"No problem," Emily said. "Half of us have spent time living in these cabins."
After the women removed their snow boots and were sitting on the couch, the floor, and every available chair, Sophie, who'd been carrying a plate, uncovered it, and said, "It's a little irregular because I had five kids helping me when I stacked the layers, but it's our hen cake."
Julia looked at what was obviously a multi-layered cake, though with a definite tilt to one side, and which had a plastic hen on top, with jellybean eggs pressed into the icing, and said, "It's the nicest cake I've seen in years."
"It's Rick's favorite. Chocolate with pistachio custard filling," Sophie said.
"And butterscotch and strawberry filling," Genie added.
"Well, that too," Sophie replied. "Rena, Tina and Sophie Jr. managed to open a few more boxes of custard than I'd planned, but it's all the same when it comes out, like Rick says." She looked at Julia. "Please excuse the grossness. When you raise triplets and twins two years apart, life can be pretty anal."
Julia laughed, enjoying the camaraderie. She felt oddly comfortable in a room filled with people. She reasoned it was because she was in her safe haven, but suspected it had more to do with Mario's presence in her life, along with his insistence that she begin to face her fears head on. She looked to where the big punching bag stood with the hot pink gloves on the floor beside it, along with the chest guard and boots, and smiled. She'd never start boxing the way Mario expected, but the thought that he cared enough to go to town, and buy everything she needed to get started, made her feel warm inside. She wished she could have been a mouse in the corner when he bought all the stuff. There must have been at least one pair of brows lifting on seeing a man, as completely alpha male as Mario, buying a red sports bra with plastic inserts for the woman the clerk would assume was his lady love...
"That's a punching bag," Billy said, having obviously caught the direction of Julia's gaze.
Julia blinked several times, unaware she'd been staring at the assortment of gear, and said, "Yes," and nothing more, completely at a loss what to say next.
"Mario's behind this, isn't he?" Billy said.
Julia looked at Billy in surprise. "How did you know? Did he tell you?"
"No, but he's a champion boxer," Billy said. "Roberta showed me a scrapbook filled with pictures of him and all his trophies. Please don't tell me he going to teach you to box."
"I… he… it's just that... well, yes, that's pretty much what he has planned," Julia replied. "It's actually a Christmas present."
"Are you serious?" Maddy asked.
Julia shrugged. "He means well. He thinks punching the bag will help me deal with my phobias," she replied, knowing these women knew her whole story.
Billy started laughing. Then glancing around at the women, she said, "I told you guys that's the way Mario is. He might be all snarls and growls on the outside, but start rubbing his belly and he becomes a big, overgrown teddy bear. Actually, he's more like a mother bear because you'd better not mess with his cubs."
"Tell me about it," Maddy said. "He cuffed me but good when he found out I'd gone to Las Vegas."
Emily, who sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the wood stove, said, "Actually, when you get right down to it, he's not much different than several husbands around here, and you wives know who they are." Chuckles resonated throughout the room.
"Seriously," Billy said, "Mario's really an amazing man, and very modest about himself and what he can do. Roberta's the one who pointed things out. She's very proud of him, but she's worried he'll one day be a lonely old man, and she wants him to find a wife and settle down."
Instantly, Julia felt all eyes on her. Looking around at the faces, she said, "I hate to disappoint any of you, but Mario and I are just friends, and when he leaves here after New Year's, he plans to leave alone."
"I thought he was leaving the day after Christmas," Billy said.
Julia realized at once that Mario's decision to stay longer had been a private one he'd shared only with her. "That was his original plan," she replied, "but since he and his sister are selling the ranch, and he won't have to go back to make repairs, he decided to extend his visit here."
"Let me guess," Billy said. "After making that decision, he arrived on your doorstep with all the boxing stuff."
"Well, yes. He plans to teach me some basic foot work and a few punches, with the idea that whenever I have troubling thoughts, punching the bag will help."
Billy started laughing again. "That's the most innovative excuse I've ever heard a man give for courting a woman."
When the room filled with chuckles, Maddy raised her arms for quiet, and said, "Okay guys, confession time. All the things I've been saying about Mario over the years, I take back. Meanwhile, Julia has a very impressive man salivating over her, and he doesn't know yet that she's the woman he's destined to spend the rest of his life with, and I think between the eight of us, we can give enough subtle hints to wake him up."
"No, please," Julia said. "That's just not the way it is with Mario and me. Like I said, we're very good friends, and honestly, that's the way it needs to be right now. Maybe later, if we stay in contact, things could change."
"I'm just kidding," Maddy said. "Consider yourself a member of the Hansen sisterhood now, and know that we're all after your best interest because we care. And don't worry. We won't stick our noses where they don't belong. But this is a side of Mario none of us knew, except Billy."
"Actually, there's more," Billy said. "During the four years he was in college, he took ballet, and from what Roberta said, he was very good."
For a few moments there was dead silence, then the room filled with chatter, and all the while Julia was trying to visualize Mario in tights, dancing the way male ballet dancers danced, lifting women above his head, and doing leaps across the stage, but no image would come.
"Are you serious?" Maddy asked Billy, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Yes," Billy replied, "but only because his boxing coach made him. Apparently, even Muhammad Ali, the boxer, took ballet."
As the women bantered about the pros and cons of men in tights, gradually, the idea of Mario in them began to take form, and what came was an image of huge calves, hard muscular thighs, a prominent male bulge, and from what she'd seen of Mario's brawny arms and strapping chest, she could imagine him easily lifting a ballerina up over his head, but trying to place Mario's face in that image was impossible.
"Back to boxing," Billy said to Julia. "Are you okay learning how to do that?"
Julia looked at the assortment of boxing gear, then shrugged, and said, "I guess I'm stuck. It's my Christmas present. But maybe it will do some good."
Sophie set the cake on the table and walked over to where the big bag stood and gave it a little punch, then another, and another, and said, "I love my husband and kids, but you know, there are times when I could see releasing a whole lot of frustration with this thing, maybe at the end of the day, when the kids are whining and fussing, and the puppy has just pooped on the floor, and Rick comes in to tell me one of the kids stuffed something down the toilet again and I need to watch them more closely." She gave it another couple of punches.
"It's actually a very romantic gift," Annie said. "Everyone has their own way of expressing love. I gave Ryan a mechanical bull as a wedding present because I didn't want him to get hurt riding real bulls, and the mechanical bull came with an inflatable floor."
"Okay," Kit said, "since we're making little confessions here, when I first met Marc, he told me my hair was an interesting color, that he saw the same color on a mummy, and that was actually his way of telling me he liked me."
"I think I can one-up that," Billy said. "Jeremy rewired my barn and jacked up my front porch when he was courting me, although I didn't know that's what he was doing at the time."
"He also left his home and family for you," Genie said. "I doubt any of us can one-up that."
Except maybe Mario, Julia silently
acknowledged, because he put his life on the line for her, and all he was asking in return was for her to begin to step out of her safe haven. The thought that he would continue pushing her beyond her comfort zone was troubling, and she dreaded going through the panic attacks that could plague her while he did, but it was a small favor for him to ask, and somehow she felt that on pushing herself she might at last get the upper hand on the ogre, the thing in her head that had no face, no form, only a will stronger than her own. She looked over at the punching bag again. Maybe the tide was about to turn.
CHAPTER 10
Julia decided to forget the flickering candles and romantic atmosphere and concentrate instead on preparing a dinner that included chopped walnuts and apples in a kind of Waldorf salad, a half dozen hardboiled eggs cut in half, which she sprinkled with paprika and fresh parsley, brown rice mixed with a can of black beans, yogurt with frozen blueberries, and sliced bananas with peanut butter spread on top instead of almond butter, although she figured it wouldn't make a difference. It was not exactly what she'd envisioned preparing for Mario when he invited himself for dinner, but it was what he wanted, and she was okay with it.
All the while she was putting the meal together, she found herself smiling because the image of Mario dancing ballet had taken hold. She could imagine him looking very impressive while springing straight up in the air, or leaping across a stage, or lifting a woman high above his head. But she wondered if she'd be able to keep from grinning when she saw him again. Since he said they'd be sparring, he'd no doubt strip down to boxing shorts, and on seeing his calves and muscular thighs, and whatever his silky shorts would define in the way of male assets, she was certain she'd see tights instead of boxing shorts, which would set off a chain of reactions, one being a female reaction to seeing a man whose presence sent her hormones rising, another making her smile because Mario was simply not a ballerina, no matter how he arrived at dancing.
Shortly before six, she changed into the blue boxing shorts and red sports bra with its plastic inserts which, after going on the internet to see what women boxers wore, she realized was her top, so she temporarily covered it with a cotton jersey jacket, then slipped on a pair of gray sweatpants. When Mario arrived, he too was wearing sweatpants, but instead of the jacket he'd worn when they went snowshoeing, he wore a gray flannel hoody. He also carried a canvas sports bag with what she assumed were boxing gloves and probably boxing shoes.
On entering the cabin, he set the canvas bag on the floor, then scanned the length of her, and said, "I hope you don't plan to work out in what you're wearing. Your arms and legs need to be free to move around."
"You're wearing sweats," Julia said.
"Only until we're ready to work out," Mario replied.
"I'll strip down too when the time comes," Julia said, "but that red thing you got me makes me look like Wonder Woman."
Mario's gaze dropped to mid-chest, and when he smiled, Julia felt tingles precisely where he was looking. Then his face sobered, and he said, "Protective vests aren't mandatory for women, but they're good breast protection any time you're sparring because, even though it's an unwritten rule not to throw a punch at a woman's chest, it happens."
Julia felt her face growing hot with the gist of the conversation, and although Mario didn't seem to attach any sexual significance to the exchange, she was feeling the effect with the heavy beating of her heart, and a tightness in her chest. Motioning toward the table, she said, "I guess we'd better eat so that what's hot doesn't get cold, and what's cold doesn't get warm."
Mario looked at her in puzzlement, then walked over to the table, and saying nothing, stared at it. Julia walked over to stand beside him. "I think I fixed everything you mentioned, but since I don't have any almond butter, I substituted peanut butter. I hope it's okay." When Mario remained quiet, Julia looked up to find him smiling. "What's so funny?"
"You," Mario said. "You're good at following directions, but you weren't supposed to fix everything. I meant apples and walnuts, or bananas and almond butter, or rice and black beans, but since you went to all this trouble, we'll eat half of it now and save the rest for afterwards, but it's still a lot of food, so we'll make the workout short, and try again tomorrow."
"Then we won't be sparring?" Julia said, hopeful.
Mario gave her one of his half-smiles, and replied, "Yeah, Wonder Woman, we'll still be sparring." His look was playful, a side of him she hadn't known but wanted to know better because it made her want things she hadn't wanted in years, like having a pillow fight in bed before having sex. She still was uncertain about that though, especially the part about being under the covers while wrapped in a man's arms and pinned against the bed. But she refused to think about it now because she and Mario were far from that, if ever.
After finishing dinner, which amounted to eating the rice and black beans, and the apple and walnut salad, Mario stripped off his hoody, leaving him standing in a black tank top that hugged a solid, muscular chest, and revealed large biceps, and sinewy forearms with roped veins. After tossing his hoody onto the couch, he removed his sweatpants and stood in a pair of black boxing shorts that came to just above his knees. As Julia had envisioned, his calves were well-muscled, with a dusting of dark hair, and his silky black shorts delineated a man who was very much a man in the way it mattered.
"Strip down and we'll get started," he said, while reaching for his boxing shoes.
Julia shed the sweats and shrugged out of the jacket, and to get around her feeling of self-consciousness in the chest protector, said, "All I need are stars on my shorts and a gold tiara." Mario looked at her, blankly. "Wonder Woman," she said. "She has white stars on her shorts, wears a gold tiara, and her red top sticks way out in front, but for different reasons than mine."
Mario laughed. "But she can't box, and before I leave this ranch, you'll be punching the stuffing out of that bag. Meanwhile, put on your boxing shoes and I'll wrap your hands in tape before you put on your gloves."
While Julia tugged on the form-fitting, boot-like shoes and fastened the Velcro straps across the front, Mario shoved the couch back and rolled up the braided rug that filled the space between the couch and the wood stove, leaving a bare wooden floor. After retrieving a roll of wide tape from his sports bag, he crouched on one knee in front of Julia, who was sitting on the couch, and as he wrapped the tape around her hands, Julia looked at his face, intent on what he was doing, and thought that if she'd ever be rid of her phobias and could feel comfortable having a man in her bed again, Mario was the only man she could imagine having there.
Grabbing the pink gloves, Mario slipped one on Julia's right hand and fastened it, then slipped the other on the left. After he wrapped his own hands with tape and put on gloves, he began by saying, "First, you need a strong stance, which enables you to unleash powerful punches and swiftly evade blows from your opponent." He demonstrated with several sharp, quick punches, reminding Julia of an action figure in a video, the dark-haired, steely-eyed, overly-muscled, cartoon character, who looked like he could chew up nails and spit them out, which had her laughing. "I'm sorry," she said. "It just strikes me as funny when you talk about me unleashing powerful punches. I'm not exactly prizefighting material."
"I know," Mario replied, "but the idea is for you to have the mindset of a prizefighter and use it to take control of your life."
Julia willed herself to listen and learn because she knew Mario was dead-on in the method he was using to set her free. Already she was beginning to feel more in control, though small things still triggered those little rushes of adrenaline that always set her on edge, although recently hormonal rushes seemed to be taking precedence over the kind of rushes that triggered a panic attack.
"The idea is to stay on your toes and keep moving, and never provide a stationary target," Mario said, while dancing and shadow boxing silently around the floor.
"You're making no sound," Julia commented. "It's like you're floating."
"That's the idea," Mari
o said. "Now, I'll show you some basic punching techniques you can use when shadow-boxing, or when working out with the heavy bag, then we'll do some warmups, so keeping your elbows in, raise your arms so your left hand's under your cheek, and your right hand's under your chin, and keep your chin down at all times."
Julia felt a little spurt of excitement as she positioned her hands, though she had no idea why, other than she was squaring off with Mario the way a boxer would, and he was smiling like he was pleased, and for some reason she liked pleasing him. She also understood how Sergei felt, looking up to a man he wanted to emulate, a man who would be an ideal father for him…
"The jab is a short, quick punch done with the left arm if you're right-handed," Mario said, redirecting Julia's attention. "It's used to keep your opponent away from you. Then you have the right cross, which is delivered by the dominant hand in a slightly upward motion across the body. Go ahead and try those two punches."
After Julia practiced a few jabs and a couple of right crosses, she became distracted when Mario moved behind her, and using his gloved hand, lifted her left arm while saying, "Pro fighters give their punching hand a slight twist to land the hand palm down, and you want to keep your elbows in." He curved his other arm around her, and with his gloved hand, moved her elbow closer to her side.
Julia tried to follow what he was saying, but she was preoccupied with the feel of his arms encircling her. "Now we'll do some warmups," he said, close to her ear. "I like to play motivating music during workouts because it's energizing, so I hope you have a CD player."
"There's one by the punching bag," Julia replied, while feeling the tingle of Mario's breath against the side of her face. She turned slightly, to allow him to kiss her cheek, or maybe the side of her neck again, but instead, he unwrapped himself from around her and went over to the CD player, and put in a disk he'd brought along.
Finding Justice (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 12) Page 12
