“Master Sergeant, do you have something to say?”

Leah Saunders gritted her teeth together. Yes, she did. But it wasn’t her place.

If the spec ops guys wanted to sit a helicopter on the pad beside the range—her range—for the entire damn day, that was their damn prerogative, and she knew it.

She didn’t like it, though. Not one bit.

So she squared her shoulders and stood even straighter as she nodded to her commanding officer. “No, sir.”

“Good. See that you continue to bite your tongue. What’s our revised training plan?”

The honest answer was that a good number of troops would miss out on all the variations they wanted to get through for the day’s planned range. Leah had learned long ago, however, that the honest answer was rarely the one the CO was looking for. She handed over a new printout she’d made after consulting the range safety officer. “The RSO has signed off on this. It gets everyone through if we extend the evening shoot.”

“Make it so.”

She managed not to roll her eyes at the CO’s slip-up. He always channeled his inner Captain Picard when he was proud of himself. God help her if he ever discovered she knew a bit of Klingon.

It wasn’t that she was a die-hard Trekkie. More of a casual fan, really. But there were occasions when knowing Klingon lent a note of authenticity to role-playing scenes—and she had some friends who got off on it.

Good friends.

Dirty friends.

Secret friends, because she didn’t want anyone in the army to ever find out what she did in her free time.

None of their business.

She headed back to her office and spent the next four hours on the phone. When she finally got the heads up that the super secret joint task force training had ended and the range she’d arranged weeks earlier could finally proceed, she said a small, silent prayer of thanks. The day would be salvaged after all.

So when two of her fellow NCOICs stopped by on their way out, she took them up on the invitation to join them at a bar & grill just off base.

That’s how she ended up two beers on the wrong side of being grumpy and stuck behind a group of Navy SEALs blocking the bar. If she hadn’t seen a couple of them earlier in the day on base, she wouldn’t have known they were SEALs…necessarily. But come on—they had bad-ass written all over their super-fit, super-confident bodies.

At least she’d changed into an anonymous outfit of jeans and a t-shirt. And unlike the tall, tan, human superheroes in front of her, nothing about her looks broadcasted her career choice. She did a pretty good job of looking like a generic chick in a bar. She could shoot daggers at them all she wanted. Or ogle them. Maybe both at the same time, and all under the pretense of being just a girl.

Leah was never just a girl, though. Not even when she was in civvies. Not when she was half a mile off-base and surrounded by people who knew her as a senior NCO first.

“Excuse me,” she said for the third time.

None of them noticed her.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped around them and leaned against the corner of the bar, pushing herself up on her hands so the bartender could see her over the beer taps. “Could I have a bottle of water?”

One of the SEALs gave her a dirty look. Another, a big blond guy, smacked him in the chest and gestured for her to step in front of him. “You’ll have more luck over here.”

“I tried,” she muttered under her breath.

He gave her an amused look. “My apologies.”

It wasn’t for him to be sorry for, at least not individually. She gave him a grateful smile and scooted to the middle of the bar. “Thanks.”

“You a local?”

She nodded.

“Busy place.”

“Busier than usual.” She flashed another quick smile. She didn’t want to be unfriendly—and if things were different, in another time or place, she might want to be very friendly, in fact, because military guys that looked like Chris Hemsworth and flirted like Matthew McConaughey were totally her guilty pleasure. Not one she indulged in anywhere near where she worked, though. Not ever. And right now she just wanted her water, and then she was heading home.

“We’re just in town for the night.” His voice dropped to a dirty, delicious low note, and heat zinged through her belly.

Nope. She ignored what she totally knew he was offering and gave him an innocent sideways glance. “Just heading through?”

“Something like that.”

“Too bad.” What was she doing? No flirting, Leah. Bad move.

“We could make the most of tonight.”

Zing, zing, zing. She swallowed hard and played the one card she knew would shut this down. “I’ve gotta be up at four tomorrow for a duty shift.”

“Ah.” His lips curled into a regretful grin. “Army?”

She nodded.

“Too bad.”

Story of her life. But no way was this SEAL going to risk an entanglement with someone else in uniform. And that was for the best. She had the same rule herself. “Nice meeting you, anyway.”

He held out his hand. “Quinn.”

She took it. “Leah.”

“Enjoy the rest of your night.”

She let her eyes linger on his face just long enough to tell him that she’d be thinking about him for sure. “I will.”

* * *

The next morning she peeled herself out of bed while it was still dark, twisted her hair into a tight bun, and ate a quick bowl of cereal before putting on her uniform. She lived off base, a fifteen-minute drive away, and wouldn’t have it any other way. She needed the short commute to separate her personal and professional lives, especially on the drive home.

In the morning, she used that time to catch up on the news and drink a coffee, so by the time she arrived at the office she was awake and ready to put out fires.

Duty shifts were an anachronistic practice in the age of immediate cell phone communication, but there were still things that came up. She went to her own office first to check her email, then relieved the NCO coming off duty and took report.

“The secret squirrels are still around, too,” the other sergeant warned her as he handed over a clipboard with the day’s ranges listed on it.

Her head shot up. “I thought they were done yesterday.”

He shrugged. They wouldn’t be told exactly what was happening.

She glanced down at the schedule. Sure enough, the most remote range was blacked out. Huh. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”

“We weren’t using it anyway. Maybe that’s why they decided to stick around?”

“Maybe.”

Why were they doing training on her base anyway? It happened from time to time—usually because they were doing joint training exercises with the Canadian special forces teams, and her base was close to the border.

But still, it wasn’t common. The last time she’d heard whispers about SEALs being on base she’d just arrived. Almost four years ago now. Well, it wouldn’t be her problem the next time they showed up unannounced, either. She was due to have her career progression meeting in another month, and then it would be time to move again.

She scanned the range list once more, then set the clipboard aside. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Nope. Should be a quiet shift.”

“Good. Thanks. Have a good sleep.”

She touched base next with the duty officer, who unlike her wasn’t expected to be in HQ unless there was a problem—because he was only a phone call away, and in theory, so would she be, but that wasn’t how their base commander liked things to go, so she got to ride a desk all day.

Not a problem. She logged into the network from the duty desk and checked her email again. Since she knew she’d be around for the next twenty-four hours and had tons of time to fill, she didn’t feel bad at all when she then flipped over to a browser window and went to check on flights for her trip.

She’d won a week’s stay at a high-end resort on the Caribbean island of Miralinda at a kink conference she went to in Seattle the month before. It wasn’t the usual all-inclusive type of holiday she preferred to take, but even paying for the flights separately, she was going to come out ahead.

Seattle had been a great weekend. She hadn’t hooked up with anyone, but she’d had two great scenes—just kink, no sex—and a couple of evenings that rolled effortlessly from dinner to drinks to late-night laughs back in someone’s hotel room.

Her knee bumped against the inside corner of the duty desk, where the metal was curled under, but not enough, so it ended up stabbing her every time she used this space.

Karma reminding her that her two worlds didn’t get to blend. She had two tribes, and she loved them both, but they needed to stay separate.

Before she could dwell on that further, the duty phone rang.

“This is Master Sergeant Saunders,” she answered crisply.

“Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

She sat up a little straighter. It was one of her section 2ICs, an instructor on the same course whose range had run late the night before. They’d headed deeper into the field after the range, and were doing attack training all day. “Everything okay?”

“Our breakfast hasn’t arrived.”

She glanced at the clock. Thirty minutes late. Yeah, that was a problem. “Did you call the kitchen?”

“They said they sent it out an hour ago, and we sent it back.”

Which is why he was calling her, and not just dealing with it himself. She sighed and stood up. “On it. You have enough essentials?”

“We’ve got rations we can bust open to service a basic first meal for everyone, but it’s not enough calories to begin training on.”

She was already in her truck. “I’ll figure out what the problem is and get the food out to you.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Don’t thank me yet, she thought to herself. Their field exercises were happening on the far side of the blacked out range. She had a really good idea of who turned around her troops’ breakfast delivery—and she wasn’t sure she had the authority to override whatever muscle-bound numpty was standing guard out where the joint task force group was doing their super-secret training.