Goddess Rising (56 page)

Man, I wish that were still the case.
Was it only a week ago that she and Wes were so completely wrapped up in their own little world?

“All right, all right, I get the hint,” Sam replied, hoping she was successfully convincing Rita there was nothing wrong.

Rita stifled a yawn. “Christ, I’m exhausted. I know we’ve been prepping for this for months, but that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Sam nodded. “I imagine so. You did all the FTX we did this fall in thirty-six hours, in double-time,
and
under the gun—literally. I’m kind of amazed you’re not falling asleep at the table right now.”

“Is it terrible that I want to?” Rita glanced at her watch. “Shit, it’s not even nine p.m. yet.”

“You want me to drive you back to A&M tonight?” Sam offered. “Or are you going to ruck up here with the team?”

“Nothing sounds better to me than sleeping in my own bed,” Rita admitted. She looked up at the guys partying and celebrating with beers and shots. “I don’t have the energy to keep up with those animals tonight.”

“You’ve been up forty-eight hours,” Sam pointed out. “No one would blame you.”

As Sam helped Rita stand, Alejandro appeared. “Where you going, coz?” he asked, throwing an arm around Rita’s shoulders.

“Sam’s giving me a lift back to campus,” Rita told him with a tired smile. “Much as I love you guys, sometimes a girl just wants her own bed and bath products.”

Rita rolled her eyes. “You know exactly how to make a girl feel good.”

“That is my reputation, yes,” he replied, cocky.

Sam bit her tongue. She’d heard through the vine that Alejandro had a bevy of female admirers, which made sense given his good looks, but she doubted she’d ever equate Alejo with making anyone feel good.

“You doing the FTX this week?” Alejandro asked Rita.

Rita shook her head. “All Challenge team members get a pass if we want, on account of how hard it is and how freaking exhausted we all are,” she explained. A sly grin came to her face as she glanced around. “I may know what it is, though,” she shared conspiratorially.

“What is it?” Alejandro asked in a low voice, leaning closer.

Rita grinned wide. “Rumor is: hand-to-hand combat training with honest-to-God SEALs.”

A riff of excitement ran up Sam’s spine. That would be absolutely amazing if it were true.

“Get the fuck
out
!” Alejo whispered fiercely, eyes bright with excitement.

Rita nodded. “Apparently, someone pulled a favor and got a few to volunteer during mandatory time off between missions. They’re doing a two-day intensive training with an elimination contest at the end.”

“What’s the prize?” Sam asked, hoping this all wasn’t just a rumor.

“It’s not confirmed, but we heard the winners get to go to Naval Special Warfare Group Two over in Virginia Beach during spring break.”

“
Madre di Dio
.” Alejandro looked at Sam and Rita with wide eyes. “That’s a game changer. Most people never get to see that place—
ever.”

Sam grinned back at him, reading his mind. He’d been training for the Army Rangers, but the Navy SEALs might end up being another viable option, especially if he received training and commendations from active members.

“We start training tomorrow,” he said to Sam in a serious voice. “Every day, we practice different techniques.”

Sam nodded, excitement warming her belly. “We’ll be ready.”

*

October—Sunday Afternoon

Student Rec Center, Texas A&M

S A M A N T H A

Alejandro had been
true to his word. They’d worked out like absolute fiends for most of the afternoon while the rest of the cadets enjoyed a rare day off, nursing hangovers from the win the night before. Sam and Alejandro started their workout with a fast five-mile run, rounded it out with weights, and then spent a couple hours sparring with one another in the student rec center.

Alejandro was a dirty street fighter if she’d ever seen one. Viciously powerful and ruthless, he did whatever it took to win, no compunctions. He strongly favored boxing techniques, though his kicks weren’t bad. She had a few solid bruises on her legs and sides as proof. But where he was weak was in grappling and groundwork. Her background in Judo made it easier for her to win when she got enough of his momentum to throw him off balance or pin him to the ground—facts he’d discovered quickly and made every attempt to avoid. And while Sam was technically more proficient than he was, Alejandro was more ruthless as a result of a childhood of back-alley beat downs and growing up hardscrabble. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t second guess, and he always went for the throat—
always
.

“You’re good,” he panted, circling her on the mat. “But you’re not mean enough. You have to assume every fight is going to end up with someone dead—”

“You mean, like the night you tried to kill me?” Sam rebutted, knocking him to the ground with a swift foot sweep when he got in her radius.

Alejandro grabbed her by the back of the knee as he went down and took her with him. “I wasn’t trying to kill you—I was trying to scare you,” he answered gruffly as they rolled across the mat.

Sam ended up on top, neatly locking his arm with a leg pin. “You didn’t succeed,” she retorted as he bucked and twisted.

“I can see that.” Alejandro tapped the mat, and as soon as Sam started to release her hold, he sucker-punched her in the gut with hard knuckles thickened from the street brawls he’d survived over the years.

Gasping, Sam tried to roll away, and Alejandro reared up, his huge fist coming down hard toward her face. She jerked away last second, and he caught her ear instead. Head ringing, Sam kicked him off so hard, his head snapped back.

“You’ll pay for that,” she panted, circling him, hands out and ready as he wiped the blood from his lips.

“Prove it,” was all he said as they launched back into another round of hand-to-hand training.

There wasn’t a clear winner at the end of their sparring, but they’d worked through some of their animosity, and they’d both developed a healthy respect for each other’s respective skills, with the marks and bruises to show for it.

Who would have thought a few hours of beating on each other was the kind of therapy we’d needed
? Sam thought as they shared a big bottle of water and ate protein bars afterward, trying to get their wind back as they examined the damage to their bodies, comparing notes.

“I think the SEALs will be here this upcoming weekend for the training,” he told her. “I’m working in the ROTC office this week, so I’ll let you know what I find out.”

She took another swallow of water. “We’ll be ready.”

“Damn right we will,” Alejandro agreed. “You and I will do an extra hour a day after our regular workouts in the afternoon, all right?”

She shrugged. “Only if you think you can handle it.”

He shot her a look of wry amusement, a bruise already blooming under his eye. “I think I can handle it.”

Sam glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to head out. Get some studying done.”

Alejandro nodded, finishing up his protein bar as Sam picked up her keys.

They walked out to the parking lot together, Sam thinking about a hot shower, a good meal, and the homework she needed to get done. So she was surprised when Alejandro stopped her just before she reached her car.

“I want you to know it wasn’t personal,” he told her, his dark eyes serious. “My beef with you before,” he clarified.

Sam cocked her head. “It sure as hell felt like it.”

“It was meant to,” Alejandro admitted. “I’m not going to bullshit you and pretend I’m happy about what went down—”

“If this is an apology, dude—you suck at it,” Sam interrupted.

“I know.” Frustrated, Alejandro blew out a sigh. “I just saw you rolling in—this rich chick with nothing to lose—and it pissed me off,” he admitted. “You don’t need to be here, not like me—not like Rita. And yet none of us could break you or run you off. I just couldn’t understand it.” Alejandro shook his head. “Shit, I still don’t—”

“All you need to know is that I’m serious,” Sam replied. “I’m here because I
want
to be. And maybe that’s better. Because I’m committed to this. I’m not doing this for anyone but me.”

Alejandro met her eyes. For the first time in probably ever, the hostility between them was muted enough for them to really hear each other.

“I still don’t like you,” he told her, though his voice was a little gentler.

“The feeling’s mutual, I assure you,” Sam replied, mouth twisting. “But that might help us keep each other on our toes. Neither of us will be willing to cut the other any slack, right?”

“Right.” He nodded. She and Alejo looked at each other for a moment longer before he stepped back. “Try to be on time tomorrow, slacker.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s limping,” she called out as he loped toward his car.

Alejandro flipped her the bird and Sam laughed once, feeling better than she had in days, despite the battered bruising she was really starting to feel.

When Sam pulled into her apartment a few minutes later, she spotted a sleek Mercedes parked in a nearby visitor slot.
Definitely not a student ride
, she thought before stepping out of the Mustang. She was just shutting the door and shouldering her bag when she heard someone call her name. Startled, she saw Travis leaning over the walkway to her apartment, dressed casually, his mink brown hair a little tousled, like he’d been driving with the windows open.

“What’re you doing here?” she called out, surprised. Travis was the very last person she’d expected to see waiting for her, and Sam was admittedly intrigued. He was either sent by her father or he wanted to be there for some reason, and as he stood there smiling at her, she wondered which it was.

“I thought I’d drop by in person with a slice of humble pie,” he told her, shaking a brown paper bag lightly. “I’ve got takeout and a geo report that proves you’re right about the oil reserves. Figured I’d give you the opportunity to gloat in person,” he joked with a self-deprecating shrug. “The lobbyists in D.C. are going to move ahead with your plan. Your dad approved it today.”

“No kidding?” Sam replied, unexpectedly pleased she’d been right and incredibly grateful he had food with him. She was
starved
. “What kind of humble pie did you bring me?”

“Apple,” he answered with a smile. “Your Aunt Hannah said it was your favorite.”

“Man, those geo reports must be pretty damn good if you’re groveling this hard,” she teased, shouldering her gym bag and locking her car. “I should have put money on that bet.”

“You’d have won big,” Travis admitted. “Either way, Wyatt Petroleum’s hit pay dirt again. Especially if your dad’s lobbyists get the Energy Commission to give him exclusive rights to that sliver of deep-water shelf.”

Sam felt a broad grin break across her face before she winced, rubbing her bruised jaw, evidence of her sparring with Alejandro.

“I’m gonna have to warn you,” she told him. “I look a little horrifying.”

Travis laughed softly. “I doubt that.”

Sam climbed the steps up to her apartment stiffly, her body aching from the sparring session with Alejandro. “Don’t tell me you came all this way from Houston just to let me gloat. No way you’re that much a glutton for punishment,” she teased.

Travis shrugged casually. “I was actually out at the ranch with your dad. Thought I’d stop by on my way home to Houston.”

“This is still a little out of your way,” Sam pointed out, stepping toward him.

He shrugged. “What’s a little drive on a beautiful day like this?” Travis looked her over as she approached with those startlingly pale blue eyes of his. “Jeez, how does the other guy look?” he asked when she stopped in front of him. He tilted her chin gently with a long fingertip, getting a closer look at the bruise on her swollen jaw.

“Hard to say. He was pretty ugly to begin with,” she joked, pulling away so she could unlock her door.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“Let’s just say that humble pie you brought better be good,” she said over her shoulder before inviting him in.

Travis carried the takeout bag to her counter as he looked around her place. “I don’t remember college looking so neat and tidy.”

“You’re talking to a future military officer,” she reminded him. “What did you think it would look like?” Sam foraged through her freezer until she found a bag of peas she pressed to the side of her face.

“Fair point,” Travis conceded, opening up the bag he’d brought. “I was in a fraternity house most of undergrad. If I could see the floor, it was a clean room.”

“Where’d you go to school?” she asked, curious.

“UT Austin.”

Her eyes widened. “Damn, you’ve got a lot of nerve coming to A&M to admit to your boss’s daughter you got your ass handed to you by an Aggie.”

“
See?”
Travis laughed. “Now you know why I wanted to get my groveling over and done with quickly and privately. I’d never live it down that I got outclassed by our rival school and by a nineteen-year-old who isn’t even a petrochemical engineer.”