Star Bright (34 page)

He rubbed his jaw. “Dad had a good point about getting you a top-notch lawyer. If the authorities believe Loni’s story, it probably won’t be necessary, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“Like I said yesterday, I don’t have the money for legal representation.”

“My offer of a loan still stands.”

Peter would have tacked a price onto the offer, but Parker just reminded her that he would be there for her, no strings attached. No leverage, no emotional blackmail. That meant more to her than he would ever know. “I’ll want to make monthly installments to pay you back.”

He nodded and turned back to the stove. “Now for breakfast. Come grab a plate, honey, and load up.”

“I don’t usually eat much for breakfast.”

“You’ll need to be changin’ your habits now that you’re goin’ into trainin’.”

“Training?”

“Yep. I’m fixin’ to teach you some Harrigan-style judo, and to excel at it, you need to build up your strength.”

“What kind of judo did you say?”

“Harrigan-style.” He grinned as he slid three eggs onto a plate and handed it to her. “Eat hearty. I’ve covered all the bases. Even made potato cakes. If you don’t eat, you’ll be starvin’ come lunchtime.”

“I can’t eat
three
eggs, and I’ve never had any desire to learn judo, Harrigan-style or otherwise.”

“Develop a desire.” He plopped a biscuit slathered with butter on her plate and then added a potato cake and three slices of bacon. “If you’re gonna contact the authorities, Peter will soon know where you are.” He bent to kiss her forehead, his manner brotherly. “I don’t intend to give the bastard an opportunity to catch you somewhere alone, but on the off chance that he somehow does, I need to know that you’ll be able to kick his sorry, city-boy ass.”

Just the thought gave Rainie a rush. “You can teach me how to do that?”

“Absolutely. Samantha trained with my dad when she was a teenager. She hated it at the time, but he insisted.”

“Has she ever actually kicked anyone’s butt? Without rendering him unconscious with a kitchen chair, I mean?”

“A couple of times, actually. And don’t knock her for usin’ a kitchen chair to take her first husband down. It doesn’t matter how you kick a man’s ass, only that you’re standin’ over him when the dust settles. Sam used a chair to even up the playin’ field with her ex, but the next time around, all she had to fight with were her fists and feet. She still kicked ass.”

“She’s so tiny. It’s hard to believe.”

“Size isn’t important.” He winked at her. “Ask Sam yourself if you don’t believe me. It’s quite a story. It happened the afternoon she met her husband, Tucker. Some drunk out at the fairgrounds was mistreatin’ a horse, and Sam intervened. The jerk smacked her, and Tucker jumped in to defend her. Unfortunately for Tucker, the drunk had a lunge whip in his hand and whopped Tucker in the face with the handle. Busted Tucker’s nose and temporarily blinded him. The drunk took advantage, kickin’ Tucker while he was down. Sam stepped in at that point and took the bastard to task. He was down for the count by the time Tucker recovered his senses. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay down. In the end, Tucker backed the guy up against a horse trailer and finished him, but the fact remains that Tucker would have been badly hurt if Sam hadn’t come to his rescue.”

“That’s amazing. How on earth did she do it?”

“Training, plain and simple. Don’t ever tell her I said so, but I’d hesitate to take her on. The girl is hell on greased runners when she gets her dander up.”

“Really?” A thrill of excitement danced up Rainie’s spine. “She’s not exactly the Amazon type.”

“Like I said, it’s not about size. It’s about knowin’ a few moves and havin’ the physical strength to execute ’em effectively.”

“I’ve never been very strong.”

“It’s not about strength either, actually, only about bein’ toned enough to do the dirty. Trust me, honey. I’ll teach you how to take the bastard to his knees and keep him there.”

Rainie stared dubiously at the mountain of food on her plate. “If I eat this, all I’ll have to do is sit on him.”

Two hours later, after consuming the largest breakfast of her life and speaking at length with Loni on the phone, Rainie found herself in the riding arena, wearing a pair of Parker’s sweatpants that were huge on her, an oversize T-shirt, and a pair of old sneakers she’d brought from home. From a stall, Tina Stroud, one of the female stable hands, called hello.

“Change in dress code?” she asked, eyeing Rainie’s attire.

“No, we’re just going to work out for a while,” Rainie replied.

Her short, frizzy brown hair ignited to gold by the sunlight pouring in through the open paddock doors behind her, the older woman held up a pitchfork. “Don’t waste valuable sweat on calisthenics. I can put you to work in here and get you in shape, no problem.”

“I’ll second that,” Jericho yelled from the rear of the building. “My gimp leg is hurting me today. I could use a helper.”

“Ignore ’em,” Parker told Rainie. He pointed at her and then thumped himself on the chest. “It’s just you and me durin’ these sessions. I want your total concentration.”

He, too, was dressed in workout clothing, but his garments fit him a lot better, the T-shirt displaying a wealth of muscle that his regular work shirts didn’t reveal. Since first meeting him, Rainie had consoled herself with the thought that maybe, just maybe, she harbored an unacknowledged weakness for cowboys in jeans and riding boots, which might explain her attraction to him. But, no, he just looked better than most men, no matter how he happened to be dressed. On a California beach in nothing but brief swimming apparel, he would still make her heart skip a beat.

With a start she realized he was studying her body as closely as she was studying his, not in a sexual way, but more as if he were looking for physical strengths and needed a magnifying glass to find any. Scowling, he grasped her upper arm and gave it a squeeze, much as he might have tested an avocado for ripeness.

“What?” she said.

He shook his head. “Nothin’,” he assured her. “Nothin’ that can’t be fixed, anyhow. But it’s gonna take some work.”

Rainie’s cheeks went hot. “What are you saying, that my body is a mess?”

“You’ve got a beautiful body,” he replied. “But your muscle tone sucks.”

“Maybe I should just take classes somewhere,” she suggested. “They probably have gym equipment. Besides, if I’m going to learn judo, why not go for the real thing?”

“For starters, the minute you resurface, Danning will know where you are, and it’s always better to have the element of surprise in your favor. If he starts tailin’ you and finds out you’re studyin’ martial arts, he’ll know you’re gearin’ up for a fight. Secondly, the real kind of judo can take years to master.”

“And this won’t?”

“Nope.” He had her walk at a fast pace around the arena to warm up, and then he began demonstrating how to do a stretch exercise. “Come on. Loosen up those hamstrings.”

“Are you sure I have some?”

“Oh, you’ve got some, darlin’. They’ll be screamin’ hello at you tonight.”

Rainie didn’t like the sound of that. “I may not be a quick study, you know. I’ve never been very athletic.”

“That’s why I’m gettin’ you started now, so you can build up your strength. Before you know it, you’ll be a lean, mean killing machine.”

Bent at the waist with one leg thrust out behind her, Rainie giggled. “A killing machine?”

He chuckled with her. “A slight exaggeration, but you get the picture. Every woman should know how to defend herself. Stretch it out, honey. I don’t want you tearin’ a tendon.”

After doing stretches, they started off with jumping jacks. Rainie walked a lot, her idea of staying in shape, so her leg muscles and cardiovascular system were in pretty good condition. Jumping up and down and swinging her arms wasn’t that difficult. She actually had fun. Next, Parker introduced her to lunges, and those were fun, too.

“I thought this would be hard!” she told him between quick breaths. “No problem. I can do this.” She lunged her way across the arena and back, proud that she could cover such a distance without getting short of breath. “What’s next?”

“Wall presses.”

“Wall what?”

He escorted her to a planked wall and helped place her flattened palms against the boards, just so. “Feet lined up with your shoulders and well back from the wall,” he told her.

Rainie scooted her feet back.

“Farther,” he instructed. When she obliged him, he said, “Farther.”

Pretty soon, Rainie’s body was angled toward the wall with only her arms to support her weight.
Uh-oh.
“This isn’t very comfortable.”

“It’s not supposed to be. Now, keepin’ your back straight and your head up, lean in and touch your nose to the board.”

Rainie tried to do as he said.

“Elbows tucked in at your sides,” he reminded her. “You’ve got your arms poked out like chicken wings. That’s a surefire way to pull a muscle.”

Rainie tucked in her elbows and touched her nose to the wall. “That wasn’t so hard,” she said as she straightened her arms. “Wall presses. Hmm. You learn something new every day.”

“Again. Nice and fluid, no stoppin’ in between presses. Keep touchin’ that pretty little nose to the board. I’ll count for you.”

By the time Rainie had executed five repetitions, her arms had started to tremble.

“Again,” Parker said. “Give me fifty. Not so fast. Do ’em nice and slow. The idea is to put a real strain on those arm muscles.”

“Will you settle for twenty-five? My arms aren’t used to this.”

“Fifty,” he insisted. “Go for the burn.”

After thirty-two presses, Rainie’s nose was flattened against the wall, and she couldn’t for the life of her straighten her arms again. “I’m done.”

“One more, sweetheart. Feel that burn?”

She felt it, all right. She strained to do one more repetition. Her arms quivered like blobs of jelly on a vibrating machine, but no matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t straighten them again.

“Okay,” Parker finally conceded. “Your arms are tired. Let’s move on to somethin’ else.”

Something
else
? Rainie was ready for a break.

“Let’s work on those thighs next,” he said.

“I don’t do squats,” she informed him.

He gave her an odd look. “Why is that?”

“Some people don’t do ovens or windows. I don’t do squats. They make my legs ache.”

“They’re supposed to make your legs ache, and your butt, too, if you do enough of ’em.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t do them. If it hurts, I avoid it.”

He laughed. “It won’t kill you to do squats. Strength in the thighs is extremely important. They’re the powerhouse of the legs.”

Rainie truly did want to learn how to kick Peter’s butt, so she zipped her lip and did squats. After that torture ended, Parker introduced her to the joys of calf raises, which involved standing with the balls of her feet on a two-by-four and her heels touching the ground, and then pushing up onto her toes. The first ten repetitions weren’t so bad, but by the time she reached fifty, her calf muscles were bunching into painful knots.

When she’d finally exercised what felt like every muscle in her body until it ached, Parker had her repeat the entire process, with no rest period in between. Doing circuits, he called it: jumping jacks, lunges, wall presses, squats, abdominal curls, leg lifts, kicks, and stretches. Rainie’s body felt like a huge overcooked noodle by the time she was finished.

“Good job,” Parker praised, making her feel proud of herself. But then he ruined it by adding, “Now that the warm-up’s over, we can get down to some nuts and bolts.”

“Warm-up?”
She gaped at him, scarcely able to believe her ears. He’d been torturing her for almost an hour. “I need to rest, Parker. My muscles are quivering.”

“You can’t rest now. You’ll cool down, and then we’ll have to do the warm-up exercises all over again.”

“We?” She knew she was glaring at him, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself. “It seems to me that you’re using that word rather loosely.
You
didn’t do any exercises.”

He ran a hand over his chest, a curious glint entering his eyes as he studied her. “I’m the trainer. Normally a trainer only watches a person’s form and makes sure the exercises are done properly. Would it make it easier if I did everything with you?”

“No. I’m only trying to point out that you did nothing but watch while I worked. Now I’m exhausted, and I can’t do anything more right now.”

“Sure you can.” He chucked her under the chin. “The hard part’s over for now. We’re gettin’ to the fun stuff.”

Rainie reluctantly acquiesced, only to regret it a second later when he suddenly grabbed her from behind, one hard forearm at her throat, the other clamped like a vise at her waist.

“Okay, Peter just sneaked up on you from behind. What do you do to get away from him?”

Rainie angled her chin up. “You’re choking me.”

“Oh, sorry.” He loosened his hold. “Better?”