This month’s bachelor is Amos Pike, a successful toy maker from San Francisco. His assistant Jeannette informs him one day that she has accepted the invitation for his participation in the bachelor auction that will benefit the Lost Springs Ranch for Boys. While Amos’ immediate reaction is negative, still he wants to do his part for the school that saved him after his parents were killed in an airplane crash when he was ten.

Actually, Jeannette has an ulterior motive. Jillian Chambers, rival toy manufacturer (and one-time lover of Amos) is determined to get her hands on his new space station before the upcoming toy show. There have already been a couple of attempts on Amos. But he refuses to consider hiring a bodyguard. Jeannette has decided that the bachelor auction will solve her problem.

Jeannette has hired Loria Protection for the job and Meg Loria, the owner’s daughter, gets the assignment of bidding on Amos and then spiriting him away to a cabin where he will be safe from further danger.

Meg is at a crisis point in her life. She’s 26 years old, and still feels over protected by her father and three older brothers. Her lawyer fiancé has just broken their engagement (by fax) and headed off to Hawaii with a rich socialite. Her wealthy grandmother -- who believes a woman must be married to be truly happy -- had promised a big donation to her friend’s woman’s shelter on Meg’s wedding day. And now she has to head for Wyoming to bid on a man and convince him to spend a week with her. At this point in her life, Meg can’t imagine why any man would agree to such a venture.

Meg successfully outbids Jillian at the auction and sets off with Amos for the lake cabin. She tells him that she works at a women’s shelter and wants to spend the week learning about what her women should look for in a good man. Amos is quite taken by this young woman who seems like such an unlikely person to have bid for his services.

The time at the cabin allows the two to get to know each other and to like each other. But Meg fights the growing attraction; she’s there to protect Amos and emotions will only get in the way. Of course, trouble arrives and so do Meg’s brothers. Amos discovers that Meg has been deceiving him.

Amos is an attractive hero, a self-made man who is longing to rediscover the joys of family life. Meg has had, if anything, too much family. Not that she doesn’t love her father and brothers, but their over protectiveness has limited her social life. She doesn’t know how to react to the feelings that Amos engenders in her. Certainly, she never felt the same about her erstwhile fiancé.

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint why a book doesn’t grab a reader. Perhaps there was a bit too much improbability in the set-up. Perhaps the heroine’s anxieties were overdone. Perhaps the villainess was just too much. All I know is that I found His Bodyguard all too easy to put down. Since I didn’t mind picking it up when I had a free moment, I can only conclude that this is an acceptable romance. But it seemed to lack that certain something.

--Jean Mason