Below the Belt Read online

And where his dumbass mind would stop, Brad didn’t know. Jesus. Daydreaming about a woman when he should have been giving every brain cell to the task at hand, no matter how mindless.

  He blanked her out—blanked it all out—and put his energy into completing the sprint drill in the fastest time he could. His best hope now was to wow the coaches with his speed and commitment so they would forget about his momentary lapse.

  He hit the ninth lap strong, pleased with his time, barely winded, when, on the seventh stair up, it happened in slow motion. His brain registered the sickening sound of pops from his right knee, followed by a grinding sensation from under the kneecap that instantly made him nauseous. Brad grabbed for the railing before he pitched face-first into the concrete step and busted something.

  Easing his butt to the step below, he stretched his right leg out fully. It clicked. Fucking clicked. He bent it to ninety degrees. A dull sort of pain radiated out from his knee, sharpening like ripping teeth when he straightened it again.

  The hiss of breath he sucked in echoed in the steel-and-concrete staircase. He was alone, so at least that cut out the embarrassment of looking like a weakling.

  Come on, work, dammit.

  He bent the knee, straightened it out, bent it again. Then he slowly stood and tested the supporting weight.

  No collapsing, no absolute brain-numbing pain. Just a dull ache. So, maybe he twisted it. Easy enough to push through. He walked up two steps and sucked in a breath again as the sharp pain hit. Okay. That wasn’t going to cut it.

  But what the hell else was he going to do? Move into the stairwell like a hobo? Screwing his eyes closed, he evaluated the two possibilities. Quit, or push on.

  No contest.

  He swallowed the nausea as he half walked, half jogged up the stairs to finish out the ninth lap. He’d lost almost all his edge in time, but as he jogged across the top of the catwalk, nobody seemed to notice he’d been missing from sight longer than normal. He kicked up the speed a little when he caught Higgs glancing upward, and gritted his teeth against the grinding feeling.

  That couldn’t be good. But damn if he’d let any of his teammates see his weakness. Not yet. They weren’t a fully formed team, which made them opponents as much as a team. Boxing was tricky that way.

  Sweat dripped from the back of his neck as he finished out his final lap, the pain causing every step to feel like twenty. So great, now he looked like an out-of-shape asshole. But probably better that than to get cut immediately with an injury.

  Not that it was that bad. As he walked across the hardwood floor toward the large orange jug, he shook out the leg a little, making it seem like a normal stretch in case anyone walked back into the gym. There was no grinding pain now. Just a dull throb, like a toothache, and completely manageable. If this was how it would feel most of the time, it would be no issue.

  Still, he’d use ice and heat after practice to be safe. He wasn’t a complete moron.

  “Costa!”

  His hand crunched around the paper cup he’d glugged water from. “Coach Cartwright.”

  The wiry man who looked like a stiff breeze would send him out to sea paced up. He had a wispy-thin voice to match. “Finished with your punishment?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “Good. Go hit the weight room. Coach Ace is in there getting measurements and sizing up weight classes.”

  “Yes, Coach,” he repeated, tossing the cup into the trash before jogging lightly across the gym toward the interior weight room.

  As he pushed open the door, he found a long line of Marines ahead of him, with Coach Ace standing in the corner by a scale. He stepped up behind his roommate and another Marine, who were chatting.

  Higgs turned and gave him a funny look. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Conditioning,” he said easily. No need to mention it was a punishment.

  Higgs just shrugged, then tilted his head to the left. His blond hair was soaking with sweat, darkening it to a golden brown. “Have you met Graham Sweeney?”

  Of course he hadn’t. It wasn’t social hour at the O Club, for criss sake. But he held out a hand to the man standing beside Higgs. “Hey, man.”

  Sweeney smiled easily. His darker, olive complexion and thick black hair made Brad think of Tuscan landscapes rather than a smelly, sweat-soaked gym room. “Hey. I was just telling Higgs here, I’m at my home base, so I’ve got a house out the back gate in Hubert. If you guys ever get sick of the BOQ or base food, come on by. We’ll toss a few steaks on the grill and relax a little.”

  “Yeah, thanks, man. Sounds good.” The offer was decent, but he wouldn’t be taking him up on it anytime soon. He had enough to think about without adding budding bro-ships to it.

  “We were just saying, too bad about Ramsey,” Higgs said with a shake of his head. “Disgusting luck. I thought he looked good in warm-ups.”

  Brad thought hard and came up with a foggy impression of a built guy with gym-rat muscles and a semipermanent mean sneer. “What happened?” How much had he missed in ten dang minutes?

  “Dislocated his shoulder using the bag.” Sweeney grimaced. “Showing off, looked like to me. He’s done. Went out fighting, though.”

  “It wasn’t pretty,” Higgs agreed. “I could hear him in the training room, even through the door. He was screaming at the hot trainer like she was ruining his life. Though I think it was the coach’s final word, not hers, that put the fork in him.”

  Brad’s skin prickled, and not just from the weak AC hitting his sweat-soaked body. Already, injuries were taking over. Part of him felt mental triumph at one less competitor on the field. But the other half of his brain reminded him he could easily be next.

  The line shifted and he bounced on the balls of his feet as he stepped forward. Still fine. No sharp pain at all.

  He’d play it by ear. Take it easy, stretch often and, if push came to shove, see a doctor out in town on his own dollar. One thing was for certain. There was no way in hell he was telling the sexy athletic trainer he was hurting. He’d rather take a bullet.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Marianne watched the poor, trodden masses stand at attention while Coach Ace read them the riot act. It was a speech she’d heard a dozen times, from a dozen different coaches in a dozen different ways. The gist was always the same, though.

  Sloppy, out of shape, pathetic performance, how did I get saddled with such a sorry bunch of losers? I shoulda gone to culinary school like my mama begged me to. Blah blah blah.

  Standard first-day fare.

  Normally, though, it was geared toward high schoolers, and was delivered with less . . . colorful language. She smiled as the Marines stood at attention, being reamed out by Coach Ace, then Coach Willis—Cartwright seemed to pass on this round of ass-chewing. They were stoic and focused. Quite a change from the typical eye-rolling, sarcasm-producing teens.

  After a few minutes of the interesting pep talk, the Marines broke for dinner. According to her schedule, they had about ninety minutes to decompress, grab food, shower, run errands or do whatever else it was they needed to handle around base. There wasn’t a ton to do on base, and they didn’t have enough time to make it out to Jacksonville, sit through a restaurant meal and come back, though some of them might be stationed on Lejeune, and so could pop back home to see families or roommates. The rest were housed in the BOQ or barracks, having been shuttled in from whatever base they were stationed at.

  She watched with an amused smile as most of the men walked straight past her. A few nodded politely or smiled, but most simply breezed by. None, she noted, stopped to take one of the nutrition pamphlets she’d put on a stool outside her door. She propped a shoulder on the wall by the door and bit back a grin.

  Day one, everybody was a tough guy. No showing weakness. No whining to mama. Give them another week, and she would have a full house of Marines wanting ice packs, heat packs, cramps massaged out, lacerations taped up, ankles wrapped and who knew what else.

  One Mar
ine walked up to stand in front of her. “Ma’am—”

  “Marianne. Or Cook, either one.”

  “Cook,” he said, as she had suspected he would. He was likely in his early twenties, which made her several years older than him, and he had a cute spray of freckles across his nose that complimented the russet-gold hair. But oh, God, coming on base could really be a dual hit and stroke to the ego. Hot Marines watching her walk around like she was the sexiest thing they’d seen all day, and then calling her ma’am like she was their old-fart aunt.

  “What’s up?”

  “Could I get an ice pack for the road?”

  “Sure thing, come on in.” She walked back to the icing station and grabbed a plastic bag, blowing in it to fill it with air and wrapping the edges around a bucket. Made for easier filling. “What’s the ailment, Marine?”

  That was the beauty of this job. She didn’t have to memorize names or ranks. Shout, “Hey, Marine!” in a full room, and you’ll get a full room answering you back.

  He glanced around the room, as if he were waiting for someone to pop out and scream, “Surprise!” at him.

  “We’re alone,” she assured him, biting on her lip to contain the smile.

  He blew out a breath, then held up his left hand. Even from several feet away, she could see the last two knuckles were swollen. Likely dislocated.

  “Ouch.”

  “Doesn’t hurt,” he insisted, a little too quickly in her opinion. “I just don’t want it to swell more and cause problems later.”

  “Well, you’re right on that part at least. What’s your name?”

  “Toby Chalfant.”

  “Well, Chalfant, you came to the right place.” She tied the ends of the plastic baggie and brought it over to sit on the bench next to him. When she held out her hand, he hesitated. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

  His lips twitched and he gingerly stretched his arm out to place his wrist in her grip. It hurt more than he wanted to admit—that much was obvious. When she wiggled his pinky and ring finger, his eyes squinted and his jaw clenched, though he didn’t flinch or pull away.

  “Ice, ice baby,” she said and handed him the bag. “Would it do me any good to ask you to take the rest of the day off? Or to just use your other hand?”

  He gave her a look that clearly asked, Are you insane? He was too well-trained—either by his mama or by a very proud gunny somewhere—to say it out loud.

  “Thought so. Take it easy with that hand, try using the right more than the left. If you want to wrap it, just for the illusion of support and to keep the swelling down, come back ten minutes before the evening session and we’ll do that. I can wrap both hands up to the wrists, if that would make you feel better about it. A lot of guys are wrapping just to protect against scrapes and mat burns. Nobody would think twice.”

  He gave her a grateful smile and stood, bag of already melting ice in his right hand. He headed out the door, nodding respectfully to the man who passed him in the doorway.

  Another customer. She tossed the bucket she’d used into the wash bin and was ready to grab another when she noticed it was her handsome stranger from the night before. His shirt, a light gray, had a shadowy line running down the front from the neck to his waistband. His brown hair had deepened to nearly black with sweat. And his dark eyes were scanning the room in a slow, methodical way that made her think he was waiting to be ambushed.

  And unlike sweet Toby Chalfant, the sexy stranger sent her heart into a different gear entirely.

  Marianne, if you let your heart race like that, he’s going to pick up on it.

  And why the hell are you even letting this one man affect you like that? Pull it together! You are a professional—act like it.

  She took a deep breath, then gave him her most professional, polite smile. “What can I do for you?”

  He said nothing for a moment, just surveyed the room.

  Okay then. Two could play that game. She crossed her arms and waited.

  After a few moments, he hopped up onto one of her tables and swung his legs up, bending over as if stretching out his hamstrings. “Where are the assistants?”

  “Sent them out for an early dinner. Figured it’d be a slow first day.”

  He glanced once more at the empty room. “Figured right.”

  “So.” She slapped a hand down on the table next to him, her palm stinging and echoing against the thick plastic like a smack on flesh. “Are you in here for business or pleasure?”

  He scowled. “Out of those two options, business, I guess.”

  “No time for pleasure?” Crap. Why had she asked that? He might take that for flirting. She wasn’t flirting. Of course she wasn’t flirting.

  If he thought it was a flirtatious remark, he didn’t seem inclined to reply in the same vein. “I’m here for the job. Which, right now, is boxing and training.”

  “Of course. Name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  You know, he was a lot more personable the night before in the bar. “I’m working with the lot of you for the next several weeks. Yes, it matters. At least until you get cut.”

  She’d meant it in jest, more as a general you, not so much him in particular. But he scowled at her like he wanted to bite her head off, as if she’d meant it personally.

  There was silence for another while. She bit back the next sarcastic remark and decided to wait him out. When he said nothing, she turned and headed to wash the bucket she’d used on the last Marine.

  “Brad Costa.”

  Brad. She liked it. Short, strong, solid. Suited him—the stubborn male.

  “I just need ice.”

  At that, she turned. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  He shook his head . . . whatever that meant.

  She started scooping ice into a new bag and fresh bucket, tying off the ends with a simple flick of her fingers. “What’s the ice for?”

  “Does it matter?” It seemed to be a favorite question of his. He reached for the bag, but she held it out of the way.

  “It does, in fact, matter. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you big strong boys, so if you have a boo-boo, I need to know.”

  “It’s just preventative. Nothing hurts, and I want to keep it that way.”

  She raised a brow, indicating she wasn’t buying the bullshit he was trying to sell. But since he wasn’t offering any more insights, and she didn’t want to have a three-hour standoff, she passed him the wet bag. He stepped down from the table—interesting that he didn’t hop down like he’d hopped up—and headed for the door.

  “You’re welcome,” she called at his back.

  He halted, but didn’t turn around. “Thank you.”

  She snickered as he walked through the double doors that led to the parking lot, then she made a split-second decision. Who said she couldn’t thank him for the drinks the night before? Might be better to just acknowledge the first meeting, get that out of the way, and move on. Maybe he’d loosen up a little afterward.

  Marianne sprinted after him, but as she hit the doors herself, she watched as he continued on to a car, limping more than a little. Everyone else was already out of sight, having raced off to make the most of their short break time. So he likely thought he was safe letting his guard down.

  She watched the limp pattern as he shuffle-walked to his car, then eased into the driver seat carefully. Right leg, likely the knee. His ankle seemed to be rotating fine, but he was struggling to bend the knee to get in the car, which appeared to be a rental.

  Might just be sore muscles. If that were the case, heat would be better than ice, which she would have told him if he hadn’t been such a hard-ass about it. But he wasn’t ready to discuss it.

  So she’d observe and make notes. It was part of what she did, watching for potential problems and working to prevent injuries just as much as putting out the fires once one cropped up. A healthy team was the goal, and a healthy team was the sign of a damn good trainer.

  Brad Costa, I will just h
ave to break you down and get you to confess. You won’t know what hit you.

  * * *

  IT was a train. A train had hit him. Right at the kneecap.

  Jesus H. Brad continually bent and straightened his leg—though the “straighten” part was more theory than actual practice—while icing in twenty-minute increments. Day one, and he was already falling apart. These three-a-days were killers. He had to be back at practice in another thirty minutes, and he wasn’t even sure if he should drive his damn car over.

  Lying back on his bed, he whipped out his cell phone from his duffel and called his mom. He’d missed her call to him the day he’d checked in—thanks to being out at Back Gate—and knew she’d be worried.

  When she answered, a little breathless, he checked his watch and knew he’d called during dinner time on accident. “Sorry, forgot you’re an hour behind me now.”

  “Globe-trotting will do that to you.” His mother’s amused voice warmed him from the inside. “How’s my favorite son?”

  “Don’t let Brent hear you say that.”

  “He’s at college. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  He laughed, because he knew she’d have said the same thing to his younger brother. They were all her favorites. “Tell me what’s up with you guys?”

  “What’s not up with us? Sarah’s got college applications coming out her ears, and your brother dodges my calls faster than you do.” She sighed, the much belabored sigh of a mother hen who enjoyed her chicks and hated when they were far from the nest. “Bob started a new project in the garage. He swears it’s a chair—”

  “It is a chair!” he heard his stepfather call from somewhere else in the house. Probably the kitchen table.

  “And it’s a lovely one,” his mother insisted.

  Brad smiled. His stepfather was always trying a new woodworking project. The family had long ago resigned themselves to the fact that they would never be able to actually park their cars in the garage.

  “I need to hear how you are. Making any friends? How’s the food?”

  “It’s not summer camp.” He groaned as he tried once more to straighten his knee. The pop and grind made him want to gag. That was just so wrong. “It’s like boxing camp on steroids.”