Chapter Five
The next morning, Chance was getting the plan ready for Maci’s training when she texted about a last-minute doctor’s appointment. Good. He hoped she could get some meds for that bug she had.
Or, even better, that bug would mean she couldn’t take part in this plan at all.
Chance had always been logical and strategic in his thinking. That, combined with his protective instincts, had meant he’d spent a lot of time taking care of the younger kids at the group homes he’d lived in before being adopted by Sheila and Clinton.
He’d been the one to plan things out and make sure everyone had what they needed. He’d been the one able to anticipate unexpected events and pivot to plan B, C or Z.
Those logical and strategic parts of his brain knew that Maci’s decoy plan was the most likely to be successful. Wasn’t the fact that she and Stella looked so much alike the reason he’d been compelled to take the case in the first place? And despite the fact they fought all the time, he knew Maci was intelligent, competent and situationally aware, like his brothers had argued.
But the logical and strategic parts of his brain weren’t what he wanted to listen to. He wanted Maci as far away from potential danger as possible.
And if the safest place was in his bed— him with her —was that really a bad thing?
But he’d agreed. He’d stand by his word and make sure she was as prepared as she could be.
Unused to the extra time, he picked up a cup of coffee for himself, adding a tea for Maci at the last minute. She could heat it up later if she wanted.
He’d rented a private room from his favorite local boxing gym. It was quiet and familiar, which was what he needed when it came to being around Maci. Being in the office with her was tough enough, but here there would be no brothers holding him back from saying things he should leave in the past.
There would be no offices to shut himself in to stop himself from demanding once again why she’d called their relationship off with no explanation.
It would just be the two of them and a few layers of cotton and Lycra separating skin from skin.
It was going to be torture.
When Maci walked through the doors, Chance could already tell she was distracted. Bloodshot eyes and bite-chapped lips were framed by messy hair, like she’d shoved her hands through it endlessly.
He caught her at the door and led her toward their training room. “How’d your appointment go? Find out anything interesting?”
Her blue eyes grew wide. “Wh-what?”
“Your doctor’s appointment. Your sickness? Are you okay to move forward with this plan?”
“Oh.” She forced a laugh. “I’m fine. Just a little...upset stomach. Doctor gave me a little nausea medicine, which should help.”
She was lying or at least wasn’t telling the full truth. He’d been studying that beautiful face and those cobalt eyes for way too long not to recognize it.
Maci was stubborn as hell and didn’t like to talk about her feelings. She was blowing him off; nothing he said was going to get her to share what was really going on.
He should be used to her shutting him out by now, but he wasn’t. The best he could do was ignore the burn of the slice. “Good. Then let’s get you warmed up and ready to go. I got you some tea if you need it.”
He led her through his favorite stretches, letting her modify them when they agitated her sensitive stomach and making a note to avoid touching that part of her body if at all possible. He wanted to train her, not make things worse.
The stretching should’ve helped her relax, but by the time he got her on the floor stretching her hips, she was nearly vibrating with stress.
“Maci, have you changed your mind? There’s no problem if you have.” There was nothing he’d like more.
“No, I haven’t changed my mind.” She shook her head, leaning forward to stretch her hamstrings, keeping her face averted.
He didn’t like that she felt like she had to hide herself from him. A thought struck him and he had to swallow down the lump in his throat before he could verbalize it.
Finally, he pushed the words out. “Would you like someone else to train you? If you’re uncomfortable with me being here, we can swap Luke or Weston out.”
It would gut him to do it, but her safety was the most important thing. If she would be more comfortable with someone else, Chance needed to step aside.
“No. It’s fine. I just... I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“If you’re sure—”
“I am. I want you to train me, Chance. I trust you.” Her blue eyes pinned him.
Something eased inside him. She trusted him. She had no idea how much that meant. Hell, he’d hardly understood how much that meant until the words had come out of her mouth.
He walked her through the final stretches and warm-ups before she stood there catching her breath and waiting for instructions.
“Before we get started, let’s level your expectations. I’m not going to teach you to fight.”
Her face screwed up in an adorable frown. “Why not?”
“We don’t have the time to get you to a comfortable proficiency with fighting. That means your goal is always going to be getting to safety. Survival is always the most important thing. Say it.”
“Survival is always the most important thing.”
“So, to that end, we’re going to utilize your size and stature to get out of some common scenarios.”
Maci stared at him with a quirked eyebrow and her usual sassy grin. He was surprised at how much he liked seeing it. The last few days—hell, weeks —she always seemed to be stressed. He’d missed the sass.
“You realize I’m not exactly tall, right?”
Oh, he realized it. He gave her a grin of his own as he dragged his gaze down the length of her body, grinning wider when a hint of pink colored her cheeks.
Maci wasn’t terribly short, but the fact that she fit under his chin was something he’d always enjoyed. “Exactly. Your height means that any attackers who are taller than you will have to contort their body to grab you. That gives us a small window of time to get you out and away.”
She considered that and nodded. “Okay.”
“We’ll go through a few holds and how to break them today. Tomorrow, we’ll work on escaping a few common restraints and reiterating what we learned today. The last day is basic self-defense moves that any person should know.”
“It doesn’t seem like a lot,” she said doubtfully.
Chance agreed. “Like I said, the goal isn’t for you to win a close-quarter fight. It’s for you to get enough room between you and the danger to escape.”
“Alright, Sensei. Teach me.”
“The most important thing you have to do in any attack is keep your head. That sounds easier than it really is.” And was a situation nearly impossible to replicate in training, but he wanted to mention it.
“Okay.”
“You’re smart and a quick thinker. Use that to your advantage.”
She blushed. “Thanks.”
He wasn’t saying it to flatter her. “In a battle against someone stronger than you or with more fighting experience, you have to use your strengths. For you, that’s going to have nothing to do with your physical muscles and everything to do with your brain.”
She was listening and taking this seriously. That was good.
“Okay, let’s start with a hold from behind. An attacker is likely going to wrap around you in an effort to either pick you up or hold your arms still. They won’t want you to be able to fight back since this position is mostly about the element of surprise.”
She nodded, taking it all in. “Okay.”
He spun a finger to signal for her to turn. He then stepped behind her, forcing himself to keep focus on the task at hand and not the closeness of her body.
“If the bad guy’s arms are around you, that leaves you with your legs. Go for the soft spots and try to unbalance him. Groin attacks, knee shots, anything. If you can twist your body around, you have the ability to claw at their eyes or headbutt them. Whatever you do, it’s not going to look pretty, so don’t worry about form. Just make sure it’s effective.”
He showed her the best places to kick the kneecap, and how high up on the inner thigh to aim for maximum pain if she couldn’t hit the groin.
She seemed riveted as he taught her the weakest parts of the ankle and how to rotate herself so that she could slither out of his grasp. None of it was perfect, but she managed the basics well enough, and every time she succeeded, she got happier.
Making Maci Ford happy was a heady feeling. One he wished she’d let him try to do full-time.
“Alright,” he finally said after they’d been at it for a couple hours. “Break free one more time and we’ll move on to other things.”
Chance wrapped his arms around her, hands on either bicep, but for a moment Maci didn’t move and he didn’t want her to. He had his arms wrapped around her for the first time in months and he was in no hurry for her to escape them again.
He tried to commit the moment to memory. The softness of her shirt sleeves under his fingers, the sound of her breathing as he kept her close to his body. He even pressed his nose to the crown of her head and took in the smell of the shampoo she loved so much. When he was sure he’d remember it for good, he squeezed her arms lightly, a reminder to focus and escape.
Maci took a deep breath and dropped her bodyweight. It was unexpected enough that he nearly released her, and she used it to her advantage. She twisted, grabbed the back of his knee and shoved her shoulder into his stomach like a football star. As soon as he was on his way down, she let go of him and scuttled to the back wall of the room.
“Perfect. That’s exactly what I wanted to see. Use whatever means necessary to surprise your attacker and put yourself in a position to escape. Let’s take a break for a bit then get back at it.”
Chance grabbed his water bottle and did everything in his power to focus on rehydrating rather than on Maci eating some granola bar and drinking her cooled tea on the other side of the room.
Even with dried sweat plastering her hair to her head and in shorts and a T-shirt she was damned beautiful.
How had things gone so wrong between them?
How could he make them right again?
How was he going to survive two and a half more days of being this close to her?
After the break she walked back over. She was looking a little tired, not that he could blame her. Maybe they’d take it easier this afternoon. They ran quickly through what they’d already worked on. The more it could become muscle memory for her, the better it would be.
Then it was time to move on to frontal attacks. “Alright, next up we’ll go over what to do for a choke hold. In this case, you’ll have eyes on your assailant and—”
He reached for her throat, but before he could connect, Maci flinched. Her whole body shifted away from him and her eyes closed. The furrow of her brow and the tight set of her mouth told him that it wasn’t a voluntary response—it was some sort of unexpected reaction.
And he had no idea why she’d had it.
Instantly, he dropped his hands and stepped back. Maci had never flinched from him before. Not in the time when they’d been lovers and not when they sniped and snarled at one another.
He couldn’t recall a single moment where she’d looked scared or fearful of her physical safety with him. Seeing this flinch, even though it wasn’t an extreme reaction, shattered something inside him.
“Maci? Are you okay?”
Those blue eyes popped open, and she seemed to realize what had happened. “I—I’m sorry.”
“Are you scared of me?”
He hated that he had to ask, but he needed to know.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Had he been misreading her all morning long, thinking she was doing okay when really she’d been hiding fear? “I don’t want you trying to push through some mental block. If this training is triggering for you then—”
“It’s not. I’m not scared of you.”
Her voice was firm and it sent a wave of relief rushing through him, one that was almost immediately taken over by confusion. If she wasn’t afraid of him, then why did she flinch? Had someone hurt her in the past?
And why the hell didn’t he know the answer to that question? He barely knew anything about her past at all.
He wanted to ask. Wanted to demand to know what that flinch had been about, but knew it would lead to a fight. The real kind with them yelling at each other, not the self-defense training kind.
“I think we’ve done enough for today,” he finally said. “Let’s call it quits.”
“No.”
“Can you tell me what caused you to flinch like that?”
He expected her to shut him down or joke around the question. When she remained silent, he thought maybe she wouldn’t answer at all.
“My parents would sometimes get violent with each other. Both ways. I guess choking was part of it, although I didn’t actively remember that until you came at me.”
Chance was stunned. He’d never heard her talk about her parents. Had no idea she’d had a less than ideal home life.
He didn’t talk much about his parents either. Maci had met Clinton and Sheila and knew what great people they were. But Chance had never really known his biological parents at all, so there wasn’t much to say about them.
“Mace, I—”
She held out a hand to stop him. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say anyway. “We’re on the clock. A woman’s life is at stake. I flinched but I’m fine now. Let’s keep working.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s a lot of things I’m not sure about, but this isn’t one of them.”