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Marie came over to their table carrying an armload of plates and bowls.
“It’s been a while, Beau. Been, what? Fi’teen years since a Lambert come ’round these parts?”
“Something like that,” he answered noncommittally.
Fifteen years? Wow. That was a long time to hold a grudge against Jimbo and company.
“Well, ain’t y’all gone and got purty? Picture o’ yo’ daddy, you is. Good to have ya home, boy.”
“Good to be he’uh.” With every word he spoke, Tessa swore his Louisiana drawl got stronger. Why on earth would Torsten have sent the two of them to one of his men’s hometown in the middle of Cajun country? The longer she was here, the more the questions were stacking up.
Marie plunked down a platter of toasted garlic bread, a mess of green beans and ham hocks, and a big bowl of red beans and rice with sausage so spicy it made Tessa’s eyes water. When it came, a huge steak covered her entire plate and was tender enough to cut with a fork. She dug in with gusto.
It took a while for her to lay her napkin down and push her plate back. Another perk of her recent training: she could eat as much of anything she wanted and not gain an ounce. If anything, she’d lost a little weight even with putting on more muscle mass.
Someone fed the decrepit jukebox in the corner a handful of quarters, and twangy zydeco music abruptly filled the place. The talk got louder, the beer flowed more freely and women drifted into the bar and then out with men.
Under the din, Beau leaned forward. “Did Torsten tell you anything at all?”
“About what?”
Beau frowned.
She shrugged. “All he said to me was—and I quote—‘You’re out. You’ve got orders. Lambo, you have your orders. Get her off my base.’ End quote.”
He swore under his breath. “I’m gonna need a drink for this, then, and so are you.” He called for some moonshine and two glasses.
“I don’t like alcohol,” she announced as Marie thunked a mayonnaise jar of the local rotgut on the table along with two shot glasses.
“Tough. Drink up.” He poured two shots of the stuff.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “Hey, if you can’t roll like one of the boys, we don’t have to have this conversation at all.”
Scowling, she picked up the glass and tossed back the liquor, which burned like fire on the way down, shuddering at the powerful aftertaste. The alcohol went straight to her head, but at least it dulled the pain in her muscles while it was also dulling her brain function.
“Walk with me,” Beau murmured.
He sounded tense as heck. What on earth was going on with him? He’d actually been reasonably pleasant during the meal. Admittedly, neither of them had talked much as they devoured their steaks.
Perplexed, she followed him out to the porch. He strolled around back to face a narrow canal that stretched away into the blackness. They were alone out here. Citronella tiki torches provided the only light, their flames flickering weakly against the dark. A cacophony of sound wrapped around the pungent odor of the swamp rising from below. Beau propped his elbows on the waist-high rail and stared into the bayou beyond.
Just being alone with him out here in the dark like this was a turn-on. She’d never, ever been alone with a guy so hot, nor so deadly...which made him even hotter.
“You’re right about one thing,” he said low enough that she had to lean down in a similar, elbow-propped pose to hear him. “The military is never going to publicly stand for women in the Special Forces.”
She huffed in exasperation. “That horse is dead. You don’t have to kick it for fun.”
“But you’re right about something else, too. There is a place for women in special warfare. More to the point, Torsten agrees with you that we need women in the field.”
“No freaking way. He hates women.”
Beau snorted. “He hates everyone. But he loves the Special Forces. Wants us to be the best we can be. Male or female, he doesn’t care.”
“Why are you telling me this? He already booted me out.”
Beau didn’t answer her directly. Rather, he changed subject abruptly, asking, “Did you notice how publicly women are being tossed out of the various Special Forces courses?”
She snorted. “It’s hard to miss. Every time a woman fails it practically makes national news.”
“That publicity is intentional. We need the general public, hell, the world, to believe there are no American women operators and there will never be American women operators.”
“Well, yeah. That’s because there are none.”
“That wasn’t true once. There used to be an all-female Spec Ops team called the Medusas. Highly classified bunch. Operated for years and were wicked effective.”
“What happened to them?”
“The original team worked together for about ten years and gradually retired from active duty. The second generation team was lost.”
“As in they died?”
His voice no more than a sigh, he answered heavily, “Yeah.”
“How?” she asked quietly.
“Not my story to tell, and too classified to discuss here.”
Yikes. “And now? What’s next?”
“Next, we’ll try to build a new team.” He glanced at her and then back out at the bayou. “Starting with you.”
She stared at him. “Come again?”
“Torsten thinks you’ve got what it takes. He wants to train you to be a full-blown special operator. Not just a support type. A completely qualified combat specialist. That’s the purpose of Operation Phoenix. To raise the Medusa Project from the dead.”
She laughed in disbelief. “Right.” She added sarcastically, “And that’s why he threw me out of training and sent me across the country to a swamp.”
“I’m serious. Do you want to be a Medusa or not?”
Chapter 3 (#uf45f6dd5-9c4c-5168-8a80-4d52617fdaee)
Beau stared at the stunned woman beside him. Please say no. Please say no.
“Hell to the yes, I want to be one!” Tessa exclaimed.
Dammit. He knew she would say that. He was in no shape to be training anyone, let alone the next Medusa. What was Torsten thinking, throwing him into a scenario like this? The boss knew his knee was destroyed. That doctors said his career was over.
Of course, Torsten also knew Beau was determined to get back in the saddle and back onto the teams no matter how messed up his knee was.
Beau did have to give Tessa Wilkes credit for one thing. She was a good-looking woman. Sexy as wild hellfire. But that didn’t necessarily mean she was cut out for the Medusas. Torsten had been clear. Assume she was not fit to be a Medusa. Test her. Push her. Make her prove she was Special Forces material.
And, as soon as he was done working with her, he could get back to the business of being an operator himself. Which could not happen soon enough for him.
Operation Phoenix. The reference to the mythical firebird rising from its own ashes didn’t elude him. Torsten was resurrecting the Medusas after convincing the world the idea of an all-female Special Forces team was dead. He wondered, though, if Torsten had also chosen the name with him in mind. Was Gunnar trying to resurrect Beau’s career from the ashes, as well?
If so, this was a hell of a strange way to go about it. Assigning him to work with a woman who would do nothing but slow him down.
He’d vehemently protested the idea of a woman operator when Torsten broached the assignment with him. Not that the boss had listened to a word of what he’d said. Just because Torsten thought this woman had the drive and mental toughness to play with the boys didn’t mean she had the physical strength or stamina to hack it.
The compromise they’d reached was that Beau would try to train her. But he also retained the right to wash her out if she couldn’t cut the training.
No way would he let her onto a Spec Ops team if she was going to be the weak link. Any team was only as strong as its weakest member. He wasn’t about to let a woman get his brothers killed just so Torsten—and some wannabe chick—could prove a point.
He swore under his breath. If his boss thought that because his knee was busted up Beau would take it easy on Tessa, Gunnar Torsten was in for a surprise.
Everyone kept telling Beau he could contribute to the teams by training the next generation of special operators. But damned if he was going to accept that his field days were over and settle for playing nursemaid to anyone, male or female.
He was the first to admit it was a miracle he could walk. But the thing was, if he’d made it back this far, well beyond where the doctors had told him he could rehab his knee, why couldn’t he rehab his knee all the way back to operational? One thing he was sure of: no way was he cut out to be an instructor. Torsten—in his infinite bloody wisdom—seemed to think this insane, waste-of-time mission would be good for him. Bastard.
“Why Louisiana?” the waste of time beside him asked, all eagerness now that she knew why they were really here.
“The idea is to keep your existence completely off the radar. We don’t want anyone to know the Medusas are back.”
“Is that why Major Torsten had you march me across camp this afternoon where everyone could see me leaving?”
“Affirmative.”
“So Torsten’s making a big fuss about tossing out the women and then...what? Bringing them here secretly to train?” she asked curiously.
“He’s legitimately tossing out most of the women. But he saw something in you.” He added reluctantly, the words acid on his tongue to even say aloud, “He thinks you’ve got what it takes to be one of us.”
Silence fell between them as they stared at the sluggish black water below. It lapped around the stilts supporting the building, oily and thick. He could feel the mind of the woman beside him working overtime. One thing Torsten had gotten right: Tessa Wilkes was a sharp cookie. Observant as hell. She would need both to make it through the rest of this hypothetical training of hers. Assuming he didn’t end up just shooting himself, instead.
He caught himself rubbing his thigh, as had become his habit ever since surgery to remove the shrapnel that shredded his knee and quad muscle. He jerked his hand back to the railing. No way was he showing weakness to Tessa, particularly if he was supposed to train her.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“In the morning.”
“Is there a hidden training base around here?”
He envisioned the ruin that would be their base of operations for the next few months. He had already humped in the bare basics they would need to survive, and his knee had thought the hard labor of repairing the old dock behind the house and crawling around repairing the roof were terrible ideas. He answered drily, “I suppose you could call it a base.”
“Will you be training me?”
She sounded so damned enthusiastic. He restrained an urge to roll his eyes. She had no business being here. Women didn’t belong in the Special Forces community. Period. The total loss of the second Medusa team had proven that, hadn’t it?
He had no idea how he was actually going to train Tessa. He had no experience as an instructor, and with just the two of them out here by themselves, he couldn’t rely on the same methods by which he’d been trained. “About training you. Here’s the thing. I’m not an instructor. I’m a field operator. Or I was until I wrecked my knee a while back.”
She looked down in quick sympathy at his leg. Sympathy he neither needed nor wanted. His plan was actually to use her training to get himself back into good enough shape to qualify for field ops again. He would drag her along with him until he was field ready—and until he had run her into the ground and made his point—both to her and to Torsten.
“The first part of the Spec Ops training you went through with the boys was mostly physical conditioning, meant to weed out the faint of heart and the quitters. Torsten feels like he’s seen enough from you to know you would actually make it through the physical demands of full Spec Ops training.” He added wryly, “Torsten says you don’t know the meaning of the word quit.”
“He got that right,” she muttered.
Spoken like a true operator. Beau smiled a little in spite of himself.
Torsten had discussed with him at length where to train her. This project needed a challenging, but secluded, environment. Beau had been the one to suggest reluctantly that his abandoned family homestead fit the bill perfectly. The incredibly difficult bayou environment would force her to battle heat, humidity, muck, critters and general squick factor.
“Will my training be like the men’s course?” she asked.
She sounded entirely too naive and eager. Poor kid had no idea what she was in for. Torsten had been clear. Push her right to the edge of breaking. Find out where her limits lay and take her to them and beyond. And while he was at it, figure out how to work with a woman.
Not. Happening.
“I’ll be a real operator, right?”
“Don’t count on it,” he snapped.
“Then what the hell are we doing out here?” she shot back.
Gun, I’m gonna kill you the next time I see you. He straightened to his full height and a hot knife of pain shot through his knee. He clenched his jaw until the pain subsided to bearable. “Assuming you survive, which is not a given, you would hypothetically be a no-kidding operator when it’s said and done.”
He added direly, “Don’t get your hopes up. The odds of you being able to do everything you’ll have to in order to work on an operational team are pretty much zero.”
For a blink of an eye, trepidation shone in her eyes. But in the very next blink, steely resolve filled them. Unwillingly, he was impressed with her mental toughness. Even if it was useless. No way was he graduating her from this training. He wouldn’t do that to his brothers.
“Why Louisiana?” she asked.
“Secret location. No prying eyes. Challenging environment.” He added warningly, “The ocean may have sharks, but we’ve got gators out here. They’re a whole lot sneakier than sharks, and you can’t punch a gator on the nose and get him to back off. He’ll eat your arm if you try it.”
She turned her head to study him more fully, and her ponytail fell over her shoulder in soft curls that begged his fingers to run through them. Her gaze was intent. Focused on him like a laser. In that moment she looked just like a warrior...but with firm, round breasts filling out her T-shirt, a lush behind filling out her fatigue trousers and muscular legs a mile long.
Crap. Talk about messing with his head. A woman operator. And of course, she had to go and look like a freaking Playboy centerfold.
He had to give her credit: not many women looked this good without a stitch of makeup on, wearing combat boots, no less. Even her muscular shoulders and the pronounced veins in her bare arms were hot. Everything about her spoke of strength, confidence and badassery. But it was all wrapped up in a package so sexy he could devour her like his steak earlier.
He shook his head to clear the thought. It didn’t matter how sexy she was. He wasn’t about to let her become a member of the club.
“Let’s get out of here,” he growled. “I owe you at least one decent night’s sleep before we get this ball rolling.” Down a tall hill into a pile of manure.
She was silent on the ride back to the motel, but her excitement was palpable. He just hoped his knee didn’t give out before it was all said and done. He figured it was a 50/50 proposition. His doctors had argued vehemently against him attempting this comeback. They warned him that, if he overdid it on this op, he would blow his knee out, this time for good. But he refused to sit down and give up. He would go down fighting first.
They got back to the motel, and Tessa bounced out of the Jeep before he could get around to her side of the vehicle to open the door. He had to smile a little at her enthusiasm. He recalled all too well his own elation when he found out he’d been selected for special operations training all those years ago. Almost a decade.
Man, he’d been young and naive back then. He’d seen a whole lifetime’s worth of action since. Would she be as jaded as he was ten years down the road, taciturn and tense, living life balanced on a razor’s edge?
