Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,161
legs moving like a terrier’s, and Annabelle strode like a Valkyrie, and having daily gym sessions supervised by Harlan, where he’d stand over them holding a clipboard and dressed in football shorts and a T-shirt, giving calm orders and correcting their form in an assured sort of way that made Jennifer go weak inside.
Especially yesterday. She’d broken down, was the only way she could put it. She’d come home from work, changed into an actual pair of maternity shorts and a sports bra that fit, seeing as she now had an entire closet full of new clothes, thanks to Harlan’s one-click finger, and found the three of them just like that. Dyma was doing chest presses with a barbell while Harlan stood at the end of the bench above her head, his hands under the bar, counting off reps and telling her, “Keep your whole back flat. Suck in your abs and press the small of your back right down there.”
Dyma said, “I am,” and Harlan smiled and said, “You are now.” Annabelle, meanwhile, was doing pushups. Many pushups. Harlan had put her on a training program for rowing, and Harlan didn’t mess around.
He glanced up when Jennifer came in, but kept counting reps, finally grabbing the barbell and helping Dyma put it back in the rack. Dyma lay still a minute, breathing hard, and Harlan said, “Arms out to the side. Let them hang so your chest stretches out, and we’ll do another set.”
“Wow,” Jennifer said. “You know—could you hook me up with some of that?”
He got alert. That was the only way she could describe it. When his attention sharpened and his eyes seemed to lock onto yours. Exactly like the white wolf. That look still made her knees weak, and he didn’t even seem to know it.
“You want a pregnancy workout?” he asked.
“Well, yeah,” she said. “I have that first OB appointment on Monday, and when she asks me if I’ve been exercising, I want to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I have a gym routine.’ It sounds so much better than, ‘I stroll in the woods and swim extremely slowly.’”
He smiled, his expression still calm and fully controlled, and told Dyma, “Last set.”
“Too hard,” she said. “My arms are like spaghetti.”
“Nope,” he said. “One more. Six reps, that’s all. I’ve got my hands on your bar. Let’s go.” Without looking up, he said, “And if I set that program up for you, Jennifer, I’ll be your witness. That the idea?”
“Yep. That’s my plan.”
“All right,” he said, “but we’re not getting crazy. We’re starting easy, and I’m doing some research to make sure I keep you safe. Two more, Dyma. Annabelle, abs next. On the slant board. And Jennifer, you could get on that elliptical machine and get yourself warmed up. Start slow, and take it easy. If you get lightheaded, stop.”
“Do you realize,” Dyma puffed out as she shoved the bar up again, “that this is my mom you’re talking to? She’s … not going to be getting crazy. Not with fitness. Not with anything.”
Harlan racked the barbell again and said, “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think, because your mom’s as tough as they come.”
Dyma, who was stretching her chest and arms again and doing a little moaning about it, said, “Uh, excuse me? Are we talking about the same person? Redhead? Pregnant? Extremely conservative dresser?”
“Yep,” he said. “The day I met you, what was she doing? Get on that machine, Jennifer, if we’re doing this. Bug, ride the bike for twelve minutes when you’re done with those. Hill program, level nine. Time to push it.”
“Uh …” Dyma said, “What was she doing? Whining about skiing, you mean?”
“Nope. Planning how she’d fight the wolves so you could escape. You don’t get much tougher than that.”
“She was not,” Dyma said.
“Well, yeah,” Harlan said. “She was.”
Jennifer thought, Ha. After that, she just did what Harlan said for about half an hour, after which she felt more sympathetic toward Dyma. He had been careful, she guessed, checking in with her during every exercise, but “easy” wasn’t how she’d have described that. She could barely move her arms today. She was going to have great muscle definition, though. Eventually.
Which was why, right now, she was stroking languidly through the pool, focusing on stretching out her sore muscles. She hadn’t turned the lights on in here, and the corners of the room were shadowy, while the sky outside glowed the kind of deep blue that made your heart happy.