But the decision Six had made had taken him from reasonably in shape and aimless to an elite level of fitness and focused. As he ran up the next incline, Six wondered what it would be like to go through BUD/S again, the rigorous basic training all SEALs went through, including the notorious Hell Week, now a distant memory.
He stepped up his pace in an open stretch of trail, determined to hit a personal best on this route, and remembered the realities of the six months spent at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center where he'd had his ass handed to him on a daily basis. Even at his age, if he were to start all over again, he'd kick the butts of the newbies, because he knew something they didn't yet know. That being a SEAL was ninety percent mental.
The trail ran close to the road as he turned the corner, and he could see traffic racing by. Another runner passed him, and then he noticed a woman walking up the hill toward him. For a second, he thought she was Louisa, but he shook his head. So much for a run clearing it. It was funny how she had stuck in his mind-
There was a loud crash, the sound of metal on metal like a tank hitting an IED, and he imagined bodies blowing into the air. On autopilot, he scrambled for cover, hitting the dirt and pressing himself up against the shrub line, but he almost immediately realized what he'd done. Motherfucker. His hands shook, and the acrid sting of adrenaline coursed through him.
"Are you okay?" a female voice said.
Shit, the woman who'd been walking toward him. "I'm fine," he mumbled, trying to control his breathing.
"I think that was my line, wasn't it?"
The woman crouched down next to him, but he was too stunned by the whole thing to figure out exactly what was going on. "By the looks of it, there's an accident on the road over there," she said.
Six looked up to find Louisa staring back at him through that thick hair of hers. "I don't know what just happened," he blurted. For a moment he questioned why he hadn't made up some kind of excuse like tripping over a branch or needing to stop and tie his shoelaces.
Louisa blew her bangs out of her eyes, and he noticed that her cheeks were really pink. "Did you fall down, or did the sound of that car crashing scare the shit out of you?" She got to her feet and offered him her hand. He took it and received a shock of static electricity. Louisa shook her head and helped him to his feet.
Maybe it was the way she said the words so bluntly, like it was no big deal, but he felt the need to answer her truthfully. "It's just loud noises out of context," he said. "Ex-military and all that." Six dusted off his shorts, doing his best to play down whatever the hell had just happened while the blood rushed around his body so quickly that it felt like he was going to pass out.
"I hate being around people," Louisa offered casually and picked some grass off his arm. "Walking up the hill toward you, I suffered anticipatory anxiety. Panic at the thought of walking past you. So I get it. I study neurology, yet I can't figure out how to make it stop."
"Your presentation on Friday was great," he said, not wanting to talk further about what had happened.
"Case in point," she said. "You had your back to me the entire time. You just couldn't see the way I was white-knuckling the podium. The way I didn't make eye contact with a single person in the room."
"Well, you don't need to worry. You were amazing. Even I understood what you were saying."
"Didn't stop my amygdala from firing glutamate into the region of the brain that made me freeze, the same way your amygdala flooded glutamate into the region of your brain that makes you involuntarily jump. In both cases, our hypothalamus triggered our autonomous nervous system, which elevated my heart rate and prompted adrenaline through my body, just like it's doing to you now."
Six took a deep breath and looked out across the canyon. Medical descriptions he could deal with, but if she veered anywhere close to something that smelled like sympathy he'd be pissed off. It was no big deal, and he didn't want her making it one. He looked in the direction he'd been running and then back in the direction of the parking lot where he'd left his truck and where Louisa had been headed.
"Anyway, I'd much rather be alone in my lab or home, which is where I should head back to. Are you okay?"
Finally, he looked at her directly. In the daylight, the hair that he'd thought to be simply brunette had strands of spun gold through it. She wore ink-blue denim jeans that fit her like a second skin and were cuffed at the bottom, aqua-colored Converse, and a simple white T-shirt that hugged her curves. And yet none of these were the reason he wanted to spend a little more time with her. She intrigued him, the two sides of her-the scientist and shy human-seeming at odds.