by Jayne Blue
And then she found him. Not on a wall with a belt but in the ring, fighting or was it sparring? She had no idea, but it looked like fighting to her.
She watched as Mace unleashed a flurry of punches. And then blocked a few kicks from his opponent. Raleigh studied his face. Everything on him was a weapon. His eyes bored into his opponent, his jawline sharp, sinew and muscle tensed as he sprung trap after trap.
“Cassidy?”
“Yes.”
“That ring over there are they sparring or is it a real fight?”
“Looks pretty serious to me.” Cassidy looked at the ring and they both watched as Mace took his opponent down to the mat. The cage rattled as they landed.
Mace punches did not cease just because they were on the ground. Mace wound his legs around, the muscles of his thighs now pronounced and straining to squeeze the life out of the poor guy who Mace fought. Her French dreamboat was a fighter’s worst nightmare.
Cassidy’s attention was diverted from Mace’s fight when a recently showered, incredibly good looking man sporting a man bun walked up to the little receptionist and kissed her. For that matter, Raleigh was momentarily blinded by his looks. And the kiss was enough to make her blush just witnessing it.
The man looked move-star famous. It then dawned on her he was one of the fighters featured in the article she’d read about the Grand City Great Wolves Gym. Or GWG as the cool people called it.
“Crad is Mace actually killing Darius?” Cassidy asked Cradock Flynn, that was his name, it came back to her.
“Sawyer asked Mace to uncork on Darius. Poor Darius.” They all three flinched as Mace slammed Darius to the cage.
“Yeah, poor Darius. Mace is scary as hell. Oh, I’m sorry Craddock this is Raleigh.”
“Hi, you here to train,” he asked while keeping a possessive arm around Cassidy, the receptionist’s, shoulders.
“No, meeting Mace for lunch.”
“Ah, well it won’t be long now. Darius is about to be unconscious.” And they looked back to the ring. Mace rendered Darius limp and out cold. Raleigh was in awe of how easily Mace dominated the other man.
She put her hands to her heart to still its beating. It felt for a moment like she was in the ring with Mace.
He caught her eye. It chilled her to the bone. Mace’s eyes were still, cold, murderous. Deadly was probably the right word, as poor Darius had just found out.
This side of Mace was thrilling to witness, but it was also intimidating. Her Mace made coffee. This Mace made grown men shake. In the ring at Bareknuckles and now here at the GWG he didn’t just win. He destroyed the competition. It was no surprise Mace never had lost. She could see why after her two brief glimpses of his world.
An old man, a trainer she guessed, patted Mace on the back and Darius was trying to identify how many fingers were in front of his face.
She turned back to Craddock and Cassidy.
“So can I ask you Craddock, is Mace that good or is Darius just that bad?”
“Darius is actually pretty damn good. But Mace Alois could step into any ring and kill anyone any day of the week. Bet on it.”
“Really?”
“Except me of course,” Cassidy elbowed him in the side, “smart money’s always on me.”
“Humility isn’t one of his gifts,” She said conspiratorially to Raleigh. She liked these two. But her conversation was cut short. She wanted to greet Mace and saw that he was climbing out of the ring.
“Is it okay if I go back?” She didn’t want to break any gym rules. It was a serious looking place and she didn’t want to step wrong.
“Sure,” Cassidy told her.
Mace met her at the side of the ring and he began to unwrap about a mile of tape around his wrists and gloves.
“Can I help with that,” she asked. Mace waved her off.
“What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting later.”
“I just wanted to surprise you. And I was curious.”
“I do not like surprises. Wait out front. I’ve got to shower.” Mace’s cold reception was a stark contrast to the affection she’d just seen between Craddock and the receptionist, Cassidy. It made her heart hurt a little.
The excitement of getting here, getting the big job, and everything she’d felt on the bus was evaporating.
She shouldn’t have come, but it was too late. She hoped Mace would lighten up at lunch.
Lunch didn’t go much better.
“So you were amazing in there. Fast, scary, and that poor Darius guy,” Raleigh was truly overwhelmed seeing Mace in his element. It really was his element. She had no doubt, he should be in the ring, and oddly in the kitchen. She was increasingly perplexed that Mace wasn’t pursuing something he was clearly born to do.
“I was asked to teach Darius a few things. It was nothing personal.” That was the longest sentence she’d gotten out of him so far as they picked around their food.
“Gotcha.” Raleigh couldn’t help it. She had to push a little. She had to find out something about his past or go crazy. The fact that he wouldn’t open up was beginning to gnaw at the outer edges of her happy bubble.
They could enjoy each other in a million ways but when she asked about MMA, it was a brick wall. Seeing him spar made her that much more curious. Craddock Flynn told her he could step in and make a run for a title today.
Mace wouldn’t look at her, and worse, normally they’d held hands, sat side by side, stuff that she’d tell people to get a room for was their normal. But not today. Since the moment he saw her at the gym he was stone cold and distant. None of her conversational gambits took hold. He answered with single words, he did not look at her, and Mace was a stranger.
“I have been thinking,” Mace said.
Raleigh was young, but she wasn’t stupid, that phrase spelled trouble.
“Oh?” She decided she wasn’t dumb, but she’d play dumb.
“We need to cool it. I don’t think this is working. It’s not you. It’s me. I do not want to be involved with one woman right now.” He said it in a quick rush and still didn’t look at her.
“You want to be involved with several? Is that a French thing?” She made one attempt to lighten the mood. To deny what he was trying to do.
Dump her.
“That is not my meaning. My meaning is that I cannot see you anymore.”
“That’s going to be hard since we live next door and you’re in love with me.” He looked up at her then. His eyes a gorgeous gray color and if she wasn’t mistaken, they looked as sad as she was starting to feel.
“I am not in love with you. And I will be moving soon. I did not mean to mislead you. For that, I am sorry.”
“Really? That’s it then?” She felt a spike in her chest and a rising panic that this was actually real. He was actually dumping her like they were nothing.
“Oui.” And he got up, left money for lunch on the table, and walked away. It was supposed to be her treat? Silly to think that in light of what just happened but that’s what popped in her head.
Raleigh sat in the restaurant and felt like the entire place was looking at her, pitying her, or worse laughing at her. Of course it was quiet, no one knew that he had just squeezed the air out of her just like he’d done to Darius.
She saw her tear land on the white table cloth, and then a gray spot in her vision.
The white table cloth was the last thing she could remember with any accuracy.
Chapter Eight
Mace
He hadn’t meant to do it abruptly at lunch, but that was what had to be done. Seeing her in the gym made it all too clear. They were getting too familiar, too close, and he had to put a stop to it.
He should have done it when Sawyer told him people were asking around about him. He felt an unseen pressure out there to push him to the MMA world again, to trip up, and to get sloppy. Mace had nearly said yes to the fight Sawyer offered.
He had gotten careless and it was because of Raleigh. She was exactly rig
ht. He was falling in love with her. She was sunlight. She was hope. She was a future that he couldn’t have. But he’d selfishly believed he could.
It made him sick to think of leaving her there alone in the restaurant. But the truth was, for Mace, loving someone, meant staying away from them. It was the one reason his parents were alive. He had set them up in their new town and hadn’t been back.
It took Nadya paying with her life for him to understand how serious the men who’d started him out in the professional fighting really were. When they said they owned you, they did. When you ignored their orders, they would punish you.
He wished they’d punished his body but instead they’d taken Nadya. It was a guilt he lived with every day.
Nadya…
He’d been 18 when they sent him to Brazil to train.
In France, MMA fighting was illegal. His parents saw him excel in boxing, in martial arts, and in wrestling, so they spent their savings to send him to Brazil to live and train.
Nadya was also a transplant. She was a stranger in a strange land just like he was and they fell in love.
She was there for MMA too. Her father was a promoter looking for new fighters.
Mace’s very first fight was set up by Nadya’s father. It was a dream come true. He was getting paid for professional fighting and he quickly climbed the ranks.
They were both in too deep before he even realized it.
Mace still hated himself for trusting the wrong people.
He didn’t believe the entire sport was dirty, but he’d found the worst of the worst. His younger self didn’t stand a chance against their machine. He was a puppet for their profit.
But he wouldn’t be again. So he was going to have run again and make sure Raleigh didn’t try to follow.
Mace had meant to wait for the right time and just disappear. He wasn’t really going to say anything. Just slip away.
But when Raleigh showed up at the GWG and made easy conversation with everyone around her he realized it had to be now.
He didn’t need Craddock or Sawyer or any of them connecting with her, connecting him to her, no. It was time to start withdrawing. The same day as he was asked again to go pro she showed up in the gym. If that wasn’t a sign that things were converging nothing was.
The money from touring was decent. He’d compiled a little cash. Enough to run again, Chicago, New York, he’d been both places.
Mace had no idea where he was going to go next. He’d thought he had a little time. He thought Grand City was small enough.
Mace wouldn’t need much time to pack his entire life. He’d designed it that way.
Without Raleigh he found his apartment was depressing, his food didn’t taste good, only Estelle was a comfort.
Mace and Estelle would be moving on and Raleigh would find someone else to shine her light on. He’d ended it so abruptly, he hurt her on purpose, she would think the worst of him now. It was the way it had to be.
Estelle went to her little pillow bed and whined. It was as if she knew too that they were about to lose Raleigh and of course Estelle loved Raleigh’s dog Andrew, Estelle didn’t like the situation one bit. She was giving him the cold shoulder.
“Me too bebe, me too.” Mace opened a bottle of whiskey.
Whiskey was a hard drink. He’d been very soft the last few weeks. He knocked a few back, straight from the bottle. Playtime was over.
He fell asleep hard from the liquor.
He didn’t notice that Raleigh had not come back to her apartment since their lunch.
Raleigh
She woke up in the hospital. Dammit. Dammit.
Three months and no seizure. And here she was again.
“Miss Gibson? You scared us there.” A nurse. A nurse was talking to her and taking her blood pressure. She was in the E.R. She was in a hospital gown. Shit, had she been driving? She started to talk and felt a sharp pain in her tongue.
She’d bit her tongue. She looked down. Her clothes, had she ruined those?
“Did I crash my car? Did I hurt anyone?” She asked the nurse.
“You had a seizure sitting at a table in a restaurant,” the nurse explained to Raleigh how she got there.
“Thank God. Okay, thank god. Did I?” She figured she’d lost all bodily control based on the way her mouth felt and the hospital gown.
“Don’t be embarrassed. No one cares about that. It’s okay honey, the medic alert bracelet did the trick. The waiter called 911. Dr. Hardy’s on the way in here actually. He insisted when we called him.”
“Thank you. Can I have ice chips?” Her mouth was swollen and she was parched.
“Right there next to you, do you need help?”
Raleigh reached over and with shaking hands operated a cup and spoon. The task was small and but it was a relief to her to do it. She could hold a spoon. She could feed herself.
The little things were back to being in the forefront. When you lose control of everything control of a spoon is a victory.
Then the moments before the seizure came back to her. Mace, her fling, the one who’d helped her forget that this could happen, just for a little while, had dumped her. She took a few deep breaths.
The pain of the moment was sharp she remembered that. But now she was left with an ache. She felt hollow and hopeless.
“Well, it’s been three months. Not bad?” Dr. Hardy walked in and lightened her mood a bit. He was a kind and familiar face. He was the person who had reassured her parents that she could live a normal life with epilepsy. Normal with modifications and precautions. She was working so hard to achieve that level of normal.
A year ago it was Dr. Hardy who explained that a blow to her head had caused the condition.
Ever since he worked with her to try to manage it, but the words she did not want to hear were on his lips.
“Refractory. Don’t say that okay?”
“Okay. How about we talk options here?”
“Other than drugs?”
“We’re going to try a new drug, first of all, it’s a clinical trial I think you’ll be really perfect for this category of anticonvulsant.”
“Okay, you’re not saying what I know is next.”
“Before we do surgery or any implant I’m going to make you change your diet. Major change.”
“Really?”
“Yep, you’re going to start this new medicine. You’re going to promise me to eat only things on this list and then we’ll see.”
“I’d had three months.” She tried not to cry, but it came out.
“I know. That’s pretty epic as the kids say today. We’ll figure this out, Raleigh. I promise you. We’re going to help you get that active life of yours back.”
“I’m afraid to leave my house.”
“I know. And that is totally normal. Chin up buttercup. We’re not out of options just yet.” Dr. Hardy had known her parents her whole life and he always called her buttercup.
She felt small and about five years old right then. She felt it was a blessing that he’d known her before this started. He knew she used to be fearless, fun, and healthy.
“Okay. Thank you. Can I go home?”
“I wanted to keep you overnight and then turn you loose in the morning.”
“Okay.” She didn’t argue. If it happened in the hospital, she would be safe. That was something.
She talked on the phone to her parents, reassured them it was nothing, pretended to be okay and staved off a hovering visit from them.
She also called Alysha and filled her in. Courtney stopped by Raleigh’s apartment after her night shift at WLUV and took Andrew out for a potty break.
Raleigh managed the details of her life as best she from her hospital bed.
She didn’t sleep much and had planned to take a cab home when out of the blue, in the morning, Alysha and Courtney appeared.
“You guys shouldn’t have.” She had to admit it was a good mood lifter to have her two best friends there.
“Your mama
would kick our asses if she found out you took a cab home.” Courtney told her and Alysha provided her with a loaner pair of yoga pants and a hoodie.
“Thanks for the clothes.” Something about that part of it, destroying her clothes, made her feel the most humiliated.
“Don’t mention it. So where’s the hunky boyfriend?” Alysha cut right to it.
“He dumped me yesterday. It’s actually the last thing I remember before this little excitement.”
“Ah, baby girl.” And her two friends enfolded her in a hug. It was good to have them there and took the edge off the last twenty-four hours.
“Okay, no more crying. I have bigger trouble.” She brushed away her tears.
“What,” Alysha asked with concern in her eyes.
“I have to eat a ketogenic diet. Like actually cook stuff.” She waved the papers that Dr. Hardy gave her in the air in frustration.
“Uh oh. You’re really screwed now.” Courtney knew her too well.
“Come on. Andrew is going to be really pissed. And likely did piss in the kitchen. I have to get home.”
Chapter Nine
Mace
Mace could hear Andrew next door. The dog was barking up a storm and that wasn’t’ like him. Mace looked at the clock. It was after nine in the morning. Where was Raleigh? He should look for her. Go to her.
No. He had made a hard break with her yesterday. It would be cruel to them both to hover around.
Andrew’s deep bark was going to wake the whole complex and that pushed him over the edge. He was worried then. Very worried. Mace wanted to keep his nose out of it¸ but then Estelle started to bark and whine in sympathy.
Something needed to be done.
This was not like Andrew and Mace couldn’t stand it any longer.
He still had a key to Raleigh’s place so in the morning he let himself in after knocking produced no answer.
Andrew practically knocked him down with relief. Raleigh clearly wasn’t home. Had she been gone all night? The thought made him sick to his stomach.
