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four
Callie was curled against his left hip, a tiny spot of warmth in the large, empty bed. Sean blinked his eyes open to the alarm clock on the nightstand: 8:34. Damn. He’d slept in again. “You’re a terrible cat,” he chided the sleeping ball. “Aren’t you guys supposed to walk on our faces and throw things on the floor when we sleep too late?”
Callie didn’t budge, the insult landing on tiny, deaf ears. She’d always been a snuggler, a dream come true on cold, lonely nights and rainy days. A gift for his ex-wife when things went bad, Callie had always preferred Sean, and Kim hadn’t even tried to take her when she left.I don’t like cats, Sean, Kim had said.I never understood why you got her in the first place. I wanted you home to keep me company. Not some stupid cat.
Sean gave the cat one last stroke and murmured, “You’re not stupid, are you?” before he slid out of the covers and hit the bathroom. After he splashed some cold water on his face he looked in the mirror and decided he’d make it to the 0930 at Semper Fit no matter what. This was his last day off before his shift started again tomorrow and he’d been really good about hitting the gym almost daily.
Callie leaped onto the bathroom sink and sat like a statue, tall and straight, with her tail curled around her feet, and watched Sean get dressed. She was a calico; dark gray with peach-colored patches, one of which cut her chin directly in half. She tilted her head up.
“Stop showing me your peach fuzz,” Sean said. “I’m doing this for my health.” Which was the truth. At least partly. He wasn’t going to deny that he’d hoped each day for weeks that he’d see Delaney, the tough girl with the wildcat eyes. No such luck, but in the words of Rhett Santos, if it took a pretty woman to get him into the gym on a regular basis, then so be it. Things could be worse.
Not that Sean held much hope. Spring had flown by and Delaney never showed. When he pulled into the parking lot of Semper Fit ten minutes late, he almost didn’t go inside. A marine through and through, Rhett could be a real hard-ass about tardiness. But then Sean spotted the motorcycle: a black Honda Rebel. He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure this was the bike Delaney rode, but there were no other motorcycles that showed up regularly to Semper Fit. Odds were high.
A rush of adrenaline filled his veins. He slipped inside, willing to take any and all crap for his lateness, and was glad to see a large group warming up to melt into and not draw attention. Everyone was doing Samson lunges so Sean dropped his bag by the cubbies and fell right in. He scanned the room, trying to seem casual, when a low whisper came near his ear.
“Yeah, she’s here,” Rhett’s voice said. “But you’re so late, you probably didn’t notice.”
“Just for once,” Sean said, turning to grin at his Marine Corps brother, “don’t bust my balls, okay?”
Rhett didn’t even crack a smile. “Why? Is it your birthday?”
Sean laughed, his mood surging upward as he went through the rest of the warm-up. He scanned the room until he found her. Dark, short hair. Slender body with hard muscles. Bright, pretty face. There was something inherently earthy about her. She could be one of those wood nymphs who lived in the trees. A living, breathing contrast of masculine and feminine. Strength and vulnerability. Somewhere in her thirties, but that was tricky because she was probably older than she looked. There was so much Sean could read, just by watching. She was legit tough. Probably single—no ring, not even the silicone kind so popular in gym settings—but it was more than that. There was something nomadic that suggested a long solo flight. She wasn’t fussy, based on the haircut, short nails, lack of makeup. Less easy to read, but still present, was a cloud of grief—Sean couldn’t say what but it was there, in her skeptical gaze, careful movements and the way she kept rolling her shoulder back, trying to shift away weight too heavy to carry.
Delaney looked up and caught him staring, just like their last encounter. Sean quickly moved outside to get ready for the metabolic conditioning, or “cardio” portion of the workout. He’d lunged past the whiteboard to get a peek, since he’d missed the intro, and saw that today’s workout was running a 5K. He’d groaned inwardly at that, even though he was a good runner. It’d been a while since he’d done more than a collection of 400-or 800-meter sprints. Runs like today were atypical for gym programming, but this was the time of year Rhett always ramped up the mileage. Sean hadn’t done any steady mileage for years, and when Sean did run he preferred middle distance. Marathons were punishing and 5Ks were puke fests.
“Scale this run to keep it half hour or less,” Rhett was speaking to the group that gathered outside. “Across the street, into the woods, you’ll find markers to turn around for one mile, two miles and for five kilometers. Faster runners up front. Check your ego at the door. I don’t need faster runners trying to get around a throng of people only doing a mile or two.”
Sean realized he was up front because he’d gone outside before everyone else. Zoe and Duke—a super fit secret service agent who’d been coming for as long as Sean could remember—were there. Both would definitely beat everyone inside. He almost excused himself to the middle of the pack, just to be safe, until he glanced over and saw Delaney right next to him. “Confident, huh?” The words slipped out before he could stop himself.
She squinted a death glare. Looked just like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western, right before he blew somebody’s brains out.
“I just meant, you don’t know anybody here,” Sean explained. “I didn’t mean you aren’t fast.”
Delaney tilted her head back.The Good, the Bad and the Uglystare remained. “Let’s make a deal,” she finally said. “If you beat me in this run, you get to be all full of yourself and tell me I told you so. But if I win...” she paused to blow a few stray strands of hair from her eyes “...you stop staring at me. Deal?”
This was the first time Sean had heard her speak more than a couple of words. She had a little rasp in her voice. What some people might call a whiskey voice. Well, of course she did.
“What do you say, hotshot?” she pressed.
What else could he say? He couldn’t deny staring at her. And he wouldn’t back down. He’d made this bed, now he had to lie in it. Sean could only hope his rusty legs would come back fast.
“Deal.”
Sean lay on his back, just inside the gym, eyes closed while his heart pounded so hard it might burst right out of his throat. He ran the finish through his mind over and over again, how the sight of the bay door only a few feet away had seemed like that metaphorical oasis after a long desert trek. The 5K had been a cat and mouse game of staying right with each other, never dropping too far back and keeping just behind redlining. Sean hadn’t run that fast since he was in his twenties, and he’d wanted to quit, or at least slow down, many times after the first mile. The only thing that kept him going was watching Delaney’s long, toned legs work the trail, her feet expertly striking and pushing the ground away from her in fluid, even strokes. She never slowed.
Despite the shock to his system, Sean was taller and had longer legs, which gave him an advantage from the get-go. The rest he made up with pure grit, and he really thought he had a chance at the end. When it came down to the last four hundred meters, Sean opened up the tank, ticking up the speed with the tiniest bit of reserve he’d held on to for just this moment.
Turned out Delaney had done the same. She stayed right with him, and it wasn’t until they burst through the bay door in tandem that a verdict was delivered:
Only two people had beaten them inside. Zoe and Duke. Zoe gave Delaney a quicker time by one second. Duke gave the extra second to Sean. The tiebreaker came down to Rhett, the coach, who declared it...
A tie.
Sean had sunk to the floor, too spent to argue. Delaney walked around the gym, hands on her hips as she gulped in air. Her dark hair was slicked back with sweat and her skin glistened. She didn’t speak, but her eyes said it all. She either thought she took the race or she was irritated by the tie, but she wasn’t going to argue with the coach.
By the time everyone else finished and fist bumps were being exchanged, Sean clambered to his feet and sucked down huge gulps of water. “Good job.” Delaney put her fist out.
No matter what else she might be, Delaney was not a bad sport. Sean tapped her knuckles. “You, too. Not sure where this leaves us on the bet, though.”
