Chapter Two
“What the− “Brody did a double-take then just stood and watched. He’d gotten up an hour earlier today, so he’d have time to go through the obstacle course before the day’s training began.
He’d built up several months of leave, so when Deacon asked him to come to the Clear Springs Ground Training Center in Cray County, Texas to help with the new batch of recruits, he jumped at the chance. It wasn’t until he saw the obstacle course yesterday that he decided he might better give it a go before the trainees showed up. Brody hated to make himself or Deacon look bad, and it’d been a while since he’d tackled one of these courses.
Now, he was surprised and quite impressed as he stood there in the minutes before dawn, watching a woman tear through the course like it was child’s play. Who the hell was this gal?
There was one way to find out. She was nearing the end of the course when he took off at a run. He was fifty feet away when she suddenly looked in his direction. To his shock, they both stopped dead in their tracks. Their gazes locked and for the next few seconds they were frozen in time.
She broke the connection and took off at an all-out run. Brody gave chase but couldn’t catch up with her. She somehow slipped through the fence and headed across open land. He thought about continuing the chase but decided on another course of action to figure out who she was. Namely, ask and see if anyone knew her.
As he headed back to the start of the obstacle course, he thought about the woman, about her appearance and the look in her eyes. What was it he’d seen there and why was he suddenly so gung-ho to find out more about her?
That question occupied him as he took on the course, and perhaps it was the distraction he needed to keep his head off the possibility of looking bad and allowed his body to do what it’d been trained for. When he finished, he grinned and headed back for the barracks.
He encountered Deacon on his way. “Early morning run?”
“Gotta keep in shape so these kids don’t kick my ass.” Deacon replied. “Come on, only two more miles to go.”
Brody fell into pace with Deacon and for a minute or two they ran in silence. Deacon looked over at him. “Within a week they’ll have the wall finished. You up to training the newbies on free-climbing?”
“Seriously? Where’s this wall and how big is it?”
“Two hundred feet and it’s essentially a man-made mountain with a sheer drop to the lake. We can run over there if you want.”
“Hell yeah.”
When they reached the wall, they slowed and walked. “This is insane.” Brody looked around. It was, in fact, a small mountain. “How the hell did you do this?”
“You’d be surprised what can be done with steel and concrete these days.”
“How deep is the water at the base?”
“Forty feet. They had to dig it out a lot and used the dirt and rock from the lake in building the mountain.”
Brody grinned. “It’s like a freaking playground.”
Deacon laughed. “Only to someone like you, son. Which reminds me. If you ever decide you’d like to rotate off active duty, you have a place here.”
“Thanks, sir. I appreciate it, but there’s no real reason for me to stay stateside. My folks moved up to Canada to be closer to my sisters who both live there with their kids and it’s not like I have a steady lady waiting for me here.”
“You never know when that will change.”
Brody laughed. “Yeah, no shit. I mean, no disrespect, but who woulda thought you’d settle down and get married.”
Deacon smiled in response. “No offense taken, and no one was more surprised than me.”
“She’s hot, you know.” Brody said. “And talented. She makes crazy good blades.”
“I agree. With all of it.”
“I’m happy for you, sir. And maybe one day I’ll have a reason to stay on home soil. But for now, this is just a vacation before I get back to it.”
“I hear you. Come on, let’s head back. Those recruits will be up by now.”
They ran along in silence for a good five minutes before Brody’s curiosity demanded satisfaction. “Have you ever seen a woman on the obstacle course?”
“You mean the mystery girl who kicks the hell out of the course before dawn almost every day?”
“Yeah, that’d be the one.”
“Mica said that according to Mathias, she comes in from the west, makes short work of the course then runs back the way she came. He’s encountered her once or twice but didn’t speak and neither did she.”
“So, no one knows who she is or where she came from?”
“Not really. But there are only so many places she could have come from. To the west are a few ranches and farms, maybe a dozen, an old sawmill and closer to town some neighborhoods that were built during the big oil boom around here a few years ago. But I’d guess that those are a bit too far—must be a good twenty miles to the first of them.”
“Which means she must come from one of the farms or ranches.”
“I guess.”
“And Mica doesn’t know anything about her?”
“Not that I know of. You could ask her. Or ask Mason’s wife, Savannah. She owns a spa in town, so she knows most of the women around here.”
“It’s not that important.” Brody replied.
“Seems like it was.”
Brody didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure why it did matter. Perhaps he’d understand if he could decipher that look in her eyes when their gazes locked. And he probably wouldn’t accomplish that unless he saw her again.
Which just might mean he’d be getting up earlier in the morning, as well.