Cross Fire E-BOOK

CHAPTER ONE

     The aroma of sweat and coconut shampoo filled the room, bringing to mind a tropical sweat lodge. I paced the outside of the rubber mat, casting wary looks at my opponent.
     He was roughly ten inches taller than me—putting him at an even six feet—and he had a lean muscular build that made my runner’s physique pale by comparison. His eyes, which reminded me of a clear blue sky, sparkled with amusement as he watched me.
     “You actually have to get close to me to hit me, Holly,” he pointed out.
     My hands were sheathed in fingerless purple boxing gloves, and I interlaced my fingers, twisting them anxiously in front of my stomach. I reached the end of the mat and spun on my heel to pace back in the other direction.
     Up until this point, our training had been entirely nonphysical. I had mirrored his movements, albeit less gracefully, from a safe distance. We had touched on the possibility of sparring during our last lesson, but I wasn’t ready to plunge into it.
     “I’m not sure—”
     “Jordan’s not gonna hurt you, Holly,” a smooth voice with a touch of Southern said from the back of the room.
     I glanced at Marx, who leaned against the wall by the door, arms folded and ankles crossed in a relaxed position. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt—his casual wear for when he wasn’t on duty—but as an NYPD detective, he was never truly off duty. He always carried his gun and badge in case he was called away unexpectedly to a crime scene.
     I doubted I would ever truly feel safe with a man, but I trusted Marx more than any other man. He knew my secrets and my fears, and he was always mindful of them. He understood that I wasn’t comfortable being alone with Jordan yet, and he made it a point always to be here with me.
     “I’m not gonna grab you,” Jordan assured me. “We’re not there yet. We’ll work on breaking out of holds when you’re more comfortable with it.”
     When I was more comfortable with it . . . right. So, never? Yep, I was comfortable with never.
     “I’m gonna stand perfectly still.” He held out his hands shoulder-width apart in front of him.
     I sighed and walked across the mat in my workout toe socks. I stopped four feet from him. We had an agreement: he remained at least four feet from me at all times except in an emergency, and we didn’t touch one another. He was asking me to break that agreement . . . and then punch him.
     “Can we just go back to mirroring the movements? I like that better,” I said.
     “I can teach you the punches, kicks, and blocks until you can do them in your sleep, but it doesn’t teach you how to connect them or how to recover if you miss. It also doesn’t teach you how to dodge if someone is trying to hit you.”
     The last time someone had taken a swing at me, I had curled into a ball on the floor and covered my head with my arms. That sort of counted as dodging, right?
     “This is important, Holly,” Marx said. I met his eyes and saw worry swirling in their green depths.
     He knew as well as I did that Collin hadn’t decided to pack up and leave; he would view the cops surrounding me as a challenge, and he savored a challenge.
     Collin was my foster brother, the only biological child of the foster family who took me in when I was fourteen, and he had developed an unhealthy fascination with me.
     I had spent the past ten years in hiding—moving from city to city, working odd jobs under the table, never drawing attention to myself—in the hopes that he wouldn’t find me.
     I had managed to hide from him for two years in New York City, but then I made a mistake: I gave a statement to the police after two men attacked me in the park, all but lighting up a blinking neon sign that read, “Holly is here.”
     The statement I gave to the cops, which was logged into a “secure” police database, was accessed by an outside source. I didn’t doubt for a moment my foster brother was behind the breach of their system.
     He hadn’t made an appearance yet, but he had called me on my birthday a month ago just to let me know he was watching.
I knew what he would do to me if he got his hands on me again, and I couldn’t let that happen. I had decided not to run this time, which meant my only hope was learning how to fight.
     I tapped my fingers on my hips nervously as I looked at Jordan. “What if I hurt you?”
     His lips twitched in amusement. “You’re not gonna hurt me. You’re not gonna hurt anyone from that far away.” He motioned me closer with his fingers. “Come on. Across the border.”
     When we first met—or rather, re-met—in Kansas this past November, he had jokingly dubbed the invisible personal bubble around me “the border.”
     I chewed on my lower lip and then crossed over the invisible boundary. I pushed my red braid back over my shoulder and sank into the stance we’d practiced for the past three weeks.
     “Make sure you don’t bend your wrist too much. And focus on the form of your punch rather than the strength of it for the first few swings. Here’s your target.” He waved his right hand.
I folded my fingers into a fist and planted it gently into his gloved palm. I repeated the movement a few more times, practicing until I felt confident I wouldn’t accidentally miss and punch him in the face.
     “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got,” he said.
     I exhaled heavily and then swatted his open palm with my fist. When he didn’t say anything, I hit his hand again.
     “I think I just got high-fived by a gnat,” he commented, completely deadpan. “Put a little force behind it, Holly. Hit me like you mean it.”
     I glared at him, and he gave me one of his trademark charming yet playful smiles. I smacked my fist into his hand again, and he arched a blond eyebrow at me, which apparently meant “punch harder.”
     “I think he’s doubtin’ your abilities, Holly,” Marx said, and I glanced over at him. He inclined his head in a silent signal.
I darted forward, kicked Jordan in the back of his knee, and swept his legs out from under him while he was off balance. I scampered out of reach as his back slapped the mat.
     He wheezed in surprise and then unexpectedly started to laugh. “Seriously?” He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at me. I grinned, and his gaze slid to Marx. “I did not teach her that.”
     Marx smiled proudly. “I taught her that.”
     He and Sam, his friend and fellow officer, had demonstrated that technique for me repeatedly until I was able to simulate it solo. Jordan was the first person I had tried it on. I hadn’t expected it to go so well.
     Honestly, I thought I would trip myself.
     Jordan sighed as he sat up on the mat. “I just got taken out by a 110-pound woman. That stings a bit.”
     “As it should,” Marx informed him.
     “Yeah, well, I’m ready this time.” Jordan climbed to his feet and made a show of brushing off his clothes before looking at me. “No more cheap shots.”
     I hesitated at the edge of the mat, anxiety sparking in my stomach. “You’re not gonna retaliate, are you?” The last thing I wanted was to be body-slammed on the mat for taking his legs out from under him.
     “Not if he wants to keep breathin’,” Marx muttered under his breath.
     Mischief danced in Jordan’s eyes. “I’m not gonna retaliate. But I do think you owe me an ice cream cone for bruising my ego.”
     My eyebrows crept up. “It’s twenty-three degrees out.”
     “Then I guess we won’t have to worry about it melting.” He held up his hands again. “Left hook this time.”
     Satisfied that he wasn’t going to tackle me or twist me into some sort of pretzel in retaliation, I walked across the mat to join him.
     “Try putting your body behind it this time,” he suggested.                  “You’re not getting enough force by just using your arms.”
     I shifted my stance a little, trying to figure out what he meant by putting my body behind it. I was pretty sure that if I was punching someone, my body was naturally behind my arm.
     “Do what I do, okay?” He raised his fists and demonstrated a right hook. He moved as fluidly as water, and I pitied anyone who came in contact with the other end of that punch.
     I tried to mirror him, but after watching his easy movements, I felt as inflexible as a stick. I wondered if I could even touch my toes without bending my knees. I glanced down at them, curious, and decided I would have to try that later.
     “Twist with the punch,” he said.
     “I am twisting!”
     “No, you’re turning your whole body.”
     “What’s the difference?” I demanded irritably.
     I watched him a few more times, trying each time to make my body do what his did. Judging by the frown line between his blond eyebrows, I was failing.
     “Don’t step forward. Keep your back foot behind you, and just move from the core up,” he explained.
     I could throw a decent punch if I stood perfectly still. How was I supposed to concentrate on swinging without bending my wrist too much, not moving my feet, and twisting but not turning all at the same time?
     “Why can’t I just use my fists?” I huffed in frustration.
     He bit back a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Because you’ll be lucky to knock out a mosquito, let alone an actual person.”
     I glared at him.
     “Here, just let me . . .” He reached forward and his fingers grazed my waist before I danced back beyond his reach with a flutter of fear.
     “You said no grabbing!”
     He froze where he stood, and realization flickered across his features. “I’m sorry.” He stepped back with his hands raised. “I didn’t mean to invade your space. I just forgot.”
     I wrapped my arms protectively around my midsection and tried to ignore the anxiety crawling the walls of my stomach . . .