by Nana Malone
Eleven
Cole felt better prepared for Echo the next day, when he changed into his running gear and waited for her at the track. He was mentally prepared. Today, he was not going to think about how her nipples tasted, or how wet he could make her. He’d blown off Dylan and his friends the night before, and stayed up half the night reworking his plan, doing in-depth research into Echo and her racing history, including her training. He had several pages of notes, and a few different approaches started, but he would need to do a personal assessment of her times and capabilities. Probably a few, if he could get some time booked at the indoor track.
“You’re late,” he said when she arrived.
“Actually, I’m five minutes early,” she informed him. “You’re my coach. You already have authority so you don’t need to abuse it. And remember that there’s a difference between authority and respect. You have to earn—”
She was such a fucking piece of work. No. Don’t let her get under your skin. Even if he liked it. “I’ve devised a new diet I want you to follow,” he interrupted, motioning to the binder under his arm where all of his materials resided. “I’ll give you a few copies before you go, but you will start following it when we break for lunch. This morning I want you running sprints. I need to get a better idea of what your times are today. The ones you had in high school and college are unlikely to still be relevant. Do you still have the occasional problem with your IT band? I looked at some of your film.”
She smirked and he ignored her. “Sometimes. I’m good now, though.”
“We’ll start with the 100 meter. I want to get several times for each distance, but you’ll obviously need to take longer breaks between heats as the distances get longer.”
“I’m ready to go. Are we using blocks?” Echo asked as she went to the starting line.
“No. Let’s face it; you’re not competing at 100-meter distance. You’ll be crushed. You should go longer.”
Cole hustled down the track to the 100-meter mark he’d laid out and pulled out his stopwatch. He held up his hand until Echo gave a nod that she saw. He dropped his hand and pressed the button on his stopwatch simultaneously.
She bolted.
“Fifteen-point-six seconds,” Cole said, impressed. He jotted the time down in his notes and jogged back to the starting line, while Echo caught her breath and readied herself for the next heat.
Her next four times on the 100 meters were 14.9, 15.3, 14.7, and 14.2 seconds.
“I’ll want to see if we can get that time down a bit if we move indoors where it’s warmer, but those are better than I thought they would be,” he said as Echo took a break for a drink.
“For the record,” she said, panting, “my favorite race to run is the half mile…I can maybe shave…a second or two…from those…but I doubt I’ll be able to get down…to ten or eleven…and unless I have a shot at one of those…I don’t stand a chance in the 100 meter at the Olympics…I might qualify…but I won’t win.”
“Like I said. I know. You haven’t got the goods for that. If I can’t shave at least three seconds off your time—” Cole started to say, but Echo turned before he could finish. Someone was approaching the track where they were working.
“Gramps?” She didn’t sound happy about the unscheduled interruption. Still, she jogged over to the man and gave him a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Your parents mentioned that you were starting your training, and I thought I’d stop by and watch for a bit. Been through it myself, remember? Though it was half a lifetime ago now,” he said.
Cole stood back, watching the scene, and attempted to evaluate Rory Coulter in the flesh, to separate him from the legend and the family empire he’d created. So far, Cole wasn’t succeeding.
Rory Coulter and the Olympic games were inextricably linked, despite the fact that he hadn’t won a single race he’d competed in. But it was where Rory had met and fallen in love with his wife. And given the lengths they’d gone to in order to be together, him helping her defect from Russia just weeks later, no one remembered that particular detail. Athletically speaking, he was better known for his football career. And, of course, Legacy Sports was as strong as ever under the leadership of his only son, Brent.
His careers had made him famous and wealthy. His son and grandchildren promised to continue his proud legacy.
“Gramps, this is Cole Jackson,” Echo said, waving Cole over to meet the man properly. “Cole, this is my grandfather, Rory Coulter.”
The old man didn’t smile. “Jackson, eh? Not familiar with your work,” Rory said as he shook Cole’s hand. “You seem awfully young.”
“Gramps,” Echo scolded.
“I’m fairly new to the coaching game,” Cole explained. “I ran a bit in college but had a few tough injuries. Went to school for sports psychology, nutrition, health, and science. The usual litany for coaching these days. Had some success with Junior Olympics, high school, and college athletes.”
Rory nodded along, but was clearly unimpressed with Cole’s credentials.
“I’m running a few heats now on some of the different distances to help give Cole an idea of what I can do, and where I’m strongest,” Echo redirected the conversation to the task at hand. “We’re working to decide which events I have the best chance at so we can focus more on training specifically for those.”
“That’s what I was hoping to talk to you about,” Rory said and Cole watched something flicker in Echo’s eyes that he could have sworn was a flash of panic.
Interesting.
“What is it?” she asked. Cole thought he could almost hear the slight strain in her voice as well, and he narrowed his eyes, watching her more closely.
“Echo should enter the marathon,” Rory said bluntly.
“The marathon!” Echo’s mouth hung open in disbelief, with perhaps a bit of outrage. She rounded on her grandfather, inserting herself between Cole and the old man. “At the Olympics? I don’t have a chance of winning that. Between the Kenyan seventeen-year-old, and the Eritrean forty-year-old, and that UK chick who ran Boston while pregnant and still placed, I’ll never make it. They take years of training to run competitively. I’ve only got a few months before qualifiers.”
“You’ve run marathons before,” Rory reminded her, dismissing her concern. “Being able to run that far, period, is half the battle. You can and do regularly. It won’t take much training at all to shave your time down on it.”
“Marathons are exhausting,” she sputtered. “I doubt I’d be able to train for any other event.”
Cole could hear the panic rising in Echo’s voice at the thought of months of work and training going to waste.
“What event are you most comfortable with?” Cole asked Echo.
“The half mile,” Echo responded quickly. “It’s the one I’ve always had the most success with. High school through college. If I have a particularly good day and some of the other runners have bad ones, I might finish near the top on a few other events. Maybe the quarter, but the half mile has always been my race. I can even do decently with the mile. But come on, the marathon?”
“But the marathon is the most difficult,” Rory continued, clearly arguing for what he wanted her to do. “To excel in that race is to show what you’re made of.”
“Marathons are more difficult,” Cole agreed. He heard the long intake of breath from Echo that sounded like someone gearing up to argue a point. The angry part of him wanted to make her do it because he was pissed. But he wasn’t an asshole. He was her coach.
Personal feelings aside, he had her best interests at heart. He wanted to win. It was idiotic to focus so much of their efforts on a race she had little chance of winning. And if this was his big chance to make a name for himself as an Olympic coach, he wasn’t about to blow it on Rory Coulter’s whim.
“There are more opportunities for injury both during the race and in training,” he said. “It’s not a race I can gauge Echo’s timing on today, but perhaps a treadmill
run next week will give me a better idea of whether it’s a race she should consider entering.”
Cole could feel Echo staring daggers at him, but his attention was focused on Rory.
Rory looked appeased if not completely satisfied.
“You’re the coach,” he conceded. “But I don’t think that a run on a treadmill would be a completely accurate gauge of Echo’s abilities. I know a marathon is a lot to train for if you’re not sure you want to commit,” he admitted, turning to Echo and disregarding Cole. “But you’re already registered to run the marathon in Boston. I’ll make a few calls to the folks over there and see if they can get you bumped from the general pool to the competitive field. If you decide not to make it one of your events, there’s still plenty of time to train up in the others. It isn’t as though the endurance would be a bad thing to have.”
Echo glanced at Cole, who gave her a subtle and, he hoped, reassuring nod. It was encouraging that she preferred to defer to him rather than cave to her grandfather or dig her heels in herself. She sighed but nodded her consent. “If the marathon committee will switch me, I’ll do my best to run Boston competitively.”
Rory’s face broke into a grin. “Good. Now, with that settled, get back to running those heats. I want to see how you do on the 800 meters, since that’s the one you’re so keen on.”
“Actually, the 800 meters is one we’re going to hold off on until after lunch,” Cole explained, taking back the control over the training session. “Doing the sprints first, because of the chill. It’s supposed to warm up a little bit later this afternoon, so the longer lengths won’t be as uncomfortable for Echo. We’ll probably stretch out evaluations, taking the longest lengths’ times over the course of a few days.”
Rory’s grin had vanished as soon as Cole said the word, ‘Actually.’
“Gramps, why don’t you have a seat? You can cheer me on,” Echo suggested quickly.
If Cole thought Echo’s death glares were chilly, he was unprepared for Rory Coulter’s stare.
Cole could feel the iciness of the old man’s eyes watching and judging him, and part of him took perverse pleasure in being able to unsettle someone like Rory Coulter. It’s your funeral.
He was still angry about the situation with Echo, and the gnawing betrayal was still painfully fresh. But watching the way the old man had swooped in on their training session uninvited, trying to take over and push her into a race she clearly didn’t want, made him feel sorry for her. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to protect her.
“Let’s start on the two hundred,” he said. He needed to focus on his job and not the urge to cover her body with his and shield her from anything that might hurt her. Neither of them could afford his pity if they were going to get her in top form for the qualifiers over the course of the next few months.
By her own admission, she hadn’t run competitively since graduating college last year. “When we’re through with these heats, we can break for lunch, and you can find a way to keep your grandfather from disrupting our afternoon session. I don’t want any distractions while you’re training, got it?”
“I’ll find a way to get him to go home,” she promised.
“Good, ’cause if you don’t, I will. Now, take your mark, and I’ll see you at the other end.” He tucked his clipboard under his arm and jogged off, leaving her to limber up.
Twelve
She had survived. Well, sort of. Echo couldn’t believe she hadn’t killed Cole yet. Or vice versa. The last two weeks had been hell. Echo squirmed as Cole stared at her with his judgey eyes when she took a long sip from her steaming mug of hot chocolate.
“Nice of you to show up, Echo.”
“Sorry. There was crazy traffic on the 5 South. An accident on Poinsettia.”
“You realize my time is important, right? Not all of us were born with a platinum spoon, so our time is money.”
She glowered at him. She would have something to say, but he was right. She’d totally overslept. She hadn’t been able to sleep well in days and it was catching up to her. “You done now?”
“Just about. What is that you’re drinking?”
Damn. He was in a hell of a mood today. She shrugged. “Hot chocolate. I need the dairy,” she muttered after swallowing.
“You need to drink more of the protein supplement shakes that I put on your diet plan,” he lectured. “You’re tearing down and building up muscle with your runs and the exercises you’ve been doing. That thing you’re drinking is made with milk and has loads of sugars.”
“It’s also delicious,” she said with a smart-ass grin. “I’ve been trying to follow your breakfast diet that you laid out, but it doesn’t have as much dairy as I’m used to and it’s been giving me headaches.”
“So take an aspirin.”
“No.” Echo said firmly. “I don’t know why, but I’ve never had headaches like this before. Look, I get what you’re trying to do,” she added quickly, before she had to hear another lecture about protein and carbohydrates, and how and why the body broke things down the way it did and how it all affected her running. “But, I know that over the last two weeks, when I’ve picked up hot chocolate on my way in, the headaches haven’t even started.”
His brows rose. “You’ve been having these drinks on your ride in for the last two weeks?” he asked, the fury evident in his pinched expression. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t consider it an issue, since they clearly didn’t have a negative effect on my running.” Okay, so it was immature, but she enjoyed the way he clenched his jaw when he couldn’t refute her argument for doing something her own way. “Of course, it could be you that’s giving me headaches. Today’s just the first day I didn’t finish the drink in the car on the ride over. By the way, Jen was talking about popping in and having a watch. And don’t worry—she won’t be nearly as disruptive as Gramps.”
Training had taken up so much time lately that she hadn’t been able to have any personal time, and after two weeks in close proximity to Cole, she desperately needed a break with someone who didn’t want or need anything from her. Someone to whom she could honestly talk. Or else she was going to explode.
At least Cole had kept it professional. Even if she had a hard time with him trying to bust her ass.
Cole gave her a tight smile. “Just finish it up and get ready for your session,” he instructed. “You’re on the treadmill again today. I want a controlled environment, and I couldn’t get that indoor track again. Apparently one of the local private schools has it on permanent reserve for their spring track and field teams starting with their spring break. I want to see how you do on the half marathon.”
“Yes, sir,” she saluted him.
He headed for their private training room. With the weight of the Coulter name to back him up, the facility had been more agreeable to his commandeering pieces of their equipment from the main gym to “keep their sessions from disrupting the other patrons’ enjoyment of the amenities.” Before he disappeared through the door he called out once more. “And Echo, I hope you’re getting to bed at a decent hour. Your times have been improving, but…you look tired. You can’t hide the bags under your eyes like you did that hickey.”
Asshole. She glowered at his back, but he was right. But did he have to bring up the damn hickey?
She was exhausted, and training was only a fraction of what was draining her. And regardless of how she felt physically, she had to admit that his methods, with a few minor tweaks, were working.
She was more confident in her reaction time at the start of a sprint than she had been two months ago, and even after a long run she was less achy.
What was exhausting her was going along with her parents’ efforts to keep everyone else in the dark about her dad. It had been a few weeks since he first started going for tests, and there were still no answers. None for her, at least. The doctors had to have ruled a few things out by now, but her parents weren’t sharing what the outcome was, or when they planned
to give up the charade and come clean to the rest of the family.
Luckily, Fox was too focused on hockey, Gage was stressing about college acceptance letters and scholarship offers coming in, and Bryce and Dax were too preoccupied with Tami and Asha respectively, to bother Echo about whether or not Dad was feeling like himself.
If nothing else, the training with a goal in mind gave her an outlet for the frustration and stress. She had taken Jen’s ideas to heart about the doors that would open to her in more fields, including the possibility of branching into fashion right after the games.
Later, when she ran on the treadmill, she would be running towards dreams of her own. Not her family’s.
Cole watched Echo’s form closely as she ran on the treadmill, and he managed to get distracted only once or twice. Which was an improvement. She was keeping a tight pace and making good time, but he would be more comfortable with her progress when he timed her again.
The diet had been working, despite the cheating. And he could tell she’d been doing the breathing and visualization exercises he’d recommended. She wasn’t taking as long to cool down and return to a resting heart rate after the distance runs.
He hated to say it, but she was pretty amazing. And shit, she was good. Very good. His confidence in her ability to not just qualify respectably—but possibly medal—grew every day. He pushed her, and while she occasionally pushed back, he was pleased to see that she pushed herself as well. She was self-driven. And a fighter. Much as he might like to take credit for it, her ability to do that was something that couldn’t be taught. It was just who she was.
He felt a gentle tap on his arm and spun to find Jen standing beside him. There was no way to tell how long ago she’d slipped into the private training room. Echo was in her zone and either hadn’t noticed her friend’s appearance, or ignored it.
“I got here a bit earlier than I thought I would,” Jen said quietly and apologetically to Cole. “I hope it’s not distracting to have me in here. If it is, I can slip over to the restaurant and wait for Echo there.”
