“What I really want is your ass-cap.”
He laughed again. “Sorry. No extra hat, or… ass-pulling-out-of hat-producing skill-set.”
“That’s too bad.” She took his shirt gratefully. It was heavier than hers—more like a jacket than a shirt—and still warm from his body heat. “So what else do you have with you?”
“A power bar,” he told her. “And… drum roll, please… my phone.”
She gasped. Oh my God! “You have yourphone? Are we allowed to use it?” She answered her own question. “Yes, because there’s only one rule—that we stick together. So, hand it over—wait! Does it have a water resistant case?” God forbid she got him to hand over his phone, only to have it drown in the ongoing deluge.
Jim was grinning broadly at her. “Navy SEAL,” he said. “And congratulations—”
“Hold the champagne, and be less cryptic,” she ordered.
“SEAL stands for Sea, Air, Land,” he said, still smiling as he handed her his unlocked phone, “so yes, my case is waterproofnot just resistant. It’s not dive-proof, though.”
“Notplanning to scuba dive any time soon, thanks,” Ashley told him, already manipulating the screen through the plastic cover. He had great cell connection—a surprising full set of bars out here in the middle of nowhere—so she scrolled through his applications to find a map with GPS, and the fastest, shortest route back to camp.
“Brains over brawn,” Jim said. “We just might win this thing.”
***
They didn’t win.
But they placed, coming in second, which was significantly better than Bull had done a few months back, when he’d done his Team Leader Night Hike.
Or so Jim had heard.
“Thank you again,” Ashley said, handing him his shirt—still soaking wet—as he’d walked her to the fork in the path leading to their separate RVs.
And yeah, the long-sleeved, button-down shirt she was wearing beneath it was white and glued to her body like she’d inadvertently entered some super creepy corporate version of a wet-T-shirt contest.Don’t look, don’t look…Ah, shit, he’d looked, and it was something he could never un-see, because yes, she was female and kinda freaking perfect in a way that was weird, because he generally liked breasts in the XXL range, and hers were far from that.
But Jim now kept his gaze glued to her face—even though it was shadowed by the new boonie she’d picked up at the Gedunk. He had to clear his throat before his vocal chords would work. “You did good.”
She recognized that her costume had, indeed, malfunctioned exactly as she’d predicted it would, probably due to his insanely intense eye contact, and awkwardly folded her arms across her chest. “With your help. It seems a little unfair thatyouhave to be up by six, too.”
Jim checked his watch. It was just after 0330. And he still had to talk to Dunk… “We get a bit of a break, since our first session’s on the paintball field.”
“Paintball…?” And yes, that was dismay in her voice.
“Don’t worry, we don’t start with a game. That’s not scheduled until later in the day. It’s good,” he tried to reassure her. “It’s a learning session. A lot of sitting and listening. Some target practice. But no running or jumping.”
“Just Bull and Todd clutching weapons of death in their sweaty, misogynistic hands.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t call a paintball marker a weapon of death. A weapon of humiliation, maybe. Still, bravo. Ability to joke at oh-dark-thirty is a highly rated skill in the SpecOp community.”
“I wasn’t joking,” she said, but she did manage to smile back at him. And damn, that smile lit her up. Even wet and bedraggled, she was prettier than most of the women on the planet—at least the ones he’d bumped into in his life. He was lucky they’d spent most of their one-on-one time tonight in pitch darkness. And he was lucky, too, that their being alone together was unlikely to happen again. Which should have made him feel relieved, but didn’t, damn it.
“Get some sleep,” he said abruptly because the silence had turned slightly odd and charged with… Nope. Not going there. No, no, no. “You did a good job tonight.”
“Thanks.” Ashley finally turned and headed toward her RV, but then turned back. “Your knees—”
He cut her short, forcing a smile. “No worries, I’m fine.”
She was looking at him hard, so he pushed his smile wider.Fine, see?She nodded, but he knew she didn’t buy it.
“See you in the morning, TL,” Jim tossed over his shoulder as he headed back down the trail to the main building.
He tried not to make it obvious, but he watched until she was safely inside of her trailer. Once the door had firmly closed though, he picked up his pace—as well as let himself limp.
