Below the Belt(8)

Brad’s skin prickled, and not just from the weak AC hitting his sweat-soaked body. Already, injuries were taking over. Part of him felt mental triumph at one less competitor on the field. But the other half of his brain reminded him he could easily be next.

The line shifted and he bounced on the balls of his feet as he stepped forward. Still fine. No sharp pain at all.

He’d play it by ear. Take it easy, stretch often and, if push came to shove, see a doctor out in town on his own dollar. One thing was for certain. There was no way in hell he was telling the sexy athletic trainer he was hurting. He’d rather take a bullet.





CHAPTER


3


Marianne watched the poor, trodden masses stand at attention while Coach Ace read them the riot act. It was a speech she’d heard a dozen times, from a dozen different coaches in a dozen different ways. The gist was always the same, though.

Sloppy, out of shape, pathetic performance, how did I get saddled with such a sorry bunch of losers? I shoulda gone to culinary school like my mama begged me to. Blah blah blah.

Standard first-day fare.

Normally, though, it was geared toward high schoolers, and was delivered with less . . . colorful language. She smiled as the Marines stood at attention, being reamed out by Coach Ace, then Coach Willis—Cartwright seemed to pass on this round of ass-chewing. They were stoic and focused. Quite a change from the typical eye-rolling, sarcasm-producing teens.

After a few minutes of the interesting pep talk, the Marines broke for dinner. According to her schedule, they had about ninety minutes to decompress, grab food, shower, run errands or do whatever else it was they needed to handle around base. There wasn’t a ton to do on base, and they didn’t have enough time to make it out to Jacksonville, sit through a restaurant meal and come back, though some of them might be stationed on Lejeune, and so could pop back home to see families or roommates. The rest were housed in the BOQ or barracks, having been shuttled in from whatever base they were stationed at.

She watched with an amused smile as most of the men walked straight past her. A few nodded politely or smiled, but most simply breezed by. None, she noted, stopped to take one of the nutrition pamphlets she’d put on a stool outside her door. She propped a shoulder on the wall by the door and bit back a grin.

Day one, everybody was a tough guy. No showing weakness. No whining to mama. Give them another week, and she would have a full house of Marines wanting ice packs, heat packs, cramps massaged out, lacerations taped up, ankles wrapped and who knew what else.

One Marine walked up to stand in front of her. “Ma’am—”

“Marianne. Or Cook, either one.”

“Cook,” he said, as she had suspected he would. He was likely in his early twenties, which made her several years older than him, and he had a cute spray of freckles across his nose that complimented the russet-gold hair. But oh, God, coming on base could really be a dual hit and stroke to the ego. Hot Marines watching her walk around like she was the sexiest thing they’d seen all day, and then calling her ma’am like she was their old-fart aunt.

“What’s up?”

“Could I get an ice pack for the road?”

“Sure thing, come on in.” She walked back to the icing station and grabbed a plastic bag, blowing in it to fill it with air and wrapping the edges around a bucket. Made for easier filling. “What’s the ailment, Marine?”

That was the beauty of this job. She didn’t have to memorize names or ranks. Shout, “Hey, Marine!” in a full room, and you’ll get a full room answering you back.

He glanced around the room, as if he were waiting for someone to pop out and scream, “Surprise!” at him.

“We’re alone,” she assured him, biting on her lip to contain the smile.

He blew out a breath, then held up his left hand. Even from several feet away, she could see the last two knuckles were swollen. Likely dislocated.

“Ouch.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” he insisted, a little too quickly in her opinion. “I just don’t want it to swell more and cause problems later.”

“Well, you’re right on that part at least. What’s your name?”

“Toby Chalfant.”

“Well, Chalfant, you came to the right place.” She tied the ends of the plastic baggie and brought it over to sit on the bench next to him. When she held out her hand, he hesitated. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

His lips twitched and he gingerly stretched his arm out to place his wrist in her grip. It hurt more than he wanted to admit—that much was obvious. When she wiggled his pinky and ring finger, his eyes squinted and his jaw clenched, though he didn’t flinch or pull away.

“Ice, ice baby,” she said and handed him the bag. “Would it do me any good to ask you to take the rest of the day off? Or to just use your other hand?”

He gave her a look that clearly asked, Are you insane? He was too well-trained—either by his mama or by a very proud gunny somewhere—to say it out loud.

“Thought so. Take it easy with that hand, try using the right more than the left. If you want to wrap it, just for the illusion of support and to keep the swelling down, come back ten minutes before the evening session and we’ll do that. I can wrap both hands up to the wrists, if that would make you feel better about it. A lot of guys are wrapping just to protect against scrapes and mat burns. Nobody would think twice.”