Fight for Her (2 page)

Krista saw that her chance was evaporating far more rapidly than she ever would have thought possible. Her thoughts were racing, and she felt tongue tied, incapable of stringing together a sentence.

She could only marvel at the incredibly grace in his movements, the way his muscles worked beneath his t-shirt.

Stop looking at his chest and his biceps, she reprimanded herself. But then she looked at his eyes and it was even worse. There was nowhere safe to look at all.

She realized that she needed to say something to stop him from going back inside his cabin and she needed to do it quick. Somehow, she had to make him see that she wasn’t like all the other people bothering him—she wasn’t a threat.

“I’m not really a journalist,” she said.

This seemed to halt him momentarily. He was watching her again. “What do you mean?” His eyes narrowed and he searched her face warily.

“I mean, I want to be a journalist. I’m a journalism student, and I wanted to do a story about you.”

“How did you find me?”

“It’s a small town,” she said. “Word was bound to get out eventually.”

She expected him to deny it, to tell her that he’d been careful not to go into town, but he didn’t. Instead, his shoulders seemed to sag a little and his expression changed from mistrust to bewilderment.

“What do I need to do, move to Antarctica to get away from you people?”

“I’m not one of those people, Gunner—“

“You don’t know me,” he growled. “Don’t say my name like we’ve been friends for years.”

She licked her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way. I’m just incredibly nervous. I almost got attacked by a wild dog a minute ago.”

Gunner’s lips twitched as if about to form a full-fledged smile. “You mean Doogie?”

“I don’t know the dog’s name, but he was growling and baring his teeth at me.”

“Doogie was just giving you a hard time.”

“Is that your dog?”

“He lives at a nearby farm. But he likes me. I guess he doesn’t like you too much, though. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Did you train him to hate journalists?”

“No, but it’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that in case any other stalkers come up here looking for me.”

“I’m not a stalker. I’m just a student who thought maybe you’d want to talk.”

“Well, I don’t.” He sighed, and his tone softened a little. “Can you get out of here okay? Your car’s pretty big and tough to maneuver.”

She looked back at the Yukon and pictured herself trying to turn it around in the small clearing in front of the house. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay,” Gunner said. “Go slow and be careful getting off the mountain.” He started to walk away again.

As he was leaving, when his back was to her, she made one last attempt.

“Gunner,” she called out.

He stopped walking but didn’t turn to face her. “Yeah?”

“I happen to agree with your choice.”

He didn’t move for a long, long moment. His heavily muscled back was still, and she could almost feel him taking in her words.

Krista held her breath. She knew that if she failed today, there was a very good chance that she wouldn’t have a job when she got back to Las Vegas. Drew Ellis himself had made it quite clear that the newly created Fighter Relations position wasn’t worth much to the UFF if she couldn’t even open up the lines of communication with their most important fighter.

Slowly, Gunner turned around. “Say that again,” he told her. “Tell me what you mean.”

“I agree with your choice. I think it’s courageous, what you’ve done—walking away from this fight.”

“Are you bullshitting me?” he asked, coming towards her now.

She was once again struck by his size, and the sheer magnitude of his charisma, which seemed to radiate outward from him like a visible aura. He was magnetic, and every time his eyes met hers, she found herself struggling to string a sentence together.

“I’m telling the truth,” she lied.

His eyes narrowed, and she thought for sure that he’d seen through her.

But then the ghost of a smile crossed his features. “What’s your name?” he said.

“Krista.”

“Krista…”

“Krista Everett.” That much, at least, was true. She’d already thought about whether it was safe to tell him, and she was fairly certain that none of her information was on the UFF website or in any public domain. After all, the job was brand new and she’d barely had time to decorate her office, let alone hit the social media circles with the news.

She thought it unlikely that Gunner would do an in-depth web search on her name, but just in case, she would make sure to wipe out any association between her name and the UFF tonight, as soon as she got someplace with Wi-Fi.

This is bad, Krista, a little voice said in the back of her mind.

But she couldn’t help it. She finally saw a glimmer of hope—not just hope that she might be able to salvage her job, or perhaps convince Gunner not to blow up his entire career that he’d worked so long to build, but also that she might continue to be around him.

She didn’t want this to be the last time she ever saw him. And somehow, that was more important than anything else.

Gunner walked closer and closer to her, to the point where she could see the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, the mud caked on his work boots. He studied her as he ran a hand through his fine brown hair. “Listen to me,” he said.

“I’m listening,” she managed. This near to him, it was difficult to even breathe, let alone speak.

“I’ll take a few hours tomorrow and talk to you. But I’m not promising anything.

Whatever you might imagine I can do for you—I can’t. I’m just a guy like anybody else.”

“Can we talk now?” she said.

“No.” His eyes didn’t waver, and he didn’t bother saying why he wouldn’t do it now.

There was an awkward silence, and she looked away. “That’s fine, I was just thinking it might be easier to get it over with.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he reiterated. “Do you go to school nearby?”

Her mind stalled, as she couldn’t seem to recall what colleges were in the area.

She opened her mouth like a fish out of water. “Yeah, I—I’m not sure you want to come to my school. That would create pandemonium,” she said, struggling to give herself time to come up with an excuse.

He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on coming to your school,” he said. “I just wanted to find a good location to meet with you.”

“I’m actually staying nearby,” she said.

“Where?”

“I got a room at the Middle River Inn.”

Gunner’s brow furrowed. “Why would you bother doing that? I thought you went to school around here.”

Finally, it occurred to her. “I go to school in Boston, so it’s a pretty long drive and I wanted to give myself some time to find you and…”

He shook his head, seemingly bemused by her persistence. “Okay, let’s keep this simple. Why don’t we meet for coffee at the Inn—they have booths with decent privacy, and if we start early enough, there shouldn’t be many people around. Let’s shoot for eight o’clock.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “That would be fantastic,” she said.

“I’ll give you the interview,” he said. “But if I don’t like where it’s going, I’ll pull the plug, Krista.”

“I understand.”

“As long as we understand each other.”

She nodded and turned to go to the car.

“Krista,” he called out.

She turned around and found him staring at her. “Yes?”

“Don’t screw me on this,” he said. “I’m taking a big risk in trusting you.”

“I won’t,” she said, but her voice faltered a little bit.

After all, she already had.

***

The Middle River Inn was more like an old colonial house than anything else.

There was a small front desk area that could have passed for a coatroom, and the older couple that ran the place were charming and friendly people.

“Are you in town for the fall festival?” Shelly, the wife asked, as she took Krista’s credit card and ran it through a machine that looked hundreds of years old.

“Among other things,” Krista said, not wanting to be pinned down to any one particular reason.

That’s the life of a liar, she scolded herself.

Shelly smiled warmly. “People come from all over for the fall festival. We have the biggest pumpkins in the country!”

Her husband, Ben, was somewhat hard of hearing. He wore glasses and seemed to do a lot of little maintenance things. At one point, he wandered by with two light bulbs in his hands. Then he looked down. “Now which is the old one and which is the new one?” he said aloud, and then kept going.

“Does the restaurant open early?” Krista asked, as Shelly handed her the room key.

“Six o’clock sharp, every morning. Cole runs it like a Swiss watch. Very efficient, best coffee in town.”

“Perfect,” Krista replied. Of course, best coffee in town didn’t mean much when it was also the only coffee in town. But she kept that comment to herself.

She made her way up to her room on the second floor. It was serviceable, and the room smelled clean, even if the wallpaper looked like it was from the 1800’s.

There was a small desk, a wooden chair, a bed and an old-fashioned TV on a stand by the wall. Krista went to the window near the desk and looked outside. She could see Main Street below, and a few cars passed by as she watched through the glass.

It really was a cute town, even if it was way too small for her. She preferred the glitz and glamour and excitement of Vegas.

Pulling out her laptop, she was able to log onto the Wi-Fi under a password that Shelly and Ben had left on a piece of paper taped to the desk lamp. Krista immediately sent Drew Ellis, the CEO of the UFF, a carefully worded email explaining that she’d made contact with Gunner.

Literally seconds later, her cell phone rang.

“Hey, it’s me,” Drew said, his words clipped, since everything he did was rushed, including how he pronounced things.

“I just sent you an email,” she began.

“No shit. You think it’s a coincidence I called just now? Tell me the details.”

She could hear him breathing through his nostrils into the phone. Drew Ellis was intimidating and frightening. He was not just powerful in the fight industry, but he was also rich and famous. She’d only met him a handful of times, and Krista was desperate not to upset him.

Drew was even scarier when he was angry. She’d seen him make a grown man cry her first day on the job and that had told her all she needed to know about pissing off the boss.

She started to explain everything that had happened when she’d first met Gunner, but Drew rushed her along, not wanting to hear about the dog almost biting her or any of the little things that had occurred.

It was when she got to the part where she’d claimed to be a journalist that he stopped her cold.

“Wait, back up,” Drew said. “You told him you’re a journalist?”

She bit her lip, waiting to be fired. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You were supposed to go there as a representative of the UFF and try to talk some sense to this fool.”

“I know, but if you’d seen the look on his face…”

“So what’s your plan, then? Do you even have one?” Drew said.

Krista was sweating as she tried to put it into words. “I thought that maybe if he started to trust me, you know…maybe I could find a way to slowly talk him into going back to Las Vegas. He seemed receptive to talking to me as a journalist. We’re meeting tomorrow morning,” she said, hoping to show that the trip hadn’t been a complete bust as of yet.

There was a long silence. She waited again to be fired, or at least screamed at for being a complete idiot and ignoring her orders.

“You know what?” Drew said, finally, giggling. “I actually kind of love it.

That’s creative. Very creative.” He giggled some more. “If I’d known how manipulative and devious you were when I hired you, I’d have paid you more,” Drew laughed.

Krista tried to smile, but she didn’t really like the tone of Drew’s compliment. “I intend to come clean with him eventually,” she said.

“Oh, sure. That’ll go over great.”

“I’m going to tell him eventually. But first I need him to let his guard down a little.”

“Whatever it takes,” Drew said.

“Sure, just so long as I don’t cross any more lines,” she said. “I feel bad enough that I lied to him about being a journalist.”

“Listen, we’re going to lose millions on the pay-per-view that he backed out of.

Millions. People are going to lose their jobs. Heads will roll. And nobody’s going to get it worse than Gunner King, if he keeps going down this road he’s on. You’re doing him a fucking favor, Krista.”

“I know, but I feel bad—“

“Feeling bad is a waste of time. You went with your instincts, and they must have been good, because he agreed to talk to you, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, then—whatever it takes. Do
whatever
it takes.”

“Yeah, of course. Now, if for some reason I can’t get him to go back to Vegas to fight—“

“If you can’t get Gunner back, you best not come back either.”

She sat there, stunned. There was silence on the other end. “Are you serious, Drew?” she asked.

“I’m dead fucking serious. Come back with Gunner, or find another line of work, Krista. It’s pretty simple. Whatever it takes.” And then he hung up on her.

***

That night, she had a dream.

She’d fallen into a pit of quicksand in the jungle. Only, it couldn’t have really been the jungle, because her parents were sitting on the couch watching her struggle. Her dad had a TV remote and was trying to change the channel. “Why won’t she get out of there?” he asked.

Krista’s mother just shook her head and closed her eyes. “Turn it, I hate watching people drown!” she cried.

Meanwhile, Krista was already up to her chest in quicksand, and the dark, thick mud was slowly sucking her down. She was terrified, but tried to keep calm.

Somewhere, she remembered hearing that the more you struggled, the quicker you were submerged.

She tried to struggle less, but the urge to fight and scream and thrash was almost overpowering.