Outside the Law

Her jaw throbbed and she rubbed it, trying hard not to think about the damage Mitch’s fists could do to a human being.

Suddenly he growled like a wild animal and rushed at the punching bag headfirst, hitting it so hard that it disconnected from the chain and crashed to the broken concrete at the base of the pump. The chain that had held it suspended whipped around and struck Mitch in the shoulder, but he seemed to not notice. He was intent on doing more damage to the bag, kicking it savagely with his heel. Then he jumped on top of it and beat it a few more times with his fists.

She must have made some kind of noise, because he slowly stilled his fists, then turned his head and looked right at her.

Embarrassed to have been caught staring at what should have been a private moment for Mitch, she wanted to shrink back behind the weeds and creep away. But it was too late.

“Beth?” He looked both surprised and…yes, apprehensive.

“I c-couldn’t find you and I heard something strange,” she stammered out. “I didn’t mean to spy but, Mitch…” She gained a bit of confidence when he didn’t aim his obvious anger at her. “What the hell is all this?”

Gasping for air, he slowly rose from straddling the bag and regained his feet. “This is where I work out.”

“Here?”

“Why not here? There’s plenty of space for my gear, and no one else is using it. And it’s private. Or it’s supposed to be,” he said pointedly. He grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off his face, neck and shoulders, then picked up a water bottle, tipped back his head and took a long draw.

Beth watched, fascinated, as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and the cords of his neck flexed and relaxed.

She shook her head to clear it, ordering her runaway libido into line. Mitch’s body wasn’t hers to ogle. She was here on a mission.

“What kind of workout is this?” she asked, stalling. “Are you some kind of black belt killing machine?” She said it with a nervous laugh. She’d known Mitch was fit. No one who filled out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt like he did sat in front of a computer all the time.

“I’m not a black belt anything.” He sounded defensive. “It’s just a good way to stay in shape and work off stress.”

“Is it working?”

He peeled off his gloves, which were not like any boxing gloves Beth had ever seen, not that she ever paid much attention. They were small, and didn’t cover his fingers. She’d seen bruises and cuts on Mitch’s hands before, but he claimed to have gotten them doing yard work or fixing his bike.

“I’m not bouncing off the walls anymore, so, yeah, I guess it helps. Beth, what are you doing here?”

“Come out of that cage and let’s talk. Please,” she added, since he was under no obligation to speak to her after she’d followed him uninvited and spied on his workout.

He scooped up his discarded T-shirt and threw it on. Beth mourned the loss as he covered up those beautiful pecs and the washboard abs, but it was better this way. Mitch was distracting enough even when he wasn’t the next closest thing to completely naked.

Mitch gathered up his gloves, towel and water bottle. But rather than exiting through a gate, he peeled back a section of fencing that had been snipped open with bolt cutters and levered himself through, managing not to catch anything on the raggedly cut chain links.

But he was bleeding, where that punching bag chain had caught him on the shoulder. “You’re injured.”

“Hmm?”

She pointed to his shoulder and he looked, disinterested. “Oh.” He swiped at the blood with his towel, then seemed to forget about it.

“Doesn’t it hurt? And look at your knuckles.” They were red and swollen, and one of them had a small cut. More blood. Beth was torn between the desire to nurse him with antiseptic and bandages and an even stronger need to turn away in revulsion.

Revulsion won. Blood in a lab she could deal with—nice, clean blood in a test tube or on a cotton swab. But live, bleeding flesh and blood was not her thing. She’d discovered that at the police academy before she’d been booted out.

He shrugged, then stopped to hold the back gate open for her. No matter what, Mitch had the manners of a Southern gentleman, one of the things that drew her to him. Along with his calm, easygoing personality.

Which apparently had been nothing but a facade.

THATWASCLOSE. Panic had coursed through Mitch’s veins right along with the rush of his blood when he’d spotted Beth peering at him through the fence, a colorful tropical flower completely out of context in his personal gym of rust, metal, leather, concrete and sweat.

He’d thought for sure she would recognize the discipline suggested by his workout. The abbreviated gloves, the combination of punching, kicking and wrestling on the ground screamed mixed martial arts. But though the sport had gained popularity and respectability in recent years, not everyone was into it.

Sweet Beth apparently had no knowledge or interest in his particular fighting style, because she let his weak explanation ride. That was a good thing; he’d gone to a lot of trouble to keep his sporting life separate from his professional work because neither would enhance the other. What fighter would be intimidated by a computer geek who worked for a charitable foundation? And he didn’t even want to think about the negative fallout should the press get hold of the connection. What if it came out while he was testifying in court?

Not even Daniel knew about the UFC matches he’d been fighting over the past few years, and it looked as if he could keep it that way awhile longer.

But that didn’t mean he was home free. He knew why Beth was here, what she wanted him to do.

He tromped through his backyard and across the brick patio, wishing she was here for some other reason. Like maybe she’d decided his brush with the law turned her on and she wanted some hot, sweaty sex.

Yeah, he’d thought about it. Plenty of times. Every time he saw her, in fact. But she’d been giving him Do Not Touch signals for so long, he’d given up on that idea.

He entered his stuffy house through the sliding glass door, knowing she would follow.

“Mitch, are you going to sit down and listen to me?” she asked as he cruised into the kitchen, ignoring her presence, and grabbed himself the remains of a high-protein energy shake he’d mixed up that morning. What he really wanted was a cold beer, but he never drank the week before a match.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” he replied wearily. “You want something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” she said primly. “If you’re so smart, what do you think I’m going to say?”

He turned to face her in the small galley kitchen, still decorated in all its 1970s glory of red and harvest-gold. Beth’s hot-pink flowered dress made the decor look old and tired. “The same thing you already said. That I should indulge those backwoods cops from back home to answer stupid questions about a crime I know nothing about. Only you’ll probably throw in something about how I should patch things up with my brother. Because he’s family, and family is important.” Beth enjoyed a warm, loving relationship with her parents, two sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews. “Does that about sum things up?”

She seemed to shrink a little in the face of his displeasure, and he made a mental note to dial it down a notch. This was Beth, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and she was here only because she thought she was being helpful. She was his friend. Still, that didn’t mean he wanted her meddling in his überdysfunctional family.

Usually it took very little to deflect Beth from any line of conversation he didn’t want to pursue. That was one of the reasons he liked hanging with her; she could take a hint when he didn’t want to talk about personal stuff.

Now, apparently, she wasn’t going to cooperate. She didn’t look as though she was about to back down from this fight. He tried to think of some way to change the stubborn thrust of her chin. His gaze focused briefly on her plump, pink lips.

A kiss would give her something else to think about.

“Yes, of course I’m here about your brother’s visit,” she said, bumping his attention back to the matter at hand. “Can we sit down? Will you at least hear me out?”

“Fine,” he mumbled. He suddenly became aware of his sweaty, bedraggled state. Beth was her usual fresh-as-a-daisy self in her sleeveless, summery dress, and he probably looked awful and smelled worse. “Can I take a shower first?”

“If you want, but I don’t mind you this way.”

For half an instant, Mitch read innuendo into her words. His traitorous mind visualized her leaning in and licking the sweat off his neck, like the fight groupies, who hung out at the gym, sometimes offered.

Then he gave himself a mental smack to the head. This was Beth, his friend, his work buddy, who liked sharing a pizza and watching true crime shows with him so they could make bets on who the real culprit would turn out to be. She was just being considerate. How many times did he have to remind himself she was Off-Limits, in capital letters?

“I’ll be out in five minutes. Go sit down.” He grabbed himself a protein bar on his way out of the kitchen. He was famished. Burning five hundred calories in one forty-five-minute workout could do that to a guy, and he didn’t want to drop any more weight. He was already lighter than most of his light-heavyweight-class opponents.

When he returned to the living room a few minutes later in jeans and a clean T-shirt, he found Beth sitting stiff-backed on the edge of a chair, looking anything but comfortable.

Man, this thing with Dwayne and Robby had gotten her all tied into knots. She must be convinced it was some kind of big deal. His heart felt a small twinge for causing her to worry. She didn’t deserve that.