Also at her suggestion, Smitty, the strongest Smurf, was made their permanent coxswain. His job was to keep their boat from broaching—turning sideways to waves—and flipping over. Jabrowski, the nimblest Smurf, was elected to sit in the bow and leap ashore onto the rocks. His job was to hold the boat’s line tight and keep it from floating back out to sea on the waves as his teammates jumped ashore. She sincerely hoped Smitty and Jab made it all the way through Hell Week. Otherwise, their boat was screwed.

They’d just finished a round of relay races, taking turns carrying their teammates on their backs through pools of slippery, smelly muck when Chief Vidmeyer yelled, “Tate! Front and center!”

Wiping mud out of her eyes, one of which was swelling shut as a result of catching an accidental elbow on the cheekbone from Smitty, she ran over to the cluster of instructors and drew herself up to attention.

Vidmeyer sneered. “Your Highness’s presence is requested at a press conference in an hour. Head on back to your room and get cleaned up. A staff car will drive you over to the base theater…Princess.”

Damn. And she’d finally been making headway with the guy. Now he was back to despising her. And who could blame him?

While she didn’t object to a rest break in theory, her team was now going to be down a person and take the hit in her absence. She was shocked to realize she would rather be here, floundering facedown in mud, than getting all gussied up and talking to the press. “Do I have to leave my teammates?” she asked Vidmeyer.

He blinked, momentarily looking startled. For an equally fleeting moment, respect passed through his hard gaze. “Yes. That’s an order. Oh, and speaking of orders, the admiral says not to fuck this up.”

She saluted smartly, snapping her hand up to her brow and back down. Sarcasm dripping in her voice, she responded, “Yes, Chief. No fucking, Chief.”

Openly smirking, Vidmeyer lifted his chin. Without ire this time, he said, “Best get going, Lieutenant Tate.”

Whoa. That was the first time he’d broken his asshole persona with her, and the first time any of the instructors had referred to her rank since she’d started BUD/S.

Thoughtfully, she walked back to her room. By the time she got there, the mud had mostly dried and was caking off her clothing. She knocked the worst of it off and gave her hair a good scrub with her hands. She worked on it until she could run her fingers through it. She’d learned the hard way that too much dirt clogged up her shower drain, and then she had to go without showers for several days until the BUD/S instructors got around to asking someone to come unclog it for her.