This time, he led Thomas out of the room on his goddamn aching knees.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Jim had known, Ashley wasn’t at all dismayed that the schedule had changed and they were starting the morning at the physically punishing O-course.
He was dismayed enough for both of them as he forced himself not to limp through the breakfast line. He helped himself to a small mountain of scrambled eggs, a pile of toast, and two mugs of coffee.
Jesus, he was tired. His knees had kept him up most of the night—icing hadn’t helped and he’d refused to take the painkiller the captain had prescribed. There just weren’t enough hours left when he’d finally gone to bed—if he’d taken it, he’d still be feeling drugged this morning.
It was Jim’s own fault for disregarding Dunk’s suggestion that he take a scooter on last night’s hike. Five miles hadn’t seemed like any kind of big deal. Also, he’d wanted Ashley to be challenged by his limitations, and she wouldn’t have been if he’d had the scooter.
But okay. He’d done what he’d done, and today’s pain and fatigue was what it was. He didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it—get through the day, that is.
Meanwhile Ashley—who’d only gotten a bit more sleep than he had—was sitting alone at a table, eating her breakfast while reading through her Team Leader packet. She was studying it with far more focus and care than it deserved.
Jim wasn’t surprised. The woman was a direction-reader, which admittedly was a useful skill. He’d noted that last night when, even despite the flashlight’s dim glow, she’d read the application instructions on the bug repellent wipes. Some people—and yeah, he tended to lean toward that particular subset—preferred to figure things out on the fly. Dive in headfirst, and if SNAFUs happened, onlythenread the directions.
Which could be dangerous. It went against the age-old SEAL adage,Never assume.
But in the case of the Team Leader packet—Jim had glanced through it last night while he was not-sleeping—there really wasn’t all that much to learn.
In some ways it was standard officer bullshit. But unlike a Naval officer, SEAL World TLs didn’t have any real command status. The job was more that of a liaison to Jim, to Dunk, and to the hospital corpsman. Because of that, Ashley had to carry a bag with a phone, a walkie-talkie in case cell service failed, and a rudimentary med kit.
Exactlywhat she didn’t need—a few extra pounds of gear to weigh her down.
“You can delegate,” Jim said in lieu of a greeting as he set his tray onto her table, and awkwardly lifted his legs over the bench so that he could sit opposite her. Ow, andow. “Assign a team member, or even me, to carry the team’s bag.”
Ashley looked up and managed a smile. “Good morning.”
Jesus, angels sang because that smile was pure blinding sunshine. He had to look away, ungracefully digging into his eggs. “Well, it’s morning, that’s true.”
“Your knees survive the hike?” she leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice to ask.
“I’m fine.”Shit.Now that he’d pictured that stupid word-cloud, he was going to see it every time that idiocy came out of his mouth.
Ashley wasn’t fooled—he could see disbelief swimming in her observant gray eyes. But she co-signed his BS. “That’s great,” she said. “Because I can’twaitto be dragged up and over that six foot wall by Bull and Todd. And FYI, I cannot hand off the Team Leader’s bag.” She pointed down to one of the pages in front of her. “Says so right here.”
Ah, damnit, really…? “We could pretend we didn’t read that,” Jim countered.
“Too late,” she told him. “I won’t lie. Besides, if I’m doing this, I’mdoingthis.”
She was dead serious, and Jim found himself not just respecting her, but really liking her. Her resourcefulness last night hadn’t been just a fluke, and her sense of humor was solid. She was as shiny and gleaming and beautiful inside as she was out, and he found himself thinking about last night, when she’d handed him back his shirt, as she stood bedraggled and still drenched, her clothes glued to her lithe body, her shirt rendered transparent. She was not well-endowed up top, but her nipples were enticingly dark, and those long, strong, shapely, smooth legs that he’d seen when she’d worn running shorts would more than make up for her lack of breast size when she wrapped them around him and—
What.
The hell?
What was wrong with him? He found himself liking her because she was smart and funny and honorable, so his immediate response was to picture her naked and think about what it would be like to screw her…?
Now her words from the other night echoed in his head:You’re a part of the problem.
At the time, he’d thought she was being overly dramatic, but damn it, maybe hewasif he couldn’t sit here and have a simple conversation with an attractive woman without getting a hard-on.
Thiswas why there weren’t women in the teams—except, nope. That kind of thinking was first cousin to victim-blaming—of putting the responsibility for safety against crimes like sexual assault purely on the backs of women, because “men couldn’t help themselves.” Which was damned insulting to men—implying that they were weak, lacking in control, and morally incapable of keeping their pants zipped.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Now Ashley was looking at him quizzically, so he focused on their conversation. What had they been discussing? His gaze fell on the team leader packet on the table in front of her. Right. The requirement for her to always carry the team’s communication and medical bag.
