CHAPTER

11

Marianne struggled to remember the last time her stomach had hurt so much. Not from eating too much ice cream, or from cramps, but from holding in the laughter too long. Oh, God, they were hilarious, bless their sad, inflexible little souls.

They were all struggling through a downward dog—at least two of the Marine infants had snickered at the name—and now most were moaning at the fact that they couldn’t do the poses even halfway. Marianne, who had never been fantastic at yoga and only did the poses for the relaxation benefits, was suddenly feeling a thousand times more flexible by comparison.

“Don’t overdo it,” Kara warned from her mat in the front. She stood and walked around, repositioning men’s hands or nudging their feet apart for a better stance.

A voice called out, “Ma’am, am I doing this right?”

Marianne stood up at that, having recognized the voice. Tressler, in the back, was chuckling like a clown as Kara walked behind him and asked what felt off.

“My hips, I think.” He wiggled his ass in the air, which happened to line up with Kara’s stomach. “Is this right?”

Marianne walked over and quietly took Kara’s hand, motioning for her to be quiet. Then she waved Coach Ace over. The man was a ghost, moving without sound. He shot her an amused grin and gripped Tressler’s hips.

“Is this right?” Face still pointing down, Tressler moved his ass up and down.

“I don’t know, is it?” Coach Ace asked, and Tressler’s arms buckled. He face-planted into the mat and rolled to find the coach standing over him. His face flushed the color of a blood stripe and he stuttered.

Lowering himself to his haunches, Coach Ace said quietly, “Let’s let the ladies do their jobs, shall we?”

“Yes, sir¸” Tressler replied automatically, then scrambled back into position.

“You can keep going,” he said, and Kara nodded regally, wandering back toward the front of the group.

“Walk your hands in,” she said in a calm, soothing voice that matched the babbling brook CD she’d brought to put in the gym’s CD player. “Slowly, slowly . . . If you need to widen your feet more to make it easier, do so. No strain necessary. Just by trying you’re getting the health benefits.”

Marianne wandered back toward her own mat, passing by Brad’s location as she did. She found him already standing, having rolled up as one of the first. “Nice form.”

“I catch on.” He shrugged one shoulder, but his neck flushed in an adorable show of embarrassment.

“Admit it—you’ve taken some yoga classes.”

“Hell no,” he said quickly. “But you know, the instructors are pretty cute when you find one of those classes on TV.”

“Uh-huh.” She fought against a smile and shook her head, returning to her mat. She was pleased with the way the morning yoga session had started. Though there’d been some confusion, and more than a few grumbles, Coach Ace had shot them down quickly. From there, the men had joined in without complaint. And although there’d been moments of hilarity—like when Bailey had fallen like a log during the tree pose—they’d adapted quickly to the program.

“And let’s move into one you should all identify with,” Kara said, coming back to her mat up front. “Warrior pose.”

“Oo-rah!” one of the Marines said, and they all chuckled.

“Oo-rah, indeed. Follow me, men.” Striking the pose, she demonstrated. The men followed suit, a little more clumsy in their motions, but not bad. Marianne hit her own warrior pose, and closed her eyes for a nice, deep breath.

When she heard the curse, her eyes popped open again. Toward the back, Brad was sitting down, massaging his right thigh and looking like he wanted to murder someone. She did her best to not be obvious—no helicopter mom jokes for her—and wandered back there. Along the way, she corrected another Marine’s form, just to show she wasn’t rushing. When she reached Brad’s mat, she put her hands on her hips.

“She said Warrior Pose, not Air Force pose.”

The joke, which was meant to lighten the mood, did nothing but make him scowl. “I’m fine.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” She squatted down and watched his hands rub over his thigh. “What’s up?”

“Just a cramp,” he said through his teeth. “Didn’t stretch enough before we started.”

“This is stretching,” she reminded him, but knew herself anyone could push too far, too fast, even in something as relaxed as yoga. “Let’s go put some heat on that.”

He jerked his arm from her grip. “I’m fine.”

“Everything okay here?” Coach Cartwright walked up to stand beside her, taking in Brad on the mat. Around them, Marines shifted to the next position. A few glanced their way. And she watched as a flush crept up Brad’s neck.

“Everything’s fine. Just had a cramp. Probably need some water and to walk it off.” Brad’s hands continued their steady pressure over his thigh. “No big deal.”

Cartwright seemed to take that at face value. “Walk it off, Marine. They’re about to wrap up, and then we move on into practice.”

Brad waited until the coach was gone, then shot eye-daggers at her. “You can go.”

Hurt at his tone, she backed away, hands held up in surrender. “Fine. Do what you need to do.” Then she walked back to her own mat.

As they did the final stretch, she blinked hard enough to keep the tears from falling to her mat.

*   *   *

HE was an asshole. Worse than an asshole. A douche bag.

Was there something worse than a douche bag? If so, he was that.

He’d sat there, on the yoga mat, feeling helpless and inept that his knee had completely given out and dropped him like a stone, and she’d done nothing but offer assistance. And for that, he’d snapped.

His pride, and maybe a little fear, had been the leading cause. But after he’d had another ten minutes to cool down, his mind couldn’t stop replaying the image of her face as she’d morphed from concern to surprise and to, ultimately, hurt.

He’d done that. To a woman he cared about a great deal. He’d hurt her because he got a boo-boo and wasn’t prepared to accept it.

He was an asshole-slash–douche bag.

At the end of the practice, three hours after yoga time had ended, he approached her training room with trepidation. When he walked into the door, he saw several Marines inside icing various body parts. They draped over the three tables, sat in chairs, and leaned against the wall. One even lay sprawled on the floor over a few towels.

They’d all given up the tough-guy act, he decided with a smirk. Too late now. Walking to Armstrong, he nudged the man with his toe. “What’s up with you?”

“Sore wrist.” He held up the arm with the ice bag flopped over it. “Wonky punch to the bag. I’ll be okay.”

“Better be,” Brad warned. “I’m not about to be the first guy to lose one of his group members.”

“You won’t be,” Coach Willis said as he walked in with a clipboard. “Just had to let Ciaston go.”

“Injury?” Brad wondered. The guy had been a solid boxer. Not at the top, but not clinging to the bottom rung, either.

“Attitude,” he answered shortly, then walked to Marianne, who was massaging another Marine’s thigh. She glanced over the list Coach Willis held out under her nose, not stopping in her ministrations, nodding and commenting back with him.

Brad’s jaw clenched as he watched her hands move effortlessly, competently over the Marine’s thigh. He knew exactly what those hands felt like running over his own body, and his jealousy kicked up a notch when he watched them move higher until they were working, thumbs digging, into the area between the other man’s thigh and groin area.

It didn’t help that, even as the Marine flinched—in discomfort, Brad assumed—she glanced down at him with a smile and a warm word or two to ease the other man’s mind.

She looked up then, and just noticed his presence. Her warm gaze frosted over, and she looked back down again. “Nikki, we’ve got a customer who needs some ice.”

“On it!” Hustling over, the female intern who had spent more time ogling the team as they worked out than doing anything Brad could see as effective, hustled toward him. Her polo, he noticed, was considerably tighter across the breasts than Marianne’s was, and her own khakis were short shorts that probably shared a hint of ass cheek when she bent over.

Brad wasn’t interested in finding out.

“Ice for you, right?” She put her hands on her hips in front of him. “What ails ya? Hand, shoulder, knee, ankle?”

“Leg,” he said, then added, “I’ll just take it to go.”

“Nope. Sit down,” she said, pushing at his chest until he took a step back and fell into a chair that looked like was one of the desk chairs, not meant for sweaty athletes. They’d run out of space on the cheap plastic ones. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move a muscle, cutie.”

“Cutie,” he muttered.

“She’s hot, isn’t she?” Armstrong grinned.

“She’s twelve,” Brad responded. Though her actual age was probably closer to twenty, she couldn’t have been farther from the type Brad would have considered “hot.”

“Aw, you’re just old,” Armstrong said with a moan.

“She’s here to work.” The other intern, a quiet guy roughly the same age as the girl, let the bag drop on Brad’s lap. His scowl told Brad the kid had been listening, and took exception to them discussing the potential hotness of his fellow training intern. “Don’t be jerks to her.”

“Who’s being a jerk?” Brad asked with a shrug, then settled the ice against his knee. “Long as she does her job, I’ve got no problems.”

The intern made it clear he was adding Armstrong to his shit list by scowling his way, then walked off.

“Making friends wherever you go,” Higgs said from the doorway.

Brad flipped him off.

“How long you gonna be?” Higgs checked his watch. “I was going to go to Sweeney’s for some grilling action.”

“So go. I can get home.”

Higgs hesitated, then shrugged and took off.

Armstrong asked quietly, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped, then sighed. The wounded pride strikes again. “Sorry, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“It’s catching up to a lot of us,” Armstrong agreed. In a hushed voice, he added, “I think our group is the best, though.”

“Everyone thinks their group is the best. What matters is who’s standing here when the team roster is compiled.” Brad didn’t want this kid to mistake his intentions. “We’re here to get a spot. If that means you have to beat out one of our group to do it, you don’t hesitate.”

Armstrong looked uncertain, but then the young female walked by and tapped his shoulder. “Your time’s up, cutie. Off you go!”

Handing her the wet bag, Armstrong waved to Brad and headed through the door.

He could lead without being best buddies with the guys, couldn’t he? Hell yeah. It wasn’t that hard.

The real problem lay in how to handle Marianne and his injury. Or just handle Marianne, period. The problem was, he liked her. Liked her a hell of a lot.

If he told her about the injury now, she’d insist on examining him further, and he had no doubt that would end badly. He’d be removed from the roster and head back home. He’d be pissed, and it would effectively kill any chance they had of more.

If he kept it from her, she might eventually find out and be even more pissed off than if he’d told her.

Or, option three, he mused as he watched her help the Marine with the pulled groin off the table. She never found out his knee hurt worse than he let on, he got it taken care of outside, away from base, and it was never an issue.

It involved deception on several fronts, but he couldn’t keep doing this every day to his knee. He knew deep down that something was going wrong with it. To wait and see a year from now would be stupid. But the idea of voluntarily walking away from his first—and most likely his only—shot at the boxing team . . . that hurt deeper than any grinding knee pain.

He kept his eyes on her as she moved around the training room, from Marine to Marine, like a bee moving from flower to flower. And hoped, when she caught his eyes again, she would read the apology in them.

*   *   *

THE wounded bear stalks back into the cave to lick his sore paw.

Marianne made a note on her clipboard about the pulled groin she’d just worked on, but her eyes kept darting over the top of the board to watch Brad. He tested the knee, bending it and making it move with slow, measured motions. She focused on his face and saw the lines of tension there.

Much as her pride hated how he’d spoken to her, she understood. By the time they’d wrapped up the yoga session, she’d already moved past hurt and pissed to annoyed and resigned. She understood pride—probably had a bit too much of it herself—and knew what it did to a strong man when he couldn’t control what his body was doing with force of will alone. Understood that weakness was not only frowned upon, but not acceptable, and that he must have been raging at himself when she’d walked up.

He could have handled it better, no doubt. But she could have given him the chance to recover more privately. They’d both made a mistake there.

Slowly, Marines filtered through the icing cycles. She’d started making them stay, rather than taking their ice bags and dashing off like thieves in the night. Though there had been some grumbling, they’d done it. Partly, she did it so she could assess injuries.

But the other part of her just loved a full training room. Not due to injuries, of course, but the company. Being around guys who laughed a little too loudly, joked a little too crudely, cursed a little too much . . . was heaven to her. She fit in, and she adored them. It was like being inside the family fold, with two dozen big brothers. Even working in a high school, she’d bonded with what she’d then thought of as her little brothers and sisters. She could put the smack down when she had to, but she liked just hearing about their days and their lives in and outside of the gym and keeping tabs on them.

Levi had scoffed at the new rule, and she was no idiot. The reason why was flitting around the room like a stripper in a room full of men with dollars. Nikki adored the attention anyone paid her, even if it was completely platonic or professional.

And Marianne had to admit, it seemed like all the Marines—even the ones that were right at her age—treated Nikki just as politely as they did her. Maybe more so. As if they knew giving her a side hug wouldn’t be misunderstood, but had subconsciously realized early on not to give Nikki the same opening.

Smart men. Using those survival instincts outside the ropes, too.

Nikki tapped Brad’s shoulder to indicate his twenty were up, and he stood stiffly to bend his knee. With great care, he made his way to the industrial sink to dump his ice bag out and toss the plastic away. When Marianne expected him to leave without a word, he surprised her by walking to her and sitting on the empty table.

Only a few Marines remained, and Nikki and Levi were handling them. She decided she could break for a minute. She finished her note, then put the clipboard down. “How’s the knee?”

“Still attached.”

She watched him for a moment, then opened her mouth to apologize.

“I’m sorry.”

Her mouth snapped shut again in surprise. “Did you just apologize? Without prompting?”

One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Maybe I’m an evolved version of the male species.”

“No such thing,” she contradicted quickly. When another Marine got up and left, she made a note on the clipboard by her side. “I’m sorry, too. Let’s forget it and move on.”

“Sold.” He used the toe of his shoe to nudge her calf gently. “I need a favor.”

“Hmm?” Watching Nikki and the remaining Marine from the corner of her eye, she looked back to him. “What’s that?” Then her mind clicked back into working order. Finally! Here was the opening she’d been hoping for. He was going to ask about his knee.

With the soulful eyes of a lost puppy, he said, “I’ve been abandoned. Can I have a ride back to the BOQ?”

“Oh.” Not what she’d expected.

“You need a ride?” Toby Chalfant, the redheaded cutie with a face full of freckles and smiles, walked up. “I’ll take you back, sir.”

“It’s Brad or Costa, not sir,” he growled. “And I was just—”

“No, that’s great.” She cut him off before he could get going. “Chalfant, did you need something?”

“Aspirin,” he said with a grim smile, and held up his hand. His pinky was a little swollen, though nothing bad. She grasped it and prodded tenderly. He’d live.

“Don’t you have any at your place?”

“Ran out, can’t make it back to the commissary tonight before it closes.”

“Fine. Here.” She bent over to dig in one of the storage drawers and heard Brad’s quiet huff of breath. She could only imagine he was wordlessly commenting on her ass sticking up in the air, but she didn’t care. She snapped the drawer shut again and held out some sample packets of aspirin. “Should get you through until tomorrow. But I’m not a pharmacy.”

“Yes, ma’am. Cook,” he corrected, sensing the warning in her own eyes. “I’ll be outside the door when you’re ready, sir . . . Costa,” he said, flushing with embarrassment at the second mistake in as many minutes, then he fled the scene.

“Kid’s jumpier than a flea,” Brad said gruffly. “And nosy. I’ll get rid of him.”

“No, you will not,” she said firmly, taking the papers Levi passed her. He was wearing his backpack, which meant he was ready to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Levi.”

“Sure thing.” With one last longing glance at Nikki, he left.

“That one’s barking up the wrong tree there.”

“No shit,” she said simply, then grinned at Brad’s widening eyes. “I don’t use the language often . . . but when I do, it’s more impactful.”

“I’ll say. Maybe I could hear some of that language tonight.” He watched as the last Marine left, with Nikki following him out to gather the leftover cups from the watering stations. “Ask me over.”

“No.” No longer having to keep her voice down, she stepped away from the table and busied herself with filing the clipboard papers for the day. “Not the best idea.”

“Best idea I’ve had in weeks. Months. Probably years.”

“Then your ideas tend to suck.”

He scoffed at that, then stepped down. Closing in on her, he pressed until his front was against her back and the tops of her thighs were pressed into the edge of her desk. “Marianne Cook, don’t be a coward.”

“Coward,” she sputtered, then sucked in a breath when he squeezed her hip with his big hand. “I’m not a coward.”

“You’re avoiding the conversation we’re going to have, admit it.”

“I admit nothing.” It was too close to the truth for comfort.

“A coward and a rebel.” She felt him shake his head, moving her ponytail slightly. “I’m a doomed man.”

He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and stepped away just seconds before Nikki came back in, lugging two sleeves of unused cups.

“These guys are camels,” she complained. “Can’t they all come to the one water jug down here? Why do we have to have jugs upstairs too?”

“Because I said so,” Marianne said simply as she watched Brad walk out.

Nikki eyed her speculatively. Marianne crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed at her hands. “Is it colder in here?”

“It’s because all the hot beefcakes left. They heated the room right up.” With a grin, she set the cups down and reached under the cabinet for her purse. “See you tomorrow!”

“Yeah,” she said, still watching Brad’s retreating back. “See ya.”