Below the Belt - Sarah Mayberry

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and move in with a hook. You get her right, you can lay her out,” he said.

      He shot a glance toward the center of the ring. He could see the ref gearing up to begin the third round.

      “Why?” Jamie demanded, staring at him intently.

      “Why what?” he asked, gaze darting to the ref again. Their time was nearly up; had she taken in a word he said?

      “Why are you giving me advice?”

      He shook his head. “I have no idea. Call it charity.”

      She shook her head in turn. “Not good enough. I don’t take charity.”

      The ref gestured for Jamie to move away from the corner, but she stood there, holding his eye.

      He swore. Loudly. Was he insane? Was he really going to allow some misplaced sense of guilt and sexual interest and God knows what to push him into this decision? He had his training ambitions to think of, his reputation, his future…

      “All right. I’ll take you on. Now get out there and lay her out,” he said.

      She gave him a fierce, almost feral grin before giving her attention over to the fight.

      Still not quite believing what he’d done, Cooper stood back and watched as Jamie took it up to her opponent again.

      Man, but she was full of pluck.

      “Name’s Arthur,” a voice yelled near his ear, and he tore his gaze from Jamie—his fighter—to see her grandfather standing there, gnarled hand extended.

      “Cooper,” he said, shaking hands.

      The old man bobbed his head and Cooper switched his attention back to the fight just in time to see Jamie step inside the other woman’s guard and send a smoking right hook toward her opponent’s jaw.

      He knew before it landed that the fight was over. The other woman’s head snapped to the side. Her eyes rolled white, and she staggered into the ropes then down onto the canvas. The ref stepped in to deliver the eight count. Like a pro, Jamie kept her eyes glued to her fallen opponent until the ref signaled the fight was over.

      Then Jamie lifted her arm in a single, triumphant punch to the sky.

      Her first win. Despite his misgivings, he felt the rush, too. And when she glanced across at him, grinning, he grinned back.

      Her grandfather was whooping with joy, and Jamie slid between the ropes and out of the ring to hug him.

      “I told you,” she kept saying. “I told you I could do it.”

      When they finally broke, she looked toward Cooper almost shyly.

      “She dropped her guard just like you said, so I did what you told me to do,” she said.

      “I know. I saw.”

      She bumped her gloves together. He could feel her uncertainty. He guessed that she hadn’t thought beyond this moment, she’d been so focused on scoring her first win.

      “So, what now?” she asked.

      “Now the hard work really begins,” he said.

      Chapter Three

      SHE HAD A TRAINER. And not just any trainer—she had Cooper Fitzgerald. Lying on the ratty couch in the apartment she shared with her grandfather later that night, Jamie lifted the bag of frozen peas from her cheekbone so she could see her grandfather where he was puttering around in the kitchen.

      “He wants to see me at his gym first thing tomorrow,” she said.

      “I heard. Not deaf yet,” her grandfather said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

      She fell silent again, reliving in her mind the moment when her fist connected with her opponent’s jaw and she’d won the fight. All because Cooper showed her the way. Excitement and anticipation bubbled up inside her. With him at her side, she was going to make her mark.

      “He’s good,” she said, dropping the bag of peas again. “The way he spotted her weakness like that.”

      “Yep. He knows what he’s doing.”

      Crossing over from the kitchen, he slid a plate onto the battered coffee table in front of her. Toasted cheese and ham, his specialty.

      “Should have more protein after a big fight, but you know my cooking’s not up to much.” He shrugged as he sank into his favorite armchair and rested his plate on his knees.

      He was wearing an ancient green shirt her grandmother had bought him back when they were first married, and what was left of his gray hair sat up in tufts over his ears. His once-strong shoulders curled forward with age and tiredness, and the hands that held his plate were thick and twisted with arthritis.

      A fierce rush of love filled her. She adored this old man with everything she had. He’d never let her down, never betrayed her, never stopped protecting her. And now it was her turn to do the same for him.

      Her critical gaze scanned the room, noting the grayed curtains, the stained walls, the chipped tiles in the kitchenette and the way the stuffing was exploding out of one corner of the couch where the upholstery had given way after years of wear and tear. Arthur Harrison Sawyer deserved better than this. In his day, he had been a boxer of renown, one of the greats who had forged a name for Australian boxers around the world. He’d fought both Muhammad Ali and Frazier before he’d dropped down a weight class and carved out his own niche. He’d fought hard and long and with enormous heart.

      He deserved better.

      She was going to make things better for him, for both of them. They were going to get out of this apartment. She was going to make sure he had heating in winter and cooling in summer, and that he never had to think twice about buying his monthly copy of The Ring, his favorite boxing magazine, because it was a luxury they couldn’t really afford.

      She was going to make it possible for him to hold his head high again after what her father had done. She was going to right the wrong, remind the boxing world that the name Sawyer was an honorable one, a great one, not a symbol of weakness and greed and failure.

      “We’ll be able to leave this place soon,” Jamie said as she reached for her toast. She bit into it without testing it for temperature and hissed with pain as she burned the roof of her mouth.

      “Every time,” her grandfather said, shaking his head and huffing out a laugh as she lunged for her water glass.

      “What can I say? I’m a creature of habit,” she said with a grin.

      Leaving her toast to cool some more, she lay back on the couch, repositioned her bag of peas and closed her eyes.

      Tomorrow she had her first session with Cooper Fitzgerald. Things were finally on the move.

      She frowned as the one reservation she had about her new trainer circled to fill her thoughts, as it had on and off ever since the fight and Cooper’s unexpected appearance in her corner: she didn’t know what had changed his mind about her.

      She wanted to think it was because he saw the potential for greatness in her, but she was also uneasily aware that every time they’d met, he’d looked at her the way a man looks at a woman he wants to get busy with.

      And she hadn’t exactly not noticed the fact that he was a whole lot of man, either.

      Was it going to be a problem? She opened her eyes and stared at the water stain on the ceiling.

      She’d make sure it wasn’t a problem, one way or another. This was her shot, and it was way more important than sexual curiosity or whatever it was that existed between them.

      Sitting up again, she tested her toast with a finger before taking another bite.

      “Smart girl,” her grandfather said with a half smile.

      “Absolutely,”

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