“Yeah, sorry, I don’t think they’re ever going to fear you,” he told her.
“I’m not looking for fear,” Ashley said. “Just respect.”
“I get it,” he said. “But I doubt you’ll be able to change them.”
“Boys will be boys…?” she said.
“Sadly, yes. I mean, I don’t agree with that, of course, but that’s how the world works.”
She surprised him then. “I don’t accept that it can’t be changed.”
“Then you’re going to have to do more than ignore them,” Jim told her. “It’s an uphill battle—wow, we are just dropping the clichés, here, aren’t we?”
Ashley smiled, but only because she was polite. “It’s uphill, because the idea—the massively offensive idea—that a woman needs to belong to a man so that she’s treated with respect is acceptable to, well,you. If you really believe that, you’re a part of the problem. Think about your suggestion—and what it really means. A woman on her own is fair game to idiots like Bull, but he’ll back off if he thinks someone else possesses her. But he’s not treatingherwith respect. No, the respect is man to man—right over the head of the woman.I won’t treat your woman like shit out of deference to you, Brah.”
Jesus. He’d never considered… Still, “That’s a pretty good imitation of Bull, but I don’t thinkdeferenceis in his vocabulary.”
Frustration flared in her eyes, but just for a very brief moment before she tamped it back down. “Good night, Lieutenant,” she said, heading for her RV.
“You know, sometimes it’s okay to get pissed off,” he called after her.
“And do what? Kick you in the shins? That’s really not my style.”
“As opposed to running and hiding?” he said.
His words struck a nerve—she practically flinched. But when she turned back, her voice stayed even and calm. “I’m tired—it’s been a long day. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to continue this discussion, because sorry, but I’m not quitting.”
“I’m not even close to sorry about that,” Jim said. “No one here wants you to quit. Well, those of us who aren’t Bull and Todd.”
But she laughed again, just a little, and he knew she didn’t believe him. “Good night,” she said again.
And as Jim watched, she used the keypad to unlock her door, and went inside, not looking back.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ashley awoke with a start. Someone was pounding on her door, shouting, “Team Leader DeWitt!”
Was it really morning already? But it was still pitch dark.
She grabbed for her phone in the darkness, to use the light from the screen to get her bearings, first to figure out where she was—SEAL World—and then to realize that whoever was pounding wasn’t hammering on the flimsy door but rather the side of the RV.
Also…? It was barely midnight.
She found the switch that turned on the interior LEDs, and pushed her hair back from her face as she unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
The young SEAL named Rio Rosetti was standing out there. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said in his almost-ridiculously stereotypical New Yawk accent.
Ash stared at him stupidly. The best her brain could come up with was, “Are you delivering my team leader packet?”
He’d been all smiles and even a bit flirty when they’d first met, but now he was all curt business. “No, ma’am. Hat, and boots if you got ’em, long pants, long sleeves, leave all technology behind. Team leaders’re meeting down by the mess in five, but you’ve already wasted two sleeping through my noise, so you got three. Tick tock. Ma’am.”
She closed the door and took several of her precious minutes to use the bathroom, then dressed quickly, slipping into jeans and pulling a lightweight button down shirt on over the T-shirt she’d worn to bed. She didn’t have boots—she’d brought a second pair of running shoes instead, and she jammed her bare feet into them. Her Red Sox cap was hanging directly in front of the AC vent—she’d sweated through it yesterday, and had rinsed it out right before bed.
She reached for it as Rio again started pounding on the RV, but it was still soaking wet.
“Time to go!”
There were SEAL World hats—boonie style—in the Gedunk. She’d been meaning to get one anyway. She could pick one up there, so she left her cap hanging, turned off the lights, and went out of the RV, checking that the door locked securely behind her.
