Page 11 of The Woman Left Behind

She stood in the loop for a few more seconds, letting her arms rest, then hauled herself up. Wow—seven feet. She was impressed with herself, though the sweat running down her face was stinging her eyes. She scrubbed her face against her shoulder and blew out a breath.

How in heck was she supposed to get down? The rough rope was already burning her hands, and she didn’t want to slide down it. But she had to get down soon, because her arm muscles were quivering and could give out at any minute.

“Guys,” she began in alarm, about to ask them how she was supposed to dismount or whatever one did to get off a rope, when her sweaty hands began to slip. She yelped, grabbed, and somehow lost the rope snagged between her feet. She had a split second to make a decision: burn her hands or let go and maybe break a leg, and she was about to opt for the burned hands when her sweaty palms decided for her and down she went—for about a foot, when Levi grabbed her with one steely arm wrapped around her thighs and hauled her away from the rope.

For one second, just one, he held her tight against him. Her senses spun; the bottom dropped out of her stomach again and every nerve went on danger alert. His body heat seared straight through her, all the way to the bone. Her entire body went rigid, as if she’d been electrified—and he let her drop with a thud, making no move to steady her.

Once more, she landed flat on her ass—thank God. Nothing was a better distraction than hard contact with Mother Earth.

Seven men stared silently down at her.

“My hands are sweaty,” she muttered in excuse, looking up at them. They surrounded her like vultures, ready to pick her bones.

Voodoo wore an expression of intense disgust. He put his hands on his hips. “This is a stupid idea,” he spat. “Shit like this can get us killed. She’s worthless.”

Jina’s lip curled as she focused on the asshole, grateful he’d given her a target that took her attention away from Levi. She was a lot of things, but worthless wasn’t one of them—and neither was timidity. She shot a rigid forefinger at him, glaring over it as if she were aiming a weapon. “Excuse the hell out of me, for not being as good as you after just seventeen days of PT. You know what? You can kiss my ass. And you better watch your manners, because if you make my inner redneck come out, you’ll regret it!”

Jelly reached down and offered his hand to pull her up. She clasped his forearm and he lifted her with an effortless jerk that stood her on her feet. She didn’t take her eyes off Voodoo the whole time. Being sandwiched between an older brother and a younger one had taught her to take up for herself, because they’d seen her as fair game—she was neither the big sister who had ruled the roost, or the baby sister who was, well, the baby—and she’d had to let them know she wouldn’t take their crap.

“What does an inner redneck do?” Jelly asked, laughter quivering in his tone.

“It starts with a cutting,” Jina replied without a hint of humor, “and escalates to a house burning. We don’t want to go there.”

“Voodoo’s from the South, too.”

“No, he’s from Louisiana,” Boom interjected. “That’s different.”

“Both of you cut this shit out,” Levi ordered in a curt tone. “We don’t have time for it. If you want to fight, do it on your own time, but if either of you gets hurt, I’ll kick the other one’s ass. Got that?”

“Got it,” Voodoo said, because Levi’s tone had said he damn well meant every word he said. Besides, they’d worked together a long time.

“Got it,” Jina muttered. She hadn’t worked with any of them long enough to either trust or like them, but she tagged along when they all headed off in another direction, as if they’d been doing something else and had just been fooling around with that damn wall, waiting for her to get there so they could have a laugh and see her get dirt all over her—again.

Mission accomplished.

“I hate them. I hate them all.”

That became her mantra over the following weeks. She was so tired the days bled together until sometimes she didn’t know which day of the week it was, which was why she showed up to wait for the van on a Sunday, only to finally look at her phone and realize why she was the only one at the parking lot. She drove back home and fell facedown on the bed, slept until noon, and awakened only when her mom called to scold her for not calling.

“Mom,” she said groggily. “I posted a private message on your Facebook page, letting you know I was okay.”

“That wastwo weeksago! And I posted one to you three days ago that you haven’t replied to yet.”

“Oh.” She yawned, tried to sit up, and gave up the effort to flop back down. “Sorry. I’ve been too busy to even look at Facebook. I got up this morning and went to work, and when no one else showed up, I finally realized it’s Sunday. I came home and went back to sleep.”

Instantly her mom morphed into Mother Mode. “What on earth kind of hours are you working? It isn’t healthy to go without sleep. Are you eating?”

“I’m eating,” she replied, though truthfully she couldn’t remember what she’d had for supper last night, orifshe’d had supper. She must have; she did so many routine things while on autopilot, these days, that she had to take it on faith that she was eating regular meals. She definitely remembered eating breakfast, though.

“Whatare you eating?”

“This morning for breakfast I nuked four miniature spinach and bacon quiches and ate them while I was driving to work. I’m ticked off I didn’t realize it was Sunday, and I could have sat at the table and eaten like a human being, with a fork. I’m ticked off I didn’t realize it was Sunday and could have slept through breakfast.” She was more pissed about the sleep than she was the food. Food wasn’t in short supply.

“You need a vacation.”

That was the truth, but—“Can’t happen until training is finished.”

“We haven’t seen you in over nine months. How long is this training supposed to last?”

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