She gave the push-ups everything she had. When she didn’t think she could do one more, she found a way. The pain, as familiar to her now as an old friend, rolled through her, building until it was unbelievable. She’d learned over the past few weeks that she was capable of sustaining agony she’d heretofore thought unbearable. Griffin had taught her that pain was optional. The trick was to lock it away in a distant corner of her mind. To ignore it and not even register its existence.

At last, her arms simply gave out. No matter how hard she willed them to push her back up out of the water, she had nothing left.

Was this it? Was this the moment when Kettering declared her a failure and washed her out of Operation Valkyrie? She couldn’t summon the energy to care. She was done. Tank empty. Nothing left.

A callused hand appeared in front of Sherri’s face. “Need a hand up?” Griffin murmured from above her.

What is this? Human decency from Griffin? In public, no less?

“Since when are you a real person?” she mumbled in the general direction of Griffin’s combat boot.

“Always was. Still am,” he muttered.

Hah. Griffin had given her father a run for his money in the asshole department for weeks, now.

She was inclined to refuse the hand, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could not climb to her feet unaided. And besides, he’d offered nicely.

She rolled onto her side and pressed her hand into his. He pulled her to a standing position.

She stood there, bent over, hands on her thighs, chest heaving, her T-shirt and pants weighted down with seawater and sand, her waterlogged boots too heavy to lift. “Thanks,” she managed to wheeze.

“You’re welcome. When we get back to base camp, get a shower and then meet me in the mess hall. Eat supper with me tonight.”

Her gaze lifted sharply. As usual, his sapphire eyes were unreadable. “Why?” she blurted out. “Is that an order?”

“No. It’s a request. And an offer.”

An offer of what?

She watched speculatively as Griffin’s muscular, dry back retreated from her. She could see the definition of his back muscles, even through his black T-shirt. Was that kind of fitness even legal?

Well, okay then. Supper with Griffin it was. Color her surprised.

When they got back to Camp Jarvis, Kettering surprised her again by announcing, “You ladies can have the shower to yourselves today. Crank the heat up, and do what you can to work out the kinks. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

They were all hard days. But just maybe, if Griffin was willing to treat her like a human being for a change, it meant she might make it through another one.

Chapter 7