If only she’d been dumb as a post or just plain mean. Then he would have had a decent reason to hate her guts. But as it was, he was finding it harder and harder to work up a righteous froth of indignation at her being here, invading his world. It didn’t help matters one bit that she was showing signs of fitting in seamlessly.

“Rise and shine, buttercups!” Cal called as he strolled through the instructors’ Quonset hut entrance.

Griffin groaned. He couldn’t have gotten more than an hour or two of sleep altogether last night.

“Rough night?” Trevor asked as they bent down to lace up their boots, their heads close.

“I’ll live.”

“You sure about that?”

“Mind your own business, Crumpet Stuffer.”

“I know whose crumpet I’d like to stuff,” the Brit retorted.

“Don’t even think about it,” Griffin growled.

Trevor grinned. “If it had been me getting cozy with Tate like that yesterday, I wouldn’t have slept well, either.”

Griffin scowled at his teammate. “Fine. She’s hot. I admit it. But she’s still a woman, and I still don’t want her here.”

“Yes, but you do want her. And that’s the hell of it,” Trevor responded heavily.

The guy said that as if he understood what Griffin was going through. Was Trevor getting closer to Anna than he was letting on? More often than not, the two of them did end up paired together for training evolutions. And they were swim buddies, after all. Griffin wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or alarmed that he wasn’t the only man out here struggling against attraction to one of the ladies.

He stood up and strode over to Cal. “What’s on the agenda for today, boss?”

“I thought we’d take the ladies for a swim. See how they feel about drowning.”

From across the hut, Axel hooted. “Right on! This is gonna be fun.”

Learning how to swim with feet tied together and hands tied behind the back was one of the trippier evolutions in BUD/S, and one that all SEAL candidates dreaded.

Dammit, he ought to be pleased at the prospect of terrifying Sherri out of the program or, failing that, drowning her out. Instead, Griffin’s gut was unnaturally tight. What did he have to be nervous about? He could swim all day tied up. Swearing some more, he stomped out into the early-morning light.