Travis picked up the re-assembled 1911 bringing her back to reality with a crash.
She blinked.
Gun. Right.
“Now, one of the hallmarks of a 1911 is its weight,” he said. “This gun is much heavier than these other two here.”
“Is that a good thing?” She tilted her head, watching him and the gun. There were so many kinds of guns, and she had no idea what was good.
Travis nodded. “It can be. I like a heavy gun. The heavier a gun is, the more recoil it absorbs. Let me see you shoot it. See how you like it.”
Ellen put on her eye and ear protection, and then followed Travis’s instructions on how to load the gun before getting both hands on it so that she could shoot it.
It felt so heavy in her hand, but he’d warned her it would be heavy, so that was less shocking than the first time she’d shot guns yesterday.
Travis smiled at her. “I tell you what, ain’t nothin’ like a girl with a gun in her hands! But let me make a suggestion.”
Ellen was in the act of grinning herself, at his sudden southern like speech, when Travis stepped up behind her, his chest against her back.
Oh my.
She hadn’t expected this, and he’d moved fast.
His chest was strong and warm. His hands went out to hers on the gun, gently guiding them into different spots so that she could have better control of the gun.
As she let him guide her hands, she relished the way his fingers felt upon her hands, and the way his arms around her made her feel protected and warm.
“There now. Feel better?” his voice came, very near to her ear.
Goosebumps raced down the back of her neck even though his body was warm around hers, and she almost shivered. But she didn’t, couldn’t let him know the reaction being this near to him did to her.
“Mm-hmm!” She nodded quickly, not trusting herself to say more. His scent also came to her with him being so close. She could have closed her eyes just to breathe his scent in, but she didn’t close them, wouldn’t let herself. She couldn’t let him know how she was reacting to him.
“Good! Take a shot or two,” he said.
Ellen laughed. “At what? There’s no target!”
“Don’t worry about that just yet,” he replied. “Just concentrate on how the gun feels when you shoot it. We’ll get to accuracy later.”
Now this was different. Without a paper target in front of her, Ellen had no choice but to put her thought into what she and the gun were doing, instead of where bullets were going.
It also forced her mind away from the direction all her senses were currently racing while he was so near. A good thing because she was struggling to do that on her own. Never in her life had she been so distracted during a lesson. She was a good student, loved learning, and always focused on her lessons.
Now her mind was directed exactly where he’d pointed it.
On the one hand, it was frustrating not to know whether she was doing things correctly, but then, she supposed that if she wasn’t, Travis would’ve said something. On the other hand, if she hadn’t been shooting well on paper, her competitive drive would have taken over, and the whole lesson could have been compromised.
She didn’t know whether to feel frustrated or thankful, though with Travis standing so close behind her, his hands now resting gently on her hips, it was slightly easier to concentrate on the good things, rather than the bad. And his hands felt good upon her hips, grounding her, and reminding her to keep her hips still.
After the 1911, they shot the Smith and Wesson Shield. Oddly, though this gun shot a smaller bullet, the recoil on it felt a lot like the 1911, since it was so much lighter.
Ellen pouted. “This one felt so much better than the 1911 before I shot it! It seems so much easier to carry.”
“Honestly, carry comfort depends much more on the holster and belt combination than anything else,” Travis said, always upbeat. “You’d be really surprised to learn how big a gun you can carry and conceal.”
Travis picked up the last gun on the table, the Glock, and smiled. “I think you’ll find that this one combines the best of both worlds. Same small caliber as the Shield, but heavier, like the 1911.”
After she gave it a try, she agreed with him. Shooting the Glock was much more comfortable than the other two had been.
