Strong and Steady

by Vanessa Vale

  That’s right, baby. He’s not for you.

  She wasn’t a quick lay. She was so much more.

  The restaurant hadn’t been the fucking ring, and I couldn’t have just beat the shit out of him. I'd had to be civilized, so I didn’t get arrested, but more importantly, scare the crap out of the woman. I'd taken a few deep breaths and chilled the hell out and got the girl. At least for a little while.

  Click. Click. Click.

  I glanced up at the digital clock placed high above the wall mats. Fifteen minutes to go. Sweat soaked my T-shirt, and my legs were starting to tire. My breath came out in an even pant, but I pushed on and thought about the conversation with Emory to get me through to the end of my workout.

  She’d actually considered that I’d drugged her water. Someone like Emory shouldn’t have those thoughts, shouldn’t have to watch out for predators. Men who were willing to treat her poorly or worse. Had some guy—perhaps her ex—been a dick and hurt her? Done shit like putting a Rufi in her drink? Was that why she was wary?

  When she’d looked at me, she’d been cautious. Yeah, I had cauliflower ear from fighting. My nose had been broken multiple times. I had scars on top of scars. Tattoos. I also dressed like I was from a ranch near a small town in Wyoming, not that I ever went back to that hellhole. I liked my leather boots, jeans and big belt buckle. I wore a Stetson I’d had since I was twenty-two. I didn’t fit the norm for Brant Valley. I didn’t fit the norm for anywhere.

  Besides being an MMA fighter, I was a Marine. Beneath all that, I was a cowboy at heart. My first big check from fighting went to buying a ranch of my own an hour from town, just over the Divide. Wide open spaces and lots of quiet. My escape. You could take the cowboy out of the country, but you couldn’t take the country out of the cowboy.

  Then I bought the building in Brant Valley, set up my gym and moved in upstairs. This town sure as fuck wasn’t a fighter town, but there was no way I was settling in a place like Vegas. I was famous in the industry, enough to set up my gym anywhere. So I did… in the closest town to my ranch. And the guys who wanted to make it in the MMA circuit sought me out and made Brant Valley their home while they worked with me.

  I went for snap shirts and jeans, not suits and ties. Or on the mat, shorts and bare feet. Even so, I looked dangerous, and to some people, was dangerous, but not with Emory. It just proved that my life was fucked up enough that a good girl like her would be afraid to be with the likes of me.

  She’d said she was divorced. The guy must have done something epic to fuck with her. She’d been skittish and nervous as a sixteen-year-old girl on a first date. She'd blushed so endearingly, and that proved it. I’d given her space, kept my tone gentle, tried to keep her at ease because, hell, I was pretty fucking scary looking. She’d said she wasn’t scared of me. Just nervous. Well, the feeling had been mutual. I’d been nervous as fuck around her because I hadn't wanted to mess up. But I had anyway. I’d stuck my foot in my mouth over and over. I’d told her I wasn’t picking her up, and I saw her smile slip.

  I’d made her think I wasn’t interested, that she wasn’t enough, when in fact she was too much. Too perfect. I hadn’t wanted to be like the other dicks in the bar because while I probably had the same dirty thoughts as the oyster guy, I was gentleman enough to know she didn’t do pickups. She would have run away screaming if she'd known how much I wondered what she’d worn beneath her prim dress. Something sexy and lacy, perhaps. And that had made me debate what color her nipples were, if her skin was as silky soft as it looked. If her pussy tasted as sweet as I imagined.

  Emory hadn't been some woman at the bar looking for a good time. She’d admitted outright she wasn’t looking. Period.

  The kicker was, she'd had no clue who I was. No idea I was famous in the industry. She didn’t know about my career, didn’t know my wins, my championship belts, my notoriety. Didn’t know I’d been stopped at least five times within as many minutes when I showed up at the bar. There'd been no sign of recognition at all when I told her my name. She wasn’t a groupie hoping for a little reverse cowgirl with a real cowboy, and that made her one of the only women who’d said to my face she wanted nothing from me. I had been the one to pursue her. To give her the option to see me again, and she’d been the first in a long, long time I’d done so.

  Unfortunately, fame had its price. Men wanted to be my friend, to be buddies with the champion MMA fighter. Women wanted in my bed, to fuck the Grayson Green. They wanted to be manhandled by The Outlaw, to fuck a bad boy. To go for a ride on a cowboy’s dick. Everyone wanted a piece of me. For themselves. For their own notoriety. Only a select few were on my true friends list, those I trusted knew the real fucked-up person behind the façade.

  I could get laid anytime I wanted. Hell, I could’ve walked through that bar and gotten some action without even trying. Gone back to the woman’s apartment for a quick fuck. Hell, I could have pulled her into the janitor’s closet for a wild ride. That had been fine when I was younger, when I didn’t care about knowing their names. I’d just wanted the meaningless release. Now, I wanted… something more. The chance for something real. Not fake tits. Not fake-and-bake skin. Not empty brains. Not groupies.

  I wanted honest, and that was definitely Emory. Every honest thought had flicked across her face.

  As the buzzer went off on my timer, I realized I wanted Emory, and I’d have to try damn hard to get her. Hanging the jump rope on a wall peg with all the others, I grabbed my towel from the long bench and wiped the sweat from my head and neck as I caught my breath. She wasn’t someone I could just have. It wasn’t going to happen that way. She was going to take work. Careful handling. The need to know more about her had gotten me to ask her to watch the flag football game on Sunday. Even knowing her for less than fifteen minutes, I’d known she wouldn’t go out with a guy who picked her up in a bar, even a friend of Paul’s.

  I'd left it up to her and hoped I'd intrigued her enough to want to stop by. I’d left it light. Easy. I’d see if she showed up, and if not, I’d have to figure out how to win her over a different way. I could connect with her through Christy. Coffee or a hike or… shit.

  Why would a woman like Emory be interested in a guy like me? Sure, I was successful in my career, was financially secure, but she didn’t know any of that. Who gave a shit about that crap when it came down to a connection? I had no idea what she did for a living and unless she was an escort or a drug dealer, I didn't really care. But I knew it had to be something good, something honest like her.

  As for me, the ghosts of the past lingered, taunted me, reared their ugly heads when I least expected it. Like now, when beautiful Emory appeared out of nowhere. She was a sucker punch I never saw coming. Would she give me a shot? She’d be stupid to do so. She just knew me as the guy who’d said stupid things and almost made her cry. Shit. I was in trouble here. I tossed the towel in the hamper and stripped off my sweaty T-shirt on the way to the showers. This was one fight I had no intention of losing.

  4

  EMORY

  * * *

  “Spill, girlfriend.” Faith Abrams swiveled around in her office chair and wheeled over to where I sat filling out papers. She pumped some vanilla scented hand sanitizer from a little bottle on my desk. It was better than the industrial stuff that came out of the dispensers on the walls all around the clinic.

  I spent three hours on Saturday mornings volunteering at a local health center that catered to women and children. Visits ranged from pregnancy to ear infections and everything in between. In July, I’d been looking for something to fill my extra time after Chris left for Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy, and this had certainly done it. The place was in desperate need of help, overrun with patients needing the free or low-cost services, and being a nurse practitioner, I could write prescriptions like a doctor while not requiring one to be on staff at all times. It helped keep costs down, and the budget was thin.

  We were in the central office where nurses and doctors worked on c
harts, filled out paperwork, updated online records. Two hallways of exam rooms were on either side. I'd finished the cases that had been scheduled in advance, but others were wrapping up drop-ins, and I was on standby for prescriptions if needed.

  “The party was fun. Christy was beautiful. The dress I told you about looked great.” I glanced up at her briefly before back at the script I was writing. I ripped it off the pad, placed it on top of the chart it went with.

  “Any cute guys?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows.

  I hid my flushed cheeks by turning to the next chart in the pile. I’d spent the night thinking about Gray, reliving my ridiculous behavior over and over. I’d tossed and turned, even swore at myself in my bed, angry I wasn’t flashier and sexier. Hell, I would have settled for not being a bumbling fool. I’d assumed Gray to be a jerk or worse, actually dangerous, but spending only a few minutes with him had made me think otherwise. Besides being a dumbass—one of Chris' terms I still clung to—I was also judgmental. Bob/Bill had looked clean cut and nice while I'd labeled Gray a bad boy. I hadn't ruled that out yet, but at least he’d been nice. Definitely a gentleman. And hadn’t eaten fried bull balls in front of me.

  I’d gotten confirmation about his character when I’d said my goodbyes to Paul and Christy. Paul had given me quick reassurance that the manly cowboy was a really good guy, which only made me feel even worse. Gray was the first guy in eons… no ever, to make me lust. Yes, it was pure lust because as I'd thought of him as I laid in my dark bedroom, I'd envisioned ripping open those fabulous snaps on his shirt to feel his soft skin and the hard muscles beneath. I longed to know what his long fingers could do, whether the stubble on his jaw would be rough against my inner thighs. He’d reduced me to a puddle of hormones, and I'd put my vibrator to good use using him as mental fantasy.

  When the alarm went off at five-thirty, I’d been ready to settle my mind and forget about him during yoga. After a ninety-minute power class, I’d gone home to shower then on to the clinic. Now, at noon and just before closing, I was wiped, and I still thought of him.

  “I'm waiting,” Faith added.

  I glanced up and rolled my eyes at her, leaned my forearms on the desk. “There was an auditor from Social Security.”

  Her pink scrub-clad shoulders slumped, and she pouted. “That’s no fun.”

  “You’re telling me,” I grumbled, remembering how Bob/Bill had belittled my job. “He thought a nurse practitioner was a candy striper.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Girlfriend, you worked your tight little buns off for that title. I bet that auditor doesn’t have a master’s degree or do what you do. He's a jackass.” She hmphed in indignation.

  As for Gray, I wasn’t saying a word. I was embarrassed enough just thinking about him and couldn’t fathom mentioning how stupid I’d been to anyone else. If I told her how I’d acted, she’d probably smack me. I just wanted to go back to bed and toss the covers over my head. For the next week.

  “Hey, Em.” Another nurse, Samantha, filled the open doorway, clipboard in hand.

  I looked up. Smiled. “What’s up?” She was in her early thirties, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, blue scrubs.

  “The kid in room three. Okay for his vaccine?”

  The clinic was her full-time job and knew the ins and outs of the place better than most, but she still had to get approval for any kind of injection or drug.

  I nodded. “Sure. Bring a lollipop in with you.”

  The woman pulled one from the jar on the counter, switched papers around. “Carrie in room two. Next appointment?”

  I thought of the woman who was three-months pregnant. “One month. Give her a pack of the prenatal vitamin samples. She hasn’t taken any before.”

  “One more.” The woman sighed as she rotated her charts in her arm. “Then we can all head home. Alice Watkins. Wants a refill on her pain meds.”

  I thought of her case. Broken rib, short-term pain meds. Glancing at Faith for her take, she shook her head. She had ten years on me and was even more cynical than I was. While I'd become jaded by an asshole ex-husband, hers came from growing up in a rough section of Denver. What she'd seen on the streets was what I treated in the ER. While I could understand the cases that came through the door, up until my divorce, I’d been a woman who'd lived in the suburbs while married to a rich lawyer. Faith knew the streets, knew the people.

  “No,” I said to Samantha. “She can’t have any more. Second time she’s gotten it refilled. If she’s still having pain, she can take ibuprofen, but if that doesn't cut it, she needs to be seen again.”

  I wasn't overly conservative about doling out pain meds. Some patients needed them. Some were being abused and came in for falling down the stairs or walking into a door, which was doubtful. Their pain wasn't. I'd learned long ago that a woman needed to want help—the clinic offered options to get out of abusive relationships—before anyone could truly give it to her. In the meantime, I could at least make them comfortable. But I wasn't an enabler either. Alice Watkins' injury was such that she didn't need Oxy or Vicodin any longer. I wasn't going to help her become addicted.

  “Got it. Thanks.” Samantha left to wrap up those loose-end patients.

  “That’s it? Just an auditor?” Faith asked, returning to our conversation. “I need to live through your dating life.”

  I swiveled my chair around to face her. “What dating life?”

  She gave me a pointed look over the edge of her reading glasses. She let them drop to dangle from the thin chain around her neck. “Exactly.”

  I sputtered, tugging my stethoscope from around my neck and placing it on the desk. “You have four kids and a man who loves you dearly. Why are you so interested in other men?”

  “Not for me, sweetheart, for you.” She pointed her finger at me like Uncle Sam then grinned.

  I held up my hands, leaned back in the creaky office chair. “Oh, I’ve had a man. I’m good.” I’d settle for no guy than to have Jack back in my life. But then my thoughts veered to Gray. Again. I sighed.

  She pursed her lips and clucked at me. “From what you've told me, Jack was an asshole. I never met the guy, mind you, but I know that’s a fact.”

  I thought about my ex-husband. He really was an asshole. “Yeah, but I got Chris out of it. Jack can’t take that away from me.” Especially now that our son was eighteen. Sure, he’d grumbled about getting custody and moving him to California with him when we'd first gotten divorced four years ago, but he wouldn’t have gone through with it. He just hadn't wanted to pay me child support. Besides, he and Paralegal Sue hadn’t wanted to be bothered by a teenager since they had both acted like them.

  “Damn straight. Heard from him?” I knew she meant Chris not Jack because her tone softened. Her youngest two were still in high school, but her daughter was in her last year at the state school, and her oldest was in the army stationed in Germany. She knew how hard it was to have a child leave the nest.

  I sighed. “Last week. I told him to settle in and not worry about me. It’s a big adjustment for him, and the first year is extra tough. He did say he's on the soccer team, and Advanced Calculus is, I quoted, 'going to kick my ass.'”

  She laughed and gave my arm a squeeze. “Girlfriend, you raised a fine boy.”

  I did, and I was totally biased, but now what? What was next for me?

  An hour later, I was climbing the front steps of my house when my neighbor, Simon, popped his head out his door. “How was it?”

  Simon was a few years younger than me, an architect and gay. We’d hit it off from the day he moved in three years ago. He was from Tennessee, and his accent was thick like syrup. He was tall and lanky, with blond hair cut in a very crisp, very conservative style—short on the sides and longer on the top. He wore chunky glasses and stylish clothes. Although I’d picked my own dress for the party last night, he’d forced me back into my closet and into the heeled sandals instead of the ballet flats I’d originally chosen. He was bossy, opi
nionated and had a sense for fashion I never would.

  He’d also been a great guy role model for Chris when his father had pretty much abandoned him and had a surprising knack for getting through to a cranky teenager in ways a mother never could. I still had no idea some of the things those two had talked about, but it didn't matter. As Faith had said, Chris had turned out just fine.

  “It was good.” I dropped my shoulder bag beside the door then leaned against it as I took off my work clogs. Lifting the metal lid on the vintage metal milk box, I dropped them inside. They remained there until I went to work next, not wanting to take any of the funk I walked through at the clinic or hospital into my house. The sun was intense, and I was sweaty and ready for another shower. Even though I’d had one after my workout this morning, I always took one after being at work or the clinic. “Christy rocked her dress.”

  We stood twenty feet apart, each on the short set of steps up to our front doors. The entire block was one long row of houses, all red brick with white stone steps. Built back in the forties, they were small and identical, but with a basement, there were three floors. My parents had bought the townhouse back in the late sixties, and I'd grown up in it. When I married Jack, I'd moved with him to the suburbs but returned after the divorce. I even slept in the bedroom I had when I was a kid, but my mom and I had ripped off the old eighties teenage wallpaper and painted it a pale yellow the first week back. A year later, they’d retired and moved to Florida, and Chris and I had stayed.