by Linda Howard
Then, the next day, the weather gods smiled on her. Rain didn’t stop them from training, it just made the training more physically miserable. Oddly enough, it gave her the courage to take that first jump off the tower, because she figured the ground was muddy enough to give her some cushion. Looking up, the tower didn’t seem that high; looking down was a whole different perspective. Even in harness, knowing she was hooked to safety ropes, her stomach was knotted up. But this wasn’t much different from zip lining, and she’d done that a bunch of times. Well, the first part, the stepping off into thin air and trusting your harness, that was like zip lining; the landing and learning how to hit and roll was something new. Twice she face-planted in the mud, much to the guys’ amusement; even Voodoo laughed out loud. “So glad I can make y’all happy,” she snarled as she picked herself up the second time.
“We’ve all done exactly the same thing,” Jelly said cheerfully. “You’re doing good.”
The rain was still coming down when she went to the swing-landing training, but at least for that she was under a roof. The concept behind swing landing was that she was pulled from side to side, mimicking wind, and she had to learn how to guide a parachute under those conditions. Zip lining, zip lining, she chanted to herself as they ran her through the exercise again and again. She was safe; her harness was connected to ropes, she wasn’t going to fall; she might land wrong and break a bone, but that was true of zip lining, too, so she handled the swing-landing training just fine.
That left only actually jumping. Out of a plane. From a couple of miles up. Oh shit.
But, thank God, the rain didn’t let up, and the weather system that produced the rain added some healthy wind gusts to the mix. Levi made the call to postpone the last phase of jump training, and Jina lurched from one panic-inducing scenario to another: the taco bar at her place. The food, and the lack of space, were the least of her problems.
A date. She needed a date. She was a woman, she knew the wives would be more friendly to her if she had a man of her own on the scene, so they’d know she wasn’t poaching on husbands. And that wasn’t all; she needed some protection so Levi—
She shut that thought down before it could form. Some paths weren’t meant to be traveled, and some ideas were better left alone. Discretion wasn’t her strongest point, but her survival instinct was nice and healthy.
Date, date . . . who to ask? She hadn’t had a date since—damn, she didn’t remember, but definitely not since she’d started training to join Levi’s team. She and Donnelly had never managed—Donnelly. Of course. How obvious could it be?
Her own guys had so effectively separated her from the herd that she seldom saw any of her fellow trainees these days, outside the computer-training sessions with the drones. For all she knew, Donnelly had landed in a relationship since the last time they’d tried to get together for a movie. As soon as she was headed home, she pulled up his cell number in her contacts list.
“Hey, Babe, what’s up?”
Jina curled her lip at her heartily disliked nickname, but got straight to business. “Hey. Listen, are you seeing anyone now?”
“Not really. Who has the time?”
Amen to that. “Good. If I throw together a taco bar this weekend”—oh shit, the time had slipped away and the weekend was on top of her now—“tomorrow, actually, for my guys and their wives and girlfriends so we can get to know each other, would you be available as my date?”
“Sure. That’s assuming neither of us breaks something between now and then.”
“Always. Okay, that’s set.” She told him the time, gave him the address.
“Got it. By the way, congrats.”
“Yeah? For what?” She couldn’t think of anything she’d done that warranted congratulations.
“Word is you’re starting jump training.”
Just like that, the bottom dropped out of her stomach again. Why would he congratulate her on her impending death? “Oh. That. Yeah, kind of.” Kind of, in that she’d completed two-thirds of it and the only thing left was actually jumping.
“I heard the teams don’t jump very often.”
Lord, please, let that be true. “I hope not.”
“It’s the last phase of training, right? After that, you’ll be mission active.”
Jina’s eyes widened. “Really?” Mission active. No one had told her that. Maybe they thought she knew, maybe it was common knowledge among the other trainees. Same deal as before, her contact with them was limited, and when they were together, they were all so intensely focused on what they were doing then that there hadn’t been much conversation. Or maybe Levi hadn’t told her because he hoped if she didn’t know she wouldn’t have the motivation to try harder. She couldn’t stop herself from circling back to the truth that no matter how hard she tried or what she accomplished, he still didn’t now, and never would, want her on his team. The knowledge was acid in her veins.
She couldn’t let herself dwell on it, she had to get in the right mind-set, focus on the right outcome. The jump training was do or die. This was it, the last hurdle. No pressure, right?
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Donnelly continued, “but at least I have a couple more weeks before I reach that stage. You’re ahead of the rest of us.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, smart-ass,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re damn good with computer games and you know it.”
“But so are you, and all of the others, otherwise we wouldn’t have been targeted. Uh—picked.”
He laughed. “I hear you. I signed on for a nice inside, sitting-down job, and instead I got this. But I’m never bored.”
Who had time to be bored? “That’s for sure. Listen, thanks for bailing me out.” She started to say bye and end the call, but a detail popped into her head. “Wait. What’s your first name?” She’d have to know in order to make introductions; how would it look if she was barely acquainted with her own date?
He snorted. “Now I know for certain why we never managed a date.”
She supposed that was true enough. If she’d been truly interested in him, she’d have made time somehow—and she’d have found out his first name.
“It’s Brian,” he said.
“Bye, Brian.”
Throwing together even an informal group thing took a lot of planning. Even with the jump hanging over her head like a sword, she’d made lists: a grocery list, a list of who she was inviting, a list of cleaning chores that needed to be done. She needed extra seating, some music, maybe a movie to stream, and something to keep the kids occupied. She put all her lists on a clipboard and carried it around with her, putting check marks beside each item as she took care of it, or each name as she asked each team member.
They all said yes, even Voodoo, which surprised the hell out of her. He barely glanced at her as he muttered a brief, “Sure,” but it wasn’t as if she wanted to have a conversation with him, so she was okay with that. She checked off his name.
“Are you bringing a date?”
“Probably not.”
Big surprise there. She wondered how hard up a woman would have to be to go out with someone that surly. Still, she wasn’t going to play favorites and not invite him. He was part of the team.
She left Levi for last. She hated being a coward about it, but she had to gear herself up for any encounter with him. He was too everything that made her uncomfortable: too grim, too intense, too big, too . . . just too. And he made her feel insignificant, nervous, jumpy, insecure—all the things she wasn’t. No, she had to be honest with herself: he didn’t make her feel that way, it was something in herself that was susceptible to whatever it was about him. Her weakness, her problem.
Finally she ran out of time and couldn’t put it off any longer; everything was set up, the other guys were all coming, so he’d likely already heard about it and might be wondering why she hadn’t invited him, kind of the way she felt about not being included in their social things. Uh-huh,
right; the day Levi Butcher worried about his popularity, or lack of it, would be the official end of the world. She was just trying to psyche herself up by imagining him with feelings.
Finding the opportunity was more difficult than she’d thought. She didn’t want to ask him in front of everyone else, because what if he said no? He wouldn’t, of course, but if he did they might all rethink their acceptance of her invitation. Even worse, she might do something embarrassing, like blushing. Maybe she could just text him, because everyone on the team had everyone else’s phone numbers.
Because she really, really wanted to go the text route, she mentally snarled at herself for being a coward. She had to just do it, regardless of the circumstances. The next time she saw him, she’d suck it up and do it.
“The next time” turned out to be as she was leaving a session of drone training. He was coming out of a room that she knew housed the evil demons who devised the training scenarios for the drone operators; Levi had likely been giving them ideas on how to trip her up. Swiftly she ran through this last session, trying to see any mistakes she’d made. The mission had been accomplished and all operators were home safe, but she couldn’t give herself any pats on the back because she could have handled the drone more smoothly. There was always something; no session was ever perfect.
Levi gave her a cursory glance as if registering her existence but nothing more and turned in the opposite direction.
Mentally girding her loins—though what the hell was “girding,” and weren’t there more important body parts that needed protecting?—she called, “Levi, wait up!” Clutching her clipboard with its all-important lists, she trotted down the hallway toward him.
He turned, planted his booted feet apart, crossed his arms, and with hooded eyes watched her approach.
Jina clutched her clipboard as if it were a dependable barrier between them. “Ah,” she began, then her mental gears engaged and she looked down at the topmost list as if double-checking something on it. “I’m having a taco bar at my place Saturday night. Would you like to come—”
“No,” he said.
She hadn’t expected that. She’d had the thought, but she hadn’t really expected it. Maybe an excuse, maybe he already had a date and they’d made other plans, but his flat refusal was a slap in the face.
“Okay.” She looked down at the list, trying to keep her expression casual as if she’d asked him nothing more important than if he wanted coffee.
He made a low sound, kind of like a growl, and seized her arm, then immediately released her as if she’d burned his hand. “Let’s go someplace more private,” he muttered, turning and striding off, not once looking back to see if she obeyed.
She thought about not following him, about turning around and marching out of the building. A hard lump in her throat made her think about making a dash to the bathroom, before she did something embarrassing, like cry. She would not cry. No way would she ever let him know that he’d in any way upset her.
But he was the team leader, and she’d spent months doing exactly what he’d said, when he’d said it. Her feet might have dragged as she followed him, but they moved, because Levi had said so.
He looked into a couple of rooms before entering what turned out to be a small office; whoever belonged there had either already gone home or was taking a bathroom break. It didn’t matter; Levi claimed the space. As soon as she entered the room, he closed the door and locked it.
Locked it.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she stopped in her tracks. Her breath seized in her chest, but the alarm she was feeling wasn’t one of fear. She wasn’t afraid of Levi, not like that. She was afraid of him on a much more feminine level, one she didn’t let herself examine because there was no way she was going there; that road was too fraught with emotional land mines, and she was neither crazy nor self-destructive.
He gave her an impatient look and ran his hand over his stubbled jaw, the rasping sound like sandpaper against her nerves. “Shit,” he muttered.
She relaxed a little at his expression of mingled impatience and disgust, but she was alone in a small space with him and her lizard brain was on red alert. Then that dark gaze zeroed in on her and for a split second, before he could control it, she saw a flash of heat as potent as a volcanic cauldron, bubbling and ready to blow. Then he shut it down, leaving nothing in his expression for her to read.
“I don’t shit where I sleep,” he said bluntly. “I know you’ve got the hots for me and it won’t go anywhere. It can’t go anywhere. So, no, I won’t be your date or your fuck buddy or anything else. Got it?”
For a moment Jina was blinded by shock. She could feel herself fumbling with the clipboard, but she didn’t know what she was doing. Her whole body was numb, her lips incapable of moving. He’d slugged her with words, but it felt as if he’d used his fist.
Then rage hit, rage so white and searing she felt incandescent with it. Her mind was blank. She looked down at the clipboard, and the list of names swam into focus.
“Okay, let’s see,” she said as if to herself. “Boom and his family, check. Voodoo, check. Snake and family, Brian, Jelly, Crutch, Trapper—” As she ran through their names she made little check marks beside them. “Looks as if everyone is coming except Asshole.” Vigorously she marked through his name, digging the pen so hard into the paper it tore holes.
“Who’s Brian?” he interrupted in a growl.
“Brian?” She looked up, managed to give him a megawatt smile. “He’s my date.” Clutching the clipboard to her chest, she strolled to the door, flipped the lock, and left. She didn’t know how she managed to put one foot in front of the other. She was reeling from his words, not just the crudeness but the lethal accuracy.
Because he was right. The son of a bitch was right.
Eight
Jina didn’t sleep that night. Her mind wouldn’t shut down, wouldn’t let her forget the searing humiliation. Levi had seen through her, likely from the start; she’d wasted all that time and effort staying away from him, not talking to him if she could help it, not even looking at him, all for nothing. Damn it, it wasn’t as if she were in love with him—God forbid—so she should have been able to play the situation better. The good Lord help any woman who loved Levi Butcher, because she’d need the backup.
What she felt was just potent physical chemistry, and she wasn’t a fool; she knew that acting on it would be a disaster between team members. Moreover, that strong survival instinct of hers warned her to steer far, far away from him, at least in a personal sense. Levi was intense; controlled, but intense. Sex with him might be incandescent enough to render her blind, but at most he’d walk away thinking, Okay, tension relieved, that was good, hey isn’t it almost time to change the oil in the truck? They came at life from two different levels. She was normal, and he wasn’t. He was like Rambo with Kama Sutra training, considering what he did to her hormones, and it wasn’t fair.
How classic could the setup be? In a team of alpha males, he was the most alpha, the super-high-octane alpha. As the only woman—and by default the alpha female—on the team, according to biology and anthropology and probably a lot of other -ologies, within their little group she had no other option than to choose him as her mate.
Except she had an option, all right, and her option was to say no. “I don’t want to mate,” she growled into the darkness of her bedroom, though she had to acknowledge that wasn’t strictly true. She didn’t want to mate, as in form a bond and procreate, but she sure wouldn’t mind trying him on for size. She’d never had sex just for the sake of having sex, but for him she’d be happy to make an exception . . . if circumstances were different. And if he wasn’t such an asshole.
Except not now. Now she wanted to geld him.
How was she supposed to function with the team now, when she dreaded every minute she’d have to spend in his company? This wasn’t not liking someone; she’d worked with people she didn’t like before, and she’d made the best of it
because her parents had always told their kids that life wasn’t perfect and they’d have to deal with problems all their lives, so deal with them and stop whining. This was different; this was so uncomfortable and humiliating that she wanted to punch him and be done with it. Punching him would get her kicked off the team, right?
Since this whole deal had started, over five months ago, she’d often comforted herself with the idea of quitting, knowing the whole time that she’d rather eat maggots than quit because her streak of stubbornness was so ingrained from years of keeping up with her brothers that she didn’t know how to quit. But she could have if she’d wanted to, and having that as an out had been nice because she liked having options.
Now she had no option. None. She couldn’t quit under any circumstances, because that would mean Levi had won and she’d rather break every bone in her body than give him the satisfaction. No way would she let him think she couldn’t take the stress of being near him and not being able to have him—hah! If she’d been chasing after him and embarrassing herself, she could understand why he’d felt the need to say what he did, but she hadn’t. She’d kept to herself, never let herself even think of flirting with him. He could have maintained the status quo; he didn’t have to rub her nose in her hormonal insanity. She hadn’t acted on it, wouldn’t have acted on it.
Her only path now was to stay the course, to try not merely because she couldn’t bear to quit, but because she wanted to become a real member of the team. Her focus had to be on something more than just getting through the next day, something bigger, something more important.
As of right now, she swore savagely, Levi was nothing to her other than a team member. He could take his damn overflowing testosterone and entice some other woman, and she hoped he developed erectile dysfunction. Maybe he could be in one of those television commercials, sitting in one of those stupid side-by-side bathtubs in the middle of the woods.
The ridiculousness of that thought so entertained her that she chuckled out loud in the darkness. Ah, hell; she wasn’t sleeping, at least not until she calmed down some, so she might as well get up and do what she could to get ready for the taco bar tomorrow. She checked the time, saw it was almost one-thirty a.m., and changed that “tomorrow” to “today!” What on earth had possessed her to invite everyone to her little condo?
