though Harvard saw Matt’s ringing out as a personal failure, the rest of us recognized it for the blessing it was. God knows it’s hard enough to get through BUD/S. But it’s damn near impossible to do it with a drowning man strapped to your back.”
She could see Harvard way up ahead on the trail, still in the lead. He’d taken off his T-shirt, and his powerful muscles gleamed with sweat. He moved like a dancer, each step graceful and sure. He made running look effortless.
As Joe Cat cranked their speed up another few notches, P.J. found that it was getting harder to talk and run at the same time.
The captain kept his mouth tightly shut as they raced past first Schneider and Greene, then Tim Farber, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t talk. Once out of the other agents’ earshot, he turned to grin at her.
“My grandmother could outrun those guys.”
“How far are we going today?” P.J. asked as they passed the five-mile mark. Her words came out in gasps.
“However far H. wants to take us.”
Harvard didn’t look as if he were planning on stopping anytime soon. In fact, as P.J. watched, he punched up the speed.
“You know, I used to be faster than H.,” Joe told her. “But then he went and shaved his head and cut down on all that wind resistance.”
P.J. had to laugh.
“So I asked Ronnie, what do you think, should I shave my head, too, and she tells me no way. I say, why not? She’s always talking about how sexy Harvard is—about how women can’t stay away from him, and I’m thinking maybe I should go for that Mr. Clean look, too. So she tells me she likes my hair long, in what she calls romance-cover-model style. But I can’t stop thinking about that wind resistance thing, until she breaks the news to me that if I shaved my head, I wouldn’t look sexy. I’d look like a giant white big toe.”
P.J. cracked up, trying to imagine him without any hair and coming up with an image very similar to what his wife had described.
Joe was grinning. “Needless to say, I’m keeping my razor securely locked in the medicine cabinet.”
Harvard heard the melodic burst of P.J.’s laughter and gritted his teeth.
It wasn’t that it sounded as if she were flirting with Joe Cat when she laughed that way. It wasn’t that he was jealous in any way of the special friendship she seemed to have formed with Alpha Squad’s captain. It wasn’t even so much that he was having one bitch of a bad day.
But then she laughed again, and the truth of the matter smacked him square in the face.
She did sound as if she were flirting with Joe Cat. Harvard was jealous not only of that, but of any kind of friendship she and the captain had formed, and he couldn’t remember ever having had a worse day in the past year, if not the past few years. Not since that new kid who transferred from SEAL Team One had panicked during a HALO training op. The cells of his chute hadn’t opened right, and he hadn’t fully cut free before pulling the emergency rip cord. That second chute had gotten tangled with the first and never opened. The kid fell to his death, and Harvard had had to help search for his remains. That had been one hell of a bad day.
He knew he should count his blessings. No one had died today. But thinking that way only made him feel worse. It made him feel guilty on top of feeling lousy.
He took a short cut to the base, knowing he could run forever today and it wouldn’t make him feel any better. He ran hard and fast, setting a pace he knew would leave the three male finks in the dust.
He had no doubt that P.J. would keep up. Whenever she ran, she got that same look in her eye he’d seen in many a determined SEAL candidate who made it through BUD/S to the bitter end. Like them, she would have to be dead and buried before she would quit. If then.
It was almost too bad she was a woman. As she’d pointed out to him, she was one of the best shooters in all of FInCOM. She was good, she was tough, but the fact was, she was a girl. Try as he might, he couldn’t accept that there was a place for females in combat situations. The sooner she got promoted up and out of the field, the better.
He ran faster, and as they reached the home stretch, Lucky was cursing him with every step. Bobby and Wes were complaining in stereo by the time Harvard slowed to a stop. Even Blue and Joe Cat were out of breath.
P.J. was trying not to look as if she were gasping for air, but she doubled over, head down, hands on her knees.
Harvard backtracked quickly, hoisting her into a more vertical position by the back of her T-shirt. “You know better than to stick your head down lower than your heart after running like that,” he said sharply.
“Sorry,” she gasped.
“Don’t apologize to me,” he said harshly. “I’m not the one whose reputation is going to suffer when you live up to everyone’s expectations by blacking out and keeling over like some fainthearted little miss.”
Her eyes sparked. “And I’m not the great, huge, stupid he-man who had to prove some kind of macho garbage by running the entire team as hard as he possibly could.”
“Believe me, baby, that wasn’t even half as hard as I can get.” He smiled tightly to make sure she caught the double entendre, then lowered his voice. “Just say the word, and I’ll give you a private demonstration.”
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened, and he knew he’d gone too far. “What’s up with you today?”
He started to turn away, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm, unmindful of the fact that his skin was slick with sweat. “Are you all right, Daryl?” she asked quietly. Beneath the flash of anger and impatience in her eyes, he could see her deep concern.
He could handle fighting with her. He wanted to fight with her. The soft warmth of her dark brown eyes only made him feel worse. Now he felt bad, topped with guilt for feeling bad, and he also felt like a certified fool for lashing out at her.
Harvard swore softly. “Sorry, Richards, I was way out of line. Just…go away, okay? I’m not fit to be around today.”
He looked up to find Joe Cat standing behind him. “I’m going to give everyone the rest of the morning free,” the captain told him quietly. “Let’s meet at the Quonset hut after lunch.”
Harvard knew Joe was giving them free time because of him. Joe knew Harvard needed a few hours to clear his head.
He shouldn’t have needed it—he was too experienced, too much of a professional to become a head case at this stage of his life. But before Harvard could argue, Joe Cat walked away.
“You want to take a walk?” P.J. asked Harvard.
He didn’t get a chance to answer before she tugged at his arm. “Let’s go,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the path they’d run along. She grabbed several bottles of water from her gym bag and handed one to him.
Damn, it was hot. Rivers of perspiration were running down his chest, down his legs, dripping from his chin, beading on his shoulders and arms. He opened the bottle and took a long drink. “What, you want to psychoanalyze me, Richards?”
“Nope. I’m just gonna listen,” she said. “That is, if you want to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Okay,” she said matter-of-factly. “Then we’ll just walk.”
They walked in silence for an entire mile, then two. But right around the three-mile marker, she took the boardwalk right-of-way that led to the beach. He followed in silence, watching as she sat in the sand and began pulling off her sneakers.
She looked at him. “Wanna go for a swim?”
“Yeah.” He sat next to her and took off his running shoes.
P.J. pulled off her T-shirt. She was wearing a gray running bra underneath.