Cowboy Bodyguard: Brotherhood Protectors World

By K.L. Donn

K.L. Donn gives us another five-star read with Cowboy Bodyguard, her contribution to the Brotherhood Protectors World of Elle James. 

We are introduced to Marilyn Monroe Kingsley, who grew up being groomed by her mom to be a beauty queen, winning pageant after pageant. Controlled by her mom, Monroe longed for a life she could only see on television and the books she loved to read.

Monroe meets Shaw when she is sent to Montana to hide from a stalker, and there, with the help of the former Delta Force soldier, Monroe learns what it means to live a normal life.   

All of us want to if not excel, be better in life. All of us want the same for our children, but what lengths should we take to be able to achieve our dreams for ourselves, our children?

Though I do not have a child to call my own, I am a doting aunt to a highly intelligent, sweet, and sometimes headstrong teen, the only child of my brother. While I believe that my niece is on the right path to becoming a woman who can stand on her own merits and become a positive influence on others, I have come across kids who struggle. Instead of enjoying their childhood, I see them strive to “become” their parents. 

We see kids who take up medicine because their parents wanted them to do so. We see kids who become actors and actresses, beauty contestants, singers, with their parents, mostly their moms, who become what society calls “stage mothers” controlling their children’s lives. These kids can’t play—they might mar their skins; they might damage their vocal cords. For the kids whose parents once dreamed of becoming highly paid surgeons, lawyers, or engineers, turning in a grade less than an A+ means being grounded, their “privileges” revoked.

What’s worse is, most of the time, these kids hear that they are, or will never be, good enough. 

“I have to win. I want to quit.”

~ K.L. Donn, Cowboy Bodyguard

Monroe was broken. Her self-esteem, her self-worth, and yes, her identity, obliterated by a mom who only saw her as a means to an end. 

Monroe’s reaction of attempting to harm herself, a direct result of years of parental abuse, is just one of the consequences of her mom’s selfish needs. Other kids would become bullies—lashing out at others, punishing others for becoming, what they could not, which is to lead their own lives.

“And what is your story, Monroe?” My eyes lift rapidly to meet his imploring stare. “I have no idea.”

~ K.L. Donn, Cowboy Bodyguard

As parents, or in my case, as an aunt, I say yes, it is up to us to mold our children into the best that they can be when they reach adulthood, but our jobs as role models to our children should not go beyond dictating how they should live and breathe their very lives.

Our stories may be reaching the end, but we must let our children, our future, tell their own, for humanity to survive.