At least he wasn’t blowing her off. Thank goodness. She stood up. “I’d better get going if you don’t want Vidmeyer to spread all sorts of rumors that might damage your lily-pure reputation.”

He gifted her with another eye roll. “By the way. Practice tying knots before you go to bed tonight. Tomorrow is the underwater knot-tying evolution.”

“The—” She broke off. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. You’ll have to swim a length of the pool underwater, pausing to tie five knots along the way. The secret is nimble fingers and keeping your cool.”

“Got it. Sounds like fun.”

“It’s a pain in the ass. Get fast with the knots before you go to sleep. It’s worth the lost rest to get through this evolution in one pass.”

He hugged her tightly and gave her a quick, hard kiss before walking her to the door. “I probably won’t be able to come tuck you in tonight. I gotta go find Ray, and that may involve a bottle of whiskey and some war stories.”

She kissed him quickly, one last time. “Good luck with that.”

“Go get ’em, Blondie.”

“Right back atcha, Hot Stuff.”

His laughter floated out the door behind her.

No surprise, Vidmeyer’s door was open and he was seated in such a way as to see her on the way out. She couldn’t resist stopping in front of his doorway and saying casually, “He was magnificent…even if he was a two-minute wonder.”

A crack of laughter escaped Vidmeyer before he pulled himself together to growl, “Get out of here, Tate.”

* * *

The next morning, she noted that both Griffin and Peevy were sporting dark wraparound sunglasses. It must have been a late night with that bottle of whiskey.

The last evolution before supper was the underwater knot-tying exercise. She made it through four knots the first time through before she ran out of breath and had to surface.

“Tate!” Peevy shouted. “There are two ways to do things around here—the right way and again!”

She grimaced, panting as she was ordered out of the pool and had to endure several rounds of screamingly awful calisthenics before she was ordered back into the pool.

This time, she worked more quickly and managed to finish the last knot just as her lungs felt as if they were going to explode out of her chest. A hard kick and a glide, and she touched the end wall of the pool.

An instructor sitting on the bottom of the pool in a scuba tank jerked a thumb up toward the surface.

With pleasure. She kicked up to the edge of the pool and rested there for a moment, gasping.

“Quit making out with the edge of my pool, Tate,” Vidmeyer growled. She thought he sounded a shade less irascible today.