muttered with a quick glance at her watch. She hastened her steps past the X-ray department, wondering why some days turned out like that.
She should have had plenty of time to get to the physiotherapy department and give her notes a final read through before the first brave souls arrived. Now she’d be lucky to get there before it was time for the class to start.
‘Ah! Here she is!’ called a male voice as she pushed the doors open, and she had to deliberately tamp down the swift surge of pleasure that Marc’s husky voice set off.
Then she saw him and almost forgot how to breathe.
He looked good in the business suits he wore to work each day, but in the softly draping fabric of a tracksuit she could see just how well the formal clothing camouflaged the muscles beneath. And to see him lounging easily against the wall with his arms folded across an impressively broad chest…
It was a real physical effort to drag her eyes away and acknowledge the half-dozen assorted members of staff waiting for her.
‘Sorry to be late but I got delayed on the ward,’ she said in a strangely breathless voice.
‘You don’t need to apologise to us. We know it goes with the territory,’ groaned a staff nurse she vaguely recognised from the accident and emergency department. It was amazing the difference a slim-fitting pair of jeans made when she was accustomed to seeing the young woman in baggy cotton theatre greens.
‘It doesn’t help when staff numbers are down either,’ said another with a dark look in Marc’s direction.
‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said, his hands held up in surrender as he shouldered himself away from the wall to join the group. ‘Most nurses are working the equivalent of one and a half jobs but aren’t being paid a fair rate for one. That’s why recruitment is so difficult.’
‘Well, love of the job won’t pay the grocery bills,’ said another voice, and Lauren realised her class was in danger of being hijacked by the perennial nursing complaint.
‘So, does anyone here want to learn how to defend themselves against people desperate to mug them for their lavish salary?’ she joked, and heard the mixture of groans and chuckles she was looking for. ‘If you’d like to come over and perch yourselves on these benches, we’ll start with a few basics.’
‘This reminds me of being in gym classes at school,’ said Sam, the youngest member of the group, with a giggle as they settled in a row on the low wooden bench.
‘OK, now, I’ll start with a general introduction. For those who don’t know me, I’m Lauren Scott, a recent recruit to Denison Memorial. Before I came here I worked in a big inner city hospital in a rather rough part of an industrial town. It was bad enough having to cope with so many victims of physical violence but when some of them were our own staff, I wanted to see if I could do something about it.’
She paused a moment to draw breath, needing to subdue the ache of memories of a friend she would never see again, knifed right outside the hospital by an assailant trying to snatch her bag to support a drug habit. If she had her way, none of these women would end up victims. That was what she should concentrate on.
‘At school I was into sport and, like a lot of women, I enjoyed pitching myself against the boys in my class.’ There was another chuckle and some shared glances that told her she hadn’t been the only one. ‘Unfortunately, as we moved up the school, the boys got bigger and stronger, especially in their upper bodies, and when I realised that I was going to have to learn to use guile to beat them, I turned to martial arts.’ It wasn’t the whole story by a long chalk, but it was enough to get their attention.
‘You mean judo? That sort of thing?’ Sam asked eagerly. ‘There have been several films recently with women doing that.’
‘Judo and Tae Kwon Do,’ Lauren said with a nod. ‘It came in very useful when the body-builders tried to get a little more friendly than I wanted, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realised how few women know how to defend themselves against the threat of random violence.’
‘But if it’s random, you can’t be prepared against it, can you?’ objected one of her older pupils, a senior nurse from the A and E department. ‘It must be different if you’re waiting for a bell to go at the start and finish of a bout in a competition.’
In spite of the fact that she’d carefully positioned herself to keep him out of her direct line of sight, Lauren caught a glimpse of Marc’s expression and was suddenly gratified to see that he was every bit as interested in what she had to say as the rest.
She dragged her eyes away and forced herself to gather her thoughts.
‘In one way, you’re absolutely right. You can never know when violence might explode out of nowhere. But you can be prepared, especially if you learn to take sensible precautions on a daily basis.’
Getting into her stride, she started off with what was for her the number one rule.
‘The best way to get out of a difficult situation isn’t becoming an expert at martial arts, it’s running,’ she announced baldly, and watched them blink.
‘You mean, go to keep-fit classes, or take up jogging?’ Marc asked with a frown. It obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. He looked almost as though she’d disappointed him.
‘Not necessarily, although we could probably all do with a bit of extra exercise if only we had the time and energy,’ Lauren said. ‘No, what I actually mean is, if you’re attacked, the best thing you can do is to run away—even if your attacker has grabbed your handbag. It’s never worth being injured or even losing your life over a bag full of odds and ends.’
Lauren reached for the shoulder-bag she’d deposited with her notes and demonstrated how to carry it tucked tightly under her arm with the long handles folded well out of reach.
‘Most attacks on lone women happen at night, so it’s important that you’re aware of any dangerous places on your journey—badly lit short cuts, for example—and that you find a safer way to go.’
She had their attention now but, strangely, she was most aware of a certain pair of smoky grey eyes following her every word.
‘I’ve prepared a set of notes that you can each take home with you at the end of the session, just to remind you of the points that we’ll go through in each class.’
She handed out the notes and waited a moment till they settled down again then began working her way through the list of basic safety strategies for women travelling alone.
It turned into a lively discussion…much to Marc’s surprise, if she was reading his expression correctly.
Had he expected her just to stand in front of them and deliver a dry lecture? she wondered crossly. Just wait until she started teaching them some of the really physical stuff. She’d prove to him that she was just as good at this as she was at her nursing job.
‘As you can see, self-defence has some similarities with medicine,’ she pointed out. ‘Much of the prevention side is just common sense.’
‘Like parking in well-lit areas,’ Marc said, a meaningful glint in his eye just for Lauren.
‘Which brings us back to the aspect of planning ahead,’ she
