The Navy SEAL's Christmas Bride (3 page)

“You don’t have to get naked until I beat you,” Sarah said, pushing past him.

“You can kiss me right now; I won’t even make you chase me first,” he retorted with a grin.

“Don’t you two think you should look the obstacles over before you begin?” Ella said.

“Baby, these are both trained members of the United States military. Have a little faith.” Austin squeezed her shoulders. “My money is on Sarah.”

“Go, Army!” Ella agreed, snuggling into her husband’s embrace.

“I’ll gladly take that money when
I
win. Twenty bucks?” Dan got into position. So did Sarah.

“No bets!” Regan said.

“Twenty bucks,” Ella said. “Deal.”

Regan threw her hands up in the air. “I give up.”

Mason moved to stand between Sarah and Dan. “On your mark, get set, go!”

Dan leaped for the monkey bars and went hand over hand as fast as he could to reach the other side. When he jumped down, he heard a thump to his right that told him Sarah had kept pace with him and was dashing for the climbing wall just like he was.

He put on a burst of speed, flung himself toward the top of the wall and gripped it, swinging his legs up. Something crashed into his shoulder just as his feet reached the top of the wall.

“Fuck!” Dan lost his grip and fell to the ground, landing in the snow. Sarah’s laughter rang out as she scrambled up and over the wall and dropped to the other side.

“She kicked me!” She must have swung her legs up and booted him for all she was worth, but he regained his feet, leaped up and caught the top of the wall again. SEALs didn’t whine—not even when soldiers cheated.

By the time he landed on the other side, Sarah was through the tire course that came next and was diving under the first length of barbed wire stretched across her path. As she army-crawled under fifteen feet of criss-crossed wire over a layer of slushy snow, Dan put on a spurt of speed, determined to catch up.

The rest of the family kept pace with them on a path that bisected the obstacle course.

“Go, Dan!” Mason called out. “Show that soldier how it’s done!”

“Go, Sarah!” Austin joined in. “Army rules!”

Dan finished the tire course and dove under the barbed wire, but Sarah had already regained her feet and was dashing toward a rope swing. Dan crawled for all he was worth and seconds later he too was running for his rope swing. Sarah, on the other side of the frozen creek, disappeared among the trees as she hit more obstacles, her dark curls bouncing as she moved.

He picked up the pace again. He’d never live it down if he lost to a mere soldier.

A mere
female
soldier.

Sarah raced on,
proud of her steady breathing and her controlled strides in her heavily-treaded winter boots. Under the trees, the snow wasn’t as deep, and while the conditions weren’t optimum for running, she’d handled far worse.

She thanked goodness for the extra training she and two other soldiers engaged in every day. All three of them female, all three of them denied the chance to join the Special Forces, they’d agreed that they’d keep their bodies in tip-top shape, just in case that ever changed. As competitive as she was, Elsa and Janie had kept her on her toes and they’d taken turns beating each other’s records and pushing each other to the limit.

All that was paying off now. She was sure Dan would complain about her kicking him on the climbing wall, but all was fair in love and war and she’d made sure to make it look like an accident when her feet had connected with his shoulder on the way up. The onlookers wouldn’t be able to say for sure what had happened, and she’d do her best to play up her innocence.

Sarah blinked as she rounded a curve and took in the next obstacle; a balance beam made from an enormous log nearly ten feet off the ground. She kept running and made it half-way up the inclined log placed to give her access to the beam before she slipped on its icy surface. She fell heavily on it and clutched the slippery log tightly to keep from sliding right off.

Dan’s laughter echoed behind her. “That was graceful!” He ran right up the inclined log to his balance beam, but hesitated at the top. Sarah, managing to scramble up to the top of hers, saw why. The logs that formed the beams were wide enough that traversing them shouldn’t have been a problem. Except they were covered with snow.

Dan took a step and wavered. “Shit—it’s icy.”

Sarah tried a step and found the same thing. Earlier snowfalls must have melted, then frozen again to make a compact icy layer under the latest couple of inches. Her foot slid before she stabilized her stance.

“Don’t you dare fall off those beams and break your necks,” Regan called out. Their audience had caught up to them.

“You could give up now,” Dan said conversationally. “Regan’s right; you don’t want to break your neck.”

“
You
could give up now.”

He took another step. Wavered.

Sarah made a decision. If either of them fell off the beam, they’d have to go back to the inclined log, climb up and start all over again—that meant time lost, if not an injury. She didn’t have time for injuries, and she didn’t want to get halfway across the log, fall off, and then have to start again. She’d take the safe route.

She crouched down, braced her hands on the log ahead of her, and sat down, straddling it. She began to inch her way across, using her hands to lift her forward in a rocking motion that moved her down it more quickly than she might have expected.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dan taunted her as he took two more tentative steps. “It’s not a rocking horse, Metlin. Stand up, for crying out loud.”

Sarah ignored him. Her safe, rocking motion had already taken her a quarter of the way down the log. But now Dan was moving again, his short, nimble steps quickly passing her.

Fall, damn it
. He moved halfway across with no sign of stopping. Had she played it too safe? Sarah moved faster.

Dan reached the three-quarter mark. Hell, he was leaving her far behind. The log must not be as slippery as she thought. She was blowing it!

“Eat my dust, Metlin!” Ten feet from the end of the log, Dan slipped and tumbled to the ground, landing with a heavy
whump
.

“Dan!” Regan raced toward him, Mason quickly passing her.

“Dan, you okay?”

Sarah kept going. She’d stop when and if she knew his injuries would take him out of the race. She had reached the three-quarter’s mark when Dan managed to lurch to his feet with Mason’s help. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” But he was limping a little as he turned in a circle. “Go ahead and gloat while you can, soldier. I’ll be ahead of you again in a minute.”

“Big words from a clumsy man.” She picked up the pace again now that she was sure he was okay. She knew he wouldn’t hold back; SEALs were trained to push through any pain.

By the time she reached the end of the log and slid down the incline on the other side, Dan had climbed up on top of his balance beam again. He began to cross it as he had the first time—walking in short, tentative steps—but when she glanced back a moment later, just as the trees closed around her again, she noticed he had dropped down into a sitting position.

She bit back a smile.

‡

I
f he’d set
out to take Sarah down a peg, his plan had certainly backfired, and he couldn’t even cry foul on her for his latest setback. It was all his own damn fault. Humping it over this log wasn’t manly, or fast, or comfortable, for that matter, but it was the quickest, safest way to reach his goal and catch up with Sarah.

Still, Dan wasn’t unhappy to get the balance beam behind him and a minute later, after several more obstacles, he’d caught sight of Sarah slowing to a halt before a set of salmon ladders. He laughed, even as he put on a burst of speed. No way she could do a salmon ladder; no woman could.

Except… shit, she was doing it.

Dan slid to a stop next to his salmon ladder—a double set of notched uprights screwed to two trees standing close together. A metal bar rested in the bottom most set of notches. The trick was to jump up, grab the bar and use a kind of chin up motion to pop it up the ladder from the lowest to highest position. It took incredible core strength and coordination.

And Sarah was popping up her ladder like a pro.

Whoops and whistles from their audience filled the air as Sarah popped right up to the top. When she dropped down and came face to face with Dan, she looked startled, but recovered quickly. “Better get to it, SEALman. Or are you afraid you can’t?”

Dan wasn’t distracted by her banter, though. He was man enough to admit when someone had surprised him. “I’ve never seen a woman do the ladder.”

“Lots of practice. That’s all.” She moved to brush past him, but he caught her arm.

“Learn to take a compliment, Metlin.”

She hesitated. Nodded grudgingly. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now step back and see how a man does it.” He hoped she understood what he meant to say—that he respected her ability. That he would treat her like one of the guys now.

“If I see any men, I’ll be sure to watch them do the ladder.” She shrugged out of his grip and loped away. Dan watched her go.

“Quit ogling the competition and get a move on, Hemmins! Don’t let the team down!” Mason called out.

Dan jumped for the bar on his salmon ladder, but he had a smile on his face as he completed the obstacle.

Sarah glowed with
pride as she dashed through the rest of the course. She, Janie and Elsa had worked their butts off for nearly a year before they learned how to do the salmon ladder and it had been worth every minute to see the look on Dan’s face. But then, how could he have had an inkling of her strength? It was the middle of winter and she’d been wearing so many layers since she got to Montana that he wouldn’t be able to guess her weight within twenty pounds, let alone see her muscles.

He had been checking out her breasts, though. She’d caught him at it at lunch time. Sarah held back a sigh as she raced along. These breasts of hers were a blessing and a curse. When she wanted to make heads turn, they certainly helped, but in terms of athletic training? They just got in the way. Both Janie and Elsa were small-chested women and many of the exercises they did came easier to them.

As she left the last obstacle behind her, she found a quarter-mile stretch of path between her and the finish line. The rest of the group had moved ahead to meet her there. How far behind her was Dan? She didn’t want to turn around and lose ground.

She didn’t have to.

Footsteps pounding close to her told her he had caught up again. Sarah’s heart sank; she didn’t think she could beat the SEAL in a flat-out race. But what choice did she have? She supposed she could try another trick, like tripping him, but that wasn’t how she wanted to win; she wanted to win on merit alone.

She bent into her pace, running as fast as she could, her breath exploding from her lungs in sharp bursts. The cold air burned as she sucked it in, but she didn’t care. She wanted to win. Needed to win.

The crowd at the finish line cheered and hollered as they approached. “Come on, Sarah!” she heard Regan scream. She was almost there. Almost there.

Dan raced past her and hurtled across the finish line a good five paces ahead of her. Sarah’s momentum carried her right into the crowd and she staggered in the middle of her new friends, fighting for air as they screamed and yelled around her.

“That was so close—you almost won, Sarah!” Regan hugged her.

“Thanks,” Sarah puffed, still trying to slow her breathing. She pushed herself to the limit all the time, but this time she’d gone beyond that. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to walk back to the Hall at this rate.

“Good race.” Dan approached her. She was glad to see he was breathing hard, as well. She felt a moment of pride that she’d given this Navy SEAL a run for his money, before the truth hit her again—not only had she lost; she’d have to kiss the man.

He grinned as he caught her eye and she knew he was thinking about the kiss, too. “See you under the mistletoe, squirt. I’m looking forward to it. Ella, you owe me twenty bucks.”

“Come on, Zane. Our turn!” Austin headed for the starting line. Sarah trailed after them with the others, still struggling to catch her breath, and with the knowledge that sooner or later she’d have to make good on her bet with Dan. How big a deal was he going to make out of it?

“At least we’re spared the sight of your bare ass, Hemmins,” Mason said. “Not sure I’d have survived that, not to mention the womenfolk.”

“I don’t think all the womenfolk were dreading it,” Dan said. “In fact, I think some of them were downright anticipating it.” He turned and winked at Sarah.

She could only roll her eyes and walk away.

He wouldn’t mind
getting naked with Sarah, Dan decided as they entered the Hall later on. The large house had been decorated to the hilt for the holiday and soon Mason had a fire crackling in the hearth in the living room. Dan joined him there after he’d changed and pretty soon the rest of the party drifted in, as well. Regan and Ella brought trays of snacks and drinks. Dan was just helping himself to a beer when Sarah walked in. She was back in her jeans and cream-colored oversized cable sweater, an ensemble which hid almost all of her attributes. Dan now knew she was muscular under those clothes, but she couldn’t hide her femininity—and he wasn’t just talking about her breasts. Her face, while angular, had high cheekbones, a straight nose and sweetly-curving, luscious lips. Her wide-set hazel eyes were framed with thick lashes. She was delicate as well as strong, a combination that knocked his socks off.