Raw Deal

  “I watched the fight,” she said after a pause.

  All of the organs that had tentatively resumed their functioning shut down again. “Why would you do that?”

  “Rowan made me.”

  Damn that girl. Mike understood the woman was hurting, and he was the cause of every bit of it, but that didn’t give her the right to continuously spread her pain around to everyone else who was trying to move on. Did it? “And what did you see?” he asked at last, dreading her answer with every fiber of his being.

  “I still believe you,” she said softly. “It didn’t change my mind about that. Rowan is convinced you hit him after the ref called it and that might have been what . . . hurt him. I don’t think that. I think the damage was already done, you were just caught up. He fell, you saw your chance and took it.”

  She was absolutely right about that. When he was in the cage, stalking his victory like a predator, primal instincts were at the forefront and they eclipsed any regard for rules or authority. He barely even remembered it; he’d been so in the zone, feeling no pain, not prepared to show any mercy.

  “But seeing it again . . . ,” she went on haltingly, “ . . . how can I do this?”

  They were back to square one, he realized. Rowan had shoved that fight in Savannah’s face again and it was as if it had happened today. Maybe for Rowan, it would always feel that way.

  He didn’t know what to say. So his heart took over. “I really could fall for you, Savannah. I want to.”

  She only sniffled in response, so he rushed on. “I know it’s soon, and this is damn sure the wrong time to tell you, but you caught me from the moment I first saw you. I thought about you from that day on, until I saw you again and you were even sweeter and more beautiful than I remembered. So yeah.” He chuckled ruefully. “I’ve had at least a little time to figure this out.”

  “I feel the same way,” she admitted, but the comment didn’t bring him the joy it should have. She said it as if it were her doom.

  “Savannah . . . I can’t walk away. It’s not in my nature. I thought maybe I could. I thought maybe if it meant the best for you, I could make myself do it for your sake. It’s what I should do, but I don’t know how. I’ll fight for you, baby, fight until they put me in the ground.”

  “Rowan hates me. And that’s only a fraction of what I’ll be dealing with when she tells my parents. And I know she will.”

  “No one could hate you, no one who deserves you.”

  “I’m okay,” she said at last, infusing her voice with a little bit of the steel he loved about her. “It was just hard. But if that’s what she needed for us to get past this, fine. And I guess I needed it too, in some weird way.”

  Mike wiped a hand down his face, pausing while a couple of giggling girls clad in skintight dresses scuttled by him in the hallway, sliding him inviting looks he almost missed because he absolutely did not give a shit. He couldn’t say he agreed with Savannah’s words; it seemed exceptionally cruel to him to force her back to that night. But if she was right and it truly was something she needed to see, he wished he could have been with her to hold her afterward, wipe her tears. But he was done telling her how sorry he was. There simply weren’t enough words to convey it. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. If you want me there, I’m there.”

  “Of course I want you here. Or I want to be there. But . . . we each have our lives, don’t we?”

  “You’re a part of mine now. A big fucking part. ”

  “I wish I could have met you some other way. I wish I could bring you home and let everyone get to know you and realize how amazing you are.”

  No one had ever said anything like that to him before. None of his past women had ever given much of a shit whether they took him home to meet the parents or not; most of them had probably preferred not to. “I’ve thought the same thing every day since I met you, about wishing we’d met under different circumstances.”

  “Is it hopeless?” she asked, voice cracking and shredding his fucking guts.

  “No, baby. It’s not. As long as I’m in and you’re in, that’s all the hope I need. And I’m all in.”

  “Okay. We’ll just . . . figure something out.”

  “Try to get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” He hoped.

  She said her goodbyes and was gone, though he would have happily stayed on the phone with her all night. A long-distance relationship was something he’d never bothered to participate in, or even contemplate, though it would probably be ideal for him. He was a guy who liked his space and knew from experience that he didn’t need or even want someone in his home, in his bed, every night. He had always promptly shut down any cohabitation discussions broached by the women in his life; he hadn’t wanted to subject someone else to him 24/7. It seemed a shitty thing to inflict on another person. He was extremely single-minded in his training, and especially when fight time rolled around. He didn’t have the time or mental focus for anything or anyone else, often moving his camp to a remote location when he needed to get serious. How would someone like Savannah react to that? Hell, how would he react to it, if she became a permanent fixture?

  Of course, Savannah still expected him to retire, and depending on the atmosphere that welcomed him when Brad tried to get him back out there, that might still come to pass. Only time would tell.

  Damien and Zane fell silent when he reclaimed his seat at the table, which led him to speculate that they’d been talking about him. Great.

  “Everything cool?” Zane asked.

  No sense in lying; they would smell it on him. “Not really,” he grumbled, and Damien waved for someone to bring him a fresh beer.

  “Savannah?”

  “She’s hurting, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it. Rowan is giving her a lot of shit.”

  Zane perked up. “My Rowan? No way could she give anyone shit; she’s too sweet.”

  “Not that sweet.”

  Damien looked back and forth between them as if they were speaking Swahili. “Wait, are we talking about the Dugas guy’s people? Where the hell is this coming from?”

  “Mike brought them over for the show the other night,” Zane explained. “Rowan’s a big fan.”

  “Is she an even bigger fan now?”

  “Dude, she’s a grieving widow. Give me at least some credit.”

  Damien didn’t look convinced. Mike stared at Zane, one hand pensively at his mouth. There was an idea formulating in his mind, but he wasn’t going to speak it. Just wasn’t. It seemed manipulative and underhanded and—

  “I could talk to her,” Zane said.

  —exactly something his little brother would act on.

  “No,” Mike said, waving the idea away completely. “She’s got a lot of respect for you obviously, and you have a lot of influence on her. Sending you to do my dirty work wouldn’t be right.”

  Zane looked him square in the eye. There were a lot of harrowing truths behind the gaze he often masked with mischief and a sardonic grin, but every now and then, those truths peeked out. It was a terrible thing to see. “How many times have you gotten dirty for me? Stood up for me when no one else would bother?”

  “It seems sleazy to me, man.”

  “What’s sleazy about vouching for you? Her problem is she doesn’t know you.”

  “She doesn’t want to know me, Z. That’s her decision to make. We can’t force her to just accept the guy who killed her husband into the family.”

  “Into the family?” Damien recoiled as if he’d been burned. “Jesus. I thought you were only trying to get into Savannah’s pants, not the family portrait.”

  “I suspect that particular mission was already accomplished,” Zane said wryly.

  “It’s also not up for discussion,” Mike ground out, sending warning glances to both of them.

  “I’m not even kidding, though,” Zane said. “We hit it off pretty well. Give me Rowan’s number. I’m on it.”

  “I don’t have it,” Mike said.

/>   “You can get it.”

  “I specifically told Savannah she didn’t have anything to worry about with you. Siccing you on her sister-in-law would be going back on that word.”

  “I’ll be good, dude. I wouldn’t do anything but persuade her to give you a break.”

  “Persuade her,” Damien scoffed.

  “And she would probably tell you to fuck off.” Mike couldn’t even bring himself to inform them that Rowan had all but forced Savannah to watch the fight again. The mere thought made his hands twitch. There were breakables around, and he might start breaking them. Some angel of mercy set the beer Damien had demanded in front of him, and he took a long drink.

  “I’m gonna do it,” Zane said, slapping the table.

  Mike almost choked as he swallowed. “Don’t,” he warned, wiping his mouth.

  “What do you have to lose? Nothing. Hell, I’ll fly to New Orleans and give her a night out on the town she’s never imagined—as friends,” he added quickly when he noticed Mike’s deepening glower. “She can’t say no to that.”

  “It’s shady.”

  Zane shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a pity date; I liked her. Nothing shady about that.”

  “It’s shady because you have an ulterior motive and she’s vulnerable to you.”

  “There are worse motives to have, and I told you: I’ll be on my best behavior. She needs cheering, so I’ll cheer her.”

  “You might as well let him do it,” Damien said. “If she’s still grieving that much, she’ll be impervious to whatever charms he thinks he has, anyway.”

  “No.”

  “Not as if you can stop me,” Zane pointed out gleefully. “And don’t even try to threaten to kick my ass, because I know you, and you won’t.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Mike grumbled, and downed his beer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Savannah was glad she’d had the foresight to take off the day after returning from Houston, but she wished she’d taken off the entire week.

  Work droned by, day after day. The only highlights were having a few laughs with Tasha and the rest of her coworkers, and with the clients she considered friends. And of course, eagerly checking her cell phone at the end of every massage session to see if Mike had texted. Usually, he had. They spoke every night, sometimes for hours.

  Things weren’t as great with Rowan. When Savannah broke down and texted her sister-in-law in the middle of the week, asking if she was okay, Rowan’s terse “no” told her all she needed to know.

  They had argued pettily in the past, making up as quickly as they had come to words. But never, ever anything like this, and Savannah cried herself to sleep more than once over it.

  Was she being completely selfish? It didn’t feel that way. It felt like she’d discovered something precious, something that brought her sheer, unmitigated joy in the middle of a very dark time, and everyone was trying to take it away from her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she confided to Tasha, after the entire sorry story had poured out of her during one of their breaks the following week. They’d both stopped for an afternoon caffeine fix in the on-site café and sat at a little table removed from most of the other patrons.

  “I’ll try to give you advice once I get over the fact that you’ve been keeping this from me all this time.” Tasha stirred her coffee, set her spoon aside, and glowered comically at her.

  “I’m sorry. It isn’t something you run around telling everyone. I only wonder if Rowan has told my parents yet. I haven’t heard a word from them. It’s radio silence.”

  “You have to find out, hon. You have to face them eventually. Have it out.”

  “They’ve always been able to back me down, you know? For most of my life. Tommy was better at going after what he wanted despite them. And this time . . . I can’t let them do it.”

  “Well, good for you. Only you know what this guy makes you feel, but if it’s strong enough to do what you’re doing . . . I think it’s worth fighting for. Don’t you?”

  “So far it is.”

  “So do it. You want to be with a fighter, you gotta learn how to fight.”

  Savannah snickered. “I can, you know. When I have to.”

  “You gotta learn to love it, girl. Speaking of, how is that going to work? Are you going to be ringside for all of his fights? Are you prepared for whatever the press is going to throw at you? You have to admit, they’re going to eat it up.”

  “Oh, I won’t be ringside for anything. He said he might retire.”

  Tasha lifted a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “You believe he will? And could you hang with him if he didn’t? You didn’t like watching Tommy’s fights even before disaster struck.”

  “I know.” A miserable weight descended on her at the mere thought. “Honestly, I don’t know if he’s retiring or not. He doesn’t seem to know if he’s retiring or not.”

  Now both eyebrows raised. “Um, I think you’d better get that straight before you go alienating your entire family over him, Sav. I mean, come on. If you have a phobia about the guy’s occupation it probably isn’t going to sit well with him. He’ll want you there, you know.”

  “It scares me,” she admitted. God, that was understatement. It fucking terrified her. She tried to imagine her life, sitting at home or wherever, knowing he was in the cage and one wrong move might spell his doom. Maybe she was being overly dramatic. But when you’d seen it once already . . .

  Later that night, wearing her pajamas and drinking her chamomile tea, she found herself in front of YouTube again. Instead of watching the fight that had sealed all their fates, though, she pulled up some of Mike’s older ones. The short brawl a couple of years ago where he knocked out Caruthers in forty-two seconds. The one his fan had brought up in the elevator—making Santoya tap out with an arm bar in the third round. A loss to Frank Meyers three years ago that went the distance, decided by split decision.

  Oh, God, the look on Mike’s face when that announcement was made. Subtle to the outsider, perhaps, but she saw the devastation bite deep as his head dropped and wanted to reach through the screen and grab him. But then his team descended on him and she couldn’t see anything except Meyers gloating for the crowd and the camera. What an asshole. From what she’d seen, Mike was always gracious after his victories, hugging it out with his opponents. And Meyers was the heavyweight champion now, last she heard.

  Her phone blaring to life next to her laptop made her jump, but the name on the display made her smile. “Hey you,” she said warmly, closing out her web browser and shutting the computer down.

  “Hey, beautiful. Have a good day?” His voice made her feel like she’d just taken a shot of whiskey—flushed and weak and a little floaty.

  “Pretty good. How about you?”

  “Grueling. Jon was riding my ass hard today.”

  She bit her tongue on the naughty comment that wanted to tumble from her lips. At least get the chitchat out of the way first, horndog. It was all his fault, though; he’d made her this way.

  “Do you pretty much spend all day at the gym? Like that’s your day at the office?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. That’s my office.”

  “What did you do today?”

  “Grappling, mostly. He’s on my ass about my eating. I’ve been bad.”

  “Oh? I can’t imagine,” she teased, thinking about their feast at Spindletop—something that was never far from her mind, actually. “Am I a bad influence?”

  “On the contrary. I’ve been better this past week than I have in two months.”

  “And that’s because of me?”

  “You’re putting me back together, babe.”

  That was wonderful, and that made her happy—but why was it when he was getting put back together, she only felt like she was falling apart? And if he was getting his focus back . . . it was only a matter of time before he wanted to get back in the cage.

  “Training was hard for a while,” he went on, “and it still is,
but I’m dealing with it better. I would reach for my drive before and it just wasn’t there. I would see your brother standing in front of me. I would see all the other times I failed or fucked up.”

  Savannah bit her lip, her fingers squeezing the phone until they ached. “I was watching some of your past fights earlier,” she confessed, without really knowing why.

  “Really? How come?”

  “Well, to see you, for one thing.” Yeah, that was part of it. Mike clinching his opponent in all his shredded glory was a sight to behold, muscles straining, mouth guard bared as he gritted his teeth . . . and even while he was on his feet, the predatory grace with which he moved was something she’d never seen in all the matches she’d watched her brother compete in. He reminded her of a sleek, stalking jungle cat, icy blue eyes calculating, assessing, seeking his opportunity to strike and taking it with devastating precision. When he did . . .

  She’d seen firsthand how disastrous that could be.

  “Hell, we can FaceTime or Skype. You don’t have to do that to see me.” They’d already been doing that most nights; in fact, she was surprised to get a simple call. “Which ones did you watch?”

  “Santoya and Caruthers.” She cringed a little. “Meyers.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and she heard the gravely strain in his tone. “First or second?”

  “Oh, you’ve fought him more than once?”

  “Yeah. Ended the same way both times. Fucker is the thorn in my side. You know, some guys . . . they just have your number. I’ve easily beaten guys who’ve kicked his ass all over the cage, but he gives me hell every time.”

  “That must be frustrating.”

  “You have no idea. I was the one who, when I got my ass beat in the schoolyard, was there ready for the rematch the next day until I finally won. Things happen so much slower now and it drives me nuts.”

  She laughed. “You must have spent a lot of time in detention.”

  “That or suspended.”

  “Meyers has the belt now, doesn’t he?”