by Cindy Dees
Chapter 24
Before her training review hearing, Sherri called Schneider and asked him to bring her dress uniform and makeup kit to the Training Center. If she was going to be thrown out of the SEALs, she was darned well going to do it on her own terms.
She went full beauty pageant, hair done, makeup flawless, dressed in hose, white skirt, and her perfectly tailored white summer uniform blouse. She knew how intimidating her beauty could be when she put it on full display, and she did so today.
At ten minutes before one o’clock, she stepped into the large classroom where she, her instructors, and the admiral would convene in a mockery of a hearing to determine her future in the SEALs.
Or out of the SEALs, more accurately.
Cal Kettering already sat at a small wooden table facing a larger table at the front of the room. An empty seat waited beside him. For her, obviously. Rows of chairs stood behind the small, forlorn table stuck out there, all by itself, for everyone to stare at. And jeer at, no doubt. The whole setup looked like a miniature courtroom.
Great. The bastards were even going to stage a monkey trial to pretend like this was all fair and aboveboard. What a travesty.
“You’ll sit here beside me,” Cal said quietly.
She moved forward and sank onto the front edge of the hard wooden chair, too tense to lean back. “I’m sorry, sir. I did my best for you. Please don’t pull Anna and Lily out of Operation Valkyrie because I failed.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but the door opened just then, and Ray Peevy walked into the room in full dress uniform. Whatever Cal had been about to say went unsaid.
Ray surprised her by walking up to the little oak table and stopping in front of it. “Lieutenant Tate,” he said formally, “it has been an honor to work with you.” He reached up to his chest and put his hand over his gold SEAL insignia in what looked like some sort of informal salute.
Without warning, he slapped his hand down hard on the table with a sharp crack of noise. Sherri jumped about six inches off her chair before landing on the hard seat again.
She stared down at the table where Ray had slapped it. His gold Budweiser was planted in the oak desktop. The pin swam in her vision as tears of gratitude filled her eyes. The Navy might be evicting her from the boys’ club, but this show of respect by one of its legendary heroes meant the world to her. Her struggle and suffering hadn’t been entirely in vain. This SEAL had seen her, measured her, and in some small way, judged her worthy.
She could live with that.
Stunned speechless, she looked up at Peevy. She had no words to express the depth of her gratitude and nodded mutely at him in thanks.
He nodded back tersely and stepped around the table to take a seat in the back of the room.
Chief Vidmeyer and two more of the senior instructors strolled into the hearing room. They stopped abruptly as a trio and stared when they saw that trident planted on the table. They looked up at Peevy conspicuously not wearing his SEAL pin, down at the Budweiser, and back up at her.
Vidmeyer nodded very slowly, as if to himself. Then he walked up to the table, solemnly took his SEAL insignia off his chest, and slapped his hand down on the table. She was ready for the crack of noise this time. But the shock of his show of support was no less overwhelming.
He withdrew his hand, and a second pin had joined the first in front of her.
Without speaking, both of the instructors with Vidmeyer did the same. One by one over the next few minutes, every single instructor who had worked with her BUD/S training class walked into the room, spied the table gradually being covered in gold SEAL insignia, and added theirs to the rows of Budweisers.
Only one SEAL was notably absent today. Griffin.
Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? Of all people, he was the one she would have expected to come and show his support for her. Unless her kidnapping had convinced him once and for all that he didn’t want her on the teams.
Whatever his reasons were, he didn’t show up. Didn’t add his trident to the rows accumulating on the desk in front of her.
With every slap of another SEAL’s hand on her desk, the sound was a sharp reminder of the one SEAL who wasn’t here.
She would not cry. She wasn’t ashamed to let these men who could have been her brothers in a different time, a different world, know how much their tribute meant to her, but she would not show them weakness. Never that.
And she damned well wouldn’t cry for Griffin. She’d really thought they had something. She’d thought he’d made peace with her becoming a SEAL, that she’d finally found a man she thought she could trust. A man she could love. A man who would take care of her. Look out for her. See all of her.
But in the end, he’d left her, too.
In a way, this hearing was her funeral. The end of her long struggle to scale the unscalable mountain peaks—of becoming a SEAL, and of breaking through Griffin’s emotional walls. She’d given both everything she had, but it hadn’t been enough.
She’d failed as a SEAL.
Even harder to swallow, she’d failed as a woman.
In a way, she was grateful to Griffin for staying away. He’d already humiliated her enough by rejecting her. She didn’t need him to witness this final degradation as well.
At precisely one o’clock, Admiral Duquesne, his executive officer, and a stenographer filed into the room. The admiral stopped in his tracks at the sight of the table in front of Sherri peppered with gold SEAL pins. He stared down at it a long time while she stared at him.
If she wasn’t mistaken, she thought she saw the tiniest hint of a smile cross his face before he looked up at her sternly. “It appears your instructors have spoken, Lieutenant Tate. Loudly.”
She nodded in acknowledgment, too emotional to trust her voice.
Briskly, he took his place at the front table, facing the room, and laid down the training folder he carried. He opened it and, while everyone watched in charged silence, browsed through it.
“It says here your instructors find you to be a consistent performer, determined, positive, and unflaggingly supportive of your teammates. Would you say that’s an accurate summary of this trainee in your experience, Commander Kettering?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant Tate’s final Phase One training report is not included in this file,” Admiral Duquesne stated. “Chief Vidmeyer, since you are here in person, would you mind giving that report to me now, for the record?”
She heard the faint rustle of Vidmeyer standing up behind her but didn’t turn around to look at him. Instead, she stared down at the table and all those beautiful gold eagles clutching tridents and flintlocks.
Vidmeyer’s voice rang out behind her. “Trainee Tate has passed all required training evolutions and is recommended for continuation into Phase Two of BUD/S, sir.”
What?
She did turn around to stare at Vidmeyer then. He stared back at her, his expression deadpan. Only by a single brief dip of his chin did he acknowledge her.
“Do the rest of you concur with that assessment?” Duquesne asked from behind her.
“Yes sir!”
She jumped at the loud bark from all of the SEALs at once.
She pivoted back to stare at Duquesne. What was he going to do with that?
The admiral leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, staring at her and then at the rows of SEALs seated behind her. At length, he said, “We appear to have consensus. I concur that Lieutenant Tate should proceed on time with her classmates to Phase Two of BUD/S.”
A cheer went up behind Sherri that was almost as gratifying as the table full of Budweisers in front of her.
Admiral Duquesne stood up, and the executive officer called the room to attention. Sherri and the SEALs stood up quickly.
“Gentlemen, it seems all of you are missing the appropriate insignia on your
uniforms. Please remedy that situation immediately. Dismissed.”
Duquesne whirled and strode out of the room, and Sherri watched him go in shock. Cal Kettering grabbed her hand and pumped it warmly as he gave her a half hug with his other hand. “You did it, Tate. Congratulations!”
The SEALs swarmed her as a group, pounding her on the back and shaking her hand. It hurt her sore and bruised body, but it was the best possible kind of pain.
The reality of what had just happened broke over her, and she smiled widely. She’d scaled the all-male fortress of the SEALs and cracked it wide open.
“How miserable are you guys going to make Phase Two for me after this?” she asked wryly.
A big laugh went up around her. “Oh, we’re going to make your life a living hell,” Peevy crowed.
She grinned back at him. “You know, I think I’m okay with that.”
She stepped outside into the warm California sunshine and turned her face up, enjoying it on her skin.
“Wait up, Tate!”
She turned to see Chief Vidmeyer jogging up to her. “All trainees get forty-eight hours liberty after Hell Week, and you didn’t get yours. Take the rest of today off. Tomorrow, too. I just got the admiral to okay it. We’ll see you back here in a couple of days. And be ready to bust your butt.”
“You’ve got it, Chief. I’ll be back, and I’ll be ready.”
Cal Kettering strolled over to her as she looked around, unsure what to do with herself with two whole days of nobody telling her at the top of their lungs what to do or where to go. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?” he offered.
“Yes, you can—if you know where I can find Griffin Caldwell.”
“You gonna punch him out, too?” Cal asked wryly.
“No. I need to thank him for everything he did for me.” And make it clear that if he doesn’t want to be with me, I will accept that and move on. No matter that her heart was broken. Or more accurately, shattered. Maybe forever.
“He’s probably on his boat. I’ll drive you over to the marina if you’d like.”
“That’s kind of you, sir.”
Cal led her to a pickup truck no less tricked out than Griffin’s. She was silent as Cal drove the vehicle up the coast. But when he slowed to turn into the marina, she said grimly, “So, are you and the Reapers going after Haddad?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
“I wish I were two years farther down the road so I could go with you. After the past few days, I’d like a piece of that guy myself.”
Cal laughed quietly. “You really are turning into a SEAL, aren’t you?”
She hopped out of the truck and paused in the act of closing the door. “Why do all of you keep sounding so surprised about that?”
He smiled. “Because you’re just so damned much better looking than the rest of us. You want me to swing by here in a while and pick you up?”
“No, thanks. I see Caldwell’s truck over there. I’ll ask him to give me a ride back to base. And sir?”
Kettering looked over at her.
“Thank you for everything.”
“My pleasure. You’re going to be a hell of an asset to the teams. All of you women are.”
Smiling, she slammed his door and watched him drive away. Then she turned, took a deep breath, and headed for the Easy Day. Saying goodbye to Griffin was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done…Hell Week included.
Taking a page out of the SEAL playbook, she didn’t overthink it and just jumped in. Here went nothing.
Chapter 25
Stepping out on the Easy Day’s aft deck, Griffin plunked down the case of beer he planned to go through this afternoon. It wouldn’t erase the pain in his chest, and it wouldn’t bring back Sherri, but he was prepared to let it try. He fell into a lounge chair, staring out at the ocean, which glittered back at him damningly.
He was a jackass. And an idiot. He didn’t deserve Sherri after chickening out last night and not telling her he loved her, too. But all the guys had been almost within earshot, and habit had taken over. Their relationship was a secret, and revealing it would have destroyed both of their careers.
Although after spending the past twelve hours experiencing what life would be like without Sherri in it, he wasn’t sure he cared a hell of a lot about throwing away his career.
Thing was, he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—throw away her career for her. Not after all she’d been through to get here. She’d earned a shot at the teams, dammit.
Nice try at making excuses, asshole. You chickened out, plain and simple. You choked when the moment was right to tell her how you felt.
If he had it to do all over again, he’d have found a way. Whispered it back to her—
“Permission to come aboard?”
Sherri? What the hell was she doing here? Had Duquesne thrown her out of the SEALs after all? Righteous anger on her behalf bubbled up in his gut—
“I know you’re here, Griffin. Your truck’s in the parking lot.”
“Oh, umm, yeah. Come aboard. I wasn’t avoiding you. I was just surprised you’re here. Everything okay?” he asked cautiously, coming forward to lower the short gangplank and help her aboard.
She startled him by saying, “No. Everything’s not okay. That’s why I’m here.”
“Duquesne didn’t seriously kick you out, did he? Have you talked to Kettering? I’m sure he’d still take you in Operation Valkyrie back at Camp Jarvis—”
“Duquesne approved me to continue on to Phase Two of BUD/S.”
“Oh.” He stared at Sherri, who looked like Malibu Navy Barbie today—no, better than that. She looked like a million bucks. “Congratulations,” he mumbled belatedly. “That’s fantastic. You did it. You must be so proud of yourself.”
“I guess so.”
“Why aren’t you happy? You should be shouting to the heavens with joy! You’ve just made it through Phase One of BUD/S, and no woman has ever done that before.”
“I am happy about that.”
Aww, hell. She was here to have it out with him about what a giant jerk he was. He had never for a second doubted that she would catch his failure to reciprocate her declaration of love. He said quickly, “Will you give me a second to explain before you blow your stack at me?”
“Explain what?” she asked innocently. Way too innocently.
He winced and stepped forward to within arm’s reach of her. “Go ahead. Slap me. Or slug me. Break my nose like you did Grundy’s.”
He stared at her, losing himself in the light, bright blue of her gaze, which wasn’t giving away a blessed thing.
He braced himself as she took another step toward him. But then she did the darnedest thing. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed the entire slim, sexy length of her body against his. He wrapped his arms around her waist out of long habit, reveling in the way her body fit his. Beneath her uniform she felt more muscular than in the past, but still curvy and lithe. She wore being SEAL-fit well indeed.
“What is this?” he mumbled as she tilted her face up to his.
Her mouth captured his in a kiss, and he didn’t question it. She was here, and she wanted him. That was plenty for him. More than he deserved. She mumbled, “Does it matter what this is?”
Actually, it did. But he wasn’t sure he knew how to explain that to her. “Umm, Tate?”
“Hmm?”
“Uniforms aren’t authorized on the Easy Day.”
“Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it?” she purred in a sultry voice that had his entire body tightening in anticipation.
He combed his fingers through her hair, pulling out the pins holding it up. It spilled over her shoulders like golden sunshine.
He reached for the flat buckle of her belt and snapped it open. “About last night…” he started.
She reached for the buttons on her blous
e and popped them free from the top down, revealing a sexy white lace bra with her breasts practically spilling out of it and stealing from his mind whatever he’d been about to say.
“Day-umm,” he murmured. “I never had any idea you women officers wore stuff like this under your blouses.”
“Wait till you see what’s under my skirt.”
Under her… huh? He slid his hands around her waist to the skirt’s zipper and eased it down. She stared at him in challenge, and he pushed the white fabric down over her hips, which she wiggled a little to help the skirt fall—or maybe to make his eyes roll back in his head, which they nearly did.
A thong. She was wearing nothing more than a tiny scrap of white lace under her sheer pantyhose that did more to reveal than conceal, more to tantalize than hide.
“Holy shit, Sherri.”
“You were saying?”
“A thong under your uniform, Lieutenant Tate? Is that regulation Navy attire?”
“SEALs live to break rules,” she muttered against his lips.
“Amen.” He cupped her tush in his hands, loving the resilient spring of it.
What had he been saying? His mind was quickly turning to mush while his dick turned to stone. She stepped back, and he stepped forward until he’d trapped her against the wall. He kissed her neck, working his way up to her ear, sucking on the lobe and then swirling his tongue inside her ear and sweeping around its rim until she gasped. Whether she knew it or not, her body undulated a little against his.
There was something he had to say to her, had to remember. It was important—
She spoke instead, gratifyingly out of breath. “About what I said last night. I wanted to explain.”
He lifted his head to stare down at her, his left hand braced beside her head. “Explain what?”
“You have to understand—”
He cupped her breast in his right hand, running the pad of his thumb across the rosy peak barely concealed by the flimsy lace. She drew in a sharp, quick breath.
But she still managed to say, “I had just spent over a week undergoing the worst sort of misery.”
