Her expression was suspicious when she unlocked and pushed the door open a scant foot. He took a mental snapshot: great cheekbones, sensual mouth, bump on the bridge of her nose. Around thirty, he guessed. No wedding ring, a surreptitious glance determined.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m Detective Bruce Walker,” he said, unclipping his shield from his belt and holding it out for her to see. “I was invited to lead this self-defense workshop.”
A tentative smile warmed her face, but she also peered past him in apparent puzzlement. “Welcome. But weren’t you to have a partner?”
“Detective Beckstead will be joining us next week. She’s the labor coach for her pregnant sister, whose water broke this afternoon.”
He’d been hearing about the birthing classes from Molly Beckstead for the past two months. She was unmarried, hadn’t yet contemplated having a baby herself, and when she was a rookie had been scarred for life, she claimed, by having to assist a woman giving birth in the back seat of a taxicab. All spring, she’d provided weekly reports on the horrors of childbirth, half tongue-in-cheek, half serious, but he’d noticed she sounded more excited than terrified when she’d called to tell him she was meeting her sister at the hospital.
“Ah.” The woman relaxed. “That’s an excuse if I’ve ever heard one.” She pushed the door farther open to allow him in. “I’m sorry to seem less than welcoming. Some of the women participating tonight are from battered women’s shelters, and we always keep in mind the possibility that the men in their lives might be following them.”
“I understand. And you are…?”
“Karin Jorgensen. I’m a counselor here at A Woman’s Hand.”
“You’re the one who set this up. Good to meet you.” He held out his hand, and they shook. He liked her grip, firm and confident, and the feel of her fine-boned hand in his. In fact, he let go of it reluctantly.
“This way,” she said, leading him down the hall. “The women are all here. I hope our space is big enough for the purpose. It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this, and if this venue doesn’t work well tonight, we could plan to use a weight room or gym at a school the next time. We’re just more comfortable with the security here.”
He nodded. “I’m sure it will be fine. For the most part, we won’t be doing many throws. With only the four sessions, we can’t turn the women into martial artists. We’ll focus more on attitude and on how they can talk their way out of situations.”
She stopped at a door, from behind which he heard voices. She lowered her own. “You are aware that most of these women have already been beaten or raped?”
He held her gaze, surprised that her eyes were brown, although her hair was blond. Was it blond from a bottle? His lightning-quick evaluation concluded no. She was the unusual natural blonde who had warm, chocolate-brown eyes.
“I’ll be careful not to say anything to make the women feel they’ve failed in any way.”
The smile he got was soft and beautiful. “Thank you.” The next moment, she opened the door and gestured for him to precede her into the room.
Heads turned, and Bruce found himself being inspected. Not every woman appeared alarmed, but enough did that Bruce wondered if they’d expected only a woman cop. Ages ranged from late teens to mid fifties or older, their clothing style, from street kid to moneyed chic. But what these women had in common mattered more than their differences.
He was careful to move slowly, to keep his expression pleasant.
Karin Jorgensen introduced him, then stepped back and stood in a near-parade stance, as though to say I’m watching you.
Good. He had his eye on her, too.
Bruce smiled and looked from face to face. “My partner, Molly, asked me to apologize for her. Her sister is in labor, and Molly is her labor coach. She plans to be here next week. Tonight, you get just me.”
He saw some tense shoulders and facial muscles relax, as if the mention of a woman giving birth and another there to hold her hand somehow reassured them. The support of other women was all that was helping some of his audience, he guessed.
“We’ll work on a few self-defense drills toward the end of the session—I don’t want you to get numb sitting and listening to me talk,” he began. “But we’ll focus more on physical self-defense in coming weeks. It’ll be easier for me to demonstrate with my partner’s help. She’s just five feet five inches tall, but she can take me down.” He paused to let them absorb that. He was six foot three and solidly built. If a woman ten inches shorter than him could protect herself against him, even be the aggressor, they were definitely interested.
“Most women I know have been raised to believe the men in their lives will protect them,” he continued. “That’s a man’s role. A woman’s is to let herself be protected. How can women be expected to defend themselves against men? You’re smaller, lighter, finer boned, carry less muscle and are incapable of aggression.” He looked around the circle of perhaps twenty women sitting in chairs pushed against the walls of what he guessed was a large conference room. When the silence had stretched long enough, Bruce noted, “That’s the stereotype. Here’s reality. Throughout nature, mother animals are invariably the fiercest of their kind. Like men, women want to survive. Nature creates all of us with that instinct. You, too, can fight if you have to.”
The quiet was absolute. They were hanging on his every word. They wanted to believe him, with a hunger he understood only by context.
“Do you have disadvantages if you’re attacked by a guy my size?” He ambled around the room, focusing on one woman at a time, doing his best to maintain an unthreatening posture. “Sure. What I’m here to tell you is that you have advantages, too. You’re likely quicker than I am, for one thing. You’ve got a lower center of gravity. Women are famous for their intuition, for their ability to read mood and intentions. Chances are good you can outthink your attacker. And if you’re prepared, you’re going to shock him. He won’t expect you to fight back. He’ll have the surprise of his life.”
Murmurs, surprise of their own, but also a gathering sense of possibility: Maybe he’s right. Maybe I can outwit and outfight a man.
He told them stories of women who’d had an assailant whimpering on the ground by the time they were done.
“The greatest battle you have to fight from here on out,” he went on, “is with your own attitude. What you have to do is liberate yourself from every defeatist voice you’ve ever heard.
“Many of you have already been assaulted.” Heads bobbed, and renewed fear seemed to shiver from woman to woman, as if a whisper had made the rounds. “Then I don’t have to tell you submission doesn’t work.” He waited for more nods, these resigned. “I’m here to tell you aggression might. At worst—” he spread his hands “—you’ll be injured. But you know what? He was going to hurt you anyway.”
Something was coming alive in their faces. They looked at one another, exchanged more nods.
He had them, from the frail Hispanic woman in the corner, to the overweight teenage girl with acne, to the iron-haired woman who could have been his mother had Mom ever had the courage to seek the means to defend herself.
And, he saw, he had pleased Karin Jorgensen, who at last abandoned her military stance by the door and took a seat, prepared to listen and learn, herself.
He didn’t let her sit for long, asking her to help him demonstrate. As he showed how an attacker opened himself up the minute he reached out to fumble with clothing or lift a hand to strike, Bruce was pleased by tiny signs that Karin was as aware of him physically as he was of her. Nothing that would catch anyone else’s attention—just a quiver