He considered going outside to grab a drink or make a phone call, tossing up the relative risks of being hit up for more autographs against the boredom of watching fights he wasn’t interested in.
Then he saw her.
She made her way toward the ring with the inward-focus common to all fighters before a bout. She had a large white towel draped over her shoulders, but her long, strong legs were bare beneath the loose satin of her red-and-white trunks.
Jamie. Realizing he had no idea what her last name was, he scanned the fight bill. His finger found the names: Jamie Holloway vs. Maree Jovavich.
Jamie Holloway. Right.
He studied the old man walking in front of her. Was this her trainer? Surely not. But even from a distance he could see the old guy was a former bruiser—there was no hiding the damage years in the ring did to brow, ears and nose. Where the hell had she dug him up from?
He switched his attention back to her, leaning forward as she climbed into the ring. She flipped the towel off her shoulders. Man, she was in good shape. The ring lights caught the ripples of her belly muscles. The defined, firm muscles of her thighs glistened with oil. She wore a chest guard, but beneath the bulk of it he could discern the swell of her breasts, full and generous. Her arms were strong-looking but not too bulky—she was good poster-girl material for the boxing association, a contender who still looked like a woman. The crowd was going to love her if she could actually fight.
She wore her dark hair braided tightly back against her skull in small plaits to keep it out of the way. Her face was shiny where her trainer had greased her brow and cheekbones with Vaseline to help deflect blows. Her gaze was hard and flat as she waited.
He sat back in his chair. She’d been serious about fighting, then, that day at Ray’s. He crossed his arms over his chest and wondered if her talent matched her attitude.
Her opponent, Maree Jovavich, climbed into the ring. Shorter, broader, bigger, she looked like she wasn’t going any-where fast, no matter how nicely anyone asked. He bet himself she had a hard head, too, the way she scanned the ring, marking out her territory.
He felt a stirring of interest despite himself. This might actually be a good match.
He watched Jamie Holloway as the MC announced the fighters and ran through their stats. Jovavich had ten wins under her belt to one loss. Jamie was untried, but she had two inches on the other woman in height and at twenty-seven was two years younger.
The whole time the MC went through his spiel, Jamie didn’t take her eyes off her opponent, letting the other woman know she planned to wipe the floor with her. Cooper grinned, giving her full points for style. Psyching the other guy out was an important part of the game.
As the MC exited the ring, the referee called both fighters to the center of the canvas. He’d be saying the same thing referees always said, about wanting a good, clean fight, and how he was going to signal when he wanted them to break or stop fighting. Both women nodded. The referee waited for them to tap gloves and move back to their corners. Then he signaled that the round was ready to begin.
The bell echoed around the stadium. The crowd yelled as the two women zeroed in on each other like heat-seeking missiles.
Jamie wasn’t shy—she took the fight straight to her opponent with a jab, followed by a left cross before dancing away from the other woman’s fists. They were both good, powerful hits, and he could see Jovavich reassess Jamie as she shook off the blows and circled in again.
A flurry of punches followed, with both women landing good hits. But Cooper frowned as he began to register a worrying trend in Jamie’s form as the round progressed.
The longer a fight went, the less a fighter thought and the more she fell back on instinct and habit—he knew, because he’d been there a million times. And it soon became clear that Jamie had some bad habits. For some inexplicable reason, she kept hesitating when the other woman was open, and her footwork was off. Instead of maintaining her stance and shuffling in and out, always moving, always weaving, she seemed to forget herself and lift her feet, almost as though she was going to kick the other woman or lunge toward her. The first time he saw it, he frowned. The fifth time, he swore under his breath.
“What are you doing, man?” he muttered as Jamie took hit after hit, the price for those hesitations and that poor footwork.
He could see the writing on the wall by the end of the first round, but he had to sit through all five of them and watch Jamie get pummeled around the ring before it was over. She took every hit and came back for more, even though it was clear to everyone that there was no way she was going to win unless she scored a lucky shot and knocked the other woman out.
By the time he was shaking his head in grudging admiration of her sheer pigheadedness, the final bell rang and Jovavich was declared the unanimous winner on points.
Cooper watched Jamie’s old trainer tend to her in her corner, taking her mouthpiece, mopping at her face, checking her for cuts and bruises. He was saying something to her, but she was shaking her head vigorously, her gloved fists thumping down onto her thighs as she emphasized her point. Finally, the old man gave up and simply held the ropes open so she could exit the ring.
The crowd was still cheering Jovavich as Jamie made her way to the change rooms. She didn’t slouch or slink away from her defeat. She held her head high, staring out into the crowd as she passed, daring them to pass judgment on her loss.
He couldn’t look away, even if he’d wanted to.
Then their eyes met across the sea of people, and he saw her burning defiance and determination.
She’d be back. Even as part of him admired her chutzpah, the fighter in him regretted the lessons she was going to have to learn the hard way until she broke her bad habits—or they broke her.
Not your problem, man, he told himself. She’s nothing to you.
He watched her all the way to the change room.
WHY DID he have to be there? Jamie slammed an uppercut into the long bag two days later. She punched again, throwing all her weight behind it.
Better yet, why did I have to notice that he was there? She kneed the bag, then followed up with a roundhouse kick that sent it rocking on its heavy chain.
Of all the people she could have locked gazes with in that huge auditorium, it had to be Cooper Fitzgerald. What were the odds? Too high for her to calculate. And yet she’d stared straight into his deep blue eyes as she walked away from the first defeat of her professional boxing career.
“Remind me to never let you get near me with one of those kicks,” Ray said.
He was working the speedball behind her in his lavishly equipped home gym, the rhythmic thudding of his punches a constant in the background.
Her years of Tae Kwon Do had given her the leg strength, speed and accuracy to ensure that her kicks were a force to be reckoned with. She’d been club champion for six years and state champion for two before she’d dropped out to start training for the boxing ring six months ago, following her grandfather’s heart attack. She thought wistfully of the days when she was at the top of the food chain in her chosen sport, rather than the bottom. From where she was sitting right now, they
