Spirit of a Champion (Sisters of Spirit #7) (8 page)

"Hi."

He grunted, not looking her way.

She edged closer, wondering how to ask him for money to help
stop the fight. Her father had refused to loan her any, too.

"Winning anything?"

"Sometimes." His hands never stopped, filling the
slots and pulling the levers.

"Doesn't that get tiresome?"

"No."

 He was in total concentration. Stormy looked around at the
crowded floor and decided to try another tact. "Want me to run one of
those for you? Give you a break?"

"No."

"I might bring you luck. I'm a lucky girl, remember? I
always won the raffles at home."

He scooted his box of tokens to one side. "That one."
He pointed to the machine on his left.

Stormy plopped herself onto the stool, stuck in a token and
pulled the lever.

"Faster."

"Okay."

It did not take her long to realize the machines had a voracious
appetite. What was the use....

A pile of tokens streamed out into the bin, startling her with
its unexpected appearance.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, then examined the pile.
"That's not much more than I put in."

"Keep going," Jerry urged.

Obediently, Stormy picked up the tokens and fed them one by one
into the machine again. Soon the tray was empty and Jerry dumped in some more
tokens from his box.

As she fed them in and pulled the lever, Stormy tried to talk to
Jerry again, but his mumbled answers showed he was not giving her his
attention.

"I need some money, Jerry. I don't carry credit cards and I
used all my extra cash getting down here."

"No."

"Why not? Feed me some of these tokens. I'm hungry
too...and you've got plenty. You've been making top money lately, with the
matches you've won."

"Go home. Why don’t you take up some other cause? Spend
your energy saving the whales.”

“Hah! I actually did that, once, when I was in college and
clueless. Never again.”

“Why not?”

“I had been sending money in regularly to the Save the Muskrat
Foundation. Then I went to visit their headquarters for information. The place
was huge, lavish…and I found out later the head honcho was paid over $400,000 a
year. ”

“So, go save the farmers. Just leave me alone.”

"Thanks a lot." If only she had not been so eager to
repay her student loan. Knowing she had the summer job as a lifeguard waiting
for her in Idaho, Stormy had already started repayment.

It seemed unfair. She was trying to save his life and he refused
to help. It wasn't like she needed lots of money, just enough to rent a car and
pay for food and lodging until the fight.

Was she tilting at windmills?

She had to know. His doctor's words still haunted her. In she
could get just one other doctor's opinion.

She picked up the last token and looked at the bare tray.

"I guess my luck isn't active today."

She stood up, turning the token around in her fingers.

"So long." He shifted back to the center stool.

"Yeah." The banks were always sending out credit card
applications. Maybe she could try filling one out. Maybe, with her luck, they
would give it to her.

And pigs could fly.

She turned away, stopped, stuck Jerry's last token into the
machine and pulled the handle.

She was actually two steps on her way when the bottom fell out.

As the tokens poured into the tray, Stormy grabbed a batch and
thrust them into her pockets. Another handful, and another, as fast as she
could fill them.

“Go ahead, take it all,” Jerry said. She didn’t know if he was
being sarcastic or not, but she was filling her pockets, and purse, as full as
possible.

“My cut,” she said. “I brought you luck.” She stuffed every
pocket she had.

She turned before he could say more and headed toward the desk
where people were exchanging cash for tokens, and also redeeming them.

She placed her handfuls of tokens on the counter, pulling the
rest out of her pockets and purse. Several small stacks. She thought she had
grabbed more.

The woman counted them, then pulled out a stack of one dollar
bills and counted some out to Stormy, who suddenly realized that the tokens
were only worth five cents each.

With the money left in her purse, she now had exactly seventy
three dollars. Barely enough to pay her hotel bill.

She was getting nowhere. What was she doing, trying to stop a fight
that everyone else wanted to happen? Was she trying to stop what shouldn’t be
stopped? No one took her seriously, perhaps because she was wrong.

But Jerry’s doctor had called back. Why would he be so insistent
if Jerry had no problems? And he said he didn’t know Ted.

She wandered outside. Since she didn’t have a credit card she
had to pay for her room in advance every morning. The money she had just
received would take care of tomorrow night. Then what?

Even if she could get the addresses of the ring doctors, she
would have no way to get to their places. She was running out of time, energy
and money. With no one to help her, things looked bleak.

Everyone else was going with the current and she was swimming
against it. They thought she was a fool and maybe she was. Only Kyle had taken
the time to hear her out.

It was funny, really. The only one who shouldn’t have paid her
any attention was the one who did. The Killer had been the complete opposite of
his boxing nickname.

He had been gentle, thoughtful, and caring. He had been the only
one in this unfeeling town to give her aid and comfort. He had been worried
about her, ready to take her to the hospital. Fed her and driven her back to
her hotel. It was more than her family would do for her.

He was good looking as well as gentle. And yet a fighter. A man
among men.

She decided she liked the Killer very much. She wanted to go
back to him rather than to her smelly hotel. She stopped, realizing that her
wandering feet had taken her right up to his hotel.

This was ridiculous. She looked around for a bus stop, saw one
down the street and walked over to the crosswalk. The light changed and she
walked across, then over to the bus stop. There were two men already there who
looked like they hadn’t bathed for a week and Stormy walked past the stop and
waited a few feet further on.

It looked like she was going to be lucky. A bus was coming, so
she wasn’t going to have to stand there for an hour. The two men climbed on and
she stepped toward the door, pulling out her fare as she did so.

A car drove around the parked bus, cut in sharply, and honked.
It was blaring enough to cut through her concentration. Someone didn’t want to
miss the bus.

The car’s door swung open and Kyle slid out.

“Stormy,” he called, waving with his hand for her to come with
him.

She could have kissed him. Her spirits soared as she stepped
past the bus and hurried to join him.

“How did you see me?” she asked, as she slid into the passenger
seat. “I was standing behind the bus shelter.”

He pulled the car away so the bus could move, then glanced over
at her. “I was coming up the other side. You crossed the street in front of me.
Actually two cars in front, but I saw you, had to find a place to turn around,
which is why I didn’t get to you sooner.”

“Thanks for the lift. I’m headed back to my hotel.”

“Have you had supper?”

“No.” And she wouldn’t have, unless...

“Join me?”

“Of course. Except...”

“Yes?”

“I only have enough money for my hotel room tomorrow night. I
can’t pay—”

“I didn’t expect you to.” He smiled at her and she smiled back,
so very happy to see him.

“So how are things going?”

“Terrible until you came along. You are like a lifebuoy to a
drowning sailor. I was so discouraged, I was beginning to doubt myself.”

“Why?”

“No one will listen. Except you.”

“Have you asked Jerry why he insists on the fight?”

“Yes. But he won’t answer. He just tells me to leave it alone. I
don’t know why he won’t talk to me. He’s never shut me out this way before. He
keeps telling me to go home.”

“Which is interesting in itself. I’d tell you to take a week’s
vacation and enjoy Las Vegas. To stay for the match and go home afterwards.”

She shook her head, not understanding this change in her
brother.

“How long had you been with him before the phone call from the
doctor?”

“Six days. When I finished getting my M.A., I took two weeks and
visited my girl friends in Seattle. Ellen, Angie, and Jennel. They’re all
married now. Jennel just had her second baby, a darling boy, so I went to the
baby shower and stayed in town so I could visit. Angie’s expecting. She just
found out. And Ellen has a one year old boy.”

“So you had a good visit.”

“Yes. It was fun to have most of our original group back
together.” She sighed. “I got back to Idaho during Jerry’s last week of
training there. Everything looked like it was on schedule. Jerry might not have
known until I found out. I might have overheard the doctor telling him for the
first time. I don’t know.”

Kyle pulled the car up to a very posh-looking restaurant.

“Oh, Kyle, I’m not dressed for a place like this.” She looked at
the sweats he was wearing. “For that matter, I guess neither are you.”

“This has private dining areas,” he said, getting out and
handing his keys to a valet. “We’re fine.”

They stepped into the reception area. Kyle pointed to the menu
placed there. “What would you like?”

“I don’t care. I eat anything.”

She followed him inside, where it was dark and cool. They were
shown to a small room decorated like a jungle cabana, complete with its own
waterfall.

Kyle gave the waiter some instructions and the man left.

Stormy sat down and grabbed the glass of water beside her plate
and drank it. There was a pitcher of ice water on the table and she poured
herself another glassful, but didn’t need to drink all of it.

“I was careful to make sure I didn’t end up in the same
condition I did yesterday,” she told Kyle.

“You say you are down to just hotel money for one day?”

“Yes. I pay in the morning for that night. I tried to get some
money from Jerry. He was playing the nickel slots and I grabbed some of his
tokens. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have that.”

“How about food?”

“Food is nice to have, but a person can go forty days without
food, you know.”

He laughed. “Have you ever tried it?”

She laughed with him.“No. Only two days, when I was in the Idaho
mountains and got lost one time.”

“I’m glad they found you.”

“Me, too. I was only seven. I had the sense to stay put until I
was found. It was one of the things a mountain kid learns early. Stay safe and
warm. Wait for help.”

“That’s what you should do now.”

“How is that?”

“Stay safe. Get out of that hovel you’re in. And wait for help.
You’ve stirred up questions. Let someone else carry it through.”

“Like who?”

“Like me. I was thinking that I could demand that Jerry have a
physical before the match.”

“You’d do that? Really? That’s wonderful!”

“I doubt it’s ever been done before, but I could try it. I can
claim that I will only fight a healthy person, and that I will fight Jerry only
if he has a clean bill of health. I might even insist that my own personal
physician check him out.”

“Would they allow that?”

“I don’t know. We’d have to see.”

The waiter came in with two plates and a cart with food.

Kyle tipped him and he left.

“Oh, that looks good,” said Stormy as he lifted some of the
covers.

“Did you have breakfast this morning?” he asked.

“No.”

“Lunch?”

“No.”

“Yesterday. Did you have anything besides what you had in my
room?”

“No, but I needed my money for the hotel.”

“Eat.”

As she eagerly put food on her plate, Kyle wondered if the
boxing commission would demand that he fight anyway, or would they order the
physical for Jerry as he requested.

He relaxed, finding Stormy extremely comfortable to be around.
Her look of delight as she tried the various dishes made him happy. She put
away an amazing amount of food for someone her size. She wasn’t tiny, but she
wasn’t on the tall side either. Probably five-six.