“He’s twenty, going on twelve,” she told the man. “I’ll make sure he pays you back.”
“I’m not worried,” he said with another charismatic smile. “So how long have you known Colleen Taylor?”
“Since college,” she said politely. “We were roommates.”
“Lucky you,” he said. “She’s amazing. I’m one of the many in Team Ten who had a crush on her. Before she married Bobby, I tried to get her brother—Wes—to set us up.”
“She is really great.” That was one thing—and possibly the only thing—they’d ever agree upon. Ashley gave the lieutenant a distant smile that she hoped he’d read as completely disinterested as she headed for the side door.
Just as she’d suspected, it led to an outside patio where there was a large, gorgeous swimming pool with an attached hot-tub. Lounge chairs and umbrellas were positioned around it, their fabric in various shades of blue. It looked more like a resort than a boot camp.
Outside of the pool’s fence was what looked like a playground, with a colorful rock-climbing wall, and a variety of other obstacles and challenges.
“That’s a smaller, less dangerous version of the BUD/S O-course.” Lieutenant Slade had followed her, again. He misread her frustration as confusion and gave her another of those smiles. “BUD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition-slash-SEAL. It’s the training we all go through to become SEALs. At first it’s not so much about the underwater demolition—it’s more about PT—physical training. On base, there’s a really punishing obstacle course that we have to complete in shorter and shorter amounts of time, both individually, and in teams. Even scaled down like this, it can really help with team-building.”
“Team building?” she said with dismay. God, he was going to think she was an idiot, only able to parrot his own words back at him. Except, really, why should she care what this man thought about her.Hot nanny…True, she’d have to interact with him for the next week, but after that, she’d never see him again. “I didn’t realize that we were going to be working together with the other campers.”
“Yeah,” he said, amusement in his eyes. “It’s SEALTeam. Rambo’s a myth—or at least he wasn’t SpecOps, Navy. If you ever read a book where the SEAL character is described as aloner, you throw that book against the wall. Hard.”
“These days I mostly read on my iPad,” she told him.
He laughed. “Okay, then, hit delete, or, what…? Archive, right?”
She gave him another unfocused smile as she turned back to the door, but this time he blocked her.
“Look,” he continued. “Before you go in, or before Thing 1 and Thing 2 come crashing out here to shriek about the awesome awesomeness of the pool, I’d… well, I’d really like to apologize.”
Ashley finally looked up and met his eyes squarely for the first time since she’d seen him in the airport. They were unbelievably blue, and for once his relentless amusement was tempered—he was dead serious.
“I know you overheard my incredibly inappropriatehot nannycomment and I am so sorry—not that you overheard, but that I said it,” he told her. “I was making a joke—trying to and failing doubly since it wasn’t even funny. I not only disrespected you, but I’m guilty of judging and valuing you based on your appearance instead of your whole self. And that sucks. I should know better because people often look at me and peg me as a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing asshole. And that’s only true a fraction of the time.”
She was so surprised—she was standing there with her own mouth slightly open. So she closed it. Cleared her throat.
But the lieutenant didn’t seem to expect her to say anything, whether it was to accept his apology or not. He opened the door to the lounge for her. “Come on. Dunk’s probably ready for us. I’ll help you get your suitcases to your bunk.”
Ashley found her voice as he followed her back inside. “That’s okay. I don’t need help. I followed the instructions on the website—it said to pack light, in a single suitcase, to leave valuables at home, and be ready to carry our own bag over uneven terrain.”
“Wait,” he said, “that giant purple bag’s not yours?”
She stopped to look at him. “And why would you assume that it is?”
Because women stereotypically over-pack?She knew he was thinking along those lines and realized he’d put his foot in it, again, but instead he said, “The, uh, color…?”
“Have you met Clark?” she said, starting for the mess hall. “When he got that bag, a few months ago, it matched his hair.”
He laughed. “Of course it did. Well, I apologize, yet again.”
“I’m also a really good driver,” Ashley told him, “and I happen to be great at science and math. And everyone’s gonna hate having me on their team. Am I the only woman here this session? I am, right? I honestly don’t know how I missed that detail about team-building on the website…”
“You can be on my team,” Lieutenant Slade said. “You, me, Clark, and Kenneth.”
“Kinda like sitting at the kiddie table,” Ash murmured. She sighed. “I was actually hoping to learn something, but okay. At least I won’t ruin anyone else’s SEAL World experience.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Hot tip. Slower runners stay to the left of the trail,” the camper nicknamed Bull mansplained to Ashley. “That way, you won’t get in the way of those of us who’re faster.”
Big and beefy and dressed in camo gear that made them look ridiculous, he and his friend Todd had been to SEAL World before, and were filled with all kinds of condescending information.
