REED

“Who the fuck is that?” I asked, pointing out the window of the gym.

A car was in the lot, two men sitting in it. A black Cadillac, but it wasn’t a limo. The wheels were pimped out, and it didn’t have livery tags. They weren’t coming to the gym, and they didn’t look the type to buy flowers for their girlfriends from the florist next door.

Gray came over, crossed his arms over his chest. I grabbed my towel from a bench, wiped my sweaty face. My hands were taped, and my feet were bare. We were taking a break between rounds of sparring. Thor had come in directly from work, and we were waiting for him to get changed. I knew I was big, but Thor made me look like a gangly teenager. He could have played pro football, if he liked the sport. He took the BJJ class and sparred but skipped the more brutal aspects of MMA. His wife had enough of a leash on him to keep him from getting hurt.

“They’re not here for memberships,” Gray said.

I huffed out a laugh. From what I could see of them, they lifted more doughnuts and beers than weights.

“Mid-twenties, expensive shades,” I observed. The sun was just about to set, and while bitterly cold out, the sun was bright. “Expensive car.”

“Punk attitudes.”

I agreed with Gray’s assessment. There was something obvious and cocky about punks. They thought their shit didn’t stink. In the ring, they thought they could take anyone down and talked enough smack for people to believe it. But their bad-ass attitude only lasted about thirty seconds when they tapped out then complained about an unfair fight. Whatever.

We both knew those assholes. They came into the gym on occasion, trying to prove they were better than Gray, me, all of his fighters. Like the doctor’s kid from the other day. Gray gladly—and quickly—proved them wrong. They didn’t linger. It wasn’t that kind of gym.

“They could be from my past.”

I stated it plainly, without emotion. I didn’t bring it up, but it was a strong possibility. These guys were in the wrong part of town. Sometimes, I felt I was, too. My past was a fucking cesspool. I’d gotten out of the shittiest neighborhood in Denver and never looked back. I’d tried, put too much effort in doing so, but it seemed no matter how hard I tried to leave it all behind, sometimes it came to you. Like the two sitting in the Caddy looking across the parking lot. Had my past caught up to me? No one in any of the rundown houses on my block had the cash for a pimped-out ride like that back in the day. Times had changed. Drugs and other shit had moved in. I’d gained some notoriety with my fighting but the good kind. No drugs, no booze, no wild partying. I fought clean, and I lived clean, and I wouldn’t waste any hard-earned cash on a POS status car. I was fine with my POS pickup truck.

“You’re not going back to that shit, so why would they be here now?” he asked.

My parents were dead. I’d cut all ties from my old neighborhood when I went to juvie, then I’d gone right into the army. I hadn’t even gone back when I’d been discharged, just came directly to be Gray’s fighter. I hadn’t figured it out at the time, but juvie had been the best thing for me. Perhaps the judge had known that, that I’d get a second chance if I was pulled out of my old life and away from the people who’d been dragging me down. I’d have either sunk into drugs like my mother or doing fifteen for armed robbery like my dad before he’d died. Maybe I’d be dead now, too. Fuck, no maybe about it.

Here, I was away from the violence, the drugs, the drinking, the crime. The death. Hell, these days I rarely even ate carbs. I was like a Boy Scout in comparison to my teenage years.

“I have no fucking clue. I’ll go and find out.”

I tossed the used towel in a laundry basket next to the bench.

Gray’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Let them be. Just keep an eye out, and we’ll see what they do, who they’re here for. I’ll tell the others to watch as well.”

The others were his regulars, guys he could count on to help out in the gym, who had his back. Who knew what to watch for when there was trouble.

“Why are they sitting there?” I wiped my face with my hand. “If they’re not here for me, you think those are Dominguez’s men?”

Gray shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past him. I don’t like this,” he added after a minute. The men hadn’t moved from the spot. They saw us but didn’t give a shit. If they were here to intimidate an opponent, to make me shake with fear over the fight with Sammy, it wasn’t working. Those two goons? I could take on both of them with one hand tied behind my back. I assumed Dominguez would know it, too. Maybe that was why they stayed outside.

“Intimidation, gambling, even talking shit is all part of the game. Coming to the gym like this… it’s new, even for me,” Gray added.

Yeah, I didn’t like it either, but I could defend myself, in the ring and on the street. I doubted they were here waiting to jump me in the lot. If I was hurt, there was no fight. No purse. Injuring me did them no good.

“We watch the women,” he said, turning away. I knew he was going to his office to call Emory. If she was out, he’d meet her in the lot, walk her inside when she got back. He’d said “women,” meaning he wanted Harper watched, too.

For once, I was relieved she was in another country. Safe from danger that could be my fault.

10

HARPER

Jet lag was killing me. It did every time, and I had yet to find a way to make it better. I barely made it through the last lectures of the term and the staff meetings, and that was before I left. Now in the UK, I turned down the polite offers of dinner to instead return to my hotel room to sleep. I came to England about three times a year and stayed at the same quaint place, met with the same professors in the art history department. It was familiar. The faces were familiar, and I considered many to be friends. Lately, London was a safe haven. I was an ocean away from Cam, from my life. I could take a break from it, compartmentalize it all in my head and let it go, knowing it was so far away.

I was safe in England. I felt safe, like I was a different person. I’d been coaxed and swayed several times toward taking a permanent teaching position at the university here, but I’d always turned them down. But now with Cam getting out of jail, with him pressuring me, perhaps it was time to go where he couldn’t get me. Since it would be a parole violation, he wouldn’t follow.

I’d be safe.

Tags: Vanessa Vale More Than A Cowboy Romance
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