Leah stiffened. “If you choose to ignore the rules and regulations that apply to all of us, that is not my problem. But we can’t allow our troops to train unless we feed them, so I need to speak to whomever it was that turned the kitchendriveraway.”
Quinn held up his hand. “I’m not sure who turned anyone away, but we’re doing time-sensitive training here, and you’ve just forced that toahalt.”
“Like you did with our training? Andtime-sensitive?What exactly do you thinkoursis?”
Not his problem, but he didn’t say that. “Master Sergeant…” His eyes flicked first to her rank, then her name badge. “Master Sergeant Saunders, I think there’s been a miscommunication. And I’m sure we can get food through before we resume ourtraining.”
She nodded. Good. They were going to handle this like professionals. “Good. Thank you. And you’ll file a more detailed training plan, Itrust.”
He winced. No, they weren’t going to do that. “The details are a matter of operationalsecurity.”
“I’m the duty NCO. Would you rather I call the dutyofficer?”
“No. We’d rather you’d forget allaboutthis.”
* * *
Leah blinked.That wasn’t going to happen.Whoa, cowboy, she thought to herself. But she didn’t say that out loud. Not that what she ended up saying was much better. “Are you asking me to willfully and blindly ignore a training safetyviolation?”
“Nobody’s been hurt. Some of your guys had to chill in the shade. I fail to see theproblemhere.”
“You seriously should knowbetter.”
His eyes flashed at her, but he held histongue.
His buddy did not. “We know you gotta cross your t’s and dot your i’s,lady,but—”
Henderson, the name badge said. She made a note of that. SWO Henderson was going in a report. “Lady?” She slammed her heel into the floor and stretched to the full extent of her five and a half feet, which were pitiful in the shadow of the six-foot, four-inch gentle giant that was Quinn Parry. And the similarly-sized but not nearly as gentle Jerk-FaceHenderson.
“You heard me.” He was still talking, even though Parry had gotten inbetweenthem.
“You don’toutrankme.”
Quinn held her gaze. “No. Wedon’t.”
The cool, steady assessment in his eyes lit her up more than an asshole attitude would have, because it wasn’t what she’d expected.Damnhim.
“Why don’t we take this back to your vehicle?” he said, reaching forherarm.
She shook her head. “No need. But you need to tell your friend here that name-calling—”
“Name-calling!” Henderson growled from around Quinn in between them. “I’m just calling it as Iseeit.”
Quinn shoved him away, then lowered his voice as he turned back to Leah. “Just to cool our headsabit.”
“I’m cool. I’m even sorry. This has gotten a bit outofhand.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Wyatt just took it a little personally,that’sall.”
“Wasn’t meantthatway.”
“I understand that. You’ve got your troops to lookafter.”
“He’s agoodguy.”
“I’m sure he is.” God, his bland, even-keel approach drove her insane in a way that didn’t make any sense. Shewasa cross-the-t’s-and-dot-the-i’s kind of admin NCO. Bland and even-keel were rare outside of career officers, and Leah spent far too much of her time finding a diplomatic way of solvingproblems.
But for someone reason, she really hated the fact that Quinn had taken that tact. She wanted to hash this out for real with him. Push and pull until they were both content with the resolution, for real. Not some bullshit platitude exchange that meantnothing.
