by Linda Howard
“Soak in a hot tub,” was Levi’s last bit of imparted wisdom just before he’d let her out beside her Corolla. “And drink a lot of water.”
Jina had muttered a reply that was a sound, not a real word. She knew how to deal with sore muscles. Her only doubt was whether or not she’d be able to climb into the tub—and whether or not she’d drown once she was in there because she was too exhausted to sit upright.
Her muscles had stiffened enough during the drive that she didn’t “get out” of the truck so much as she fell out and had to grab the door to keep from face-planting on the concrete parking lot. Without looking at him she closed the door—firmly, but not indulging herself by slamming it—and shuffled around to the driver’s side of the Corolla. Because she wasn’t stupid, she hadn’t taken a purse that day; her remote was on a sturdy chain around her neck, and the remote itself tucked snugly into her sports bra. She clumsily fished it out and unlocked the door, opened it.
Levi was already rolling, not waiting for her to get in the car and start it; she, on the other hand, waited until he was completely out of sight before she clumsily dropped into the seat and used both hands to pick her legs up and swing them inside. Oh, God, she ached. Even the bottoms of her feet hurt.
By the time she dragged herself upstairs to her condo, cursing under her breath at every hellacious step, she was almost certain she was going to die. Her arms hadn’t wanted to work enough to steer her Corolla, so she’d prayed her way through the D.C. traffic. The Corolla wasn’t a rocket or a tank like the men all seemed to prefer, but damn it, she’d bought it new last year and she was proud of it and didn’t want to wreck it. She’d taken such good care of it that it even still had that sumptuous new-car smell, though her sweat funk tonight might have killed it.
She headed straight to the bathroom, knowing she was so filthy she couldn’t sit down anywhere without ruining her furniture. All she wanted was to lie back in a tub of hot water, and as soon as she saw her reflection in the mirror she knew that wasn’t going to happen just yet. She was mostly monochromatic, caked from head to foot in red dust that had mixed with sweat and formed mud, which had then dried. In horror she stared at her hair. Oh my God, my hair! She’d never get it clean. Pulling it back in a long ponytail hadn’t helped; it had merely caused her hair to be glued to her head with mud.
She turned on the shower and while the water was getting hot she painfully peeled off her filthy clothing. The worst was her socks, because the grit had worked its way through the fabric and rubbed her heels raw. Then the blisters had burst, sticking the fabric to her skin. Oh, crap, her feet were going to be sore tomorrow. Get on the bandwagon, she thought grimly; every inch of her body would likely be sore, hot tub and extra water notwithstanding.
She shampooed twice, the water sluicing muddy red down her body. The water burned her raw heels. It was the most unpleasant shower she’d ever taken, which really griped her because normally she loved her showers. When the water ran clean, she toed the stopper closed, turned off the shower, and let the tub begin filling.
She ran out of hot water before the tub was half full, courtesy of her extra-long, two-shampoo shower.
Swearing under her breath, she submerged as much of herself as possible in the too-shallow water. Maybe she’d manage a better soak before she went to bed . . . or maybe not.
Through sheer stubbornness, she made herself keep going, though she did pop a couple of ibuprofen to maybe help with the muscle soreness. She put antibiotic salve on her heels and covered them with extra-large Band-Aids. She drank a lot of water, more than she wanted. And she nuked a frozen dinner, ate it unenthusiastically, then chased it with a candy bar. There, that was better.
Just as she licked the last of the chocolate from her fingers, her phone rang, the special ring tone for her mother. “Hi, Mom, what’s up?”
“Just checking in,” her mother said lightly. Everything about her mother was light, from her slender build to her sunny hair to her voice. Jina’s sisters, Ashley and Caleigh, had the same light, musical tone to their voices. Jina, on the other hand, sounded like their father and had his dark hair instead of her mother’s blond. She was resigned to her fate now, but as a kid she’d been self-conscious and for a while tried not to talk much. That hadn’t worked out well, because she wasn’t great at keeping her mouth shut. “Anything new going on?”
That was mom-speak for asking if she was dating anyone significant. Jina made a face; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had steady boyfriends over the years, or that there weren’t already a couple of grandkids to spoil rotten: Ashley, the oldest, had two; and Jordan, Jina’s second-oldest sibling, and his wife had one on the way. The only thing Jina could think was that her mom wanted her kids settled and producing in order of birth, which meant Jina was the next up.
There was something she needed to tell her mom, though, to head off future complications. “I got transferred at work,” she said. “More pay”—a lot more—“and there’ll be some travel involved.”
“Wow, that sounds great!” Mom sounded genuinely pleased. “More money and travel isn’t something I’d turn down. You’ll still be able to come home for holidays, though, won’t you?”
“At least some of the time. There’s no way to predict the travel schedule.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Computer stuff.” None of what she was saying was a lie; whenever anyone was hired, they were coached in how to tell the truth, which was much easier to remember, while making it sound innocuous. If any family member searched for info on the company name, they’d be reassured by the commonplace details they found, none of which included “dispatched on a moment’s notice to hot spots around the world, with a possibility of bullets and explosives.”
“Do you start right away?”
“No, there’s training involved.” Every aching muscle in her body attested to that. “I’ll be putting in twelve-hour days for a while.”
“I hope you get overtime.”
Nope, that wasn’t going to happen. She caught up with the rest of the family—Dad was actually talking about the two of them taking a cruise, which Jina heartily endorsed; Taz, her youngest brother who was in the army, was being transferred to Texas, while Caleigh, the baby, was both having a blast in college and had made the dean’s list. By the time her mother wound down, Jina was yawning and trying to prop up her heavy eyelids. “I gotta go, Mom,” she muttered. “I’m so sleepy I can barely stand up, and I have to get up at five in the morning.”
She had to get through commiseration at her early wake-up time, give a promise to call soon, and say “Love y’all” twice before she was cleared to end the call. She limped to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and started toward bed before she remembered her hair was still wet. Swearing under her breath, she returned to the bathroom and leaned against the counter with her eyes closed while she blasted hot air at her head. She didn’t care what it looked like tomorrow, because (a) it would be in a ponytail and (b) it would likely be caked in mud again by the end of the day anyway.
“Perfect end to a shitty day,” she said to the night as she collapsed onto her bed. Even worse—tomorrow looked to be just as bad.
She was right. After slapping the vicious alarm clock across the room because it wouldn’t shut up, trying twice to get out of bed the normal way—sitting up and swinging her legs over—which was too agonizing, she gave up and rolled out of bed onto her knees. The alarm clock was still bleating like an angry goat. Using the bed as support, she struggled to her feet and stiffly limped over to the clock; she eventually managed to bend over enough to pick it up, the effort accompanied by groans and curses.
She’d quit today. There was no way she could do this. MacNamara’s idea was idiotic, that he could take a bunch of computer-gaming couch potatoes and put them in the field. Why not just take some of the regular operatives and teach them how to operate the drone—oh, yeah, right, they were too valuable as operators to essentially take them off the mission.
Well, that was his problem, because she was out, O-U-T, gone, adios.
And Levi, damn his devil eyes, would smirk as if he’d known from the beginning that she was a washout.
Damn it, she couldn’t quit. She’d never forgive herself if she let him smirk. If she tried and he smirked, that was on him, but if she gave up . . . no, she couldn’t stand that. She’d have to stick with it, somehow, until she either broke a bone or they threw her off the program.
She managed to get ready, eat, and drive herself to where they’d met the van the day before. If other arrangements had been made, she’d have been notified. Even though “her” team had cut her from the group yesterday, she was still part of it; nevertheless, when she parked she was glad to see some of the others already there, and best of all, they weren’t moving any more easily than she was. Everyone was limping around hollow-eyed, as if no amount of sleep had been able to offset the unaccustomed physical exertion of the day before.
Yeah, no argument there.
The guys greeted her, but otherwise were a bit standoffish; she was annoyed, but understood. By singling her out yesterday, her team had sent a signal that her treatment would be different from what the others received. The others didn’t know that meant she’d had a more difficult time than they had, they just thought of “different” as “special.” She could do with a little less specialness.
The van rattled up, belching smoke, and they all stiffly climbed inside. Jina settled into a seat by herself, not surprised that the guys seemed to be avoiding her. Donnelly climbed in, glanced around, then sat down beside her.
A bit surprised, after what had happened yesterday, she looked at him with lifted brows.
He shifted uncomfortably, his sunburned cheeks turning a deeper shade of raw. “Uh—I’m sorry. About bumping you during the run.” Once he got those words out without choking, he took a deep breath and continued. “It was just, I don’t know, all of a sudden it felt like a race and—”
Enough said. Donnelly had always seemed nice enough, so she wasn’t going to hold that one slip against him. “Yeah, I know. I have brothers,” she explained. “One older and one younger. It’s okay. I got you back, so we’re even.”
He shifted, winced, leaned down to rub his left shin. “Yeah. Anyway, the big dogs pulled you out of the group. Special training?”
She snorted. “You might say that. After telling me they’d leave me behind if I couldn’t keep up, and that every other person on the team was way more valuable than I am, they tried to kill me and make it look like a training accident. None of them were thrilled at getting stuck with the only woman.”
Donnelly frowned at her. “Don’t they know you had the high score?”
“High score on a computer game doesn’t mean much to them.”
“But that’s the whole point of us being here.”
That’s the way she saw it, but the “big dogs” saw it differently. “They’re all worried untrained, unmotivated amateurs might get them killed.”
“Hey, I’m motivated. I’m motivated to keep my job. Paychecks are nice things to have.” He shifted again, winced again. “But I have my doubts about living through this. My feet have blisters on their blisters.”
“We need boots,” she said, “to keep the grit out. That’s what the guys on the team were wearing. Baxter, too,” she added thoughtfully.
“I couldn’t get boots on my feet right now,” he said glumly. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? We should be freakin’ superheroes before this is finished.”
After bouncing around on broken shocks, watching the pavement through the hole in the floorboard, and getting a headache from breathing exhaust, they arrived back at the training ground. Baxter met the van, grinned as he watched them all limp and stumble out of the vehicle. “What’s the matter, everyone a little sore?”
Glowering silence met that gibe, and his grin grew until his eyes were wrinkled slits. “That’s what I thought. I’m gonna take it easy on you today, because you didn’t know you were going to get thrown into the shark pool, so to speak, and had no opportunity to get in better shape before training started.”
Jina looked around, searching for her personal tormentors. She didn’t recognize anyone, though again there seemed to be dozens of men moving around the area, heavily armed, blowing up stuff, kicking down doors. Baxter noticed her. “You’re back with us, Modell. Ace’s team got called out early this morning. He said to tell you to keep your ass in gear and be in better shape when they get back.”
“Peachy,” she muttered. “When are they due back—tonight?”
Baxter shrugged. “Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. You never know. Some situations blow up, nothing you can do.”
Jina blew out a breath, caught in a jumble of relief and annoyance. She’d geared herself up to deal with Levi—not just with him, but all the others, too. She had a lot of animosity and grievance stored inside her, looking for a target, and now she had to bank it down. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to die today. Thank you, God, she thought fervently. She’d take whatever reprieve she could get.
And she’d show him. She’d by God show him.
Four
The team’s absence at least gave her time to get over her extreme muscle soreness. She and the others moved painfully through Baxter’s routine, which he thankfully limited to stretching and some calisthenics that still hurt like heck. Then they were taken to a classroom where they began studying the leading-edge drone they’d be piloting in the field and probably in surveillance situations, though that wasn’t spelled out. Jina was totally on board with sitting in a cool, dim room and moving not much more than her fingers.
The drone simulation program was awesome. The graphics were so lifelike there wasn’t much difference between the program and reality. The drone’s capabilities were way beyond what she’d thought drones could do, not that she’d ever paid a lot of attention to drones before other than knowing some of them were causing problems at airports. Now that she was seeing firsthand what their capabilities were . . . wow. This was serious stuff.
Donnelly took the station beside hers, but there was very little conversation between them; mostly they concentrated on their own screens. She was able to lose herself in the screen the way she did when she was gaming, grunting occasionally, muttering under her breath. This wasn’t running up a score or winning points or gaining magic weapons; this was learning how the drone responded, how to zoom the camera in on tiny details, how to decipher what she was seeing. What amazed her the most was that she knew this was just the tip of the drone’s capabilities, that she was taking baby steps; each new stage of training would reveal more.
She’d have loved this part of it even if she hadn’t been able to sit down, rest her sore muscles, and not sweat herself half to death. For the first time she felt a frisson of enthusiasm for this new assignment. Yeah, it was geeky of her, but she was okay with that.
The following days settled into a pattern. On the third day, Baxter ran them through hard physical conditioning again, then on the fourth day their tired muscles were allowed some time to recover, and they spent more time on the drone program.
The fifth day, they had half a day off, and Jina forced herself to drive to the nearest mall and buy a couple of pairs of boots that were suitable for running, plus a multitude of thick socks. The boots that looked like the guys’ boots were, unfortunately, made for men and slipped up and down on her heels, but she figured she could glue extra padding to the insides. If that didn’t work, she’d see what she could order online, maybe from Army Surplus, but she needed something other than sneakers now.
By the tenth day, she was doing some extra running on her own time, and Levi’s team still hadn’t returned. She was fine with that. She could tell that her stamina had improved, and she’d dropped a few pounds, but she wanted to be in much better shape before she was subjected to the team’s training again. The boots worked okay, after she beat them with a hammer to soften the
m up and added insoles to make them fit better. They were certainly more protective of her feet and supportive of her ankles. After she’d worn them a couple of days, the other guys began showing up in boots, too. They were all learning.
Donnelly asked her out, then they mutually decided they were too tired and maybe they’d have the energy for an actual date in another month or so. Then again, maybe not. Jina didn’t feel any real attraction to Donnelly, though she liked him okay, and she didn’t think he was wildly attracted to her, either. Besides, training took all her time and attention.
Seventeen days after they left, Levi and the guys were back. The first hint Jina had was when she got out of the van—for reasons known only to the PTB, the trainees still weren’t allowed to drive their own vehicles to the training site, unless it was to prevent escape—and spotted a big, black pickup truck parked in the lot.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and every muscle in her body clenched. Oh, shit. Her “vacation” was over.
She thought about getting back in the van and hiding; she even half turned, but the driver had already put the van in gear and was pulling away. He never lingered, probably to prevent anyone from using the van as a getaway vehicle.
“Babe.”
Levi. She didn’t jump, but she felt as if every nerve in her body was electrified and made her hair stand on end. How did he do that? Where had he come from? She would have sworn he wasn’t anywhere nearby, then abruptly he was right behind her.
Maybe facing a cobra would be worse than turning to meet those merciless dark eyes, but she doubted it. Still, she turned, and kept her expression blank. “Yeah?” she said, as if he were someone unknown interrupting her day.