She was the most stubborn little shit he’d ever seen, Levi thought dispassionately as he silently watched her almost fall out of his truck, then limp over to her car. He had to fight for the dispassion, which irritated him to hell and back. Everything about this situation irritated him to hell and back.

If it worked, Mac’s idea was a damn good one—if it worked. Taking raw amateurs and training them to the point where they wouldn’t be a liability was a tall order but not an impossible one. Taking a raw amateur woman who obviously didn’t want to be there and bringing her up to snuff verged on the damn near impossible, so of course Mac had given her to him.

He and the guys had talked it over last night, decided then that if they were going to be saddled with her, they needed to be the ones overseeing her training and the sooner the better, and he’d cleared it with Mac. Then they’d watched her for a while, before approaching, to get an idea of what they were dealing with. Some guy had shoved her, causing her to lose ground in the run, but she’d caught up with him and tripped him. “Good,” Boom had grunted. “Saves me from kicking his ass at the end of the day.”

Levi grunted in return. He wouldn’t have kicked the guy’s ass, but he was glad she’d taken up for herself. The team couldn’t function if they had to deal with a crybaby. But Boom was married and had a couple of kids, the youngest a three-year-old little girl. As the father of a daughter he’d since gone bat-shit crazy, swearing he was going to lock her in a convent when she was six, and he’d geld any dick swinger who got anywhere near her.

“We can’t protect her,” Levi said evenly. “She has to pull her own weight, or this won’t work.”

“I know, damn it, but—”

“No buts. No taking up for her. We have to see what she’s made of.”

And they had. What she was made of was bullheaded stubbornness, mixed with cussedness and a total inability to keep her mouth shut. She’d glared at them, cursed all their villages, called down the ten plagues of Egypt on them—and tried her damnedest to do everything they’d told her to do. She’d gone splat more times than he could count, eaten dirt, plowed headfirst into a mud puddle, blistered her hands and probably her feet, and not once had she asked for help.

Several times today he’d had to stop himself from catching her when he saw she was going to fall, even if “catching her” would have meant grabbing her by the ponytail. Instead he’d let her splat, hoping she’d say, “I quit,” but she never had. She’d muttered, she’d cussed both under and over her breath, she’d called them sadists and told them numerous times how much she hated them all, but each and every time she’d gotten to her feet and kept at it.

How in hell was she still moving? She wasn’t anywhere near being in shape. But she’d set her jaw in an obstinate look he and his guys had quickly become familiar with and kept on plugging. Jelly had made a comment about maybe trying his luck with her, and Levi had had to shut him down fast.

“You don’t fuck with teammates,” he’d said flatly. “That’s the best way I know of to mess up the team. She’s off-limits to all of us. If you’re thinking about her that way, shut it down now.”

Too damn bad he had to include himself in that order. But he, more than any of the others, had to stick to that rule. Doing anything else would tear the team apart and considering their lives all depended on teamwork, he’d do what he had to do.

All the single guys had looked disappointed, except for Voodoo, who hadn’t warmed to her at all, but he was such a surly bastard he didn’t like himself most of the time so he didn’t count.

Levi felt surly about the situation himself, above and beyond having an amateur inserted into their tight-knit group. All of the GO-Teams were tight-knit; they had to be, to get the job done and survive. It was too damn bad she appealed to him, not so much in how she looked—though she was pretty enough, not flashy except for maybe her eyes, which were really blue but with a yellow ring around the pupil. She had boobs and a butt, but not much of them. She had a lot of dark brown hair, shiny like a little kid’s until she got coated in dust. What appealed to him most was that attitude and mouthiness, when common sense should have told her to button her lip. She hadn’t, and he liked that.

Didn’t matter. She was off-limits. He’d cut her no more slack than he did the others, and if she couldn’t do the job . . . well, then, that changed the rules of the game.

He knew where she’d left her car because the bus always picked up the newbies at the same place. He gave a quick grin at how she’d fallen for that bullshit about putting a GPS on her car; sooner or later she’d find out he’d lied, and the team would get a kick out listening to her bitch at him. He had a thick skin; he could take it. In fact, he looked forward to it.

“Soak in a hot tub,” was Levi’s last bit of imparted wisdom just before he’d let her out beside her Corolla. “And drink a lot of water.”

Jina had muttered a reply that was a sound, not a real word. She knew how to deal with sore muscles. Her only doubt was whether or not she’d be able to climb into the tub—and whether or not she’d drown once she was in there because she was too exhausted to sit upright.

Her muscles had stiffened enough during the drive that she didn’t “get out” of the truck so much as she fell out and had to grab the door to keep from face-planting on the concrete parking lot. Without looking at him she closed the door—firmly, but not indulging herself by slamming it—and shuffled around to the driver’s side of the Corolla. Because she wasn’t stupid, she hadn’t taken a purse that day; her remote was on a sturdy chain around her neck, and the remote itself tucked snugly into her sports bra. She clumsily fished it out and unlocked the door, opened it.

Levi was already rolling, not waiting for her to get in the car and start it; she, on the other hand, waited until he was completely out of sight before she clumsily dropped into the seat and used both hands to pick her legs up and swing them inside. Oh, God, she ached. Even the bottoms of her feet hurt.

By the time she dragged herself upstairs to her condo, cursing under her breath at every hellacious step, she was almost certain she was going to die. Her arms hadn’t wanted to work enough to steer her Corolla, so she’d prayed her way through the D.C. traffic. The Corolla wasn’t a rocket or a tank like the men all seemed to prefer, but damn it, she’d bought it new last year and she was proud of it and didn’t want to wreck it. She’d taken such good care of it that it even still had that sumptuous new-car smell, though her sweat funk tonight might have killed it.

She headed straight to the bathroom, knowing she was so filthy she couldn’t sit down anywhere without ruining her furniture. All she wanted was to lie back in a tub of hot water, and as soon as she saw her reflection in the mirror she knew that wasn’t going to happen just yet. She was mostly monochromatic, caked from heat to foot in red dust that had mixed with sweat and formed mud, which had then dried. In horror she stared at her hair. Oh my God, my hair! She’d never get it clean. Pulling it back in a long ponytail hadn’t helped; it had merely caused her hair to be glued to her head with mud.

She turned on the shower and while the water was getting hot she painfully peeled off her filthy clothing. The worst was her socks, because the grit had worked its way through the fabric and rubbed her heels raw. Then the blisters had burst, sticking the fabric to her skin. Oh, crap, her feet were going to be sore tomorrow. Get on the bandwagon, she thought grimly; every inch of her body would likely be sore, hot tub and extra water notwithstanding.

She shampooed twice, the water sluicing muddy red down her body. The water burned her raw heels. It was the most unpleasant shower she’d ever taken, which really griped her because normally she loved her showers. When the water ran clean, she toed the stopper closed, turned off the shower, and let the tub begin filling.

She ran out of hot water before the tub was half full, courtesy of her extra-long, two-shampoo shower.

Swearing under her breath, she submerged as much of herself as possible in the too-shallow water. Maybe she’d manage a better soak before she went to bed . . . or maybe not.

Through sheer stubbornness, she made herself keep going, though she did pop a couple of ibuprofen to maybe help with the muscle soreness. She put antibiotic salve on her heels and covered them with extra-large Band-Aids. She drank a lot of water, more than she wanted. And she nuked a frozen dinner, ate it unenthusiastically, then chased it with a candy bar. There, that was better.

Just as she licked the last of the chocolate from her fingers, her phone rang, the special ring tone for her mother. “Hi, Mom, what’s up?”

“Just checking in,” her mother said lightly. Everything about her mother was light, from her slender build to her sunny hair to her voice. Jina’s sisters, Ashley and Caleigh, had the same light, musical tone to their voices. Jina, on the other hand, sounded like their father and had his dark hair instead of her mother’s blond. She was resigned to her fate now, but as a kid she’d been self-conscious and for a while tried not to talk much. That hadn’t worked out well, because she wasn’t great at keeping her mouth shut. “Anything new going on?”

That was mom-speak for asking if she was dating anyone significant. Jina made a face; it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had steady boyfriends over the years, or that there weren’t already a couple of grandkids to spoil rotten: Ashley, the oldest, had two; and Jordan, Jina’s second-oldest sibling, and his wife had one on the way. The only thing Jina could think was that her mom wanted her kids settled and producing in order of birth, which meant Jina was the next up.

There was something she needed to tell her mom, though, to head off future complications. “I got transferred at work,” she said. “More pay”—a lot more—“and there’ll be some travel involved.”

“Wow, that sounds great!” Mom sounded genuinely pleased. “More money and travel isn’t something I’d turn down. You’ll still be able to come home for holidays, though, won’t you?”

“At least some of the time. There’s no way to predict the travel schedule.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Computer stuff.” None of what she was saying was a lie; whenever anyone was hired, they were coached in how to tell the truth, which was much easier to remember, while making it sound innocuous. If any family member searched for info on the company name, they’d be reassured by the commonplace details they found, none of which included “dispatched on a moment’s notice to hot spots around the world, with a possibility of bullets and explosives.”

“Do you start right away?”

“No, there’s training involved.” Every aching muscle in her body attested to that. “I’ll be putting in twelve-hour days for a while.”

“I hope you get overtime.”

Nope, that wasn’t going to happen. She caught up with the rest of the family—Dad was actually talking about the two of them taking a cruise, which Jina heartily endorsed; Taz, her youngest brother who was in the army, was being transferred to Texas, while Caleigh, the baby, was both having a blast in college and had made the dean’s list. By the time her mother wound down, Jina was yawning and trying to prop up her heavy eyelids. “I gotta go, Mom,” she muttered. “I’m so sleepy I can barely stand up, and I have to get up at five in the morning.”

She had to get through commiseration at her early wake-up time, give a promise to call soon, and say “Love y’all” twice before she was cleared to end the call. She limped to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and started toward bed before she remembered her hair was still wet. Swearing under her breath, she returned to the bathroom and leaned against the counter with her eyes closed while she blasted hot air at her head. She didn’t care what it looked like tomorrow, because (a) it would be in a ponytail and (b) it would likely be caked in mud again by the end of the day anyway.

“Perfect end to a shitty day,” she said to the night as she collapsed onto her bed. Even worse—tomorrow looked to be just as bad.

She was right. After slapping the vicious alarm clock across the room because it wouldn’t shut up, trying twice to get out of bed the normal way—sitting up and swinging her legs over—which was too agonizing, she gave up and rolled out of bed onto her knees. The alarm clock was still bleating like an angry goat. Using the bed as support, she struggled to her feet and stiffly limped over to the clock; she eventually managed to bend over enough to pick it up, the effort accompanied by groans and curses.

She’d quit today. There was no way she could do this. MacNamara’s idea was idiotic, that he could take a bunch of computer-gaming couch potatoes and put them in the field. Why not just take some of the regular operatives and teach them how to operate the drone—oh, yeah, right, they were too valuable as operators to essentially take them off the mission. Well, that was his problem, because she was out, O-U-T, gone, adios.

And Levi, damn his devil eyes, would smirk as if he’d known from the beginning that she was a washout.

Damn it, she couldn’t quit. She’d never forgive herself if she let him smirk. If she tried and he smirked, that was on him, but if she gave up . . . no, she couldn’t stand that. She’d have to stick with it, somehow, until she either broke a bone or they threw her off the program.

She managed to get ready, eat, and drive herself to where they’d met the van the day before. If other arrangements had been made, she’d have been notified. Even though “her” team had cut her from the group yesterday, she was still part of it; nevertheless, when she parked she was glad to see some of the others already there, and best of all, they weren’t moving any more easily than she was. Everyone was limping around hollow-eyed, as if no amount of sleep had been able to offset the unaccustomed physical exertion of the day before.

Yeah, no argument there.

The guys greeted her, but otherwise were a bit standoffish; she was annoyed, but understood. By singling her out yesterday, her team had sent a signal that her treatment would be different from what the others received. The others didn’t know that meant she’d had a more difficult time than they had, they just thought of “different” as “special.” She could do with a little less specialness.

The van rattled up, belching smoke, and they all stiffly climbed inside. Jina settled into a seat by herself, not surprised that the guys seemed to avoiding her. Donnelly climbed in, glanced around, then sat down beside her.

A bit surprised, after what had happened yesterday, she looked at him with lifted brows.

He shifted uncomfortably, his sunburned cheeks turning a deeper shade of raw. “Uh—I’m sorry. About bumping you during the run.” Once he got those words out without choking, he took a deep breath and continued. “It was just, I don’t know, all of a sudden it felt like a race and—”

Enough said. Donnelly had always seemed nice enough, so she wasn’t going to hold that one slip against him. “Yeah, I know. I have brothers,” she explained. “One older and one younger. It’s okay. I got you back, so we’re even.”

He shifted, winced, leaned down to rub his left shin. “Yeah. Anyway, the big dogs pulled you out of the group. Special training?”

She snorted. “You might say that. After telling me they’d leave me behind if I couldn’t keep up, and that every other person on the team was way more valuable than I am, they tried to kill me and make it look like a training accident. None of them were thrilled at getting stuck with the only woman.”

Donnelly frowned at her. “Don’t they know you had high score?”

“High score on a computer game doesn’t mean much to them.”

“But that’s the whole point of us being here.”

That’s the way she saw it, but the “big dogs” saw it differently. “They’re all worried untrained, unmotivated amateurs might get them killed.”

“Hey, I’m motivated. I’m motivated to keep my job. Paychecks are nice things to have.” He shifted again, winced again. “But I have my doubts about living through this. My feet have blisters on their blisters.”

“We need boots,” she said, “to keep the grit out. That’s what the guys on the team were wearing. Baxter, too,” she added thoughtfully.

“I couldn’t get boots on my feet right now,” he said glumly. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? We should be freakin’ superheroes before this is finished.”

After bouncing around on broken shocks, watching the pavement through the hole in the floorboard, and getting a headache from breathing exhaust, they arrived back at the training ground. Baxter met the van, grinned as he watched them all limp and stumble out of the vehicle. “What’s the matter, everyone a little sore?”

Glowering silence met that gibe, and his grin grew until his eyes were wrinkled slits. “That’s what I thought. I’m gonna take it easy on you today, because you didn’t know you were going to get thrown into the shark pool, so to speak, and had no opportunity to get in better shape before training started.”

Jina looked around, searching for her personal tormentors. She didn’t recognize anyone, though again there seemed to be dozens of men moving around the area, heavily armed, blowing up stuff, kicking down doors. Baxter noticed her. “You’re back with us, Modell. Ace’s team got called out early this morning. He said to tell you to keep your ass in gear and be in better shape when they get back.”

“Peachy,” she muttered. “When are they due back—tonight?’

Baxter shrugged. “Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. You never know. Some situations blow up, nothing you can do.”

Jina blew out a breath, caught in a jumble of relief and annoyance. She’d geared herself up to deal with Levi—not just with him, but all the others, too. She had a lot of animosity and grievance stored inside her, looking for a target, and now she had to bank it down. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to die today. Thank you, God, she thought fervently. She’d take whatever reprieve she could get.

And she’d show him. She’d by God show him.