Bearing It All by Vonnie Davis Read Free Book Online

sipped more coffee. Ronan knew how to make it—strong and smooth, like the French. Perhaps she shouldn’t mention that. “Instructors at university used a hands-on approach for learning and attaining the skills needed to build, maintain, and safely operate drones. Thanks to my time at the academy, what classes I’d already had there, I got my degree from Kansas State in two years.”
    “Wow, ye must be one smart woman.”
    She laughed briefly, embarrassed yet proud. “Well, because I’d excelled, my reward was a three-week survival course in the swamps of Alabama. Their army calls it SERE training, mainly for high-level Special Forces. I was told it was part of my French officer training.”
    His thick eyebrows dipped into a V. “Ye were being fed a load of horse shite.”
    “Looking back, I agree. With mosquitoes bigger than a French poodle, it was horrible. I was always hot and sweating. Officers, mercenaries”—she brushed her curls away from her forehead—“whatever one called them, they treated me as if I were an enemy, captured, and tortured in another country. Would I keep my mouth shut? Or would I cave and divulge information to make the cruelty stop?”
    “Those bloody bastards.”
    “SERE is a short nickname that includes training to evade capture, survival skills, mind control experiments, and the use of the military code of conduct for special ops considered to be at a high risk of capture. I was kept in a dark cubicle with music blaring twenty-four hours a day. Some days, it was a baby crying all day and night. I was beaten. Two of my fingers were broken in an effort to destroy my spirit.”
    Ronan’s hand jerked up in a stop gesture. “Are ye telling me they broke yer bones on purpose? What the hell? Was this the military or terrorists? Friend or foe?”
    “To be honest? Sometimes I wondered the same thing. Still, that was only minor. We were also punched and whipped as part of SERE training.”
    His eyes were wide, almost wild. “I canna believe they did this to ye.”
    A bear growled and she jerked to stare out of the windows.
    “If ye’d tell me their feckin’ names, me clan would be on a plane as soon as the weather cleared to administer some Scottish Matheson justice.”
    She caressed his chest with the palm of her hand, hoping she’d calm him down. This was a reaction she hadn’t expected. “The good thing is I passed. I was so proud to bring some honor to my native country. Then I was sent to Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which now includes drone piloting in its curriculum. I spent a year there with a heavy load of classes.”
    Ronan shifted toward her, his coffee cup in hand. “Me God, what were they training ye fer?”
    “I was told I’d be the French expert in drones. I was given a promotion.” Her ego had taken a gigantic boost moving up the ranks where few Frenchwomen were endorsed for a higher position. “Of course, there were the typical snide remarks in my division. People wondering who or how many men I’d had to screw or blow to get such a high ranking. Malicious whispers from the women. Crass remarks and pats on the ass from men.”
    A bear growled again. Low. Menacing. She spun around. “Did you hear that?”
    “Aye. We have a lot of wildlife up here. Sounds as if ye had a lot of wolf bastards where ye worked.”
    She almost laughed at his turn of phrase. “You’re right, Ronan. People like that steal one’s joy of what they do. What they’ve been trained to accomplish.” A pain-filled sigh escaped her lungs. Many days had been emotionally rough, but after all she’d been through, she handled it. “Then I was shipped out to Israel for a month of hellacious teaching in more survival torture and combat with the Mossad.”
    A muscle bunched and ticked on his cheek before he finally spoke. “Are ye shitting me? Just how did they justify that strange assignment? What does all that physical self-defense training have to do with designing