Except, out of the corner of his eye, her ponytail was driving him a little bit crazy, swinging back and forth jauntily, all silky and blond and girlie. What the hell was something like that doing out here in the dust and heat with a bunch of SEALs? It didn’t help that the ponytail’s owner was every bit as perky, chatting about the history of the abandoned military base as they toured it.

Sherri Tate had a mean streak in her, all right. She knew he and his guys felt like death warmed over, and she was relishing bebopping along, all chipper and cheerful.

Give them one decent night’s sleep to recover from Leo’s wedding, and he and his brothers would grind these wannabes into dust. It was all well and good for the girls to have one fast run in them, but they would never keep up with SEALs twenty-four seven.

That said, his skull was going to split in two if he didn’t get some water soon. And some relief from the relentless sunlight reflecting off white sand. Only years of ingrained discipline, along with a crap-ton of experience with pushing through pain, kept him going. That and the stubborn refusal to be shown up by a girl.

He’d never been gladder to see anything than that decrepit cluster of buildings as it came into view ahead, marking the end of the run. He needed fluids, a hot shower, food, and sleep, in that order.

“That was the short route,” Sherri announced brightly. “We’ve mapped out a 15K loop, too.”

She sounded entirely too pleased with herself.

“Wanna show that to us after lunch?” Griffin asked casually.

“Sure. Sounds great.”

Anna and Lily were equally enthusiastic about the idea. Meanwhile, his teammates threw him baleful glares behind the ladies’ backs.

Well, hell. That had backfired spectacularly. He scowled as Sherri smirked knowingly at him. That smile of hers was a lethal weapon.

“Fall out,” Kettering called from the front porch of his office as they came to a halt between the Quonset huts.

Griffin bit back a groan of relief as he took a liter of water from the cooler standing in front of the instructors’ hut and slugged it down. “Where can a guy get a shower around here?” he asked no one in particular.

“Only showers are at the gym,” Sherri answered, chiming in to laugh with the other women.

What was so blasted funny about that?

He tossed clean clothes, towel, shampoo, and a razor in a bag and headed for the gym. When he stepped through the men’s locker room into the shower, he pulled up short. There was only one big room, with six showerheads. Down the middle was a freshly built wooden wall no more than five feet tall partitioning the space into three showers for the ladies and three for the men.