by Cindy Dees
Sherri whirled and strode right up to the bully. She was vividly aware of the sharp interest of all the instructors to see how she handled the moment.
Chest to chest with the slightly taller guy, she ground out, “Grundy, I’m not gonna pull rank on you, and I’m not gonna tell you that was inappropriate. I’m not even gonna tell you this course will be hard enough without us trainees being at each other’s throats, or that we should freaking work together. But I am gonna tell you this. You better sleep very, very lightly if you ever say anything like that to me again.”
“Are you threatening me, Tate?” Grundy sputtered.
“Not at all,” she replied coolly. “Just a friendly reminder that SEALs tend to close ranks when one of their own gets messed with.”
“Yeah, but you’ll never be one of them.”
She smiled knowingly. “Neither will you with a non-team-player attitude like that.”
She turned and took the cup of water an instructor held out silently to her from a range of about two feet. The guy had to have heard every word she said to Grundy. Which was no skin off her nose.
Surf immersion was as miserable as she remembered, and dang, the Pacific Ocean was cold. Honestly, she thought it was worse than the Atlantic. But the stars were beautiful, and she distracted herself by enjoying the way dawn overtook night as she lay there shivering.
The guy on her right stood up, swearing, and waded ashore a mere three minutes into the eight-minute immersion session. A minute or so later, she heard the loud triple clang of a brass bell ringing across the training facility.
“The exodus begins!” one of the instructors shouted in glee. “Who’ll be next? How about you, Tate? Are you having fun yet?”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” she shouted back enthusiastically. “I’m having a fine morning, sir! Glad to be here, sir!”
Thankfully, nobody called on her again, because her teeth started to chatter so badly she didn’t think she could talk. But she knew the drill. They’d drop the trainees’ core temperatures to a safe but unholy, awful 91 degrees, pull them out, and run them to a sand dune to warm them up, roll them in the sand like powdered donuts, then run them back to the surf to rinse, lather, and repeat.
While she waited for the cramps and convulsions to set in, she contemplated how interesting it was to know what was coming next. She certainly didn’t relish the coming pain, but thanks to Griffin and the Reapers, she knew she could handle it. And that made all the difference.
The bell rang two more times before they finally staggered out of the surf for the last time.
“Where’s the lipstick now, Tate?” someone hollered about six inches from her face.
“Don’t n-need it, sir!” she shouted back, shivering from head to toe. “I look f-fabulous with b-blue lips!”
The instructor started to grin, but stopped himself at the last moment. Griffin had assured her the instructors cracked themselves up all the time, and that she should look for moments of humor to break up the continuous psychological assault that was BUD/S. Plus, the instructors liked the students who were cheeky enough to make them laugh now and then.
Three more guys DOR’ed—dropped on request—before the run was over. Six down, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Hooyah.
She’d learned at Camp Jarvis to take one day at a time, and the next week passed in a blur. She was by no means the top physical performer in the class, but she wasn’t the last, either. She fell slightly below the middle if she had to guess. Griffin had commented that often the most physical guys with the best times didn’t have the mental toughness to hack the course. She held on to that thought.
But she was competitive. She set a private goal to make it into the top half of the class before the three weeks of INDOC ended.
Sadly, Grundy didn’t drop out. He was forever making snide comments and agitating for the instructors to kick her out, but he didn’t call her a whore again. It was a small victory, but she would take it.
For the most part, the other trainees were too wrapped up in their own misery to give a damn about her one way or the other. She suspected they counted on her washing out when they hit the actual BUD/S course anyway.
The instructors said little about her performance, merely writing down her times with silent disapproval. Of course, they disapproved of everything. They were like a bunch of grumpy toddlers who hated everyone. The notion privately amused her when one of them would really wind up into a tirade in her face.
She got up one morning, a year into the three-week indoctrination course, and jogged out to join the remaining trainees. They were down thirty-one guys out of two hundred so far.
“Today, lady and gentlemen, I give you the Playground!” the instructor in front of the formation bellowed.
Griffin had told her the obstacle course was sometimes called that. While they went for a warm-up run down the beach, she mentally reviewed the various obstacles the Reapers had built for her and the best ways to get through them.
The replica o-course at Camp Jarvis was as close to exact as the Reapers had been able to build. She had run it dozens of times and knew how completely wiped out her arms would be by the end of the thing.
Today, they walked through the course once while instructors demonstrated each obstacle. Then it was the trainees’ turn. She waited in line quietly, resting and breathing deeply.
“Tate, you’re up. And…go!”
Hand over hand across the parallel bars. Arms behind her neck to run through the tires. Jump onto the upended logs and then the hard leap up to catch the top of the wall in front of her. Big pull, legs up and over. Slide down the back of the wall, jog to the rope-climb wall.
The guy beside her, one of Grundy’s buddies, was going out way too fast and pulled ahead of her. From the top of the rope-climb wall, which she was just starting, he taunted, “What’s the matter, Tate? Girls can’t hack it?”
“I’ll see you at the finish line,” she grunted.
She ignored him, pacing herself steadily, taking advantage of her slender body to wiggle fast through the low crawl on her belly under logs and barbed wire. She moved all the way to the left side of the fifty-foot-tall net climb, right next to the frame where Griffin had shown her the cross ropes were most taut, and used her legs primarily to make the climb, giving her arms as much rest as possible.
On she went, obstacle by obstacle, like Griffin had taught her, pacing herself and resting her upper body whenever she could. About halfway through the course, at the rope bridge, she passed the loudmouth, who was sucking wind now. Her balance was excellent, and she moved quickly across the single walking rope, using the two handhold ropes for balance.
Time for the tower of terror. To climb its four platforms each stacked about seven feet apart, a person turned with their back to the platform overhead, reached up and grabbed the edge, and then kicked their feet up hard, doing a 270-degree flip and landing on their stomach flat on the floor of the next level.
Lily, a gymnast, had gone up this thing like a monkey. She’d worked with Sherri to teach her how to throw her hips out and then up, making the maneuver more about momentum and less about brute strength.
Reach. Pull. Kick. Flop.
Reach. Pull. Kick. Flop.
One more time, and she was some thirty feet up on the top level. Time to shimmy down the long rope slanting away from the tower. She lay on top of it on her belly, letting her right knee hang down but hooking her right foot over the rope behind her for balance. She started pulling herself hand over hand down the long slope, letting gravity do much of the work. She was dismayed to see Grundy leering up at her from the bottom of her rope. He reached out, grabbed it, and gave it a hard shake.
Sure enough, she flipped underneath the damned rope, hanging by her ankles and hands.
Jerk.
She let go with her feet, swung her feet up and over the rope again, and la
boriously reset herself on her belly on top of the rope before continuing down. It cost her a lot of time, but this way her arms would get the absolutely necessary break they needed.
“You’re slowing down my course!” an instructor yelled up at her. No way had the guy missed Grundy’s stunt.
She saved her breath and merely continued downward doggedly. She finished the rest of the course without incident and slogged through the sand to cross the finish line in just under nine minutes. Off her best time by nearly a minute. But nine minutes was the cutoff to pass the evaluation today.
As the other guys got more familiar with the course, their times would come down, and she would fall out of the middle of the pack into the bottom quarter with a time like today’s.
“Problem out there, Tate?” one of the senior instructors strolled over to ask her as she caught her breath.
“No, Chief.”
The guy looked surprised. He must’ve expected her to whine about Grundy shaking her off the rope. If Griffin had told her once, he’d told her a hundred times, SEAL training wasn’t fair.
The guy stared at her a few seconds more, clearly giving her a chance to narc on her classmate, but she just stared back at him implacably. They both knew what had happened out there. She didn’t need to say anything. Reluctantly, a spark of respect lit in the guy’s eyes just before he spun away from her, shouting at someone else to get his pansy ass in gear.
She caught glimpses of Griffin from time to time, but he stayed away from her, merely observing. He’d told her she would have no trouble with the INDOC training and that he wouldn’t be interacting with her there, since he was going to be working the actual BUD/S course with her.
* * *
The three interminable weeks of INDOC passed without any more incidents from Grundy. Whether the instructors had a talk with him, or he feared getting kicked out if he was too big an asshole, Sherri had no idea. She was just grateful for the break from the constant harassment.
They had one whopping day off between INDOC and BUD/S, and she planned to spend every minute of it sleeping.
Except at 9:00 a.m. sharp, a knock on her door woke her up. What the heck? She got out of bed and opened it.
Griffin. Wearing his full service dress blues.
Wow, wow, and triple wow. It was the first time she’d ever seen him in a formal uniform, and man, did he clean up well. The double-breasted black blazer was perfectly tailored to his broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped physique. She couldn’t help but stare at the gold trident pin prominent above a ridiculously impressive rack of ribbons.
“To what do I owe the honor?” she murmured, cautious of what the uniform might signify or that he might not be alone.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped back. He passed her by, and she shut the door behind him. He turned and swept her up in his arms in a tight hug, fraught with…something.
“Everything okay?” she murmured.
He lifted his head from where he’d buried it against her neck. The expression in his eyes was bleak. Oh, crap. Was he here to wash her out? Had she failed before she’d even made it to BUD/S?
“I have a favor to ask of you,” he said heavily.
“Anything.” Goodness knew, she owed him huge for all he’d done for her. She was just now coming to understand how amazingly well he’d prepared her for BUD/S.
“Sam’s funeral is today. Since you happen to have the day off, I was wondering if you would go with me.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “I’d be honored to go with you. But if the press is there, and anyone spots me, it’ll turn into a circus.”
“I already thought of that. I had that Schneider kid from Public Affairs acquire civilian clothing for you. I figure if you’re not in uniform, the odds of you being recognized go way down.”
“I’m willing to try if you are,” she responded quietly.
“Please.”
The poor man sounded like the weight of the world was parked squarely on his shoulders. No way would she let him face Sam’s funeral alone. Not if she had a chance to stand by his side and lend him strength or emotional support. Frankly, she was impressed that he’d asked for support of any kind. He must be even more torn up over Sam’s death than she’d realized.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” he murmured.
He swept out of her room, and she used the moment to hit the restroom and brush her teeth. Then Griffin was back with a paper bag and a familiar suitcase.
“Where did you get my pageant kit? I was hoping Schneider would throw it out after that stupid press conference.”
Griffin handed her the bag, and she pulled out a conservative dark-blue dress that was perfect for a funeral. Schneider had even gotten her size right. She made a mental note to thank him the next time she saw him. She already owed him an apology for blowing up his press event.
While she dressed and did understated makeup that would be a fitting tribute to Sam and not cry off her face, Griffin perched a hip on the windowsill.
He commented, “Your performance at that press conference made quite a stink. Cal caught holy hell for you going off script until it became clear the press loved you.”
She glanced at his reflection in her mirror, shrugging as they made eye contact. “I read the room and took a chance.”
“You were lucky.”
“I’m also good at my job. Well, my former job.”
She pulled her hair back into a low bun and secured it with bobby pins.
“What did your instructor buddies think of the press conference?” she asked curiously as she covered her bun with a tasteful black lace net.
Griffin scowled. “They couldn’t shut up about how hot you were.”
She laughed a little. “Well, it was the Navy that insisted I get all prettied up. That wasn’t my idea.”
“Honey, there’s no disguising your beauty. I expect if you put a paper bag over your head, you’d still find a way to look great wearing it.”
She stood up and turned around to face him. “This isn’t a paper bag, but do I look okay?”
He pushed off the sill to come stand in front of her. He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Sherri, I’m not kidding. You’re going to be turning heads when you’re ninety. You’re stunning. It’ll be an honor to have you on my arm.”
She laid her palm on his smooth-shaven cheek. “I’m sorry it has to be in these circumstances.”
They traded looks of deep understanding. They’d shared the trauma of Sam’s death, and both felt his loss keenly. Today was going to be hard, but it would be a little less awful because they would get through it together.
She picked up the black leather clutch Schneider had been kind enough to include with the dress and nodded at Griffin.
“Could you keep something in your purse for me?” he asked grimly.
“It’s a clutch, but of course.”
He held out his hand, and a shiny, gold trident pin lay in it. She stared down at it doubtfully, not understanding what he was doing.
“It’s a tradition at SEAL funerals,” he said in response to her unspoken question. “You’ll see.”
She tucked the Budweiser in her clutch and followed Griffin out to a big silver pickup truck. He helped her climb inside and then moved around to the driver’s seat.
“Is this yours?” she asked as he guided the vehicle off base.
“Yep.”
“So you’re stationed here?”
“The Reapers are part of Team Seven.”
All the East Coast teams were even numbered, and the West Coast teams odd numbered.
“So you’re going home at night, propping your feet up on a coffee table, sipping a cold one, and watching cooking shows while I work my tail off, huh?”
He smiled briefly. “I’m staying on base for the duration
of your training. I have a room in the visiting instructors’ quarters. Helps me blend in with them. Also, I’m close by in case you need me.”
“You guys have thought of everything. I’m fairly certain I don’t deserve all the fussing you’re doing over me.”
“I have a job to do—get you through the program. And I’m a SEAL.”
His implication was clear. SEALs didn’t fail at their assignments.
They drove north of San Diego to Miramar National Cemetery, and Sherri was relieved to see security was heavy getting to the memorial service. She supposed any large concentration of SEALs in one place was a potentially juicy target for bad guys.
Griffin flashed his military ID out the window and was waved onto the cemetery grounds. They parked and followed the line of people walking toward a stone pavilion at the top of a long hill.
Sherri walked beside him up to the open-walled structure filled with big, silent, hard-looking men. Some wore uniforms with Budweisers glinting on their chests; some wore civilian clothing. But they were all SEALs or retired SEALs. Of that, Sherri had no doubt. By the way their eyes were never still, scanning their environment constantly, by their hard physiques, by posture alone, she recognized them.
A uniformed naval officer peeled away from the cluster of civilians wearing black that had to be Sam’s family and strode toward her and Griffin.
“Commander Kettering,” she said formally.
He shocked her by stepping forward and giving her a brief, warm hug. “Thanks for coming with Grif. He needed you today,” he said quietly.
She froze in shock. Just how much did Cal know about her and Griffin’s secret relationship? Crud. Maybe it wasn’t so secret after all.
“…holding up, Sherri? Did we prepare you enough?” Cal was asking.
She answered, “INDOC wasn’t bad. I’ll let you know how BUD/S goes.”
“Any problems with the instructors?” he asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. A few students have hassled me, but I’ve handled them.”
“So I hear,” Kettering replied.
Her gaze snapped to his. “Do tell.”
