“This is the SEALs we’re talking about. Navy SEALs.”
“Oh, got it.” She reached the end of the barbed wire and scrambled to her feet. She plucked at her shirt to clear the dirt out from inside of it and then plunged her hand into her bra to try to get at the rest.
“Sailor, what the hell are you doing?”
She laughed at Ben’s expression. “I’ve got dirt stuck everywhere.”
“You’re being timed. Get going!” He pointed down the course. With a sigh, Caitlyn got going again, but she slowed when she remembered Ben’s limp, and waited for him when she came to a rope swing near a gully.
“Don’t stop!” Ben said, catching up to her.
“But—”
“Don’t stop,” he reiterated. “Get that rope. Get going!”
She grabbed the rope and swung across, then turned to see if he was able to follow. Ben grabbed the rope on its backward swing, leaped up and sailed over the gully just as she had, landing gently beside her.
“You stopped again.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.” She wasn’t sure he believed her lie. The next obstacle was plain to see: a huge balance beam constructed from logs.
“Move it!” He hobbled on and she jogged toward the nearest beam, but her first attempt to race up the inclined log that led to the top of it was unsuccessful.
“Damn it,” she said when she got halfway up a second time, wobbled and then fell off.
“Here. I’ll help.” Ben stepped close and braced her feet with his hands as she climbed the slippery log. When she finally reached the top she straddled the high beam and caught her breath.
“You can get across it any way you like,” Ben said. “You don’t have to walk.”
“I’ll walk.” She’d always been proud of her balance. She stood up carefully, picked a tree to focus on and took a step.
Ben shadowed her on the ground, watching her intently, but Caitlyn didn’t let that throw her. As she moved across the beam she felt a grace in her body she hadn’t connected to in ages—since before she’d become pregnant with Lottie. It was as if she’d been so ashamed of making that mistake she hadn’t let herself inhabit the body that had betrayed her. Caitlyn stopped, wondering why she still classified her pregnancy like that—as a betrayal. After all, she wouldn’t give up Lottie for the world.
“Why’d you stop, sailor?”
Caitlyn didn’t answer Ben. She wondered what would happen if she stopped beating herself up for getting pregnant and decided to look at the whole experience as a gift. She had Lottie, after all. And she was healthy, strong, young. What if instead of feeling ashamed all the time she decided to feel proud?
“Caitlyn? Are you okay?”
She blinked back the tears that suddenly stung her eyes. “Yeah, I am.” She was okay. More than okay. When her vision cleared, she strode down the rest of the beam so quickly Ben had to hurry to keep up with her on the ground. She ran lightly down the inclined log on the far end and stood in front of him. “I have a baby.”
“I know.” Ben looked at her quizzically.
“No—I have a baby. Isn’t that a miracle?”
He smiled gently. “Yes, it is.”
He didn’t sound judgmental. If anything, he sounded… envious. Caitlyn hugged herself, trying to contain the joy that threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to laugh out loud again. Why had she been making her life so hard this past year and a half? Why not celebrate it every step of the way? So she was single. So what?
“What’s next?” She nearly bounced as she followed Ben to the next obstacle but her newfound happiness quickly drained away when she saw what it was. “Chin ups?”
“For women it’s chin ups. For men it’s a salmon ladder.”
“Oh, God.” She’d seen those on television where muscle bound men grabbed hold of a metal bar held in two brackets, swung out their legs and somehow managed to pop the bar up to the next set of brackets, and then the next and the next.
“All you have to do is twenty pull ups.”
“Twenty?” Caitlyn nearly groaned. “I might be able to do one or two.” She moved to the bar, grabbed hold and tried. She managed one, and then nearly managed another before she gave up in despair. “I can’t do it.”
“Sure you can.”
“Unless you’re going to lift me up and down nineteen times, I don’t think so.” She stepped back. “I have a better idea; you do this one for me.”
“You want me to do chin ups?”
“No, I want you to do the salmon ladder. I’ve never seen someone do it in real life.”
“Okay, I’ll do it—but only if you’ll be my date for the dance.”
Chapter Six
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