solutions, an elite and very private security agency. With more funding than they knew what to do with—and very little care for those who couldn’t afford basic safety—he’d had contracts that had taken him all over the world. Orion, operating on a smaller financial but higher moral scale, still made him travel the nation. Through all of his travels, though, he could safely come to one concrete conclusion: traffic anywhere was horribly annoying.

There were some things he missed about his hometown, but this wasn’t one of them.

The rain let up by the time he reached the one-story building with its Orion Security Group sign blaring atop the front doors. Steam rose from the parking lot asphalt as he stretched. Unlike Mark or even Oliver, another close friend and Orion employee, Jonathan had a wide wingspan and stood taller than the two at six-three. Growing up, his long limbs had made him self-conscious—catching names like “String Bean” and “Stretch”—but being a bodyguard had taught him how to use his lean body to his advantage.