Chapter 77 - Back on the Range

After Jon left and Cate showered and changed, she and Danny walked over to the Dining Hall for dinner. They had a quiet meal, talking about Danny’s kids, sports, and other odd topics. Cate was grateful that Danny didn’t bring up Jon. She was tired of explaining her decision, of justifying it.

Before today, Cate would never have thought she could have tired of talking about Jon Bon Jovi. But then again, she would never in her wildest dreams have imagined finding herself in this situation, either.

Once they finished their dinner, Cate and Danny went back to the office and did some paperwork, then headed over to the range a half hour before Jon’s training was scheduled to begin. In the armory, Cate pulled guns from the lockers while Danny counted out bullets. After preparing the weapons and ammo, the pair climbed the steps to the control booth to await Jon’s arrival.

They didn’t have to wait long. At five minutes before seven Jon strolled in the door, carrying his black range bag. He stopped on the concrete platform near the center of the firing line, looking around. Cate let out a little groan when she saw that he was again wearing the faded button-fly 501s, along with a snug dark red t-shirt.

Danny smirked at her reaction. “Easy, Slick,” he said. “Listen, promise me you’re not gonna turn into a Bitch on Wheels like you did last week.”

Cate turned her gaze to Danny. “I won’t. I swear, I’m gonna control myself. Even if he tries to provoke me,” she vowed. And I know he will…

“Good.” Danny gave her a stern look. “And no climbing on him. He needs to pass the damned rifle course tonight.”

“Don’t worry,” Cate replied sarcastically. “Been there, done that.”

Danny chuckled. At least Cate was trying to keep a sense of humor about this situation. But he could see the heartache in her eyes. He shook his head to himself. Jesus, Cate, just give in… he thought.

Jon looked up at the control booth. Spotting Cate and Danny, he gave a little wave, followed by a dazzling grin.

“Here we go…” Cate muttered. She turned to the door. Danny grinned and swatted Cate’s ass as she turned her back to him.

“Behave,” he warned her.

“Fuck you,” Cate replied, without venom. She drew in a breath, then left the booth and descended the stairs.

Jon gave Cate another grin as she approached him. “Hey, Baby,” he said.

Cate bristled at his greeting. “Jon,” she said evenly. “We have a professional relationship now. Please don’t call me ‘Baby,’ especially not when we’re working.” She looked at him calmly, determined to keep her cool.

Jon raised his eyebrows, surprised by her reaction. His expression sobered. Man, she’s not messing around tonight, he thought. She’s got her game face on. Jon remembered Danny’s warning not to push Cate so far as to piss her off. It seemed like good advice right now.

“Okay. Sorry,” he said contritely. He took a breath. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

Cate gave an inward sigh of relief at Jon’s response to her rebuke. He seemed to take her seriously, to be ready to focus on training. “We’re gonna do both handgun and rifle. We’ll warm up with the Glock, do the basic qualification course and the PPC a couple times, then we’ll do the M-16. You need quite a bit of work on that, so we’ll probably spend a good amount of time with the rifle.”

Jon nodded. “Sounds good,” he replied. He was looking forward to shooting tonight. It would require him to concentrate, to focus on something other than his emotions.

He was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a repeat of his last shooting lesson, when he and Cate had ended up going toe-to-toe. Tonight she seemed distant, closed off. Jon had a feeling she wouldn’t be touching him much tonight, let alone laying on top of him. Damnit.

Cate led Jon to the armory and gave him a Glock and an M-16, along with a can of ammo, then grabbed a rifle and ammo can for herself. They returned to the firing line and loaded magazines with bullets from the cans. Jon could see they were going to be doing a lot of firing tonight; Danny had issued over 300 rounds of ammo for the Glock and over 200 for the M-16.

Once they were ready to begin, Cate directed Jon to position 12 on the firing line, while she stood at position 10. As before, they began the lesson by warming up with the Glock, completing the qualification course.

Cate was pleased to see that Jon seemed comfortable with the Glock, and that she didn’t need to give him any correction. As before, his stance and mechanics were excellent. Jon easily completed the qualification course with a passing score.

Then they moved on to the Practical Pistol Course, which Jon had found significantly more difficult during their last range lesson. Cate shivered slightly as she remembered molding herself to his side as she attempted to correct his over-aiming problem during the Z-pattern sequence. She hoped Jon would be able to focus enough tonight to avoid a similar corrective action. She was pretty sure such close contact wouldn’t do anything to help either of them.

Taking the lesson slowly, Cate coached Jon through the first part of the PPC, first explaining and demonstrating each technique, then having Jon fire at his own target. Cate had him repeat each portion of the PPC several times before moving on to the next part.

First they worked on chest and head shot combos, in which Jon had to fire two shots at the silhouette target’s chest then one at the head, in quick succession. He quickly picked up on that technique.

Then they practiced one-handed shooting with the “strong hand.” Keeping his left hand behind his back, Jon had to fire ten shots at the center of the target, then drop his empty magazine, crouch, and reload using only his right hand. After he successfully performed that tactic, Cate coached him through the same tasks using only his weak, or left hand.

Jon found that portion of the PPC particularly difficult, as did most students. He never realized just how weak his left hand really was. Though he could easily finger notes and chords on his guitar for hours with little fatigue to his hand, he found it rather difficult to squeeze the trigger on the Glock ten times in rapid succession.

Finally, they worked on the portion of the PPC that had given Jon so much trouble last week – the Z-pattern. Cate patiently explained to Jon how to move his eyes to the point on the target he wanted to hit, then to move the gun to line up the sights with his eyeline. Jon took a deep breath and tried to do what she said.

After several attempts, he realized the technique was working; he was able to place rounds in the small circles on the silhouette target’s shoulders, chest, and hips. Jon grinned to himself, proud that he had made it past the hurdle that had tripped him up last week. Cate gave him an encouraging smile, glad that she hadn’t had to resort to physical contact to help Jon correct his technique.

After they worked through the PPC task by task, Cate and Jon fired the entire course together, within the allotted time limits. Cate watched Jon closely, seeing that he had successfully focused his full attention on the task at hand. He seemed much more relaxed and confident than he had been last week; his stances were stronger and his aim and trigger pull more fluid.

When the course was through, Jon broke into a beaming grin as his target returned to him. He had placed all the rounds on the target; most of them within the correct circles.

“See, told ya you could do it,” Cate praised him, pulling her earplugs out of her ears. “You just needed to settle down and concentrate to get the technique down. Once you figured out how it felt to fire the course, you locked in. Nice work.”

“Thanks, Teach,” Jon replied with a smile. I was thinking with my head instead of my dick this time, he wanted to say. But he kept his mouth shut, not wanting to provoke Cate. Her icy demeanor had thawed considerably as they worked together, and they were now in a comfortable rhythm. He didn’t want to ruin that.

“Okay, let’s take a break, then we’ll get started on the M-16.” Cate turned and gestured to Danny in the control booth. “Want a bottle of water?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jon replied. He watched as Cate walked toward the range office and disappeared inside. He heard the door to the control booth open, and looked up as Danny descended the stairs.

“Doin’ good, Man,” Danny commented. “You look a lot more comfortable tonight.”

“Yeah,” Jon replied. “I’m a little more focused than last week.” He gave Danny a meaningful little grin. “Shit, I don’t know how the male students can pay any damned attention when she has to move in and correct them.”

Danny laughed. “Well, most of them are scared shitless of her, so it’s usually not a problem.”

Jon chuckled. He looked back toward the range office door. Seeing that Cate was still inside, he dropped his voice. “Has she said anything to you? About changing her mind?”

Danny shook his head. “Naw. We had dinner and I didn’t even bring it up. She talked to Mandy today, too. Her mind’s made up, but it’s killing her.” He sighed and glanced toward the office. “I don’t know, Jon. I hope she’ll come around, but you’re running out of time.”

Jon looked down at the concrete and shook his head sadly. “I gotta figure something out,” he muttered. He was silent for a moment, then looked back up when he heard Danny discretely clear his throat. Cate approached the two men and handed each a cold bottle of water.

“Thanks, Slick.” Danny said, twisting the top off the bottle and taking a long drink. He let out a long “ahhh,” then grinned. “I’m gonna go burn one. Be back in five.” He gave Cate a look that said “behave,” then sauntered toward the door.

“You wanna have a smoke too?” Cate asked Jon. “We probably won’t take another break. We need to get through a lot with the rifle tonight.”

“No, I’m fine,” Jon replied. He looked at Cate, his eyes searching hers as he tried to read her thoughts. But he saw that they were once again closed off to him, her eyes grayish-blue in the harsh light of the range. “So,” he said, trying to fill the silence. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

“A lot,” Cate replied. “It’s gonna be another long day.” In many ways… “You’ll need to be in by nine. At 9:30 you’re going to bomb and arson training.”

Jon’s face lit up. “Really? That sounds awesome!” He grinned. “What am I gonna do there?”

Cate had to smile at his response. It warmed her heart every time she saw him so genuinely excited about his training. “Well, you’re only gonna have two and a half hours – that’s all the time I could get you – but you’ll get the basics of arson investigation, then of how to process the scene of a bomb blast.” She couldn’t help but grin mischievously. “You get to burn shit down and blow shit up.”

“Fuckin’ A!” Jon laughed excitedly. “Damn, that’s gonna be fun!”

“Yeah,” Cate agreed. “It’s my favorite course on the Center. Shhh… Don’t tell Mandy!” she teased. “In fact, I’m gonna play too. It’s really cool.”

Jon felt a little surge of excitement at that. Cate was going to work with him again, side by side, as they had in the FATS training last week. He thought back to the unspoken affection they had shared there, the ease of their partnership. He hoped they could recapture that tomorrow. That would be a step in the right direction to convincing Cate to give him another shot at a personal relationship with her.

“That’s great,” he smiled. “So, what are we doing after that?”

“After lunch it’s more DTs. We still have to cover baton use and offensive strikes. We’ll be at that all afternoon.” Cate gave Jon a pointed look. “It’s gonna be rough, okay? You’ve gotta get it through your head that you’re gonna have to hit me.”

Jon couldn’t help himself; he cringed slightly. Christ, not again. After the weekend they had spent together, him holding and stroking and caressing her, Jon could hardly bear the thought of hitting Cate. He stared back at her, his reluctance evident in his expression.

Cate let out an exasperated sigh. “Damnit, Jon. When are you gonna trust me?” She met his eyes with the challenge.

The words were off his lips before he could stop them. “When are you gonna trust me, Cate?” he asked softly.