And for once Jim didn’t have a smart-ass response, so he just said, “She does.”
“I’ll walk you back, sir,” Thomas said.
“You really don’t have to. I can carry my own ice bucket,” Jim tried.
As expected, Thomas wouldn’t take his no. “I’m going that way.” He started out the door before Jim could tell him that he needed to talk to Dunk.
But it was Lucky who spoke first. “Oh, hey, Space,” he said. “Your team’s at the paintball field in the A.M., right? And you’ve got the O-course after lunch, before our two teams meet for a late session paintball game…?”
Dunk had posted the schedule on a white board that was hanging right there on the wall, so Jim’s response was unnecessary. Instead, he simply waited.
“I’m trying to change Team Three’s schedule for the morning,” Lucky continued. “And I thought I had it worked out with Rio and Team Two, but it’ll only work if you guys—Team One—flip your first two sessions to O in the A.M., and paintball instruction after lunch. You mind if we…?”
“Hell, yeah, I mind,” Jim said. “My TL earned herself the easier morning.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, you’re right, she did.” The blond-haired SEAL immediately backed down.
Rio, however, spoke up, telling Jim, “Syd sent him a We need to talk email, but her only free time tomorrow is at eleven-hundred, pacific time, which is fourteen-hundred here, and cell signal up at the range is for shit. That’s where Lucky’s currently slotted. So if you flip your times, and I flip my times, then he can be at the O-course in the afternoon, where the cell signal is great.”
Despite never having been being married, Jim knew that a formal request for serious conversation from one’s wife was never good. He looked from Rio to Lucky, who was shaking his head.
“It’s really not as dire as it sounds,” Lucky said. “We’re good. We’re really good. But Syd’s at this writer’s conference—that’s why her schedule’s so tight—and I’m guessing she’s been offered another ghost-writing assignment that’ll require some insane amount of travel for some ridiculously tiny amount of pay.”
Thomas came more completely back into the room. “She can’t talk right now, sir? It’s not that late in California.”
“Nah, she’s been dealing with some kind of weird food poisoning for the past week,” Lucky said. “She ate a taco that just won’t leave her system. It’s been relentless, so she went to bed early.”
“Food poisoning as in, throwing up?” Thomas asked.
Lucky nodded. “Yeah, just when she thinks it’s better, it’s back. She’s exhausted.”
“Oh. Wow. Um, sir, that doesn’t sound like any kind of food poisoning that I know,” Thomas pointed out. “I mean, maybe it’s a stomach bug, but…”
“Ah, shit,” Jim said on a sigh as he realized what Thomas was implying. Throwing up, exhausted… “Yeah, we’ll switch times, so you can talk to Syd without any interference.”
Lucky was clueless. “Thanks, but I’ll email her and we’ll find another time to—”
Even Rio had connected the dots. “By any chance does she puke in the morning and feel a little better in the afternoon?” he asked.
And now Lucky laughed. “Wait, what, you seriously don’t think…?”
“The taco that won’t leave her system,” Rio repeated, snickering. “I think, sir, that this particular taco might need a name, and help learning to drive when it turns sixteen…”
“Holy shit.” Lucky looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“I don’t even need to ask my TL,” Jim told the SEAL. “I know for a fact she’d say yes to the switch.”
“And I’ll make sure I’m near the O-course in the afternoon,” Thomas added. “I’ll keep an extra eye on your team while you talk to Syd and, you know, pick out a name. If it’s a girl, Thomasina’s way underused.”
“Yeah, for a reason.” Rio snorted as they all laughed.
“Congratulations.” Jim held out his hand to Lucky, who pulled back in mock horror.
“Not yet,” he said. “Don’t jinx it.”
“So… this… taco… is a good thing, sir…?” Rio asked.
“Damn straight,” Lucky said, laughing even as he surreptitiously wiped his eyes. “We’ve both wanted this for a long time. Syd just started researching the whole hormone thing, you know, where she gives herself injections and then we have to have sex at the exact right nano-second, and that was going to be hard because I just can’t come home at any time, like I could if I worked in an office, so I was actually thinking I’d have to resign my—”
“No!” Thomas and Rio said at the same time.
“I hear you, but… Guys, I really want a baby. I want to make a family with Syd,” Lucky told them with a shrug. “I love her more than life, and she really wants this, too. You tadpoles are adorable, but let’s face it, changing your diapers is just not the same.”
And yeah, everyone laughed, but Jim was struck by the concept that happy-go-lucky Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon wanted a baby, apparently even more than he wanted to remain an active-duty U.S. Navy SEAL.
“Leaving the Teams just isn’t as bad as you think it’ll be, back when you’re in your twenties.” Dunk had come out from the back room, and yeah, he was looking at Thomas and Rio, but he was really talking to Jim.
Except Jim didn’t have a long-held secret desire to travel the world to see art museums, or to have a baby, Jesus save him. He didn’t even have anyone in his life that he loved even a small fraction as much as Lucky loved his wife.
Although, weirdly, the image of Ashley’s expressive eyes beneath the brim of that boonie flashed crazily through his mind.
She was attracted to him, too—he’d been alive long enough to recognize that something-something in a woman’s attitude and body language.
But really, she was little more than another shiny, pretty thing that he could acquire for a while. A woman like Ashley DeWitt would never stand for being second to anyone or anything for very long.
And Jim’s own devotion, for well over a decade, had been to the SEAL Teams. But the Teams didn’t always love you back, especially when your knees started to go. And the truly sad thing was that his constant focus on his knees had put distance between himself and his teammates. In fact, because he’d spent so much time over the past few years away from the units, rehabbing, he doubted he’d get the same resounding no to his announcement he was leaving that Lucky had just received from Team Ten’s younger members.
And wah-wah-wah, he himself was such a freaking baby. Still, try as he might to shake off the bitterness of his envy and frustration, it just seemed to settle and solidify into a brick of sadness, smack in the center of his chest.
In the positive, it gave him something to focus on other than the constant pain in his knees.
“You need me for something, Space?” Dunk asked Jim, who shook his head.
“Nah, it can wait ’til tomorrow,” he told the Senior Chief. He’d wanted to talk about Ashley, but not in front of a crowd. “Oh, except O’Donlon, Rosetti, and I are adjusting the schedule a bit, so he can talk to Syd in the early afternoon.” Jim gave a nod in Lucky’s direction. The man’s nickname was appropriate as always—lucky son of a bitch, getting everything his heart desired. At least he had a good heart—big and warm and not too full of himself. Jim managed a smile that was sincere. “Fingers crossed, man. See you guys in the morning.”
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, only then read 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.
Exactly what 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, and ow. “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’t wait to 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’m doing this.”
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 he was if he couldn’t sit here and have a simple conversation with an attractive woman without getting a hard-on.
This was 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.
“Maybe it’s negotiable,” he suggested. “Carrying the bag. How important can it be? I didn’t even notice it when I read through the packet.”
“This type of fine print is called boilerplate,” she told him. “That generally means non-negotiable.”
“Come on,” he said. “You’re a lawyer. Everything’s negotiable.”
“I wish,” she said, looking down again at the document on the table in front of her. She sighed. “Oh, God, I do really wish…” But instead of finishing her thought, she shook her head and forced a smile.
“What?” Jim asked around a bite of toast. “Maybe I can be your fairy godmother, you know, make your wish come true.”
She laughed at that, but shook her head again. “I wish I was really in charge of the team—that team leader really meant team leader. So, unless you can re-write these rules…”
He shrugged expansively. “Navy SEAL.”
She laughed again, but this time rolled her eyes. “You say that a lot—as if it’s your catch-phrase, or… It means whatever you need it to mean in the moment, doesn’t it?”
She was right about that. “In this case,” he told her, “it means that rewriting the rules is kinda our jam.”
“With all due respect, sir, please don’t say jam.”
They both looked up to see Thomas King carrying his tray toward the bussing area.
“Too old?” Jim asked the younger man with a laugh.
“And too not-from-California,” Thomas grinned back at him. “Please also purge cowabunga from your vocabulary, sir. And, Dunk asked me to tell you that he’s finally got a few minutes to spare,” the young SEAL continued. He gave both a nod and a Ma’am to Ashley as he then continued on his way.
Jim finished up his eggs with one last large forkful. “Gotta run,” he told Ashley as he stood up. Ow and ow. “Meet you out at the O. Don’t forget—this morning’s exercise is a team event.”
“Believe me, I’m well aware of that.” She nodded as he took his tray toward the corner with the trash cans and dirty dish basins.
But was she? Really…? As Jim glanced back at Ashley, she gave him one last rueful smile.
“Think about it—team,” he told her, but he was far enough away now that the noise of the clattering dishes made it impossible for her to hear him, and as he watched, she shook her head, frowning slightly to signal that she wasn’t able to read his lips. So he tapped his head instead, but he could see that she still didn’t understand, so he held up six fingers, but she still shook her head.
Sadly, he couldn’t be any less cryptic. His team leader had to figure it out for herself—best he could do was make broad hints.
As he went to talk to Dunk—about Ashley, although his conversational subtopic of how best to help her was now on hold as a discussion of team leader duties took priority—her words echoed in his head. I can’t wait to be dragged up and over that wall by Bull and Todd.
Yeah, that was gonna be hard to watch.
<
br /> He was certain that Ashley would figure it out eventually. He just hoped—for his sake as well as her own—that it would be sooner rather than later.
* * *
Bull “helped” Ashley up to the top of the O-course wall—one hand on her butt, the other beneath her arm, which ended up, yes, on her breast.
It could’ve been accidental—yeah, right, in some alternate universe.
He somewhat laboriously pulled himself up and slid down the other side as she got her bearings and teetered there, balancing on the top. She risked a glance over at Jim, who was leaning against the fence across the compound. He’d absolutely seen that—his eyes were narrowed and his mouth tight. But he didn’t stop them—he just went back to looking down at his phone.
“Come on, move it!” Bull shouted up at her, once he was securely on the ground, with a gesture that was half impatience and half I’ll catch you.
“No, I got it,” she said, because the wall wasn’t that high, and sliding down was much easier than clambering up—although in truth, she’d really only needed a clasped-handed toe boost from him, which of course wouldn’t have allowed him to grope her as thoroughly. “Back off, Mr. Edison, give me space.”
Of course, he didn’t. He moved closer, hands outstretched as she slid down—right into a crotch grab, God damn it.
“I got it, move back!” she said, louder this time as she twisted to get away from his hands and his leering, laughing face. There was enough of an edge to her voice that Jim looked up again from whatever he was doing—sending texts or emails, or God, maybe even live-tweeting this debacle—during this so-called planning phase of their first morning exercise.
Before Team One was officially timed as they ran the obstacle course, their task was to figure out the best way to get through it as quickly as possible, considering their individual limitations—i.e. her limitations.
Bull just laughed at Ashley’s raised voice, so Todd laughed, too, as Clark and Kenneth hovered anxiously nearby, and that was it. Something in her snapped.
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