Page 47 of Body Shot

“It’s a good core workout.”

“Do you surf? Like, real surfing on waves?”

“Sure. You?”

“I’ve done it. When I was a kid, my parents tried to expose me to a lot of different things. But I was a little nerd, not a cool surfer dudette.”

“How about mountain biking?”

“I can ride a bike.”

“Rock climbing?”

“Uh, no.”

“You might be good at that.”

“Sure, if I wasn’t afraid of heights.”

“I’m afraid of heights too.” Jesus. I’ve never admitted that to anyone except Marco and Cade.

“You are? But you still rock climb?”

“I had to. It was part of our training.”

“That would be pretty hard if you were afraid.”

“A lot of things in SEAL training are hard. Jesus.” I shake my head at the memories. “There were lots of times I thought I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t take one more step. Swim one more stroke. Somehow I always found it in me to keep going. There was no fucking way I was going to give up.”

“Why?” Her soft question floats in the night air. “Why was it so important to you?”

I don’t want to tell her about my shitty family. “I just had to do it. I had to prove I could. That’s our SEAL motto. The person who will not be defeated cannot be defeated.”

Our eyes meet across the water, our boards shifting gently on the waves. Hayden’s eyes are big shadows in her face, her mouth soft. “That’s pretty powerful. And impressive.”

I lift one shoulder. “It’s really more about mental toughness than physical toughness, although no question we were superbly conditioned. I was terrified. I remember my first parachute jump—”

“Jesus Christ.”

My lips quirk. “Yeah. And the first one was easier than later, when we jumped at thirty-five thousand feet, on oxygen, carrying over a hundred pounds of gear, free falling nearly all the way down to avoid detection. Anyway, even that first jump, I thought I was going to puke. They had to shove me out of the plane. I hated it at first, but quitting wasn’t an option, and after a while, I got to love it.”

“And the rock climbing?”

“Yeah, that too.” I shoot her a rueful smile. “Again, it was about the mental focus. Focusing on the few feet right around you. Kind of like this light bubble from our boards, though it’s bigger. If you look all the way up, or all the way down, it can freak you out, so you just focus on the next foothold or handhold, and let go of the things you can’t control.”

Hayden is silent, paddling slowly.

“Okay there?”

She turns her head to look at me, and even that distance apart, her face wears an expression that makes my chest ache. “That says a lot about you.”

12

HAYDEN

I’m glad I have to focus on paddling and keeping my balance, because Beck is really throwing meoffbalance.

The more he reveals about himself, the more I realize how wrong my first impressions of him were. And the more he humbles me.

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