In an unsure voice, Tess said, "Run?"

Jaylynn inclined her head slightly. "Yes, if you can, you are going to run, but along with your stance, there’s another piece we want you to do." She looked around at all the expectant faces. "You want to shout out. Everyone take a deep breath." She put her fists at her abdomen. "Now, shout out ‘No!’"

Half the group bellowed loudly, while the other half let out shy peeps.

"Girls, you can all do better than that. Someone has just entered your space, invaded your safety zone. You’ve been grabbed or pushed, and you’re on alert now. As you go on alert, I want your automatic response to be to let your attacker know, very clearly, that you’re setting a boundary. Most of you would rather die than make a scene, but that’s what might scare off an attacker or bring help to you. You want the attacker to know that you won’t stand for being manhandled."

She waved Dez toward her, and the tall cop advanced, a wicked grin on her face. The big cop grabbed the front of the smaller woman’s shirt and moved her backwards. Jaylynn went into her power stance, shrugged the big hands off, and almost simultaneously shouted, "No!" with her voice coming out in a loud bark.

"It needs to come from your diaphragm, girls. Everybody face me and feel your abdomens.... Okay, all together now, say ‘No!’" The sound rang out in the gym, much louder than before. She looked around at the students. "That’s better. Now couldn’t you feel the tenseness in your middle when you shouted?" Most of the girls nodded. "Good, very good. Now then, let’s pair up again and practice your stance and the shout."

Jaylynn was happy to see that all the girls took the drill seriously. Some of them were shy and needed coaxing and coaching, but all of them seemed to be trying. After a couple minutes she blew her whistle again. "Okay, everybody back to the mats, and go ahead and sit back down." While surveying her audience, she pointed at Dez who stood next to her, touching her on the shoulder. "Now what do we do if we get grabbed and we can’t run?"

Someone in the audience said, "Deck ’em!"

Jaylynn turned toward the speaker. "But what if the person is way bigger and way stronger?"

A well-muscled, brown-haired girl said, "Sock ’em in the stomach, knock the wind out of them, and then run."

"Oh, I see," Jaylynn nodded as though this made total sense. She turned to Dez with an impish look on her face. "Go ahead, Dez." Under her breath she said, "And be ready."

Dez grabbed at her partner, catching hold of her forearm and jerking her forward. Jaylynn wound up and slammed a fist into the dark-haired woman’s middle. Nothing happened, except a quiet grunt from the taller cop. With both hands, Dez yanked the smaller woman toward her and lifted her off the ground onto her right shoulder. Jaylynn let her body go slack, and Dez set her down.

The brown-haired girl frowned. "You pulled the punch," she said in a scornful voice.

Jaylynn, still catching her breath, shook her head. "Oh, no. I didn’t. Stand up, uh, Amber."

The brown-haired girl stood, unconvinced by the blonde’s comments. She stood half a head taller than Jaylynn, but a good four inches shorter than Dez.

Jaylynn waved her over and gestured toward her partner. "Go ahead. Punch away."

Dez scrutinized the advancing brown-haired girl. With broad shoulders and lean muscles, she looked like an athlete, maybe a budding basketball player. The girl met her eyes, almost as if she was asking permission. Dez stood up tall and pointed at her own mid-section with both her index fingers. "Fire away."

Amber pounced forward and delivered a powerful blow. Her fist made contact with the tall woman’s abdomen and bounced back. The girl looked at her hand, surprised. She was even more surprised when her arm was grabbed, twisted behind her back, and she found herself face down on the mat with a solid knee in her back. Almost as quickly as she hit the floor, she was released, and by the time she rolled over and got to her feet, she was looking up at the dark-haired policewoman with respect.

Jaylynn said, "Self-defense is just that: defense. We’re not going to focus on you attacking your assailant. We want to teach you how to defend yourself and get away with the least amount of harm done to you as possible. There’s a lot to learn, but with practice, you can all learn ways to protect yourself." She glanced at her watch. "We’re running out of time for today, but we’ll be back twice a week to work on self-defense skills. We’ll teach you how to get away if somebody grabs you. We’ll teach you what to do if someone does strike you. You’re all going to learn where to hit an attacker to disable him so you can get away. You’ll all get to practice a lot." She stepped off the blue mat and strode over to the bleachers and picked up the manila envelope. "Next time, Dez and I are going to talk about the common characteristics and behavior of attackers and ways to be aware of possible bad situations before they happen." She pulled out a sheaf of papers, split it into two bunches, and sent one stack to the right and one to the left of the circle. "Everybody take this information and read it. Come back on Thursday prepared to talk about it with us. It’s not boring. It could save your life." She looked around the group. "Any questions?"

Tess spoke up. "Why can’t we do this every day?"

Jaylynn smiled. "Twice a week until a couple weeks before Christmas. Dez and I have a job to do, too, you know."

Another girl named Yolanda spoke up. "Have either of you ever shot anybody?"

Dez shook her head. "We’re here to teach you self-defense, kids, not talk about that sort of thing."

"That’s right," Jaylynn said. "Okay, off to the locker room you go. We’ll let Mr. Hawley know how you all did. See you Thursday."

* * *

Dez awakened. The light shining in Jaylynn’s bedroom was bright and she shut her eyes against the burning under her eyelids. With one arm she patted next to her. No Jaylynn. Now that was unusual. The blonde didn’t usually wake up before her. She rolled to the outside of the bed and snagged her watch off the nightstand. 10:14. Unbelievable. She had slept over seven hours.

She rose and showered, and when she emerged from the bathroom, she smelled something good, like cinnamon, which made her stomach grumble and growl. The tall woman dressed quickly in jeans, tennis shoes, and a blue and white flannel shirt, then headed downstairs.

She moved through the living room, and strode toward the kitchen, slowing when she heard Sara’s voice.

"Oh yeah. Right there! Right there! Yes, yes! You’ve got it now."

Jaylynn murmured something Dez couldn’t quite hear, then said, "Hold real still…good…good…this is great!"

Dez frowned. She slowly pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen and surveyed the scene before her. "What in the hell are you two doing?"

Jaylynn straightened up abruptly and turned to face her. Dressed in jeans, tennies, and a sweatshirt, she brandished a long skinny knife. Sara sat next to the kitchen table in one of the rickety chairs, one forearm on the table, holding a metal bar out in both fists.

With a big grin, the blonde moved next to Dez and put an arm around her waist and pressed her face into the tall woman’s chest. She pulled away a little, and with her other hand, held up a black-handled knife. "This is so cool. Sara ordered this knife from the Home Shopping Network. It’s supposed to cut through anything, even metal."

Sara held out the metal dowel. "Look! It’s working. We’ve got it going."

Dez nodded, holding back a laugh. "I see." She pressed her lips together to keep the smile back and gave Jaylynn a one-armed hug. "So you two are down here sawing metal rods in half instead of getting things ready for Bill’s party?"

Jaylynn gazed up at her. "Why do I get the distinct feeling that you’re not impressed with our handiwork with the Aikuchi All-Purpose Utility Knife?" She picked up a heavy-duty cardboard sleeve which said CAUTION: EXTREMELY SHARP on the side and turned it over. The print on the other side was too small for Dez to read from the distance. "Now this, Dez, was a real buy. Listen up. It says it is guaranteed to stay sharp for ten years, cut through anything but diamonds, and assist its owner in kitchen, shed, stable, or garage. A fine acquisition for our household, if you ask me."

The dark-haired woman reached an arm out, palm up, and Sara placed the piece of metal in her hand. Dez extricated herself from Jaylynn and turned the bar over and examined it. Though it was a good fifteen inches long, it was perhaps only three-eighths of an inch thick. In the middle were two faint markings, then one deeper slice where the two women had obviously sawed successfully. She hefted it in her hand, feeling its cool solidness, then paused for a moment as a scrap of memory, a tiny snippet of a dream, clicked in her mind—then disappeared. The grin she was holding back evaporated, and she felt her hands go cold. Pushing down the burgeoning feeling of panic, she quickly handed the rod back to Sara before her hands started to shake. In a gruff voice she said, "Do you realize that knife could slip? One of you could get hurt."

Jaylynn hit her with a soft jab to the upper arm. "Quit being a worrywart. We were very careful."

Dez frowned. "What are you going to do with it when you cut it in half—and what’s it from anyway?"

Sara set it on the table and shrugged. "We just wanted to test it out on something. I found this lying in the garage. There are some others in there, so I didn’t think anyone would miss it. I have no idea what it is. Do you?"

Dez shook her head, trying not to notice that Jaylynn was studying her intently. She took a deep breath and turned to the shorter woman. "When do you want Luella over to help?"

The hazel green eyes softened and stopped their examination. "Any time. Any time is fine. Is Vanita coming too?"

"No, she’s got something going today—but she’ll be at the party."

Sara nodded. "Good. That’ll be a kick."

Jaylynn said, "Maybe Luella would like to come over for lunch?"

Sara took the sheath from Jaylynn. "Yeah, we can certainly make lunch for her. We don’t want to wear her out or take advantage of her."

"Are you kidding?" Dez said. "She’s probably standing at the back door even as we speak with her purse over her arm waiting for me."

Jaylynn laughed and handed the knife over to Sara.

The tall woman lowered herself into one of the other rickety vinyl covered chairs and leaned her flannel-clad arms on the table. "Before I go get her, can I have a snack? What smells good?"

"That’d be Jay’s world-famous cinnamon sugar toast." In a conspiratorial voice, Sara added, "Heavy emphasis on the sugar ingredient."

"Hey!" the blonde said as she opened a bag of bread. "You certainly weren’t complaining earlier when I served you up the tasty delicacies I so carefully created."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." The brown-eyed woman gazed at her best friend with affection. "I don’t have the high standards that Dez does. I don’t mind scarfing down lots of sweet glucose, but if I recall correctly, she’s not big on straight sugar."

"I’ll make an exception this morning. Lay it on me, Jay."

The rookie popped two pieces of bread in the toaster and leaned back against the counter, her arms crossed over her tan and green flannel shirt. "Let’s get the timeline down here. Bill will arrive at the military airport tonight—sometime—and you’ll get him and bring him back as soon as you can. Then you guys will spend the following 24 hours—pretty much all of Friday—in bed—"

"Jay!" Sara said. She glanced over at Dez and blushed.

The toast popped up and Jaylynn turned her back on the two at the table to butter it at the counter. Over her shoulder, she said, "It’s not like Dez wouldn’t understand, hon. If we’d been apart for eighteen months, believe me, we’d be spending at least 24 hours in bed."

"Well, hon," Sara said, "he and I will be spending as much time as possible together—alone—through tomorrow. But Saturday night we’ll fill the house up with whoever wants to show up to welcome him home."

"Provided, of course," Dez said in a dry voice, "that the two of you have emerged from cocooning."

Sara looked back and forth between the two of them and slowly shook her head. "What is it with you two? Sex, sex, sex—that’s all you have on your minds these days."

Jaylynn turned and presented Dez with a plate containing two slices of warm toast covered completely with a thick layer of melting butter and cinnamon sugar. "That’s not the only thing on our minds. We think about food, too. Besides . . . cocooning is not all about sex." She stood over the two women, one hand on each shoulder and smiled.

Dez picked up a slice of toast and sunk her teeth into it. Sara was right. Sugar was, truly, the main ingredient. It was sweeter than Dez preferred, but still good nonetheless. Munching away, she glanced up into the hazel eyes above her and felt herself immediately bathed in warmth and light. Her stomach fluttered—and she realized it wasn’t from hunger. So this is love. How totally utterly completely—her mind blanked for a moment as it searched for the right word—frightening. How would she live without this, without Jaylynn, if something were to ever happen to her? The toast stuck in her throat and she swallowed with difficulty.

Jaylynn dropped her hands from the two women’s shoulders and moved to the fridge, saying, "You want some milk or orange juice, Dez? Something to wash down the dry toast?"

"Just a shot of milk—but you don’t have to wait on me, Jay."

"I know that. But I’m up." She opened the fridge door. "And I like to wait on you." She placed a short glass of milk on the table, catching Sara rolling her eyes. "Oh, yeah, sure…you go ahead and laugh now, my friend, but I’ll have the last laugh tomorrow when you’re down here whipping up snacks to fortify Billy Boy!"

Sara rose. "We’ll see about that. Seems to me that you two clowns laze about in bed most of the day yourselves, and with all the party prep—I don’t think you’ll have a lot of time to make fun of me."

"I’ll work on it though," Jaylynn said.

Dez rose, too, and started to clear the plate and glass, but Sara snapped them up first. "Don’t worry about these. You go get Luella, and Jay and I will start pulling things together here."

"After I get her," Dez said, "what do you want me to do?"

Sara said, "We’ve got quite the shopping list. If you and Jay don’t mind, I’ll work on the lasagna while you two go off to the grocery store for more tasty vittles."

"Fine with me," Jaylynn said, looking up at Dez to find her nodding, too. "I’m going down into the dungeon to get how many pounds of burger?"

Sara closed one eye, squinted, and looked up toward the ceiling. "Hmmm…three huge pans of lasagna…let’s do…four pounds—no, five pounds. All those big, tough Army types will want lots of protein."

Jaylynn cut past Dez and looked back at her from the fridge, then gestured with a quick jerk of the head. Dez ambled around the corner to the basement door and followed the rookie down the poorly lit stairs. As they reached the bottom, she said, "Need some protection in the scary basement, Little Lady?"

"No. Just wanted one last passionate hug and kiss before the house is overrun for the day." Jaylynn wrapped her arms around the taller woman and pressed her face into the warm flannel. Dez cradled her snug against her mid-section, feeling a string of emotions: tenderness, protectiveness, helplessness, love. When the blonde tipped her head back, Dez brought her right palm up and touched the soft cheek gently. She leaned down, closed her eyes, and met soft lips—lips she thought she would now know under any circumstances, any time, anywhere. The hold around her middle tightened as the kiss deepened, and when they came up for air, Jaylynn whispered, "I love the way you kiss me. You are by far the best at it of anyone I’ve ever known."

Dez grinned sheepishly, repeating something the rookie had said to her before they had made love for the first time. "And that would be what—a cast of thousands?"

Even in the dim light, she could see Jaylynn start to blush. "I can’t believe I said that."

"I thought it was a pretty cute way of asking, actually."

"You did? How come you didn’t ask me how many other relationships I’d had?" She let her hands slide from Dez’s waist to the slim hips and pulled her snug against her.

"Figured I’d get around to it sooner or later."

"Well? Is it sooner or later now?"

Dez raised an eyebrow. "You can tell me now if you like—or not. Your choice."

Jaylynn paused for a moment, then said, "Third time’s a charm. That’s how I look at it."

Dez nodded, then leaned down and nuzzled into Jaylynn’s neck. Dez thought she smelled wonderful, like sugar and spice and everything nice—actually, like cinnamon toast. She smiled to herself as she tucked the blonde head under her chin. From her vantage point, she surveyed the basement. The ceiling was low, only about a foot above her head. It was dark and cramped, but tidy, with mismatched wall-to-wall shelving on two long walls and the furnace and water heater taking up a whole quarter of the room. For such a small area, there was a lot of stuff stacked around. "I didn’t realize this was so small. You’d think it would be as big as the whole house."

Jaylynn looked over her shoulder. "Yeah, it’s small, but it works for us. It didn’t take on a drop of water during that last big storm, so it’s a really sound basement."

Dez reluctantly loosened her hold on the rookie and stood waiting at the foot of the stairs. The freezer was around the side of the stairs past boxes stacked four deep, which Jaylynn had to sidle past. She opened the lid of the chest freezer and a faint light shone up.

"Geez!" Dez said. "That thing is huge."

"We joke that you could easily put a body or two in there and still have room for the ice cream and frozen foods."

"How did they even get it down here?"

Jaylynn cradled five packages in her left arm as she pressed the lid shut. "I have no idea. You’d think they would have had to build the house around this monstrosity. The doorway and stairs are wide enough for it, so they must have stood it on end and bounced it down."

Dez turned and looked up the stairs, gauging the dimensions. She thought Jaylynn was right, though the steep steps must have been a bear to navigate.

Jaylynn brushed past her and took two steps up, then turned around, a grin on her face. "This is one of the few times I can be taller than you."

"But too far away." The dark-haired woman took one stair up, which put her only a couple inches below the rookie, but able to pull her close and encircle her with strong arms.

"Hey! This hamburger is cold." Jaylynn held the five pounds along her forearms and pressed up against her chest.