Free Hidden Steel by Doranna Durgin Page A

understanding—not of the sympathetic sort. “And where would we be, if that’s the way this place was run? Where would our kids be, and the young men Steve is keeping off the streets? They work to pay for their classes—that teaches them something too. And helps pay our bills besides.” She raked Gaynell with a scowl. “You just not wantin’ any competition.”
    “Bitch!” Gaynell gasped, as the other women nodded emphatic and bristly agreement with Dawnisha’s words.
    “Whoa, ladies!” Steve’s panic wasn’t the least faked. He could—and had—handled himself out there on the streets. A few hard knocks in pursuit of his brother had set him on his own path of learning, and eventually led him here. The gym, his work, his life—all built on hard experience.
    But he wanted nothing to do with group of angry women. Not once the bitch word started flying.
    “Chill, woman,” Dawnisha told Gaynell, putting her down with a look that reminded Steve that she, too, had come out of hard days on the street. That and her total lack of concern as she turned her back on the woman and put hands on hips to give Steve a look he’d thought reserved for local teenagers. “You just frightened.”
    “ Hey ,” he said, dignity wounded.
    “Honey, you ain’t scared for us, you just running scared for your own self. There’s somethin’ about this girl reaches you. Think it don’t show on your face? You chase her off for our sakes, and you don’t got to take any chances.”
    Warmth flooded his face—embarrassment that these women knew him this well, shame that some part of him thought she might be right. “This gym has to stay a safe place.”
    Dawnisha crossed her arms over her thin chest with some finality. “Then you’ll just have to find a way,” she said. “You keep it safe. You let this girl find herself here.”
    At that they let it drop, and he drew them off into play-acting encounters on the street—the wallet throw away. Problem with these ladies wasn’t that they’d panic—problem was that some of them were so tough, they didn’t hit the run away button when needed. So he passed out “wallets” of duct-taped cardboard and they practiced accosting one another, then throwing their wallets for their “muggers” to chase after while they ran away. Steve egged them on into the drama of it, play-acting in high shrieking voices, lots of arm-waving and personal woe. Might as well have fun with the wicked world.
    When class was over, they gathered up the wallets and handed them to Dawnisha, who dumped them on the counter behind the freebies barrel. There Steve had a mini-fridge, and he was stuck in the middle of a long pull on a bottle of water as Dawnisha walked by. Just as well. When she admonished him, “You think on it,” he wouldn’t have had anything to say anyway.
    Because he was thinking on it. Had been thinking on it. Had more than enough time to accept the truth of her words.
    Mickey scared the crap out of him.
    In the middle of her confusion and fear, she’d gone dancing with a broom. She met his gaze without reservation—she sucked him right into her, right through the walls he’d carefully and deliberately built. If she stayed here, it would only continue to happen.
    And yet he knew what she was. What he’d go through if he let her in.
    You just frightened , Dawnisha had told him.
    Terrified, more like it.
    And of course they’d all been right. This place of safety … it had never discriminated. If Mickey lashed out when threatened, then he’d make sure she wasn’t threatened. If there were indeed men cruising the streets in search of her, he’d find out what they wanted—find out if they were on her side, maybe even looking to take her home. He doubted it—he trusted the kids, and his own gut reaction when he’d seen that slowly gliding vehicle—but if they weren’t on her side, then she could hide inside the gym until they gave up.
    It was what he did.
    Frightened or not.
    So