Author's Note: Inspired by the
episodes "Have I Got a Steele for You" and "Steele Knuckles and Glass
Jaws."
Steele a Kid from Kilkenny
July 1986
The boxing gym should have
been cool with the windows open to let the ocean breeze through, but
the constant crush of sweaty men kept it humid and heavy with the scent
of
dirty socks. The metallic flavor of blood was subtle and ever a
part of the environment.
Some of that blood dripped
off a tall, dark-haired Irishman who had
just defeated another opponent. He wiped his forehead,
transferring a long red smear from his brow to his
forearm.
“Steele, you look like
hell,” Jackson told him from his place at
ringside. He’d been watching his old friend pummel the hell out
of his challenger--a young fighter that
should have been able to take Steele rather easily, given his size.
But the Irishman was fast--too
fast for most of the contenders he took on.
“Bugger off, mate.”
Remington frowned as he stepped over the
ropes. His ribs hurt, and he was fairly certain he'd taken an
accidental kidney punch. He let none of
that show as he dropped to the gym floor.
“Done?” the gym owner
sneered. Steele had taken on two men this
evening. Only at the end of the last bout had Jackson noted his
friend's slowing down with fatigue.
Steele had known it too and had taken the younger man with a
flurry of lightning-fast strikes. The
third time the young man had dropped to his knee, Jackson called the
fight in Steele’s favor.
“I’m done. “
“Good. You’re
bleeding all over my gym. Now go home and
make up to Mrs. Steele.” Remington shot him a sour look.
“Nah, don’t give me that face. We both
know you and the missus are fighting about something.
It’s the only thing that gets your
goat this badly.” Jackson snatched a towel off the bench and
threw it at him.
Steele caught it on his
forearm and frowned. “Am I that bloody
obvious?”
Jackson unlaced first one
glove and then the other while Steele held
out his hands. “Only to another fighter. If you'd been less
angry, the kid wouldn’t have gotten
up after the second round. But you were pissed and got sloppy, so
it took you longer. A man with your
build has no business trying to be a puncher. You’re an
in-fighter and you know it.
If the kid'd had a little more weight on ‘em, you'd have lost.”
A short nod was the only
acknowledgement of the assessment.
Remington flexed his hands as the gloves came off and then
offered one to Jackson. “Thanks, mate.”
Jackson nodded just as
curtly and turned back to the ring to watch the
next pair of boxers.
*****
The scorching hot shower
in the locker room washed away the mixture of
sweat, blood and grime that seemed to stick to the skin in the muggy
building. It also
cleared his head.
Jackson was right.
He and Laura’d had a blistering fight late in
the afternoon over their involvement in a case that had taken a rather
dangerous turn. She’d made a gutsy
move that blew it wide open and had allowed the police to rescue a
hostage and arrest a kidnapper. In
her elation afterward, he had berated her about the risks she’d taken.
In retrospect, yelling at
her wasn’t the smartest move he’d ever made.
One thing he'd learned about Laura was that emotion rarely
changed her mind. Cold logic was
far more likely to have an effect on her than any amount of guilt or
number of snap remarks.
Case-in-point was the
television coverage of Billie Young. Laura
hadn’t heard a word he'd said about her being in the limelight as long
as he was making critical comments.
When he’d calmed and talked her through the issues, she’d
immediately seen the problem and together
they’d brought the case to conclusion.
He pushed open the door to
their penthouse and found Laura poking about
the kitchen. She raised her brow as she set a bowl of cut fruit
on the counter and nibbled on a
strawberry. Automatically, she noted the cut on his forehead and
the reddened knuckles as he came around the
island. He touched her face and then laid a light kiss on her
lips. In response, she slid her
arms around his waist and deliberately squeezed while savoring his
mouth. He grimaced, thinking she
wouldn’t see his expression.
He should have known
better. “Strip,” she ordered before she left
to retrieve the first aid kit from their bathroom.
Remington slowly removed
his shirt and draped it over the barstool
before gingerly sitting on it. Laura came back and dumped a
variety of items on the counter. She
started with cleaning the cut--blowing on it when it stung. “Why
do you do this?”
There was no point in
pretending he didn’t understand what she was
asking. “Sometimes, love, it helps me to think--Ouch!” He
shied away when she started to tape
a Band-Aid to his head, but she grabbed his hair and made him hold
still while she finished.
Having grown up in a house
full of girls where physical aggression was
rare--although not unheard of between her and Kate--Laura had always
found it fascinating that any
number of men she’d known relieved stress in a similar manner.
But she never quite thought
she would marry one--having always equated it with a bit more brawn
than brain. To find that
Remington wasn’t any different had come as a surprise in these first
few months of marriage. In fact, he was
probably a little more prone to working out
his problems with fists to
the punching bag than most. This was
the second time he’d come home battered in the last few weeks but the
first time she knew she was the
reason.
“Do you want your middle
wrapped?” She looked at his knuckles,
dismissed them, and then pressed her fingers against each rib in turn.
She found two that were tender,
but he shook his head.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
He snagged his shirt and shrugged it on,
leaving the buttons undone for the moment. He tugged on her waist
until she was standing between his legs.
“You took a rather large risk this afternoon. I’m not
saying it wasn’t justified. It was and
it worked. It also scared the bloody hell out of me.”
She nodded. “I
gathered that.”
“Next time, and I’m quite
certain there will be one, would you give me
a hint before you do something like that? I know you were
reacting on instinct, and it was a
good one, but my heart nearly stopped when you dove into the middle as
you did. A word, a signal, even a
glance will do in a pinch.”
Casually, she leaned on
the island. “In other words, some sort of
acknowledgement that I’m going to do something that might be foolish,
but I’m going to try it anyway?”
He grinned.
“Something like that.”
Laura nodded. “That
makes a great deal of sense, Mr. Steele.
Especially when I realized that the brief moment it might have
taken to signal you would have given you the
chance to back me up. I was out there on my own in that moment,
and there was nothing you could do to
cover me.”
“Exactly.”
“Done.” She stood up
and kissed his forehead over the adhesive
strip, aware of his relief and the way his shoulders relaxed at her
word.
He cocked his head at her.
“Does the fact that I box when I’m
irritated bother you?”
“No,” she said lightly,
knowing that it wasn’t something she could
change. “Do me a favor and learn to duck. I don’t like
seeing you bleed.”
“No, I know you don’t.
It’s an old habit, love. I--"
She put her fingers to his
lips. “I’m sure it’s something along
the lines of ‘you can take the kid out of Kilkenny'--” She paused and
quirked her lips in a small smile.
His voice was pure Irish
and his grin twice as charming. “But ye
can’t take th’ Kilkenny out o’ th’ kid.” Remington slid a hand
behind her head and brought her to within an inch
of his mouth. “Oh, but me Laura, I’ve
learned a few other things along
the way.” He flicked his eyebrows and touched his lips to hers.
27 May 2009
edited 1 May 2010