Bachelor Cop

“I’m not tossing you out.” Of all the women, she needed the instruction most. “Come with me.”

This late in the evening, the weight-lifting, bodybuilding part of the gym was empty except for a couple of hard-core musclemen who didn’t bother to look up. “You must be hell on wheels as a professor,” Randy said.

“I am an excellent teacher.”

“But this isn’t your classroom.”

She didn’t crack a smile.

“Look, Streak, if you don’t lighten up and get rid of some of that anger, you’re going to get hurt.”

“Me? Hah. You, maybe.”

“I mean it. You’re the one who wound up on the floor tonight, right? Don’t let emotions override your control.” He grabbed a pair of boxing gloves off the rack and held them out. “Put these on.”

“Why?” She stared at him with suspicion. “Planning on showing me that right cross to my glass jaw?”

“Not this time.” He held the gloves until she slipped her hands inside, then he fastened the Velcro.

“This is like having sofa cushions on the ends of my arms.”

“You’ll get used to them.” He walked her over to the light bag. “I’m sure you’ve seen enough boxing movies to know how this works. Try it.”

She studied him, then the two-foot-long, pear-shaped bag suspended head high. Before he could give her any further instruction, she let fly as hard as she could. The bag bounced back and caught her square on her cheek. “Ow!” she squawked. “That hurt.” She raised her hand to her face, but obviously couldn’t feel it through the heavy gloves. “Is my cheek bleeding?”

He caught the bag before it could swing back for a second attack. “No, although it may be a tad bruised tomorrow. Sorry. I should have caught it before it hit you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” She rounded on him, but he grasped her wrist and held her.

“You didn’t give me time. Here, try this one.” He half dragged her over to where the man-size heavy bag hung, then walked around behind it and held on. “Okay, hit this one.”

She tapped it gently.

“Not like that. Hit the thing.”

“And get my jaw broken? I don’t think so.”

“This one doesn’t hit back. Drive your fist hard from waist level, right smack in the gut.”

She whacked the bag as hard as she could. With Randy behind it, the bag barely budged. “I felt that all the way to my shoulder,” she said.

“Like the feeling?”

“Certainly not.” But she whacked the leather again, then again with her other hand, for good measure. Her focused expression told him she did like the feeling it gave her. She hit it over and over until she was too tired to raise her arms. She was panting and drenched with sweat.

Maybe he should paste a male face on the front, so she could really enjoy herself.

“Not bad,” Randy said. “Next time, get your shoulder into it. Sit down over there and watch.”

He pulled her gloves off and put them on himself. He tapped the light bag with his left glove so that it swung away and back. He stopped the motion with his right glove. In ten seconds he had established a steady poppa-poppa rhythm.

After a couple of minutes he caught the bag. “See, you hit hard, it fights back. You tap easy and get the rhythm right, you can keep going forever. You do that to somebody’s face, he’ll remember.”

Randy walked to the heavy bag, lowered his shoulder and slammed into it with his left glove, followed by a hard right. The bag barely swung. “Now, this one you can beat the stew out of.”

“Interesting, but not germane to our classwork, surely. I have to go.”

“Let’s say you’re earning extra credit. Can you come early on Thursday?”

“Why?”

“So you can put on these gloves and take out some of that aggression before class.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Unless you learn to use your opponent’s strength against him, you won’t beat him. You’ll beat yourself. That’s what you’re doing now.”

“You afraid I’ll hurt one of the others? Like Sarah Beth?”

“Sarah Beth is in better shape than you are, and she’s more focused. You wouldn’t go for her the way you go for me, either. The second you’re off balance, she’ll send you flying.”

“I’m leaving now.” Helena dug a towel out of her gym bag, wiped her face and shrugged into her windbreaker. She looked around at the nearly empty room, then said, “Please walk me to my car.”

That cost her. Randy saw her hands clamped in fists at her sides. He’d already explained to the class that walking with purpose went halfway toward not being a victim. She was doing that, all right, but she gave off an odor of fear you could smell half a mile away. She was like a whipped dog that snarls and attacks anything that moves.

He watched her burn rubber out of the parking lot. The woman was not only angry, she was frightened. He needed to know why.

CHAPTER THREE

HELENA’S SHOULDERS ACHED, her arms sagged as though they had weights on them and her cheek felt as though it had swollen all the way across her nose. She’d only hit those dumb bags a couple of times. Randy had pummeled that light bag so fast she could barely keep up with it. He’d moved with powerful grace. As much as she hated to, she had to admit he was beautiful. He probably had to beat women off with a stick.

She shivered. A male body, no matter how beautiful, was not something she ever wanted to touch again.

He’d opened her car door and checked the backseat before he’d let her get in, then he’d waited until she locked her seat belt, started the engine and backed out before he’d turned away. He seemed like a nice person, but he was a cop. She intended to commit a crime without getting caught. That made him her enemy.

Maybe Randy was right that she was sabotaging her ability to protect herself. He called it rage. She called it righteous anger.

She refused to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that she might agree with him, but she’d get to the gym early and smack those bags until she could do it without getting creamed. Then she’d relax his socks off in class.

AS THEY WERE GETTING READY to leave after the next class, Ellen asked, “Can we go to that indoor gun range over on Stage Road for a session?”

Randy saw several heads nod.

“We could meet over there, and maybe go out for a sandwich afterward. We’d bring our own weapons, of course,” she added.

“As long as nobody wants to use an AK-47 or a Thompson submachine gun, and we all agree on the time and date,” Randy said. “How do the rest of you feel about that?”

“Outstanding!” Amanda said, with the first real enthusiasm she’d shown. “I love my Glock, but every time I try to load the magazine, it takes me forever. You can show me how to do it right.”