Worth Fighting For (Warrior Fight Club 2.50)

Jud flew out of his chair. “Fuck. Fuck.”

Chuckling, George flipped over Jud’s cards for him. Just like she suspected, he had the same but weaker hand, threes full of kings.

The rest of the night continued pretty much the same way, with Tara winning about seventy-five percent of the hands she played through to the river card. She really, really liked Hold ’em.

George was the first to drop out of the game. Jud went next, having written an IOU on her forearm for $65. And then it was just her and Jesse, who was a smart if a little bit of a conservative player. But that approach meant he’d lost the least of the three men.

“Still game?” she asked, collecting the cards from the last hand.

“I enjoyed the hell out of watching you play, but you already took enough of my money. Thank you very much.”

She laughed and made a chicken noise, and he threw his cards at her, making her laugh harder.

“Damn straight. Where the hell did you learn to play like that?” He leaned down to retrieve some of the spilled cards.

“My dad. He was also navy. We moved around a lot, of course, so he helped fill my spare time ’til I made friends by playing poker with me. I got good.”

He smirked. “You don’t say.”

She smirked back. “After I graduated high school, I played some at the tournament level. Probably could’ve kept at that for a while, but I decided to join the navy instead.” What she didn’t tell him was how much she’d second-guessed her decision when, just six months after enlisting, her mom died unexpectedly of a heart attack. She’d hated thinking of her dad all alone, but he’d been nothing but supportive.

“I joined right out of high school, too,” he said, his gaze more appraising. She’d guessed that about him when he’d revealed he served his full twenty. He didn’t look old enough to have served twenty years as it was. So enlisting after graduation was something else they had in common then.

And damn, why did she like when he looked at her so much? She didn’t just feel observed, she felt…seen. In a way she hadn’t in so long.

Tara slipped the cards into their box and rose. “We gotta be up in six hours anyway.” Jesse groaned, making her laugh. “It’ll be a great navy day.” It was something her dad said so often when she was a kid.

He rolled his eyes. “Roger that.”

They walked aft, then descended a ladder to the cabin deck. Jesse reached his door first.

“Good night, Jesse.” She kept moving because she didn’t trust herself to remain close to him.

“Good night, Daddy Warbucks.” He threw her a grin. A really sexy grin. One she wanted to kiss off his face. For starters.

Resisting that urge, Tara held up her bag of winnings. “It’s good to be queen.” And then she quickly closed herself in her room before she broke her own rules.

Chapter 10

Tara was soaked, and she wasn’t one of the divers who’d been in the ocean. It had been pouring for hours. Only the fact that the wind remained moderate kept them from calling the whole thing off. Plus, the GD was big enough that it remained fairly stable despite the minor swells. Still, it was an exercise in balance for her and Bobby to do what they needed for the team’s working divers.

Luckily, it wasn’t as rough for Jud and Jesse on the bottom as it was for them on the surface, but that didn’t mean it was perfect, either. The good news was that they only had one more dive to complete the survey of the remaining zone. Jesse was ascending now and Jud was ready to dive as soon as he hit the surface.

Tara and Bobby were huddled around the waterproof computer system when Bobby frowned. And then Tara saw Jesse’s message that explained why.

Skip safety stop

“Shit,” Bobby said. “It must be too rough for the diving stage.”

As Bobby communicated that to Boone and Mike, Tara looked over the edge of the boat. A safety stop was a three-minute stop made about fifteen feet beneath the surface during the final part of the ascent. Considered a best practice for safe diving at any depth beneath twenty feet, it was mandatory for deeper dives or dives where they’d surpassed the maximum diving time limits. In those situations, a diver had to make controlled ascents with occasional stops to allow his body to adjust to changes in ambient pressure and off-gas nitrogen absorbed while diving.

The diving stage broke the water, and Jesse appeared calm. Unharmed. Fine. Of course, he was a professional who’d probably worked under more hazardous circumstances. But still.

When the stage was secure, he came aboard and he and Jud immediately exchanged information. “Visibility’s declining,” Jesse said. “But there’s only two survey spots left.”

“You okay, son?” Boone asked.

Jesse wiped at his face. “I’m good. But it’s too rough at the surface to chance the safety stop.”