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His bent head was close to hers as he pulled and tightened the laces. All his attention was focused on his task. Cate wasn’t sure he even noticed her. But the reverse was not true.
It was hard to ignore a man like Harry. When she was twenty-one, the years between them would have seemed like an impossible divide. But now that she was twenty-five, Harry definitely felt like her contemporary. Almost. At least when he wasn’t poking fun at her and making her feel young and dumb.
“All set,” he said.
She sucked in a breath, startled by the teasing warmth in his gray-eyed gaze. “Is that it? End of lesson?”
“Nope.” He took her by the arm and pulled her toward the bag. “There are a variety of punches. We’ll start with the two easiest. Here, look at my hand.”
“Okay.”
He pointed to the area between his first and second row of knuckles. “This is the part that’s supposed to hit the bag dead on. Otherwise, you run the danger of spraining your wrist.”
“Where do I stand?”
He put his hands on her shoulders briefly and squared her up in relation to the bag. “For this first one, the straight punch, you want to be at arm’s length. Then you simply punch straight. The name says it all. And hit with the part I showed you.”
Cate felt ridiculous. “What is this supposed to accomplish?”
“You can pretend the bag is Jason.”
She sighed. “I’ve never hit anyone in my life. That won’t work.”
Harry seemed stymied. Then he nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s go at it another way. Tell me the things you’re angry about.”
“Do I have to?”
He shrugged. “No. But it might help. This isn’t a game. I’m serious.”
She inhaled and let out the breath slowly. “I’m angry at all those people who saw me get dumped.”
“Why them? What did they do?”
“They werethere. I never said all my anger was rational.”
“Then imagine the crowd. See their faces on the bag. Hit them.”
She tried, she really did. Carefully, she pulled back her elbow and punched wildly. On the plus side, she made contact. The bad news was, it hurt. All the way down to her gut.
“Ouch, Harry. I thought this was supposed to help.”
“It will. Hit them again.”
For a moment, she closed her eyes and remembered. All those people watching her. The embarrassment. The shame.
Wham.
“Better,” Harry said. “What else?”
“I’m angry with Jason.”
“For dumping you?”
She thought about that for a full thirty seconds. If he did what he did for reasons that were clear to him, she couldn’t fault that. “I’m angry that he waited until the last damn minute,” she cried. Then she put all her weight into the next swing and slugged the bag hard.
The shock reverberated up her arm all the way to her shoulder.
But it felt good.
