“Worst evolution of the day,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s all downhill from here.” And then he strode away to get in some other unlucky sod’s face as the guy crawled ashore.

After the swim from hell, then the instructors took them running. The mere announcement that they were going for a scenic tour down the beach was enough to make another guy ring out.

Sherri didn’t give even the slightest thought to dropping out. She was in this to finish. Period. Nothing they could do to her would make her quit. They might wash her out involuntarily, but she would never, ever go of her own free will.

The days settled into a routine. Up early, exercise like mad, go until the exhaustion was beyond bearing, then go some more. Into bed the moment the last training evolution ended. Regain semiconsciousness as Griffin slipped into her room if he was able to sneak away from his instructor duties.

He didn’t even hint at sex, which was kind of him. Although she would’ve fallen asleep in the middle of it even if she had wanted to give it a go. He merely held her, or sometimes gave her a massage to work out a particularly sore muscle. But the strength she derived from his visits was immeasurable.

She occasionally felt a stab of guilt at getting a nightly heads-up of what the next day’s training would entail and how to pace herself to get through it. But then, this whole BUD/S experience was fixed, anyway. They wouldn’t flunk her out no matter how she performed. Often, Griffin shared tips and tricks that turned out to be worth their weight in gold for surviving various evolutions with a minimum of suffering.

About two weeks into the seven-week physical training phase, he brought her a bottle of liquid electrolytes and minerals that she slugged from every night. It tasted like salted metal, but he assured her it would help immensely with her recovery times. Apparently, operational SEALs took supplements like it all the time to stay in fighting trim.

The Smurf crew groaned initially at being stuck with the girl, but when they figured out she could pull her weight—literally—and that she was unfailingly positive and encouraging to her teammates, the complaining subsided.

In fact, at the mess hall one evening about three weeks in, when Grundy made a point of spilling an entire tray of spaghetti on her, the guys of Smurf crew jumped out of their seats and surrounded her, ready to do battle on her behalf.

She merely laughed it off, commenting to Grundy, “Remind me never to let you handle grenades in my platoon.”

Not only was it a direct insult, it was a subtle reminder that she was an officer and could conceivably end up leading a team where he would work for her.