Below the Belt (20 page)

It didn’t matter. She was about to prove both Cooper and her grandfather wrong.

And if she didn’t…

She couldn’t let her mind go there. She had everything riding on this fight. Financially as well as emotionally. Her boss had looked at her incredulously when she’d asked for the time off to fly to Vegas. Jamie had pushed, despite knowing that she didn’t exactly have a spotless work record and that she’d fallen even further out of favor by trading off shifts lately so she could train for the big fight. Now she was officially unemployed—just in case she needed further incentive to win tonight.

A cool breeze hit her as the door behind her opened. Murphy returning to lace her gloves. She kept shadowboxing as she spoke over her shoulder.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” she said.

“Jamie.”

She froze, then slowly pivoted on her heel. Cooper stood there, a brown paper parcel in his hands.

“You came,” she said. A smile curved her lips. She started toward him.

“To try to make you see sense one last time,” he said.

Her smile died. She stopped in her tracks. “Then you can get out.”

“Your grandfather is here. He doesn’t want you to do this for him, Jamie. I told him about your promise, and he doesn’t want you going out there in his name.”

“I’m doing this for both of us,” she said.

“No, you’re not. You’re doing this because of your father.”

“I’m here to make things right,” she said fiercely, her hands fisting.

“Yeah? Really?” Cooper asked. His blue eyes pierced her, nailing her to the wall. “Is that really why you want to step into the ring and take all that pain?”

Suddenly she was furious. How dare he come into her change room before a fight and challenge her like this? She needed to be focused, her mind clear, her purpose absolute.

“You say you love me, yet you’re here trying to screw me up,” she shouted. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m here to help set you free, Jamie.”

She glared at him coldly.

“Get out. And don’t come back. I don’t want anyone in my life who doesn’t believe in me.”

Cooper held her eye steadily for a long moment, then he nodded.

“I’ll go. But first I want to give you this.”

He held out the parcel. She eyed it warily.

“What is it?”

“Take it. Open it. Prove to me that you’re here for all the right reasons,” he said.

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

He threw the parcel at her. She caught it instinctively. It was heavier than she’d expected and the paper rustled beneath her hands.

“Open it.”

“You’re such an asshole,” she said. “But if this is what it takes to get rid of you, fine.”

Digging her fingers into the paper, she made a hole and tore the parcel open. Shiny blue and white satin slithered across her hands and the smell of mothballs and old sweat swamped her.

A single word arched across the fabric, white satin stitched on blue.

SAWYER.

Her father’s fight robe.

She dropped the parcel as though she’d been gut-punched.

“Your father wouldn’t want you to punish yourself like this,” Cooper said. “He loved you. He’d hate for you to get hurt in his name.”

Jamie pressed her hands to her chest, fighting hard to breathe. A heavy weight was pressing down on her, suffocating her. “I’m not doing it for him. He was a cheat, a fraud. I hate him.”

“No, you don’t. You love him,” Cooper said quietly. “You love him more than anything in the world.”

Jamie shook her head, trying to deny his words, but something dark and hidden was rising up inside her. Her gaze darted around the change room as she tried to find some way of escaping the truth, but she couldn’t and suddenly she was gasping, tears streaming down her face, Cooper’s strong arms closing around her.

“There was no reason for him to do what he did. No reason at all,” she sobbed. “We didn’t need the money. We didn’t need anything. I couldn’t understand. He was the best man I knew. And then he did this thing. This horrible, dishonest thing that made a lie of everything that had come before it.”

“He made a mistake,” Cooper said.

“I thought he was perfect. I loved him so much….”

She clung to Cooper’s broad shoulders then as it all came pouring out: her father’s guilt and remorse, her own sense of anger and outrage and fear that the hero she’d built all the certainties in her life around had turned out to be so incredibly ordinary and human and fallible. And lastly the final dark week when he’d been released from prison and discovered that the world of boxing was forever barred to him and his old friends had turned away and his own daughter couldn’t forgive him.

“He asked me. He looked me in the eye and asked me if I would ever forget what he’d done, if I could ever think of him in the same way again. I was so angry with him still. We’d lost everything because of the court fees and because I let Kyle screw me over, and I blamed him. I wanted to hurt him. So I said nothing. The next day he killed himself.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Jamie.”

She lifted her head, looking at him through tear-soaked eyes. “He asked for one kind word, one moment of reassurance, and I couldn’t give it to him.”

“
It wasn’t your fault.
Your father made a decision when he decided to throw that fight, and he couldn’t live with the consequences. You didn’t hold a gun to his head and tell him to do it. You didn’t send him to prison or harass him in the media. You didn’t tell his friends to ostracize him.”

“I should have told him I forgave him. I should have told him I understood, that things would get better,” she said.

Cooper gripped her by the shoulders and shook her lightly. “Listen to me. Your father was a grown man. He made a choice, and it was his choice, and only his. You cannot wear this, Jamie. It’s not your burden to carry. And you can’t keep going into that ring and punishing yourself as some kind of penance for what you think you did. You loved your father, and he knew it. Anything else is on his shoulders.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to set down the weight that she’d been carrying for so long. But her guilt was so strong, so powerful.

“Let it go. Don’t let your father’s mistakes rule your life, Jamie,” Cooper said softly, his mouth near her ear. “It’s tragic that he was so broken that he killed himself, but it’s not your responsibility. You can’t take on a dead man’s burdens. It’s impossible, and it’s a fight you can’t win. I won’t let you do this to yourself. I love you too much to let you wallow in this crap. Let it go.”

“Okay, we’ve got five minutes,” Paul Murphy said as he swung through the door.

He stopped in his tracks when he registered Cooper and the fact that Jamie was in his arms crying.

“Have we got a problem here?” he asked cautiously.

Cooper spoke up. “Something’s come up. Jamie won’t be fighting tonight,” he said.

Murphy’s eyes popped wide. “They’ve got a capacity crowd up there.”

“Not our problem,” Cooper said.

Murphy turned for the door. Jamie lifted her head from Cooper’s shoulder, her stomach churning, her mind whirling.

“Wait,” she said.

She felt Cooper’s body stiffen beneath her hands.

“No,” he said.

She looked up at him, her gaze steady. “I think I need to do this.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I grew up in boxing gyms. I went to every fight my father ever had. There’s a reason why I was drawn to this sport, why I have this fire inside me, why I’m here tonight. You once said to me that everyone who gets in the ring is fighting their own demons as well as the other guy. Maybe I need to take down my demons tonight.”

Cooper closed his eyes. She could see how afraid he was for her.

“Jamie—”

“All those other fights—they were for the wrong reasons. Just once, I’d like to fight with everything I’ve got, with a clear mind and heart. I’d like to know why I’m out there, who I’m fighting for.”

“Who? Who are you fighting for?” he asked, staring into her eyes.

“Me. This time, it’s for me and no one else.”

Cooper pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, his embrace so tight it stole her breath. After a long beat, he let her go and turned to deal with her trainer.

“Get me some tape and her gloves. I’m taking over.”

Murphy opened his mouth to protest, and Cooper spoke again.

“Don’t worry, you’ll still get your cut.”

Jamie felt a surge of gratitude and relief as his words sank in. Cooper understood. This amazing man had flown all the way to Vegas to save her from herself. And even though she knew it was going to kill him to watch her slug it out in the ring against an opponent who was vastly more experienced, he was going to do it because he understood that she needed to do this.

“I love you. I’m sorry for being such a pain in the ass. Thank you for putting up with me,” she said humbly.

“You can make it up to me over the next fifty odd years,” he said. He checked the tape on her hands before sliding her gloves on. “I’ve been keeping a list.”

She smirked. “I bet you have.”

“It’s long, too. So I’m going to have to ask you to be careful out in that ring tonight because I plan on collecting on my debts.”

Jamie watched his face as he concentrated on lacing her gloves and taping the laces down. He was a man in a million. Despite all the obstacles she’d put in his way, he’d fought his way through to her.

Cooper tested her gloves, then checked her boot laces. Reaching for the Vaseline, he greased up her face as he started to talk.

“She’s a southpaw, so you need to keep an eye out for her left hook. That’s her knockout punch and she’ll try to nail you with it early on. She’s never seen you fight, so you have the advantage. You’re a mystery to her, and she’s going to come out cocky because you’ve only got three fights to your name.”

“She’s fast. Some of the best footwork I’ve ever seen,” Jamie said.

Adrenaline was surging through her, her limbs tingling with it.

“You’re fast, too. But you’re going to have to be smarter than her. You’re going to have to reel her in.”

For the next few minutes, Cooper outlined his strategy. Jamie nodded, asked a couple of questions. Then Murphy checked the time and moved to the door.

“We need to go. They’re about to announce you,” he said.

“I’m ready,” Jamie said, looking to Cooper.

“One moment.”

Cooper crossed the room and scooped her father’s robe off the floor. Jamie swallowed a lump as he settled it over her shoulders, the blue satin rippling in the fluorescent light.

“Now you’re ready,” he said.

The corridor was dim as they made their way to the auditorium. She could hear the roar of the crowd, muffled through layers of concrete, the sound getting louder and louder as they neared the exit. Needing the reassurance, she glanced back over her shoulder, just to confirm that Cooper was really there. He met her gaze steadily, as he always had. As he always would.

The glare and noise in the arena was overwhelming—flashes popping, spotlights zeroing in on her, the crowd screaming her name. Her heart pounding, Jamie made the long walk to the ring.

She was afraid of this fight, more afraid than she’d ever been before. But she also wanted to win more than ever before, too.

Cooper bounded up the steps to part the ropes for her. She slid between them and into the ring. Her father’s robe billowed behind her as she lifted her hands in the air and did a single slow lap, letting the excitement in the auditorium buzz into her bloodstream.

When she was a little girl, she’d lived for fight nights. This sport was in her blood. She was a fighter, from a family of fighters.

Returning to her corner, she looked down and saw Cooper conferring with her grandfather. Her grandfather looked distressed, and she deliberately caught his eye and smiled a big, buzzy, cocky, I’m-gonna-win-this-fight smile. He stopped mid-sentence, his expression arrested. Then he slowly shut his mouth and nodded. Just the once, but she knew that her grandfather had received her unspoken message. This was going to happen. She knew what she was doing, and she wanted it for all the right reasons.

The loudspeaker came on and her opponent was announced. Cooper climbed the steps to check on her one last time and take her robe. She watched his face closely the whole time, loving him, drawing energy and power from his presence.

“I love you,” she said as he prepared to descend the steps.

“I love you, too. Now go kick some ass,” he said, his voice deep with emotion.

She grinned around her mouthguard and punched her gloved fists together.

“Deal.”

Turning, she rolled her shoulders and bounced from foot to foot and eyed up her opponent.

She was ready.

C
OOPER’S PALMS
were sweating. Hell, his whole body was sweating. Jamie was in the ring, and once again he was going to have to stand by and watch her get hurt.

She’d made her choice. He understood it, in his gut, if not in his head. But it was still going to be hard.

Arthur Sawyer made a clicking sound with his teeth. Cooper shot the old man a look. Arthur had been upset, to say the least, when Cooper had explained the outcome of his confrontation with Jamie. Then he’d seen her determination and clarity firsthand. She was unstoppable. Always had been, always would be.

Lucky Cooper liked his women strong and feisty.

Jamie was standing in the center of the ring with her opponent, listening to the referee. She and Roma Williams tapped gloves and retreated to their corners. Cooper’s heart kicked against his ribs as the bell rang.

The fight was on.

Typical Jamie, she moved in fast and took the fight up to Williams. Six foot, black and solid, Roma Williams was tough and she took Jamie’s jabs in her stride, dancing around, getting Jamie’s measure. Jamie took the opportunity to land a few more punches. Cooper glanced across to see the judges marking their sheets.

Good. Jamie had clocked up some early points, just as they’d discussed.

Williams didn’t take long to join the party. Having watched Jamie move, she began to turn up the heat, peppering Jamie with jabs and crosses, keeping Jamie busy blocking and ducking and weaving. Jamie took hits, her head bobbing on her neck, sweat flying off her face as leather struck flesh.