“Sorry, but I disagree. A grown man who hasn’t yet masteredno means no…?”
“He’s been… led to believe that whenIsaynoI don’t meanno.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he holds that belief universally.”
“So it’s justyouhe treats like shit.”
She winced. “Yes, but no. It’s really just more of an… inconvenience and… it creates a little… discomfort.”
Jim looked at her sitting there across from him. Even dressed way down in her camp clothes, with her hair sweaty and a streak of dirt on her chin, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Her sense of humor was crazy. She was highly intelligent—but someone had messed with her, badly, even back before the stalker ex-fiancé had made the scene.
“What does it take to get you angry?” he asked her. “Like, drop-dead seething, spitting-out-shards-of-your-teeth angry?”
Ashley looked surprised, and for a moment she seemed to seriously consider his question, but when she spoke, she neatly sidestepped it. “Getting angry solves nothing.”
“Okay,” he said. “Great. But if youweregonna get angry, say, if God suddenly came down from heaven and she’s allAshley DeWitt, if you let yourself get angry, I won’t let one single child go to sleep hungry tonight.What has to happen to push you to that veins-popping-out-on-your-forehead place?”
She took a deep breath—and his freaking phone rang.
His instinct was to immediately silence it, but it was lying out on the table between them, and Dunk’s name appeared clearly on the screen. And because they’d spent the morning working closely together as team leader and team instructor, she knew that he’d been hoping to get Dunk’s ear again today, even for just ten minutes.
She didn’t know that the topic of conversation was going to beher.
And maybe it was because his question had spooked her, but she was already up on her feet and grabbing her TL bag as she said, “You should take that. I need to make a pit-stop in my trailer before this afternoon, anyway, change into jeans and…”
And just like that, she was gone.
“Yo,” Jim answered Dunk’s call.
“I got about twenty,” Dunk said without ceremony. “You to me, or me to you?”
“Me to you, Senior,” Jim said as he took the ice off his aching knees. “I’ll be right there.”
“Coffee?”
“Please.” Sweet Jesus. Not only was Dunk’s office halfway to the paintball field, Jim wanted this conversation to happen behind a door that tightly closed.
And the fact that there was a coffeemaker in Dunk’s office sure as hell didn’t hurt.
CHAPTER NINE
Ashley arrived a few minutes early at the double-wide trailer designated as one of the official paintball safety zones. It was a repurposed construction-site trailer, with a wooden ramp leading up to the door.
The building was dark, but she tried the knob anyway. The door was tightly locked, which confirmed that she’d gotten here before Jim.
The trailer sat along the fence line of the paintball grounds—a large, secluded area of woods. The only way into and out of the fenced grounds was via this trailer. Although therewasanother designated safety zone in a smaller trailer that was parked up at the north end of the expansive grounds. It not only provided a second safe place to de-mask, but it also contained a medical kit and a supply of water.
This was only day two of the week, and she’d already heard “masks stay on out on the paintball grounds, no exceptions” many dozens of times. She suspected, during this afternoon’s paintball equipment training session, that she was going to hear it many times more.
“I’m all right. Just stop.”
“Well, you don’tlookall right.”
Ashley turned to see Clark and Kenneth coming down the trail, bickering.
“I’ll be okay,” Kenneth insisted. He saw that Ashley had heard them, and gave her a smile that was meant to be reassuring, but Clark was right. Kenneth looked pale—paler than normal—and his smile was forced. “Lunch didn’t agree with me. It’s really no big deal.”
“Lunch,” Clark said, “andbreakfast,anddinner last night,andlunch and dinner the night before…”
“You both eat way too fast,” Ashley pointed out.
