She’d done it. One more time they’d failed to break her. A stone-faced instructor looked at a stopwatch and recorded her time on a clipboard without comment. She caught Lambert looking over Clipboard Guy’s shoulder. Both men pulled disgusted faces, then Lambert peeled off to head for the instructor’s building.
Screw them. She’d given it everything she had. Just because her triumph was their failure didn’t make it any less of a triumph for her. She bent over, planting her hands on her thighs, sucking in great, awful lungfuls of parched, scorching air.
“Wilkes!”
She looked up sharply at her barked last name.
“My office. Now.”
Crap. That was Major Torsten summoning her. No one knew exactly what he did around here, but even the instructors treated him with deep respect. Frankly, he scared her to death.
In an act of bald-faced defiance, she forced her protesting legs to run to the door of the Quonset hut Torsten loomed in. One corner of his mouth quirked up for just an instant before settling back into its usual tight, disapproving line.
Torsten disappeared inside the building as she trotted up the steps after him.
“Sit.” He pointed at a wooden chair in front of the desk he’d moved behind.
She slipped off her pack and sank into the chair not a moment too soon. Her legs felt entirely boneless. They would have collapsed on their own in a few more seconds. In fact, her entire body felt like a marionette’s with the strings cut. She was going to hurt like a big dog in a few hours. Cool air-conditioning wafted down on her, as blissful as angel’s breath.
“Enjoy the run?” Torsten asked drily.
As if she would give him the satisfaction of showing even a hint of weakness. Not a chance. She shrugged. “Nice scenery. And I’ve done worse.” Which was a total lie.
He opened a cabinet behind his desk and tossed her a bottle of water. She snagged it neatly midair and downed it greedily. Meanwhile, he opened a brown manila folder on his desk and lifted out papers one by one, glancing through them at his leisure. She just enjoyed being still and letting her body temperature return to something resembling normal.
At length, he closed the file and stared at her long and hard enough that she had to consciously tell herself not to squirm. She’d gotten used to the mind games they played around here and had learned not to break awkward silences unless she had something specific to say.
“You’re out,” Torsten announced without warning.
Out? As in out of training? Her mind went completely blank. A single word took shape and popped out of her mouth. “Why?”
“You are underperforming. Your run and swim times aren’t coming down fast enough and your physical fitness test scores are not coming up fast enough for you to stand a chance in the remainder of this course. You’re out.”
Shock slammed into her, wiping her mind clean.
Ten years. Ten grueling, miserable, painful years she’d been training in hopes of one day having a shot at the Special Forces—practically around the clock. God, the things she’d sacrificed for this. A normal social life. The relationships she’d let pass her by. The friendships lost. Jobs turned down. She’d geared her entire life around this.
It simply couldn’t be over.
Besides. She already met all the minimum required scores to pass this training! And just like that, she was out?
“Are Jones and Peterson out, too?” she blurted. They were men in her class. Men whom she consistently outperformed and outscored.
“I’m not discussing any other trainees with you, Wilkes.”
She looked up at him, then. Stared into ice-blue eyes that did not for a second flinch in the face of her silent outrage. Arguing with him would be useless. Both trainees and instructors called him the Iceberg behind his back because the bastard never thawed and never budged.
The Special Forces did not want her. They had tested her and found her wanting. And they were not going to debate the decision with her. Just, “You’re out.” Done. Pack your stuff and leave.
Anger exploded abruptly in her gut, knocking the air out of her lungs, and leaving her panting with fury. This sanctimonious bastard dared to hide his misogyny behind her performance numbers? Why not just call it what it was? These male chauvinist pigs just didn’t want to let a girl into their little boys’ club!
She pressed words past her clenched teeth. “I get why you are resisting allowing women into your hallowed band of brothers. But it’s a mistake. Not many women have what it takes, but a few of us do.”
He leaned back in his leather executive chair and merely continued to stare at her, his entire demeanor cold and emotionless.
She warmed to her subject and ignored his body language shouting at her to shut the heck up. “We have talents and skills that would be an asset to the teams. You guys are weaker because of our exclusion. Other countries are already figuring that out, and you’ll end up scrambling to play catch-up. But by the time you catch on, the women you need will be so pissed off we’ll have moved on to other jobs. Other lives. You’ll be poison to the very women you need.”
“Are you done?” he snapped.
She crossed her arms defensively over her chest and pressed her lips tightly together, the rest of the rant she so badly wanted to throw at him barely contained. Silently, she flung the worst names at him she could think of.
Out of good names, she reverted to her Venezuelan mother’s native tongue for more.
He said more mildly, “You’ve got orders.”
“To where?” she demanded. God, that was fast. He’d already gotten her assigned to some other base? The man didn’t mess around when he tossed someone out of his unit.
“Phoenix.”
What on earth did the Army have for her to do in Phoenix, Arizona? The only military base nearby was Luke Air Force Base in Glendale. She wasn’t being cross-posted to the Air Force, was she?
“Lambo!” Torsten called.
Lambert of the gorgeous jaw poked his head in the door, hat and sunglasses gone for the first time, and she did a no-kidding, wrench-her-neck double take. She’d seen some beautiful men in her life, but behind the disguise, this one was in a class all his own. The guy was a walking recruitment poster. The motto on it would be, “Join the Army and become a living god.”
His American flag–blue gaze took her in coolly. Thoroughly. And everywhere his scrutiny touched her, she abruptly felt naked. On fire.
He looked away from her like she was about as interesting as a cockroach. She sagged in her chair and let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Sir?” the god asked in a smooth, confident voice.
Oh, man. Her ovaries just melted.
Lambert stepped fully into the doorway and liquid heat pooled in her groin. The guy was hotness personified. Raw sex appeal rolled off him in waves that made her feel as if she was drowning in lust. Cripes. There should be nothing the least bit attractive about this guy. She wanted to be a Spec Ops warrior, not do a Spec Ops warrior.
“You have your orders, Beau. Direct orders.”
Lambert scowled fiercely at Torsten, and she looked back and forth between them. What was she missing? Why the emphasis on the words direct orders?
Torsten continued, “Escort Wilkes to the airfield. Put her on a plane and get her off my base. You know what her orders are.